The Force is strong in all these women
Princess Leia and Wonder Woman have more in common than we think
The unfortunate fate of Wonder Woman was still on my mind when I heard the sad news this week that Princess Leia had died. Yes, yes — I mean Carrie Fisher, who did, of course, have a full life and career beyond Star Wars. I admired Postcards From the Edge and liked her in When Harry met Sally and thought it courageous that she spoke up about mental illness. But to most folks of my generation, Carrie Fisher was Princess Leia. And it’s not a big leap to connect Leia with Wonder Woman. The force was strong in them.
But their standing among feminists has diverged. Wonder Woman, as you may know, was recently in the news when the United Nations dumped her as UN honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls. The global body didn’t say why, but more than 45,000 people had petitioned against the Amazon protagonist of comic-book fame, saying she was “not culturally ... sensitive” and had an “overtly sexualized image.” Her sparse clothing and anatomical exaggerations apparently counted for more than the fact that the character was inspired by early feminists, or that she was constantly saving the universe, catching bad guys (especially Nazis!) and rescuing her handsome but hapless romantic interest, Steve Trevor. In a real-life era when women were still barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, Wonder Woman was a stylized blend of brains and action. When UN officials abruptly dropped her, along with all this context, it struck me they were perhaps missing the point.
Then there’s Princess Leia. She, surely, would be an ideal UN ambassador (to my knowledge our sci-fi heroine hasn’t been offered any such role). Leia’s character, as introduced in the first two Star Wars movies, was brainy, sassy and took no guff from men (though she dissolved rapidly in the arms of the first scoundrel she met). Even better as a potential symbol to women and girls, she was both a rebel and a princess. And the clincher: unlike Wonder Woman, the early Leia was clad from head to toe, no body bits exposed or suggested. In the first movie she even covered her head sometimes, so we can assume she’d be viewed today as “culturally sensitive” (at least, until the metal slave bikini of the third movie). Mostly, she appeared in virginal white, the rebellion and the Death Star apparently containing no dust or grime except for the ooze inside that garbage chute.
Somewhere in between these two fictional, idealized women, we’ve been lucky to share the adventures of fictional female heroines ranging from Katniss Everdeen to Kathryn Janeway, from Hermione Granger to Xena the Warrior Princess, from Anna and Elsa to Buffy and Ripley; and heck, even the feisty-for-her-day Lois Lane. They’ve all had brains and wits and ethics. They’ve also all had faults. Some were preceded into rooms by their astonishing bosoms. Some were moody or temperamental. Some were a little precious. All were modelled as independent women of action.
In real life, our heroines vary just as much: from the flawed but gutsy Margaret Thatcher to the flawed but gutsy Hillary Clinton; from Michelle Obama to Malala Yousafzai, from Viola Desmond to Angela Merkel. They’ve included Lady Gaga, Penny Oleksiak and — here’s the rub for those who feel only certain kinds of females are OK to admire — even women who support beauty contests. Former Miss World Canada Nazanin AfshinJam (wife of one-time MP Peter MacKay) is a highprofile human rights activist. Anastasia Lin, the 2015 Miss World Canada, makes it her business to speak out about rights violations in China.
Fictional or factual, blond, beautiful or blemished — surely there’s room in the modern female worldview for them all. Princess Leia probably wouldn’t have spurned other heroes for being too sexualized. Not as long as they were on the right side of the force.