Kathleen kennedy, star wars, lucasfilm

Lucasfilm President Is Not Going to Cater to Male Audience

Kathleen kennedy, star wars, lucasfilm, george lucas

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy has stated she will not cater to well established male audience.

Kennedy was hand-picked by George Lucas to run the company after he stepped down. Not letting Lucas down, Kennedy has flourished. There has been a 2 billion grossing film, a successful animated series, several books on the best seller list, top-selling comic books, and a revitalized toy and apparel market to the tune of $3 billion last year alone. But all this success has not stopped any criticism.

The Star Wars fandom in particular has voiced some opinions about there being two recent female leads, and a lot of these opinions were not pleasant. This has not stopped Kennedy at all. In an interview with the New York Times she stated, “I have a responsibility to the company that I work with. I don’t feel that I have a responsibility to cater in some way [to those particular fans]…” And she shouldn’t have to.

Kennedy has balanced out the audience, with it being 50/50 male and female. That means an increase in people buying into the franchise. But certain fans still find a reason to be mad, like when Kennedy wanted a female director for the entire Star Wars franchise. Because wanting to help advance women in the film industry is apparently just being selfish. Kennedy is not having it and we are impressed with her backbone.

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  1. I feel like there are fair and unfair points here. Because of the kind of property Star Wars is, assuming the audience is 50/50 male and female is a good move. Even people who love the franchise have noted the weird low ammount of women doing anything cool in the movies before. Star Wars is a broad strokes franchise and I think that covering some basic demographics is a good move; not as a counter inclusion decision but as a having actual interesting female characters exist when the world is full of everything else under the sun.

    When it comes to news like wanting to get a female director specifically for a project a some people will immediately scream that skill and merit should be priority #1 but I think most people are just waiting for an explanation of why, because about half the time its perfectly reasonable and the other half it feels like pandering or discriminatory just for the sake of inclusion and they want to know which one it’s going to be. To write critics of a decision of just thinking a decision is selfish is somewhat unfair, especially since the worst fans will be the loudest and first to respond.

    So far; I think that things are going fine as they are so I don’t see a problem. Rey was criticized for being too ‘Mary Sue’, a trap that can occur when introducing a lead female character because the creators are afraid of making a statement about women in general, but I think she is about on par with Luke in that category through the first movie and if more female characters are around then there will be less pressure to keep Rey in a state of perpetual competence. I know nothing about Jyn Erso so I can’t comment about Rogue One but on the surface my reaction is more that this is a breath of fresh air than stifling inclusiveness.