Why Star Wars: Episode VII Should Have a Female Protagonist

It’s difficult to quantify the cultural impact of Star Wars exactly, so vast are its tentacles of influence, but it’s safe to say that there’s never been a film franchise so beloved and picked over by fans. If you were born in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, lived in America and you’d only ever seen one movie in your lifetime for some crazy reason, it’s likely that movie would be Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

While writers and hobbyists have obsessed over deeper meanings behind Star Wars’ popularity, it’s a basic truth that the original Star Wars trilogy owes nearly all of its success to its deceptively simple story. It’s a good vs evil parable in the most classic sense, owing much to myth, and it’s populated by charming, strong-willed characters. All over the world, kids saw themselves reflected in the farm boy whose humble roots belied great power within.

As we turn towards the recently announced Star Wars sequels, we’re reinvigorated with hope for that storytelling spark to emerge from the ashes of the divisive prequels. We’re an audience hungry for that elusive ‘ripping good yarn’, for characters who feel real, who come from fantastical societies that impossibly echo our own. Mostly, whether we know it or not, we’re hungry for a great hero.

Now imagine, for a brief moment, that that hero was female. And I’m not talking a female lead – not another Princess Leia or Padmé Amidala – but a hero as prescribed in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. In the simplest sense; a hero who goes on a journey, faces the forces of evil on her way, and returns victorious with reward.  A farm girl whose humble roots belied great power within, say.

We’ve had prominent female characters in sci fi cinema before, of course, but very rarely do they occupy that crucial central role. Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Alice and Katniss Everdeen are the most notable exceptions, and two of them starred in films released in the 20th century. We have a long way to go before females leading the charge in sci-fi and fantasy films are commonplace. Of course, it’s unreasonable to suggest girls don’t see aspects of themselves in the likes of the Skywalkers and the McFlys and the Plisskens, but without reinforcement that girls could be the Skywalkers and McFlys and Plisskens, there’s always going to be unconscious marginalization.

For those who believe there is enough representation of women in our popular culture, there’s a simple test that’s serves as depressing indicator to the contrary. Named after cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who coined it, the ‘Bechdel Test’ can be passed if the movie you apply it to answers affirmatively to the following questions:

1. Are there at least two female characters?

2. Do they talk to each other?

3. About something other than a man?

If the film answers in the negative to any of the above, it fails the test. The results are shocking when applied to many of the most popular films of recent years, and while of course this doesn’t by any means make them terrible films – The Avengers and the Lord of the Rings trilogy fail – it clearly highlights the all-encompassing dominance of males in the movies we love.

So why is this important? Who cares? I’m not going to delve too deeply into theory here because I believe – and have always believed - the answer is very pure and very simple and very, very tired: girls need heroes too. They need to see they can be more than the love interest or the sidekick or the ‘token female’ or the dragon-like villain. Simply put: in a world dominated by Bella Swans, girls, specifically young girls, desperately need their Katniss Everdeens.

LucasFilm has a one-in-a-million opportunity to propel progress lightyears forward by featuring a female lead in the new cinematic age of Star Wars. And why the hell not? The franchise has a tradition of featuring powerful female characters. Leia, who embodies all of Star Wars’ feminine wiles, was smart, physically capable and indeterminably spunky, and the Expanded Universe is peppered with female Jedis, Padawans, bounty hunters, admirals and pilots. It wouldn’t seem like a gesture, or a betrayal of the tone of the universe, to push one of these characters into the spotlight.

If we dig a little deeper, there are a couple of clear fits for the role already. Mara Jade Skywalker is a fan favorite in the Expanded Universe, introduced by writer Timothy Zahn in 1991 specifically because he felt there was a lack of fully-rounded female characters in the original trilogy. Like any good protagonist, Mara Jade is strong-willed but flawed, a three-dimensional person built up already through years-worth of words and ideas and adventures in novels and comics. The only issue would be her age – as Luke Skywalker’s wife, she could be too old – it would be interesting to see if there are ways around this. The character, I believe, is worth it.

Han and Leia’s daughter Jaina Solo could also work as protagonist, although it’s likely she’d have to share the spotlight with her twin, Jacen. Not that this would be a problem; he is dark as she is light, and their journey throughout the Expanded Universe is a tumultuous one that would lend itself tremendously to film.

The hurdle to all this, of course, is an unspoken but widely held belief that if a sci fi or fantasy movie features a female as its lead, it will lack universal appeal. It will, in theory, only appeal to girls, not that male- aged-18-40 demographic that serves as a sweet spot for those counting the cash in Hollywood.

Not every studio has drunk the Kool Aid. Pixar challenged this belief last year with its release of the family-fantasy movie Brave, which racked up $237,277,071 at the domestic Box Office 'despite' featuring a female protagonist. What’s more remarkable is that Princess Merida didn’t even have a Prince to steal her off her feet at the end. At its core, the whole film was about the relationship between a girl and her mother, and still it cracked the top ten for 2012.

A big part of the reason Brave succeeded is because Pixar are expert storytellers, who never pander to others’ ideas of what will and won’t work. Boys went to see Brave because they wanted to see a Pixar movie, because it looked cool and they knew it would be cool because it’s godammn Pixar.

And, just like the animation studio, LucasFilm has a similar built in fan-base who will see a Star Wars movie because they love the universe, not because the central character is male or female. These fans are passionate like no other and don’t require pandering; just great storytelling. Further, if LucasFilm does, as rumour suggests, follow the Marvel model of a series of character-based films leading towards a climactic ensemble story, there’s more than enough room to have a female protagonist as part of a greater whole.

After all, the more moviemakers - particularly the ones with the power to draw in massive audiences - who take these risks, the more these barriers will be broken. In fifty years or so the very mention of a ‘strong female character’ could be a relic of an archaic media. Little girls could grow up thinking that they could just as easily be a space captain or a swashbuckling pirate or, indeed, a Jedi Knight, as any boy.

Because really, none of this stuff really matters to those of us who have grown up with Star Wars.  It matters to the girls who will go and see the first Star Wars sequel when it’s released in 2015, whose first Star Wars experience will be under the guiding hand of new Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy.  Perhaps their Dad will take them and sit next to them and hold their hand and tell them how he remembers seeing a Star Wars movie for the first time.

And wouldn’t it be nice if those little girls could look up at the big screen as the credits roll to that John Williams score and - for a change - think to themselves: “that could be me?"

Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU. She first saw Star Wars on a Pan & Scan VHS tape her Dad bought her back in the early '90s. You can talk to her on IGN at Luce_IGN_AU,or follow her @Luceobrien on Twitter.