Star Wars sacrificed its women by bringing The Mandalorian to the big screen |
Six years after Disney took a chance on scaling Star Wars down into a TV series, the adventures of Din Djarin and his ward Grogu have finally made their way to the big screen with The Mandalorian and Grogu. The jump from TV to cinema has come with plenty of growing pains, such as lukewarm reviews from critics, but none have seemed quite so obvious to me as the one question that filled my mind after my showing of the film: Where did all the women from The Mandalorian go?
Contrary to popular belief, I, a loud, queer woman with equally loud (and queer) opinions on the internet, do not sit and watch things to count how many times marginalized individuals appear in my media. However, the stark absence of women with speaking roles in The Mandalorian and Grogu stands out because the original TV series had a deep bench of side characters and plenty of planetary routes in which to find them. A one-off adventure clearly had no room for any of them.
Star Wars' inclusion of women — or rather, the severe lack thereof — has been hotly debated. Disney’s era, while far from perfect, has addressed this throughout several of its projects. There have been plenty of women who haven’t just appeared but have even had meaningful........