Imagine your younger self, a younger sibling, or your child, watching television or a film and feeling inspired to be the hero on the screen, amazing right? The feeling is empowering, it makes you feel like you can do anything like the movie character! Now imagine the opposite, imagine your younger self seeing characters on the screen only fitting one static role, or no role at all. These static roles are commonly held by women, which can paint the wrong picture for young women everywhere. How female heroines are represented in science fiction is extremely important to the development of young people, especially young girls everywhere. The media that we consume does a lot more than tell us an interesting or exciting story. It can shape our view of the world, of ourselves, and the role that we play in the world. Specifically, the cultural phenomenon of Star Wars, that has created many female heroines for us to see, but is their portrayal doing a justice for the people who watch?
Ahsoka Tano is a female heroine featured in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. She is a compassionate, fearless, clever young girl who grows into a beautiful, graceful and powerful woman. She is extremely important to young girls because she is mostly pictured as a young girl herself. During the eleven year running time of The Clone Wars she matures from a fourteen year old to a seventeen year old. Ahsoka is one of the best representations of female heroines in science fiction. However, there is a large issue with her portrayal.
In her first appearance in The Clone Wars movie, she is fourteen years old at the time, and she is dressed in a tube top. This is a huge issue because it promotes the sexualization of women, specifically young girls. Additionally, Ahsoka and her colleagues are fighting a war in the movie. A tube top in not exactly the best war fighting attire. Ahsoka’s clothing proves how aparent female sexualization is and how important it is to think critically about what young girls will internalize regarding what they “should” or “should not” wear. However, the animators heard fans’ outcries about this issue and changed her clothing to something less revealing in early episodes of The Clone Wars animated series.
Regardless of this blunder, Ahsoka is a phenomenal female character. She is empowering to young girls across the world, specifically young black girls. Although Ahsoka’s species, Togrutas, can be born with multiple non-skin tone colors, hers being orange, the Togrutan facial features parallel that of black features. Additionally, the live-action version of Ahsoka is played by afro-latina actress Rosario Dawson. Representation like this is essential, especially for young people of color, because a lot of the female representation we see is only representative of white women. So, for them to see someone who looks like them play a main and well developed character is groundbreaking!
Ahsoka is also important to young LGBTQIA+ women and girls. She is a part of a species with an androgynous appearance. She has no hair. Only hair-like “head tails’ ‘ or long appendages that are placed like hair on her head. In her late teen years Ahsoka’s clothing also becomes more androgynous. She wears more masculine colors and armor and begins wearing jumpsuits as well. Her character arc is also very relatable to young queer people because she leaves her home that she no longer feels welcomed or accepted in to go discover herself independently, a journey in which many young queer people go through.
How women and girls are represented in the media is extremely important to their development. The creation of properly represented female characters can do so much for a young girl’s self-esteem and identity formation. When we can take time to look critically at how they are conveyed to us we can see how to make future changes so that women can be better represented in film. We can also use this analysis to highlight fantastic representations so that everyone can see them and we can create even more Ahsoka Tano’s. Everyone deserves to feel empowered by characters on their screens’.