Star Wars: The New Age of Heroes
Dec. 16th, 2015 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitter_n_goreSo guys! There's a new Star Wars movie coming out. As you may have noticed, I'm neglecting this blog badly. Ahem. But the reason is I've been running three--count 'em, three--separate review marathon series elseweb, and had to let something go. Anyway, we're approaching game time for The Force Awakens (yes, I have my tickets already OF COURSE), and I recently realized I have seen more movies this year than I have collectively in the past five--half of them in theaters. Why is that? Are movies especially awesome this year for some reason? Is there more big-budget, explodey-things fare that demands to be seen on the big screen? Have I found a larger number of real-life people who aren't my mom to go to movies with, instead of waiting for the DVD like I usually do?
A bit of all those things, but what I want to talk about today is this: Today's heroes are a little different from the heroes I grew up with. They're more flawed, more relateable, and more diverse. Funny thing, because most of the people playing heroes onscreen right now? Grew up at the exact same time I did.
Disclaimer:
I'm going to allow SPOILERS for The Force Awakens and all other films mentioned in the comments, and I won't be marking them because that tag is freaking impossible. But there will be none in the post itself.
Let's talk about target demographics. It's been the standard assumption for a while that most "mainstream" movies cater to a demographic of 18 to 35-year-old straight, white men. However, looking at some of the most successful film franchises in theaters lately, it seems that target has shifted. If you're between the ages of 18 and 35 right now, that puts your birthdate between the years 1980 and 1997. A very interesting formative period in pop culture. Computer technology was rapidly evolving and becoming a more ubiquitous presence in our lives. Video games and comic books were a constant backdrop, also rapidly evolving, but still in the Geek Ghetto rather than the mainstream media. Sci-Fi and Fantasy were creeping towards visibility in books, movies, and television, but still considered niche markets for a niche audience. I personally had huge preteen crushes on Luke Skywalker, Inigo Montoya, and Atreyu from The Neverending Story. I was born in 1983, and they were my heroes.
I say "were" not because I've outgrown them, but because I've come to realize that while I still love those characters, I can't relate to them the way I can some of the more recent icons of the silver screen. Luke Skywalker is a regular kid when you meet him--farm boy, ambitious and anxious, immature but idealistic--but he's also got that magic legacy working for him. He wouldn't be the same character if Anakin Skywalker wasn't his father. Also, much as I love Leia, she's a politician and military strategist--not positions I could ever see myself in. I love Inigo Montoya, but the character I most resemble in The Princess Bride is Princess Buttercup, who is basically a MacGuffin. I adore Atreyu, but personality-wise I was more like Bastian--the lonely, bullied bibliophile who daydreams too much and is bad at math.
Since the late '90s, we've gotten an increasing stream of movies from the worlds of comic books, childrens books, fantasy and sci-fi featuring more and more major characters who fit into a broader mold than your standard square-jawed action guy. Even when they're heroic, they're flawed in realistic ways. And most of the actors playing them are either my age or younger. Here are my top five right now:
+ Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, 1990) - Stubborn, unfriendly, and (in-universe) unlikeable Action Girl whose defining motivation is keeping her family safe. Forced to adopt a false persona to A) make people like her and B) ensure her survival in a universe that values surface aesthetics more than literally anything else.
+ Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson, 1984) - Former femme fatale on a redemption arc who willfully puts herself in situations where men abuse and belittle her in order to acquire information. Strong, resilient, intelligent, not as immune to the abuse as she tries to appear, but still gets the job done no matter what.
+ Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston, 1981) - Talented magic user in a world that values brute strength over intellect, the lone bookworm in a house full of jocks, who constantly gets mocked because he's different. Ultimately finds out he really IS different, and takes it . . . badly.
+ Hermione Granger (Emma Watson, 1990) - Hypercompetant, overachieving teacher's pet who starts out with the impression that following all the rules to the letter will bring her success and happiness. Learns friendship and integrity are more important than rule-following, and becomes an unparalleled badass who makes her OWN rules.
+ Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska, 1989) - Aspiring author fighting sexist publishing houses and double-standards who gets swept off her feet by a tall, dark, mysterious, handsome stranger who compliments and wholeheartedly supports her writing. Goes on a scary, sexy adventure and writes her first book about it.
