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Star Wars has been back since 2015, and three movies in, we’ve only seen women protagonists in the films. Some fans have taken this as an issue with the franchise having a “Social Justice Warrior” (SJW) agenda, to which J.J. Abrams had to comment.
Talking to IndieWire, Abrams said:
“Their problem isn’t Star Wars, their problem is being threatened… If you are someone who feels threatened by women and needs to lash out against them, you can probably find an enemy in Star Wars. You can probably look at the first movie that George did and say that Leia was too outspoken, or she was too tough. Anyone who wants to find a problem with anything can find the problem. The Internet seems to be made for that.”
Though the original trilogy is beloved by millions of fans, there’s no doubt that the films were a tad misogynistic. Besides Leia, only Mon Mothma and Aunt Beru had speaking lines throughout the whole trilogy; and that’s if you don’t count Oola the slave girl and her pleas to Jabba to not feed her to the Rancor.
Solo: A Star Wars Story will actually be the first Star Wars movie since 2005 to have a male protagonist, but even then a lot of fans are still complaining; either Alden Ehrenreich doesn’t look like Harrison Ford, or that the Millennium Falcon looks different. With a fanbase a huge as Star Wars, I don’t think there’s pleasing everyone anymore.
J.J. Abrams is directing Star Wars Episode IX, and the movie is set to release Dec. 20, 2019.
