In Arkady Martine’s article, “Star Wars’ Vice-Admirable Holdo and Our Expectations for Female Military Power,” she talks about how Holdo represents a new female mode of power that the Star Wars franchise because of how her character was developed. However, I disagree with the message that Holdo holds for feminism. Martine talks about how we perceive Holdo as a traitor because of how she appears and how we, the audience are conditioned as viewers to perceive people like this. Martine talks about how her slender dress, fancy hair, slim figure, all contribute to a femme fatale look. Poe voices Martine’s thoughts when he shows his disbelief over Admiral Holdo at their first encounter.
The audience are so used to these femme fatale figures going behind the backs of our heroes, such as Poe, in order to get what they want. However, in my opinion, it is for different reasons that we as the audience view Holdo as a traitor and it is not because of her femme fatale look, but rather it is because of how these plot points were revealed in order to set up shock value. While I do agree that Holdo may have that femme fatale look, we do not trust her as an audience because she had no reason to withhold plans from Poe. She literally stated to Poe that she knew his type and how he was the maverick who would go out and act rashly. However, if she truly believed that, she should have told Poe about the plan in order to make sure he knows what is going on rather than leaving him in the dark ensuring he will go out and take action. However, I do agree that Holdo is a strong female power in a film already filled with so many strong leading female characters. I just believe that her unexpected hero status was due to bad plot or directing rather than expectations from the audience.