ARCHIVE: Discussion: Podcasts - 3

Mana wrote:I'm really looking forward to what Jason's found out about KMT's character and Kylo...I wonder when he'll release the info?

Highlights:

Online, they form a rich community of women who come together to bond over their “Star Wars” obsession, cast a critical eye on the role of women in the films and embrace minor characters overlooked by the fandom at large. In doing so, they’ve created for themselves what the films still don’t quite deliver — a “Star Wars” universe that revolves around women.

So on “Scavenger’s Hoard,” a new “Star Wars” podcast hosted by two female fans, Rachael — who goes only by her first name online — noted that the films have created “these entire worlds populated almost exclusively by men,” so even when a female protagonist is added to the mix, there remains an “absence of any meaningful relationships between women.”

In recent years, a whole world of chatty podcasts, metacriticism, and fan art and fiction has cropped up to satisfy that need. “Fangirls Going Rogue” has done much to elevate the work of female writers and actors at Lucasfilm. It’s part of a podcast sorority that includes “Scavengers Hoard,” “Rebel Grrrl,” “Lattes With Leia” and “Rebels Chat,” on which Ms. Macias and her mother, Maria, discuss the Disney XD animated series “Star Wars Rebels.” On Tumblr, predominantly female fans come together to engage in “shipping” — imagining romantic relationships between characters like Finn and Poe, or Rey and Kylo Ren — and to share fan-created art celebrating their favorite characters. These destinations also have a political bent. Ms. Barr started the site FANGirl Blog to “redirect the tone of the conversation among the fandom aimed at fangirls, which at times had been hostile,” she wrote, and to encourage Lucasfilm to “create more strong female characters.”

Many such minor “Star Wars” characters have been elevated to greater prominence thanks to their female admirers. On these sites, it’s not all Leia, Leia, Leia and Rey, Rey, Rey. Women may be underrepresented in the “Star Wars” films, but the universe is so vast that female fans have been able to scrape together enough material to work with. Jessika Pava, an Asian female X-wing pilot, has just a few lines in “The Force Awakens,” but on Tumblr, she has become the star of her own stories,

The hosts of “Fangirls Going Rogue” estimate that their listenership is equally split between men and women, and Amanda Ward of “Rebel Grrrl” said her podcast was particularly popular among fathers looking to connect with their daughters over the series.

But not every male “Star Wars” fan is excited about this turn. Sites like the Jedi Council Forums, a bustling message board on TheForce.net, can sometimes marginalize contributions from women. “On the boards, there’s real scorn showed toward shipping as a phenomenon,” said Rachael of “Scavenger’s Hoard.”

In her experience on forums, Ms. Barr said, “a lot of women were called outsiders if we had a different opinion from the mainstream.” Even when most men are welcoming, she said, “all you need is one persistent person to make your experience really bad.”

Even officially sanctioned sites have felt off-putting to some. Ms. Kell followed Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars” Tumblr when it started in 2013 but was soon turned off by a masculine bias in its focus and imagery. As she put it: “How many times do you really need to post pictures of overly sexualized droids?” And on mainstream sites like Twitter, women are often belittled by male fans who can’t abide feminist theorizing. When Ms. Macias tweeted asking for more mother-daughter relationships in “Star Wars,” a fellow fan tweeted back: “two straight Star Wars movies with female hero leads. I don’t understand the complaint.”

That shock to the system has made women more central and necessary to the “Star Wars” internet than ever before — not just one woman, not just a little niche of them, but a whole world of them. They’re waiting for the films to catch up.

BastilaBey wrote:Thank you, everyone! We are really excited about being mentioned in a piece with so many other, more established, female podcasters. I think it was our second episode that got Amanda's attention, because we went on a huge rant about the lack of relationships between women in Star Wars! It felt good to get off our chests.

@vaderito You're absolutely right, that's what VIII looks to be shaping up like. I'm glad we have Rey leading the 'force plot' and KMT alongside Finn in the Resistance vs. FO fight, but it would be even better to see a meaningful relationship between two female characters develop on-screen. Who knows, maybe there will be a scene or two between Leia and Laura Dern? We'll see!

BastilaBey wrote:I'm glad we have Rey leading the 'force plot' and KMT alongside Finn in the Resistance vs. FO fight, but it would be even better to see a meaningful relationship between two female characters develop on-screen.

ISeeAnIsland wrote:Major congrats to @nonesuch and @BastilaBey on their write-up! Very, very cool.

I love that we're getting more light shed these days on what an "old boys club" most of the online fandom environment is.

BastilaBey wrote:Just to continue tooting our own horn, it's on the homepage

vaderito wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:Just to continue tooting our own horn, it's on the homepage

@BastilaBey

Hell yeah! keep tooting your horn, I'm gonna toot it fro you too! What a great day today have been!

nonesuch wrote:Thank you so much, everyone! I was very nervous about being interviewed, but am glad I participated. I really like how the article turned out and think it's really refreshing to have female-oriented fandom as the focus for a change! It's been a very exciting few days, that's for sure!

