I love Star Wars and I watched all the old episodes! When I was seven. Honestly, I was mostly fascinated by the fight between the nice old man with long hair and the scary red dude with horns; I must’ve watched that scene alone at least ten times. And personally, I think Yoda looked like a nasty green disease attached to Luke’s back during his training.
So maybe I’m not exactly a superfan. Still, I have been watching the new ones, and I lined up with the best of them to watch The Last Jedi. The movie went as expected. Pew pew, explosion, etc. But when I saw Poe Dameron get indignant with Vice-Admiral Holdo, I was on his side. “What’s this old lady doing?” I scoffed. “CLEARLY Poe knows better. Who the heck made her the Vice-Admiral? She’s nuts!” Subconsciously, stereotypes bubbled to the surface to reaffirm this idea. Here is this tall, waifish woman with purple hair, the color a stark contrast to the bleak orange and browns of Resistance fighter clothes. She is the opposite of Princess Leia, a small firm woman with a hard face and fine leadership skills, yet she has now stepped into Leia’s position. How can she lead the Resistance? And then another thought. “Did Princess Leia make a grave mistake by having Holdo as the Vice Admiral?”
The director waited until the very to disprove my thoughts. In a fantastic silent scene, Vice-Admiral Holdo is shown sacrificing her life in a brilliant move to save the few remaining Resistance fighter ships.
Vice-Admiral Holdo is one of the many types of female role-models shown in this film. Rey, Princess Leia, and Maz Kanata are all heroes in Star Wars. What makes Vice-Admiral different from them is that she embraces her femininity. She doesn’t have to wear baggy clothes that hide her soft shape or cover her hair or stop expressing herself the way she wants because she is a hero by her own merits.
