The Ahsoka series for Disney+ is likely close to wrapping filming, and fans are excited to see the character lead her own live-action story. While the Star Wars fandom is contentious, Ahsoka Tano is one of the few post-Lucas characters who is universally beloved. She's often the character people point to when criticizing other female characters like Rey or Reva. Yet, a quick look at the contemporaneous discourse around the debut of Ahsoka Tano shows fans saying the same things about her as they did about Rey or any other Star Wars woman character not played by Carrie Fisher.
In fairness to the Star Wars fans blinded by unconscious misogyny, Ahsoka Tano was entrapment. She was a character designed to mirror Anakin Skywalker, the literal "Chosen One" of Star Wars. She was skilled, brash and clever. She didn't necessarily follow the rules, but she was eager to improve her skills to become a better Jedi. Also, most of the critics were still very sour on George Lucas, Star Wars and the prequel era. Everyone from institutions like Roger Ebert to the reviewer for the then-hip Wired all pointed out that Ahsoka was "annoying" and had the gall to be cute. Whether or not they recognized her as the self-insert character for kids of the Star Wars prequel era, they simply couldn't get past her temperament and attitude. Or, to put it another way, for acting exactly like a 14-year-old kid who has superpowers would. The genius of Ahsoka is how closely she resembles Anakin in every way but one, she never fell to the dark side.
Early Ahsoka Criticisms Misunderstood Her Purpose
Tweets and Reddit threads from when The Clone Wars debuted are all still around but can be tough to find. Yet, back in the late-oughts, the Star Wars fandom was still mostly active on site-based forums like the ones maintained by TheForce.net. One such thread from October 13, 2008, is a perfect microcosm of the larger Ahsoka discourse, yet change her name out for Rey or Reva, and it reads like it was written yesterday. It's titled "Who hates Ahsoka?" and she's called "a dumb girl" in the first post and laughingly encouraged to die in the show in the second. The third post, at least, inadvertently figures out what Lucas, Dave Filoni and the rest of The Clone Wars storytellers were going for. "Right now, she's annoying, but I'm hoping her character will mature throughout the series," they wrote.
Scrolling through the rest of the three pages, the conversation moves into debates about the minutiae of what "apprentice" means, who could kill whom in a lightsaber fight and an intense argument about whether the most recent movies were "literal" trash. Written 15 years ago, this thread almost perfectly matches modern Star Wars "debates" on social media today. Eventually, the discussion turns to "Mary Sue" and "forced female empowerment," with passing references to how cool Leia and "even Padmé" are in comparison to this new atrocious female lightsaber combatant. The only thing different today is that Ahsoka is now part of the "women characters who are okay, actually" group and not the target of men's ire.
What made Ahsoka a perfect character from inception is how she played to the audience. Yes, adults saw her as a bratty and overconfident kid not offering up enough respect to the Star Wars icons she rode into battle with. A risky choice, but fresh off the prequels the last fans George Lucas cared about pleasing were the adult ones. To the kids who saw The Clone Wars movie and then the show on Cartoon Network, Ahsoka was ideal. She was funny. She was smarter than most of the grownups. And she kicked butt. For the first time in Star Wars, kids had a character who was young just like they were.
Rey and Reva Received Similar Criticisms
Despite popular opinion, George Lucas knows his way around a story. Eventually, he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, ending The Clone Wars before its time. Not only had Ahsoka become a fan-favorite character, but the series itself helped to "rehabilitate" the prequel trilogy in the eyes of some older fans. The kids who grew up with those movies always loved them, and The Clone Wars only enriched their affection for it. The fact that the same "complaints" about Ahsoka resurfaced nearly a decade later about Rey and earlier this summer about Reva strongly suggests the substance of the story isn't what's really at issue.
Whether Ahsoka Tano was a good character immediately or if she "improved" is not a question worth examining. A better thing to consider is why, despite the very different stories around them, the negative criticism of female Jedi characters is all the same?
Source: Wired, RobertEbert.com, TheForce.net
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October 09, 2022 at 11:45PM
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Criticism of Ahsoka Tano's Debut Perfectly Mirrors Modern Star Wars 'Discourse' - CBR - Comic Book Resources
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