UPDATE:
Finish The Clone Wars has
achieved its mission.
I thank you all for your
support after all these years.
I also thank the hardworking
team at Finish The Clone Wars.
a very special thanks to Sal,
founder of FTCW.
New Page:
After our success, the team
disbanded. my name is Alec,
I have taken ownership and
have rebranded to..
"The Star Wars Garrison"
Finish The Clone Wars will
remain a legacy page and our
history honored, and
respected.
May The Force Be with Us, Always.
Reason #16: Strong Female Characters
In science fiction, there has always been a shortage of notable female role models. The Star Wars universe, unfortunately, is also the same when it comes to the movies. When The Clone Wars was ongoing, it addressed this problem with an array of strong individual women throughout the series.
Whatculture’s article Star Wars: 8 Reasons Why The Clone Wars was better than the Prequels goes on to expand on the idea of women in Star Wars Franchise
“In the prequels, the only notable female characters are Shmi Skywalker and Padme Amidala. Shmi is a complete non-actor, whose only importance to the plot is that she encourages Anakin to go, and then dies and becomes important to his fall to the dark side. Not exactly a role model for little girls.”
“But Clone Wars has FANTASTIC female characters. The first thing they did was add a bunch. Theres Lumiara Unduli and her padawan Barriss Offee. Theres Dookus sort-of apprentice Asajj Ventress.
Duchess Satine is the pacifist leader of her conflict-riddled planet, a conscientious objector to the Clone War, and a powerful force. And there’s Anakin’s padawan, Ahsoka Tano, a complicated and conflicted character with all the depth you could hope for. Even Padme gets some solid character expansion, making friends with other ladies, working for her own agenda, and even rescuing herself at least once.”
“I can’t tell you why the ladies are so much better in Clone Wars. Maybe it’s because the executive producer was named Catherine Winder. Maybe it’s because there were many episodes written by women, or there were an unusual proportion of women in the crew. Or maybe its because someone finally noticed that Mr. Lucas was barely and badly representing half the human race.”
Though the science fiction genre seems to be mostly male dominated, it is presumptuous to assume that female fans are nonexistent and inactive. Female and male children alike grew up on the Star Wars franchise, and the stories have a lot of appeal to both genders.
The lack of female characters within the Star Wars universe is noted especially by Allison Gronowitz from her article, “I Don’t Care About Rules: The Clone Wars and the Feminist Redemption of Padme Amidala”:
“Before The Force Awakens, pickings were slim when it came to Star Wars heroines. If you were, say, a 9-year-old girl, and you wanted to dress up as a female character from the franchise, you had two main options: Princess Leia Organa, or Queen-turned-Senator Padmé Amidala.”
And that doesn’t even mention how limiting it is for many young girls who are not white and continue to not see anyone that looks like them on screen.
Already, the series has given voices to the many female jedi and background characters that were featured in the prequel movies, giving them importance in plot while also building more on the story.
How can we connect with SW Rebels?
During TCW era, Kanan was known as Padawan Caleb, and his Master was Depa Billaba. The connection can be made clear with SW Rebels. And though we have a comic that shows already shows the strong connection between a young Kanan and the departed Billaba, it is known that the developers had planned for an episode featuring Depa from released concept art. This could complete what they had originally planned.
In addition, to providing more things that could tie into the future time period that played for SW Rebels, Depa Billaba is a woman of color (a small detail, yet is also lacking in representation in many mainstream media).
How has the series affected us already?
There only needs to be an acknowledgment of the audience they are catering to. And the fact of the matter is that it's not just boys. Seeing female play important roles that aren't primarily secondary -- where they literally become the main characters of an episode plot or arc -- is important.
And the fact that The Clone Wars did this, unapologetically, on a regular basis offered a lot of appeal to a wider audience.
Allison Gronowitz’s article has a great quote talking about this as well:
“All this from a children’s show, one that did more to advance the status of women in the Star Wars universe than the the first two trilogies combined. As a recent video essay by Vulture revealed, there is a shocking dearth of speaking parts in the original series for any female character not named Leia, and the same can said about the prequels for anyone not named Padmé. But as Lor San Tekka says in the very first line of The Force Awakens: ‘This will begin to make things right.’
Indeed it does, introducing the likes of Rey (Daisy Ridley), Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) and Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o). Yet Dave Filoni and his Clone Wars crew were making things right years before The Force Awakens hit theaters, crafting original female characters such as Ahsoka, Asajj Ventress and Satine, and breathing new life into the character of Padmé Amidala. After all, if Anakin Skywalker can be redeemed, it’s only fair that Padmé is too.”
And this goes for all the other great female characters we get to meet and re-meet again in the series as well!
Sources:
What does this mean to the series and the fans?
