This past week, I had the amazing opportunity to visit Disneyland with my friends. When we were there, we, of course, saw many different people wearing their favorite Disney merchandise. There were plenty of Mickey and Minnie Mouse ears and Disney princess outfits running around The Happiest Place on Earth, which was expected, but one particular outfit caught my eye.
As I was entering the park and walking through the small tunnel leading to Main Street, U.S.A., I saw a girl in an outfit that I had not seen at Disneyland before. Her hair had three stacked buns, she wore brown scrappy clothing, and she had a blue lightsaber attached to her belt. I stopped and my eyes grew wide as I recognized the character that she was portraying. She was Rey.
Rey, played by British newcomer Daisy Ridley, is a new character from the Star Wars franchise. She is a teenage girl with a mysterious past who wants to find her parents, as they left her when she was a child. When we are first introduced to her, she is on her own, having to fend for herself on a desert planet.
Right away, the film portrayed her as an independent and bold woman who had to be able to get her own food and find her own ways of survival, without the help of anyone else. Even when she met Finn (John Boyega), she does not rely on him or anyone else to make her decisions for her. Throughout the film, she went through tremendous character development, and, as she discovered new things about herself, she continued to be the dominant hero in the story.
Rey brings a new light on the idea of a heroine. Instead of being in skin-tight and revealing clothing, she was fully covered in brown fabric. Instead of having a love interest within the first 10 minutes of the film, she became close friends with Finn. Instead of instantly becoming a sidekick or a plot device, she became a fundamental part of the story. Throughout The Force Awakens, Rey showed that it isn’t hard to put a woman in the spotlight as the hero.
Putting a dominant female character into such a large and powerful film series is something that should not be dismissed. Yes, there are many heroines throughout film history like the formidable Ripley from Aliens or the strong-willed Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. But with The Force Awakens being such a big phenomenon, every little girl is able to see how women can also be heroes, and how they can be a protagonist without having to rely on somebody else.
An article in "Entertainment Weekly" was written about “The Power of Rey” and impacted me in such a way that it has been stuck with me ever since I read it. In it, the author wrote about her daughters watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and how Rey changed their perspective on the Star Wars franchise. This article proved that Rey is a character that has inspired girls, and it has proved that films can change the way that people think. There are so many different princesses trying to find their true love, and girls shown to be in peril, with a manly figure saving them. Rey shows that there can be a change in how women are portrayed to people around the world. Instead of being another Princess Leia in a bikini slave costume, Rey shows that women save the entire galaxy.
Yes, being able to see little girls dress as their favorite Disney princesses is perfectly fine, but also being able to see girls start to dress like Rey is something that I am incredibly proud to see. Heroines are hard to find these days. To see the Star Wars franchise attempt to change the way we see women is groundbreaking, and I can only hope that they continue this path of changing the way the public thinks of a hero.
