You know how some people were complaining about Star Wars Rogue One and a female lead **SPOILERS**

[amispartacus]

They needn't have bothered.

Yes,there was 1 female lead. A few minor characters but that's it. The rest of the main action characters were male. Can't women fight in the future?

Oh - and the 2 leads fell in love. Obviously.

www.dailydot.com/parsec/rogue-one-female-characters-feminist-male-dominated/

Great film though.

[amispartacus]

Some people who were annoyed by the trailer as 'feminist propaganda'

www.konbini.com/us/entertainment/rogue-one-star-wars-story-will-clearly-feminist-propaganda/

[TrionicLettuce]

That was one of the few things that really disappointed me about the film, so much less female representation in the background. The specific instances that really, really bugged me were the Imperial scientists (all older white men) and the band of Rebels who accompany the main characters to Scarif (all male and mostly, if not all, white).

I think there might have been the odd female stormtrooper and the character whose outfit Jyn steals on Scarif also appeared to be female. Other than that though there's hardly any women anywhere. It's such a disappointment after how well they did with that in Force Awakens.

I did however love that they had an x-wing pilot who was not only female but an older female.

[TrionicLettuce]

It's really depressing that we've reached a point where a film with one major female character is labelled "feminist propaganda".

[amispartacus]

I remember hearing a lot of complaints that the new film had 'yet another' female lead.

Yes - they could easily have used a whole range of characters in it. Where were the female scientists, technicians, pilots. Are there no females at all in the Imperial force? Is there a glass ceiling on the Death Star?

[tribpot]

I loved the film but yes, it barely passes the Bechdel Test. The lack of women was very noticeable compared to The Force Awakens, which had a lot more female background artists/extras. Agreed, the X-Wing pilot was great. But why not half the X-Wing pilots? Why not half the rebels who went to Scarif?

The relationship between the two leads is only really touched on in the last (devastating) scene, it's not like the creepy Han-Leia-Luke love triangle.

I loved the comments in the article about 'yeah right, like all rebellions have a woman in charge'. Leia was always in charge you doofus.

The other thing that annoyed me was Jyn's mum going back to - well, I'm not sure what she thought she was going to accomplish. But who abandons their child to go and try and rescue their husband, esp given she and Jyn were likely to be taken hostage as leverage to force Galen to do what the empire wanted? It made me think the scriptwriters have no real understanding of parenthood, even though both appear to be fathers.

What the film really made me think of is Geena Davis' two easy steps:

1. Go through all your named characters and change half the names to female names [in fact in Star Wars you wouldn't even have to do that, given how many of the names are made up, but you know what I mean]
   
2. In crowd scenes, you write 'a crowd gathers, which is half female'.
   

Easy peasy. And yet not done. Why?

[amispartacus]

I don't think there were any just female / female chats were there?

[tribpot]

Jyn exchanges words with Mon Motha about whether or not to send a force to Scarif, I don't think that strictly counts as a conversation about a man. She also speaks to her mother about going to hide in the bunker. But it's clutching at straws a bit.

[DioneTheDiabolist]

"Can't women fight in the future?"

The Star Wars movies are set in the past. misses point of the thread

[reup]

I agree with you all but I was looking up what some of the actors had been before and one of the pilots was female - it was Geraldine James and I thought she hasn't been in anything much recently.

[AntiSocialInjusticePacifist]

I dunno it went through my head whilst I was watching it that they should have a few all female squadrons of X-Wing pilots get wiped out in the space battle, thus explaining their absence from A New Hope, but then again I suspect that there would be accusations of not showing the female pilots as capable as the men. So they are kinda damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I agree no reason not to diversify the ground team, they are all doomed anyway so no reason not to have equality there. Also for all the speak of racial diversity the british actor of middle eastern descent got knack all character development, and actually the idea of an Imperial pilot switching sides because of the enormity of the danger the Death Star represents could have been a movie all by itself. Also we got a generic asian character being generically wise, and martial artst but very little exposition on who he and his friend was.

The female lead carried the film though, she was very good. I am a man, and I've been happy to see females carry sci-fi franchises since Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley and Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor. Two of my favorites pieces of sci-fi.

[DameDeDoubtance]

It was a great film but there was a lack of female representation The fuss that some men have made because the film had a female lead is disgusting.

[ChocChocPorridge]

I really like Geena Davis 2 easy steps!

I've notice that the stuff I've been watching recently on TV (British dramas like Crazy Head, Black mirror) and some international stuff (Brazilian Scifi on Netflix called the 3% and some others) is getting much better at putting women in the random and background roles - mixed troops or police, or in the background of an office etc, yet the movies seem to not be improving at all (latest Star Trek, this apparently, Don't get me started on Warcraft). And it really, really is as simple as just flipping a coin when creating a background character and employing a balance of people.

[illegitimateMortificadospawn]

The specific instances that really, really bugged me were the Imperial scientists (all older white men) and the band of Rebels who accompany the main characters to Scarif (all male and mostly, if not all, white).

The engineers all being male really pissed me off. Even the Manhattan Project (real life Earth equivalent weapons project) had female scientists working on it & that was in the 1940s FFS!