Thankfully, wherever Rey’s destination, her gender seems about as relevant to her quest as Luke’s was.
It was very hard for me to admit to myself that I was trans and queer. All my heroes were cisgendered men. Luke Skywalker, Jim Kirk, Tommy Oliver, and the Ninja Turtles were all intensely masculine, and all supported by less-central female characters. I now realize that, subconsciously, I was resisting what I had been told was a “downgrade”. Who would give up a starring role in order to play the supporting cast?
That’s the venom of the white cisgendered man as the “default”. The pervasive idea of feminine inferiority was so ubiquitous that I rejected my own identity in order to preserve my ill-gotten privilege.
Before offering Fisher her role in A New Hope, however, the production team told her that she had to lose 15 pounds to play Princess Leia. You’ll have to trust me on that citation, because I can’t find it now that it’s been swallowed up by more recent news about the fact that the exact same thing happened to Carrie Fisher once again prior to filming The Force Awakens. This time, Fisher was told she had to lose 35 pounds in order to reprise her role. “They didn’t hire me, they hired me minus 35 pounds,” Fisher recently quipped. She could have said something similar about earning her role 40 years ago.
When Obi-Wan tells Luke that his father was “a good friend,” we both thought immediately of Obi-Wan telling a mutilated Anakin that they were brothers. When Yoda says that “wars not make one great,” we both thought of Order 66. When Vader tells Luke that it is “too late” for him to break from the Dark Side, we both thought of his assault on the Jedi temple.
With the prequels, these moments are no longer mere dialogue, but memories forged through experience. Obi-Wan’s weariness, Yoda’s cautions, and Luke’s choices, all now come with a greater weight, crafting a more layered and emotional journey.
When I was a little kid watching Return of the Jedi for the first time, I turned to my father when Malakili started weeping over his dead rancor and asked “Why is that guy crying?”
He said “Because it was his pet."
And with the sudden awesome realization that it was possible to have a horrible monster for a pet, and that bit characters have feelings too (see our love for The Venture Bros.), came a few terrible moments of hating Luke Skywalker’s guts.