Dear J.J. Abrams,
I was three years old in 1977 when “Star War IV: A New Hope” was released. I don’t remember going to see it, but I know my parents took us. The Star Wars movies were a part of my life for as long as my memory can stretch back.
Let me take you through a brief history of my long, on-again/off-again love affair with the Star Wars franchise.
1983
The first premiere I can remember clearly was “Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi.” I was nine years old and I’ll never forget seeing my first real Jedi in action: Luke Skywalker. Not only was I utterly transfixed, I knew immediately that I wanted to be a Jedi when I grew up.
I wore a towel or a blanket wrapped across my shoulders as my Jedi robes and wrapped my hair in buns on the side of my head like Leia. I didn’t know how to make my long hair look like a boy Jedi’s, so Leia’s side buns had to do. I used sticks and broom handles and broken window blinds as my light sabers. I even knew how to make that light saber noise.
One day during Jedi practice, some of my cousins came over to play. “Let’s be Jedis!” I said, and grabbed my towel and stick. “I’ll be Leia.”
“Leia isn’t a Jedi. She’s a princess,” one of the boys told me. “Girls can’t even be Jedis.”
My nine-year-old heart was utterly broken.
2005
Fast forward to me at thirty-one years old in the theater with my husband and family watching “Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith.” There was not much left with which I could identify at that point other than Yoda, a short person like me, suddenly becoming a bad-ass fighter. Then, without warning, something else happened…and it changed everything.
Anakin Skywalker walked into the Jedi school and we saw the padawan learners. Some of them were little girls. In the middle of a dead silent movie theater, I yelled “There are GIRL JEDI!”
2015
I went to see “Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens” with renewed hope. I crossed my fingers and silently begged for more girl Jedi. Even though Anakin had killed all those padawan learners ten years before, I hoped that the girl Jedis would not become, once again, invisible. I sent you a silent message begging you to not dash the hopes and dreams of any other little girls.
And then, there was Rae. Bad-ass, self-reliant Rae.
She needed no rescuing. She didn’t rely on Finn or Han Solo to get her out of trouble, she simply used what she had and got herself out. She took care of herself and showed us all what a fighter really is.
Growing up female in a society that doesn’t offer a lot of strong, independent heroines with which we can identify, Rae was refreshing in ways I cannot even describe. I smiled at the nine-year-old with her blanket robe and light saber stick and reassured her that, someday, little girls would know that they, too, can be Jedis.
So thank you, J.J. Abrams. Thank you for Rae. I have a nephew now who is the same age I was in 1977 and he will never believe that girls can’t be Jedis. He will know that everyone, no matter who they are, has the potential to be anything they want to be.
I may even switch professions.
Sincerely,
Carissa, the 41-Year-Old Girl Jedi