BastilaBey wrote:Just to continue tooting our own horn, it's on the homepage

Reylo =/= Twilight

It’s been almost a year since the release of The Force Awakens and we’ve finally gotten a commentary track. It’s far better than what I expected. Since we’ve been arguing about JJ’s mystery box for 10 months now and we’ve finally received some clarification, I was hoping that there might be legitimate discussion around it once it was posted on Reddit. I should have learned a long time ago that hoping for legitimate discussion on Reddit is like hoping for rain to fall on Jakku.

I’m not going to be quiet about this anymore: I’m sick of the inherent sexism that shapes every single conversation about TFA on this subreddit in particular and on other Star Wars fan forums online. I’m addressing this subreddit directly because of the misogynistic vitriol I see every time the possibility of "reylo" is mentioned in a thread (sometimes, even when it isn’t). Particularly when the material is sourced from Tumblr as in this particular case on both this subreddit's thread and the Leaks subreddit thread

You can hate Tumblr as a website and you can hate “shipping culture” as a whole (regardless of whether or not you understand it), but your inability to discuss the dynamic between Kylo Ren and Rey as anything other than nemeses without resorting to Twilight comparisons like a reductive, sexist version of Godwin’s law has driven me to finally post after years of lurking.
What in the world makes you think these two franchises have anything in common?
Female protagonist? Yes.
Two possible male love interests? Maybe, although one of them has his own hero’s journey to fulfill, as well as a rumored love interest.
Dangerous broody protagonist? Not a protagonist.
Vampires? No. (This isn’t the EU.)
Overwrought high school melodrama? No.
Written by a woman? No--actually--but there are obviously many women in the Lucasfilm story group (see: Kathleen Kennedy) as well as women functioning as editors, producers and other critical roles necessary for producing and shaping the new trilogy.
Questionable age difference? No, unless you think Han and Leia’s is (they were 29 and 19 when they met, just like Rey and Kylo Ren).
Unusually intense borderline “creepy” interest from male character? Sure, but this isn’t a Lifetime movie or a cautionary tale. Its Star Wars. It’s a fairy tale.

So, you know what these franchises do have in common? They’re both enjoyed and promoted by women en masse and marketed towards female audiences. Moreover, they are both discussed by women on the internet exhaustively, as evidenced by these threads and the volumes of writing on the internet.

The real issue here isn't "reylo", or to quote u/wampaclown :"because those "grown people" probably have dysfunctional and/or co-dependent tendencies and don't see "Reylo" as being gross" or as u/breakfastbenedict says: "horny middle aged women who bought millions of copies of 50 shades of grey think its cute." The real issue is that there are a whole lot of women (and men) who walked away from TFA with a completely different interpretation of the film only to be told over and over that we were wrong, stupid, or not worthy of being part of the discussion via ad hominem attacks holier-than-thou attitude, and now its becoming abundantly clear that our interpretation may have been substantiated.

The best part is we're all here arguing that the token "fanboy"/legacy male antagonist/anti-hero can be redeemed, and that the driving force for this redemption is his interest in heroine. Not that the heroine has a responsibility to redeem him, or that her story revolves around his--it doesn't. And yes, the only relationship Rey and Kylo have at the end of TFA is enemies on opposite sides of a war. But this is the first act, we can expect it will change. It's the same story told in countless forms, for hundreds of years, in such widely-popular tales as Beauty and the Beast, Pride and Prejudice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, etc. If you need a male-centered version of this just flip the script on any action hero with questionable morals and even more questionable love interests: James Bond, Wolverine, Batman, etc. No one worries about the abuse they've suffered or inflicted, much less how the women they've loved have changed them for the better. So why now?

Within the context of Star Wars, Anakin and Padme's canonically abusive relationship (remember when Anakin Force-choked Padme unconscious when she was pregnant?) is much more like Twilight than the Sequel Trilogy will ever be (see: Anakin struggling to control his feelings for Padme, Anakin struggling to tame his violent nature, Padme loving him despite the monster he’d become, Padme refusing to let him leave her, etc.). You also don’t see anyone saying that Luke shouldn’t have been with Mara Jade because of her history of violence and service as Palpatine’s favorite assassin in the EU, or on the basis that she captured and was literally trying to kill him:
"I am so glad I found you and didn't kill you." ―Mara Jade to Luke Skywalker

Where is this hand-wringing in relation to Darth Revan and Bastila Shan, or Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Voss, or any of the other of the dozens of EU examples of characters who met in the middle after starting out on opposite sides of the "Wars". Where’s your moral anguish over the abuses suffered in these cases? Over the number of deaths or injuries each Dark Sider committed under the influence of the Force and coercion by more powerful Dark Siders? Where is the ”abuse” and “victimization” here that was so obvious to you in The Force Awakens?

Much more than that, do you really think Star Wars is introducing these themes to your children? Is that what you’re really worried about? So why then instead of attacking the content creators on the basis of what they’ve already shown you, do you feel the need to make broad generalizations about the taste of the people who enjoy or appreciate it? If you truly cared about the social arguments behind your “rapey”, “creepy”, “abusive” accusations, you would think we might see your arguments extend to all the other examples I just listed.

