Star Wars gets a bad wrap for being being supposedly sexist, which ya can't deny all the complaints, for the longest time it appeared that there was only one woman in the galaxy, but man was she hell of a woman. There's a key question that you need to ask when it comes to female representation, what's more important: Having large number of women but with little character behind them, or only one woman with a lot of character behind her? Obviously it would be better to have both, but these are the two laws that seem to apply to Star Wars so far. The prequel films have plenty of women and all pass the Bechtel test, but the characters are boring and forgettable, while the original films only have Leia, but she is amazing.Leia starts off as your typical female role of the time, she's the princess who needs to be rescued by the dashing heroes, though she doesn't entirely fulfil the role at first. While captured she is shown to be brave, resilient and sassy, even towards the most vile members of the Empire, but even then her role and personality are minimal to avoid her being a terrible character, it's once she's rescued that she fully develops as a character and breaks convention. Once Luke and Han rescue her from her cell, she aids in the escape, evades the stormtroopers, fighting the guards and all while maintaining her sassy yet aggressive attitude. While one may interpret this as ungrateful and even bitchy, it's all for the sake of her main objective, delivering the death star plans to the rebellion. Though from that point on she becomes nothing more than a side character for the rest of the film, she sits back and again the men take charge.
One Empire roles around, her role becomes much more present with more responsibility and rapport with the other characters, most notably Han Solo. The relationship between Han and Leia is one of the highlights of the franchise and is considered one of the best couples in all of film; the back and forth arguments between the two, the constant clash of dominance and their equal annoyance and respect for each other make them perfect. Both of them are thick-headed and enjoy positions of power, no one challenges them like each other and they couldn't live without one another. The chemistry between the two and the constant bickering makes them highly entertaining and worthy of their title as one of cinema's best couples. The relationship would only grow stronger in Jedi when Leia repays the favour of rescuing Han, just like he did for her in Hope, his cockiness is only matched by her tolerance. "I love you" "I know" is such a hard line to be made romantic but somehow they make it work.
As for the rest of her role in Empire, again, she starts off strong, shown to take a role of leadership amongst the Rebellion and clearly respected amongst her comrades, she's smart, brave and willing to fight, but sadly it doesn't last. The rest of the film is mostly the bickering between her and Han, and while still entertaining, doesn't amount to much for her character independently or the story overall, but then again that is my biggest problem with Empire, how very little of the film (Especially for Leia's group) actually has any progression for the narrative and is just them running away from the Empire. Once they arrive on Bespin it is relatively the same thing until they attempt to escape, where Leia's role is the same as everyone else's, but i don't have a problem with that. The best kind of feminist icons are the ones that don't draw attention to themselves, the film never stops and makes a point on Leia being a woman who can fight and take charge, it's just accepted, which is the way it should be.
But then a whole lot of that has to be thrown out the window in Jedi with the stupid gold bikini. Up until this point, the films hadn't really made any kind of message or reference to Leia's gender apart from the title of Princess and her relationship with Han, but even then it still works in context with the film, this is the first time where it felt Leia was been exploited for the sake of the audience and resorted down to fanservice. Again, her saving Han is a good starting point, and this isn't the only time she saves his life in the film, but she's immediately captured and thrown into a gold bikini for...i don't know what for. The dark implication is that this is for Jabba's own sexual relief, but it's never expressed that that's why, and i'm kind of glad they didn't, the last thing I want to think about is Jabba's sexual activity. However this also means that the only reasoning why she is dressed like this is simply for the audience, to see a scandalously dressed Leia to fulfil the fantasies of certain audience members. Now i don't have any problem with fanservice when the characters are still well written, which Leia is, but when she doesn't start out as fanservice and is downgraded to that, it seems a little insulting to the character.
And then for the rest of the film i can't think of any significant problems I have with her purpose in the film, except for her role with the Ewoks. Initially Leia is the first to become friends with the Ewoks, which could lead to her being the reason they recruit them to fight against the Stormtroopers, which is still a stupid plot point but that's for another time. But in the end, her friendship with the Ewoks doesn't contribute anything, convincing them to not eat the others and recruiting them to fight the Empire, making her role in the film relatively small, but then again it seems she does just as much as Han or Chewie.
As for any other general issues I have with the character, they're minimal but still worth discussing. The first one being the destruction of Alderaan and her lack of a reaction. Once escaping the Death Star, Luke is upset that a man he's known for less than a day just died and Leia has to console him, despite the fact that everyone she's ever known just died, I really feel like the consoling should be the other way around, yet it is never even acknowledged. Also is she still technically a princess when her planet blows up? I mean she doesn't have a kingdom anymore.
Overall, Leia is still a great character, and I'd much rather have just one great female character than a whole bunch of meh female characters, yes she has her flaws that prevent her from being the first lady of sci-fi (That honour is still Ellen Ripley). Leia is at her best when she is treated as an equal to the other characters, however when they do put emphasis on her as a female is when they start to falter and eventually turning her into a degrading sex symbol for no reason.
-Danny
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