New Star Wars Movie: Don’t Call Her ‘Princess’!


After the cataclysmic pro-woman blockbuster that was Mad Max: Fury Road last year, many of us have searched the catalog of upcoming movies wondering when the next big prejudice-shattering hit was going to arrive. Well, you’ve got about another month, because the new Star Wars movie The Force Awakens is going to show you some things you’ve probably never seen before.

No, not the whole “She isn’t called Princess anymore, she’s General Leia Organa Solo now” thing. That’s true, but it’s also just a little bit done. There’s no real liberal-titillating shock value left in seeing a female character be hardcore. Don’t get me wrong — I love the fact that the Star Wars universe is getting away from its overly-archetyped roots — but there’s an entire second aspect to this movie that is far more fascinating from a liberal media hype perspective.

Age.

We don’t know enough of the details of SW:TFA yet to know precisely how old General Solo and her still-archetypal husband are, but the actors playing them are 59 and 73, respectively.

Consider the fact that in the vast majority of media, people approaching retirement age are most often portrayed as ‘slowing down,’ as eager to quit working, as dull or inwardly-focused, and most of all as looking backward at their younger days as ‘the golden years.’ Septuagenarians like Harrison Ford are more often shown as needy, wistful, incompetent, and burdensome to their younger, healthier caretakers.

Yet in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, we have two actors — and presumably also characters — who are older than any action hero outside of the R.E.D. franchise, and they look the part. There’s an eyeblink-long scene in the trailer that shows a tender embrace between the Solos, and if you pause it in that split-second, you will see a woman who is weary, who is in need of comfort, and who is undeniably more accurate to an emotionally vulnerable nearly-sixty-year-old woman than Hollywood has ever been comfortable putting in an action-packed blockbuster.

Of course, we don’t know how big of a role Leia has in the new story, which centers around a new generation of younger adventurers, but we do know that Han looks his age as well. If there’s any significant action involved for either character, it’s our job as responsible active liberals to make sure to point out to ourselves and to the younger generation that even at 59 and 73, when there are asses that need kicking, there will always be those who are willing to step up to the plate.

(Featured Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons via a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.)