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I don’t want to bother debating whether a 31-year-old movie lives up to today’s standards of feminism, because I’m pretty sure “We have to rescue the princess part II” lost that battle a long time ago. But I do think your complaints about Leia and Han’s roles depend largely on how much subtext you read into the their dialogue. If you take everything they say to each other at face value, then Han is being pushy and condescending to a woman that clearly rejected him at the beginning of the movie, but changes her mind on a whim because it suits the writers’ fantasy.

However, if you read more into it (based in part on what the other movies make more clear), then Leia is in love with Han all along, and their quarreling is just a pretext to their real dispute. Han is angry that Leia won’t admit her feelings and thinks she’s too wrapped up in her war and ordering him around like a soldier. Leia is angry that Han acts like a horny douchebag who presumes to know her feelings, instead of the honorable man she knows/hopes him to be. So they bicker and fight because neither of them knows to say what the other really wants to hear, until the shit hits the fan. Basically, it depends on whether you choose to believe that Han’s reading of Leia is correct–that her lips say “no” but her eyes say “yes, yes”–and I think the movie proves him right. That’s not to say I’d recommend Han’s style to solicitous males in the real world. But he’s not a role model, he’s a 1970s space pirate.

Mightygodking.com » Empire Strikes Back: The Feminist Edition :: from the comments :: Jim Smith

see also jack sparrow and elizabeth swann, except she marries legolas instead.  also, i hadn’t really thought about leia being so passive in empire from a feminist perspective before, which puts its oft declared by male geeks ‘best star wars film evar’ status in a new context.  privilege, everyone!

[at least she doesn’t literally die of a broken heart?]

# han draper

 
  1. ultralaser posted this