Be forewarned. Star Wars spoilers ahead.
Again, in all caps, just so you're clear. MAJOR STAR WARS SPOILERS INSIDE. ABANDON ALL HOPE OF REMAINING UNSPOILT, YE WHO VENTURE PAST THIS POINT.
One more time for those just joining us. THIS POST WILL CONTAIN STAR WARS SPOILERS.
*hold music hums while you decide*
We all good? Okay. By reading on, you hereby agree to hold the author of this post harmless for any potential Star Wars-ruining experience that may occur, in perpetuity until the heat death of the universe.
I saw The Force Awakens yesterday afternoon. When you hit your fifth decade of life, and you've seen so many movies in those forty years that the tropes and cliches of cinematic storytelling have embedded themselves in your neural pathways to the point where your response to them becomes almost Pavlovian, you tend to approach any new theatrical venture, particularly one that has been so excessively hyped, with an unavoidable sense of cynicism. Here we are now, you say warily, paraphrasing Kurt Cobain, entertain us. And how often do you walk away feeling satisfied, or surprised? Rather infrequently, I have to admit. I enjoy the movies for what they are, but I always see the seams at the edges. And I went into The Force Awakens with a healthy distrust of its director, J.J. Abrams, a man whose storytelling style relies primarily on frustratingly circular references to the movies he grew up watching, rather than any particular unique vision.
J.J., you sly, sly dog you.
Granted, one does not walk into the seventh installment of a 40-year-old movie franchise expecting mind-blowing originality (I certainly don't expect it from Bond, my other great cinema love). I did receive the anticipated reprises of old favorite characters and the homages and tributes to everything that has made the world love Star Wars all these years. But what I also got, and what made me walk out of the theater with a broad, dumb smile on my face, was something that I'd been longing to see realized on screen for ages, and finding it in a Star Wars movie of all places was like the surprise toy inside the chocolate egg. I knew too, that as happy as I was to discover this, there were millions of girls and women to whom it would mean so much more. I'm happy for them most of all.
To wit: the absolutely compelling character of Rey, played by English actress Daisy Ridley, is the center of the movie. The "awakening" referred to in the title is hers. She is brave, skilled, resourceful, determined, and over the course of the story, as her connection to the Force deepens, grows immensely powerful. She has a past that is not spelled out for us but rather is left as a tantalizing mystery. She is no one's love interest, and is not defined by her relationships with or unrequited longings for any particular man. And she kicks tremendous ass, whether it's outrunning TIE Fighters in a rusty old Millennium Falcon or confronting and defeating Dark Side villain Kylo Ren and saving Finn, the male character whom the movie's poster and trailers would have you presume is the new Jedi of this trilogy. (Abrams' controversial "mystery box" promotion style has worked very well here, which is why again, I hope you've already seen the movie as you're reading this.) And Rey achieves all of these things without descending into sassy or sexualized caricature, or a neon sign flashing above her head reading "LOOK AT THIS AUDACIOUS, ENLIGHTENED STATEMENT OF FEMINISM WE MALE FILMMAKERS ARE MAKING."
Rey just is who she is, and frankly, it's glorious.
I've always found the term "empowered women" a bit troubling, as it suggests that a powerful woman is somehow an anomaly, a deviation from the accepted norm. It is better to say that a woman is powerful by her very nature as a woman. Goes with the territory, folks. And yet in science fiction and fantasy this is too often the exception and not the rule. Looking back, there has never really been a good reason why in genre movies, women have not been able to take the forefront of the story, other than the increasingly outdated notion that the young boys who make up the presumed primary target demographic for this genre somehow won't be interested in seeing girls buckle their swash, or that somehow casting a female lead means you have to turn the story into a pedestrian rom-com with true love as the object of the quest.
Instead, women are usually relegated to the secondary roles of eye candy, love interests or over-the-top man-hating villainesses, their characterizations as sketchy as the anatomically impossible poses in which they are often rendered in comic books. Why have we had eighteen Marvel movies without a female lead? Your guess is as good as mine, but it seems to stem largely from writers, producers and directors (and executives) unable to arrive at what feels like, in the light of The Force Awakens, should be a very obvious conclusion: that women with power and agency won't, in fact, scare men away from fantasy and science fiction movies. They belong there, as much as the boys do, and audiences will thank you for it. And yes, the dudes will love these characters too.
Thankfully, there have been huge exceptions of late that may be, at last, softening this attitude. Frozen was a story in the fantasy genre about the bond between two sisters (one with tremendous magical powers), with male characters shunted to the background, and it only became the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. As I write this The Force Awakens has already become the fastest movie to hit $1 billion at the box office, and I'll wager here and now that it will eventually blast past Avatar and take its place on top of the all-time list. Because audiences love Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie, but it's Rey's story they are going to want to see again and again. (Unfortunately, merchandisers have not kept pace with the storytellers, as noted by the embarrassing lack of Rey toys on shelves this Christmas. We can only hope that Disney and its partners recognize this, the same way they were slow to react to Frozen's unanticipated popularity. Failing that, fans will delve into the imaginations that have been ignited by Rey and create their own toys and costumes from spare parts and clothes instead.)
Criticism of Rey centers largely on the speed with which she acquires her Force abilities in the movie without any training, suggesting that this pushes her into Mary Sue territory (a trope from fan fiction where a gifted, basically perfect female character, usually a surrogate for the author, runs effortless circles around the established regulars). I would suggest that there are two responses to this, one "in-universe" and another examining the broader question. The in-universe explanation is found in a line from the very first movie, where Luke and Ben are discussing the Force and noting that while it obeys your commands, it also controls your actions. The Force is sentient and has an awareness of when people's greed and lust for power has pushed it out of balance, so it creates what it needs to set the universe right again. Rey's awakening is in response to the rising threat represented by dark-sider Kylo Ren and his mysterious master Snoke, and the speed at which it happens is perhaps a reflection of the urgency with which it is needed. (And it also makes for the movie's best scene in which Rey tries the Jedi Mind Trick on a Stormtrooper played by a very famous actor in disguise...)
You could also suggest that Rey is just that damn gifted, which is where the Mary Sue question comes in, and my answer to that is, so effing what? In how many movies across how many genres have we seen preternaturally skilled guys? How many times have we seen a young male screw-up transformed into an unstoppable fighting machine in the space of a five-minute training montage? Why is this somehow more valid storytelling technique than seeing it happen to a woman? Yes, Rey may be in some ways an expression of wish fulfillment for fangirls, but thanks to some great writing (by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan) and Daisy Ridley's magnetic performance she doesn't come off like that, and even if she does, I fail to see why this is a bad thing. We gents have plenty of examples on our side to choose from. I'd love to see more women like Rey in genre films, treated with all the maturity and complexity that those characters deserve, and I'm glad that the gauntlet has been thrown down. All those involved with her creation deserve accolades. (It should also be noted that The Force Awakens passes the Bechdel Test too.)
I know a fair number of women who are big genre fans, and I'm excited to hear what they thought of Rey. I imagine they'll be able to articulate what Rey means to girls and women far better than I possibly could, so I'll sign off for the time being and let them take the stage and enjoy their well-deserved moment. And I will wait with bated breath for Episode VIII and the joy of discovering where Rey's story takes her next, my faith in the ability of the movies, and genre movies in particular, to surprise me renewed, and hungry for more.