amarielah:

swprequelframes:

sarah531:

Hey. You know who did like the Star Wars prequels?

Teenage girls.

I can tell you this because I was one of those teenage girls. For quite a long portion of my adolescence I lived, breathed and loved Star Wars, and it wasn’t always an easy experience. It was a very male-dominated fandom, probably still is, but we carved out spaces of our own. Websites dedicated to Padme’s costumes, for example, or to the Anakin/Padme relationship. (I have no doubt in my mind that there were many problematic things about that ship, but it absolutely seemed to appeal to young women.) At age sixteen I was privileged to be a part of the prequel-friendly (prequel-loving!) Saga Journal when it first started up, and you know what? That was mostly (if not all?) women. Likewise, the fanfiction section on theforce.net was mostly women, young women, teenage girls, sharing stories about young Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and Padme and Anakin. The all-female Handmaiden group brought in with The Phantom Menace were hugely popular, too. Livejournal had a blossoming ‘pretty’ community centering around Star Wars (think what today’s graphic makers are doing on Tumblr, just…on Livejournal) – icons, banners, wallpapers of the prequel characters. This was almost all teenage girls, making their pretty space opera even prettier.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I wasn’t interested in Star Wars before the prequels came out. I was about 12 when they did, and I definitely remember saying to my dad as he handed me the tie-in sticker book, “But I don’t LIKE Star Wars. The girls don’t DO anything.” “Princess Leia does!” Dad said. “She definitely gets more heroic as the movies go on.”

As an adult I adore Leia, but as a kid she wasn’t enough to get me to watch the movies. And yet, I went with everyone else to see The Phantom Menace – how could I avoid it? It was everywhere! – and I definitely remember feeling like I’d been introduced to a whole new amazing world. I watched all the originals and loved them too. As more movies came out I loved the women more and more. Padme was younger than me and she was a queen. Naboo was a hugely female-centric society doing hugely well. The handmaidens were basically a girl gang with gorgeous costumes and guns. And there were female Jedi! Who had names! And lightsabres! And women were friends with each other and talked about politics!

Obviously that should be the bare minimum a female viewer should expect from a cinematic saga, but…well, it’s not something many movies achieve even now. So you can see, I hope, how it’d appeal to me and many others. And of course the attractive men – who appeared with their shirts off every now and again – were a factor too. Which still isn’t a reason to diminish teenage girl’s participation in fandom, believe it or not….

I’m not saying that the reason the Star Wars prequels are so disliked is because they appealed to teenage girls. But considering that “MALE COMEDIAN DISLIKES STAR WARS PREQUELS” is apparently news now, a view from the other side can’t hurt. I’d be really interested to hear of any other ex-teenage girl’s stories from Star Wars fandom around that time, actually. I remember feeling like a Fake Fan a lot, but I also remember the careful, brilliant analysis I saw another girl do of Revenge of the Sith’s colour palette, and the carefully maintained archives of Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan fanfiction, and the blogs dedicated to celebrating the sheer prettiness (the guys would call it ‘cinematography’) of the prequels.

I’d go as far to say, in all honesty, that teenage girls were the Prequel fandom. We did the fanfiction, the fanart, the graphics, the character analysis, the essays about what that one lighting effect in that one scene meant, the advice on how to sew that costume – the work, you could almost say, because we really loved those movies and the universe within them. That won’t get a single mention in the runup to The Force Awakens, but happen it did.

I’ve been holding the opinion for years that the Prequels are the more
“feminine” trilogy while the OT is more “masculine” – not just in regard
to representation, but involving their overall feel and character.

The OT was very much defined by Luke’s “father conflict” whereas the
Prequels introduced the “mother” and they had a different focus and
different sensibilties. The OT deals with Luke and how he has to confront his father in order to bring him back to the good side. The PT deals with Anakin and his challenge of letting go and coming to peace
with the natural course of things and loss. It’s, in its basic state,
more passive, less confrontational and more “feminine”. The PT also puts
a strong focus on the need for diplomacy and trying to avoid war and
violence at all costs whereas the OT portrays a period of time in which
war and battles have become the only way of solving a conflict.
This difference, though, is the most noticeable in the way both
trilogies portray the love stories. Han/Leia are a pretty male-oriented
couple, with a macho guy getting the initially resistant gilt to melt
ultimately. Anakin/Padmé are a the complete opposite, they are a couple
in which the man is more vulnerable and emotional and the woman always
seems to be in control of things and is clearly played as the one to
decide what direction their relationship takes. Anakin and Han,
especially, feel like opposing poles.
The whole architectural, environmental and cultural focus on beauty in
the PT, as opposed to the sober functionality of the OT, is another sign
of that difference.

I think Lucasfilm missed a great oppurtunity back in 2000-2005. They
should have embraced that sort of audience a lot more openly and
actively – especially after having realized that the “original” SW
audience isn’t the most grateful or willing to accept new things and I
also think the more “feminine” nature of the PT has affected its
reputation among the predominantly male-focused geek media. Missed
chance, another approach could have given the PT a more solid and vocal
supporting base online.

#i always joke about anakin having a girl plot#but it’s true#his life’s choice is staked on who he loves#if he can build a family#not revenge or justice or even the pursuit of peace#family and love#and it is resolved by love and family#it’s just that is the hidden arc of the ot#and the overt arc of the pt (via cadesama)