Or are you making these accusations not because you care about the supposed social justice strawman argument behind them, but because Star Wars is particularly near and dear to your heart and you don’t want to believe that "reylo" is a direction the story might take?

Perhaps it's because it means Rey can't be a Skywalker by blood . . . thereby making her not an extension of Luke or Anakin?
It's so nice to know you're worrying about the hopes and dreams and minds of little girls while this subreddit has become a trash compactor full of “Anakin reincarnation” and “cloned from Luke’s hand" theories. There’s a certain twisted sensibility in wanting to make the first female main protagonist in the SW films a literal carbon copy of a man. I've seen post after post claiming TFA was a duplication of A New Hope, how Rey's story may as well have been Luke's Hero's Journey just with a girl!, and how much Rey would be a Mary Sue if she didn't turn out to be a Skywalker. Do you know what that really says to little girls? I can tell you its a hell of a lot worse than repeated viewings of Beauty and the Beast.

The father/daughter conflict dynamic (conveniently handed to us in Rogue One, no less) appears to be the only way some of you can relate to a woman in a leading protagonist role. That’s because “Rey, I am your father” means the story is really about Luke, and what happened to separate him from Rey, and how he’ll have to earn her trust back and make her the heir apparent to the Skywalker clan. Funny enough, both Michael Arndt and J.J. have mentioned that in earlier drafts of the script Luke had much more screen time, but they cut back on it because the ST was not about him. His screen-time had to be reduced so that the torch could be handed to the new characters: Rey, Finn, and Kylo.

Maybe you should ask yourself if you're really interested in the trilogy’s conflict being side-lined in the second act. Because you know if this father/daughter reconciliation is the real tragedy you wish to see, we can expect the following questions have to be answered in more than a montage:
Why did Luke leave his daughter starving on a desert planet for 13 years and never tell any of his family about her (including his Force sensitive sister and nephew)?
Why did Luke, arguably the most powerful Force-sensitive in the Galaxy, spend at least 7 of those 13 years still hopping around the galaxy with Ben Solo without even coming to visit?
Why did Luke choose Unkar Plutt of all people to look after her, when there were probably plenty of able-bodied, decent people of his acquaintance that would be happy to do the job? Look no farther than Lor San Tekka! He lived on Jakku for god’s sake!
What happened to Luke’s significant other? (and why is she so unimportant they never bothered to mention or cast her?)
How did it become part of Luke’s character to knock someone up after a wild night in the cantina and never even send a holo?

I'm sorry but none of these little dramas make for a compelling female-centered story. Not only are you “fridging” Luke’s wife and Rey’s mother, you'd be managing to assassinate Luke's character at the same time. It’s a disservice to him and everything he stands for. And if you think we don't care about Luke's happiness you're wrong--we want him to become the master/padawan father-figure and the family Rey is looking for. Adoption is a truly important part of this franchise and it could be just as powerful, if not more-so, in this context.

So back to the argument at hand: we already know the primary source of conflict in this trilogy. You know, the one between the protagonist and antagonist that was established in The Force Awakens. We also know that the primary conflict in any good story will never, ever remain static.

I have yet to meet anyone who believes “reylo” will happen that thinks Rey’s feelings for Kylo at the end of the first act of this trilogy are anything but hate or fear, or that this is the basis for a good relationship. We expect, and want this to change. Maybe they’ll become allies and nothing more. Maybe he’ll sacrifice himself for her. Here I’ll give you one you’ll like: maybe they’ll be cousins (not). Maybe he’ll become the Grimdark SithLord you want him to be and she’ll have to put him down like a mad dog, but not after something makes it really hard for her to do so (remember, plot has to happen and conflict must be resolved, shadow must be integrated, yadda yadda yadda).

This doesn’t change the fact that they are going to have a relationship, platonically or not. And no dynamic between them that explores these “gray areas” will reduce Star Wars to the equivalent of a poorly-written YA vampire romance. If it does, please be sure to aim your derision at the writers, producers, and creators instead of at the fans.

So can we please, please stop comparing Star Wars to Twilight? Can we please stop knocking “reylo”? More importantly,can we have a serious conversation on the films we came to this place to discuss, instead of demeaning things on the basis that they are created by, enjoyed by, and promoted by a female fanbase? Can we let go of a prejudice towards a a fan theory that has meaning for people on the assumption that it’s incest (a theory which has since, for the most part, been debunked?)

For the love of Star Wars, please?

SoloSideCousin wrote:

BastilaBey wrote:Just to continue tooting our own horn, it's on the homepage :D

@BastilaBey

This is incredible!! I mean the NYT!!! Holy Sith!!! Take that gatekeepers (to quote @snufkin)!!!!!! Lead the way ladies, lead the way! :-)

vaderito wrote:Times are changing. Some old fans are afraid to admit it but times are changing and attempts to silence different opinions are resulting in the opposite. Those new voices are getting heard more and more.

BastilaBey wrote:Just to continue tooting our own horn, it's on the homepage