A Star Wars marketing problem
or Let the Wookiee Win.
Lately, I have a problem with Star Wars marketing.
It’s not that it’s everywhere. Disney is doing what it was already amazing at with a property known for it’s product placement. Good on ’em!
It has nothing to do with representations of female characters. Well, not directly. I completely fall on the side of we need more female characters, toys, stuff for kids of both genders. Leia is awesome! Rey kicks 9 kinds of ass! I’m sure Jyn Erso will be great. There need to be more female SW characters, in fact more than 1 per film in major roles. More female aliens beyond Twi’leks would be great too. But I’m getting sidetracked.
What bothers me is that in all the branded merchandise there is an imbalance in the Force. From the Dark Side you get Vader, Kylo Ren, Boba Fett, Storm/Clone/First Order troopers, and sometimes you get Maul these days. For the Light Side you get Yoda, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3P0. Notice what’s going on? The Dark Side has more “main” or important characters. The Light Side has the secondary characters. I love them all and they all get some great moments, but the aged master, the walking carpet, and the droids are not main characters.
Why is this? The easy answer is licensing and image rights. Marketing a character’s face based on an actual actor is much more expensive than a droid, helmet or alien. When you’re plastering your characters on as much merch as you can, you go with the cheaper option to maximize profits. That’s not going to change. Also, there’s a long history of toys and drawings made to look like a specific human being being terrible.
I’ll admit this bugs me as a parent but that I am also conflicted because of my history with Star Wars. Such a focus on making the bad guys cool feels odd to me, but I have no evidence to support that it makes kids worse off. I’m also a firm believer in having toys of the bad guys for your kids so the good guys have something to fight. A good guy is only as awesome as the adversary he overcomes. My conflicts revolve around always liking the bad guys myself. When I collected the Star Wars CCG in the late 90s, I always wanted to play Dark Side decks. TIE Fighter was my go-to game, not X-Wing. On any strategy game that allows you to choose, I usually enjoy playing the Empire more. Commanding Star Destroyers is fun. See? Conflicts.
So what’s the solution? Either elevate an existing character to more prominence or create a new masked or alien protagonist character.
Masks. Bad guys get masks because it is more menacing, and shooting legions of helmeted fodder is easier psychologically because they can seem like they’re not real people. I get that. A good guy with a helmet or mask for battle would make sense in-universe. Combat armor exists. It shouldn’t be just for bad guys. Sabine in Rebels with her Mandalorian roots seems like an attempt at this but gets lost in the mire of being a female character. (Remember, I love female characters and want more of them.)
A new alien protagonist would be great to have but unlikely. For story telling purposes we tend to focus on human characters. We, as humans, identify with them. From a technological, film making, and acting standpoint, we’re unlikely to get a prominent alien.
But we already have a prominent alien that we don’t properly use: Chewbacca. Chewie is awesome but always gets overlooked. He’s half of the greatest smuggling team on the Outer Rim, but it’s Han that’s known for making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs. No medal for the Battle of Yavin despite being one of 6 people to survive active engagement in it. Yes, I’m counting Vader. The Falcon wouldn’t have taken off from Hoth at all without him. He hijacked the AT-ST at Endor that turned the tide of the land battle. When the Falcon lands at the Resistance, Leia hardly says hello after years apart. When he returns after Han dies, Leia confronts the girl who knew Han for days instead of his lifelong partner! Yes, we can’t understand what Chewie says. That’s only a problem because they never give us subtitles and instead have to have a character who reacts to him. But come on!
Chewie is awesome and deserves more focus. Make him a main character. Let the Wookiee win!
terrifible 