Where were all these awesome characters when I was kid? It's still a very white and (arguably) straight list, but keep in mind this is just my top five. I have a huge variety of great female characters to choose from now. More importantly, they speak to me in a way no one ever has before. Okay, to be fair, the first Harry Potter novel was published in 1997 when I was a young teenager, but I didn't start reading them until I was eighteen, and the movies didn't come out until I was in college. As a result, when I was introduced to these characters and their respective fictional worlds, I came to them as a young adult woman with an established background of geeky interests and never fitting in with the popular crowd.
These people are all misfits, undervalued either by society as a whole, or by their peers, and struggle to be taken seriously. (Yeah, I know Loki's technically a villain--don't care. He resonates with audiences for a reason.) (And if you don't know who Edith Cushing is, read this.) Their "power" doesn't come from something that happens to them, like a latent ability that appears during adolescence, or something brought on by a lightning strike or a vat of chemicals, but something they consciously work for and fight to keep. People in my age group and younger have heroes to look up to that have a lot more in common with us than we did growing up, and I think we have the current generation of geeks to thank for that. They're the ones not only demanding better, more diverse characters onscreen, but the ones writing, directing, performing, and critiquing the media we all enjoy. Where The Force Awakens is concerned, the review I'm most anxious to see isn't the one due from my local paper, but the vlog style squee fest I'm expecting from twenty-something fellow geek Jill Bearup of Stuff You Like. I value her opinion more than the old white guy who probably wouldn't watch sci-fi at all if it wasn't his job, because she feels the same way about these movies that I do, and will look for and comment on the same things I would.
And that's just the thing: we Gen X'ers and Millennials don't have to rely on the older generation to tell us what to watch or how to consume media anymore. We've been creating our own culture for the past twenty years, along with a way to communicate directly with each other in mere seconds, and I think we're just starting to see the results of that culture come to life. So now we have a brand new Star Wars movie starring a young woman and a young Black man (Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, both born in 1992) who grew up hearing the stories of Han, Luke, and Leia as just that: stories. Legends. Myths. Those characters were their heroes when they were small, just as they were for us not such a long time ago. And it's time for them to be their own heroes. That's why I bought my tickets over a month in advance. That's why I have faith in the power of stories, no matter how far-fetched or ridiculous. That's why I don't care how big a part Luke Skywalker has this time around, and why I haven't been wondering at how little we've seen of him in the trailers. It's not his story anymore. Maybe, in some ways, it never was.
This belongs to us all. Whether you fell in love with the original trilogy as a kid like me, or got hooked at the turn of the millennium by the prequel trilogy, or have just started to get curious about it this year. There's a place for everyone in this wide, scary, fantastic universe. May the Force be with you.
A bit of all those things, but what I want to talk about today is this: Today's heroes are a little different from the heroes I grew up with. They're more flawed, more relateable, and more diverse. Funny thing, because most of the people playing heroes onscreen right now? Grew up at the exact same time I did.
Disclaimer:
I'm going to allow SPOILERS for The Force Awakens and all other films mentioned in the comments, and I won't be marking them because that tag is freaking impossible. But there will be none in the post itself.
Let's talk about target demographics. It's been the standard assumption for a while that most "mainstream" movies cater to a demographic of 18 to 35-year-old straight, white men. However, looking at some of the most successful film franchises in theaters lately, it seems that target has shifted. If you're between the ages of 18 and 35 right now, that puts your birthdate between the years 1980 and 1997. A very interesting formative period in pop culture. Computer technology was rapidly evolving and becoming a more ubiquitous presence in our lives. Video games and comic books were a constant backdrop, also rapidly evolving, but still in the Geek Ghetto rather than the mainstream media. Sci-Fi and Fantasy were creeping towards visibility in books, movies, and television, but still considered niche markets for a niche audience. I personally had huge preteen crushes on Luke Skywalker, Inigo Montoya, and Atreyu from The Neverending Story. I was born in 1983, and they were my heroes.
I say "were" not because I've outgrown them, but because I've come to realize that while I still love those characters, I can't relate to them the way I can some of the more recent icons of the silver screen. Luke Skywalker is a regular kid when you meet him--farm boy, ambitious and anxious, immature but idealistic--but he's also got that magic legacy working for him. He wouldn't be the same character if Anakin Skywalker wasn't his father. Also, much as I love Leia, she's a politician and military strategist--not positions I could ever see myself in. I love Inigo Montoya, but the character I most resemble in The Princess Bride is Princess Buttercup, who is basically a MacGuffin. I adore Atreyu, but personality-wise I was more like Bastian--the lonely, bullied bibliophile who daydreams too much and is bad at math.
Since the late '90s, we've gotten an increasing stream of movies from the worlds of comic books, childrens books, fantasy and sci-fi featuring more and more major characters who fit into a broader mold than your standard square-jawed action guy. Even when they're heroic, they're flawed in realistic ways. And most of the actors playing them are either my age or younger. Here are my top five right now:
+ Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, 1990) - Stubborn, unfriendly, and (in-universe) unlikeable Action Girl whose defining motivation is keeping her family safe. Forced to adopt a false persona to A) make people like her and B) ensure her survival in a universe that values surface aesthetics more than literally anything else.
+ Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson, 1984) - Former femme fatale on a redemption arc who willfully puts herself in situations where men abuse and belittle her in order to acquire information. Strong, resilient, intelligent, not as immune to the abuse as she tries to appear, but still gets the job done no matter what.
+ Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston, 1981) - Talented magic user in a world that values brute strength over intellect, the lone bookworm in a house full of jocks, who constantly gets mocked because he's different. Ultimately finds out he really IS different, and takes it . . . badly.
+ Hermione Granger (Emma Watson, 1990) - Hypercompetant, overachieving teacher's pet who starts out with the impression that following all the rules to the letter will bring her success and happiness. Learns friendship and integrity are more important than rule-following, and becomes an unparalleled badass who makes her OWN rules.
+ Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska, 1989) - Aspiring author fighting sexist publishing houses and double-standards who gets swept off her feet by a tall, dark, mysterious, handsome stranger who compliments and wholeheartedly supports her writing. Goes on a scary, sexy adventure and writes her first book about it.
Where were all these awesome characters when I was kid? It's still a very white and (arguably) straight list, but keep in mind this is just my top five. I have a huge variety of great female characters to choose from now. More importantly, they speak to me in a way no one ever has before. Okay, to be fair, the first Harry Potter novel was published in 1997 when I was a young teenager, but I didn't start reading them until I was eighteen, and the movies didn't come out until I was in college. As a result, when I was introduced to these characters and their respective fictional worlds, I came to them as a young adult woman with an established background of geeky interests and never fitting in with the popular crowd.
These people are all misfits, undervalued either by society as a whole, or by their peers, and struggle to be taken seriously. (Yeah, I know Loki's technically a villain--don't care. He resonates with audiences for a reason.) (And if you don't know who Edith Cushing is, read this.) Their "power" doesn't come from something that happens to them, like a latent ability that appears during adolescence, or something brought on by a lightning strike or a vat of chemicals, but something they consciously work for and fight to keep. People in my age group and younger have heroes to look up to that have a lot more in common with us than we did growing up, and I think we have the current generation of geeks to thank for that. They're the ones not only demanding better, more diverse characters onscreen, but the ones writing, directing, performing, and critiquing the media we all enjoy. Where The Force Awakens is concerned, the review I'm most anxious to see isn't the one due from my local paper, but the vlog style squee fest I'm expecting from twenty-something fellow geek Jill Bearup of Stuff You Like. I value her opinion more than the old white guy who probably wouldn't watch sci-fi at all if it wasn't his job, because she feels the same way about these movies that I do, and will look for and comment on the same things I would.
And that's just the thing: we Gen X'ers and Millennials don't have to rely on the older generation to tell us what to watch or how to consume media anymore. We've been creating our own culture for the past twenty years, along with a way to communicate directly with each other in mere seconds, and I think we're just starting to see the results of that culture come to life. So now we have a brand new Star Wars movie starring a young woman and a young Black man (Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, both born in 1992) who grew up hearing the stories of Han, Luke, and Leia as just that: stories. Legends. Myths. Those characters were their heroes when they were small, just as they were for us not such a long time ago. And it's time for them to be their own heroes. That's why I bought my tickets over a month in advance. That's why I have faith in the power of stories, no matter how far-fetched or ridiculous. That's why I don't care how big a part Luke Skywalker has this time around, and why I haven't been wondering at how little we've seen of him in the trailers. It's not his story anymore. Maybe, in some ways, it never was.
This belongs to us all. Whether you fell in love with the original trilogy as a kid like me, or got hooked at the turn of the millennium by the prequel trilogy, or have just started to get curious about it this year. There's a place for everyone in this wide, scary, fantastic universe. May the Force be with you.