Volume 8, Issue 1 STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, Legend, Canon? « I thought he was a myth! » May 2018 46-66 “Fan Girls Going Rogue” The Reception of The Force Awakens and Rogue One with Female Fans Jessica Austin Anglia Ruskin University Abstract In the last three years Disney has released four new instalments to the Star Wars franchise, three of which are led by female protagonists, Rey (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi) and Jyn Erso (Rogue One). Although Star Wars fandom has mostly been associated with a rather poor stereotype of the male fanboy, female fans have been taking inspiration from the female characters of the series. Princess Leia aka General Leia Organa in the new instalments was one of the many faces on placards under the motto “A Woman’s Place is in The Resistance” in the Women’s March that occurred in Washington in early 2017. There has been some resistance to the female leads in the new films with criticism that Disney is spouting feminist propaganda and even rumours (which turned out to be false) that Rogue One was being re-shot to be anti- Trump. This study of 330 participants discusses how female reception to the new instalments has differed from the “die-hard” male fans and why this has occurred. Information gathered in the online survey indicated that female Star Wars fans had a positive response to the new female lead characters that were introduced in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: Rogue One. However, it was also apparent that they perceived a negative response to the new female characters but also to themselves by male Star Wars fans. The study addresses a literature gap on reception with female fans to Star Wars. Keywords: star wars, fan-studies, woman-studies, reception, fans “Fan Girls Going Rogue” The Reception of The Force Awakens and Rogue One with Female Fans Introduction On December 18th 2015 Star Wars: The Force Awakens had its opening night with Daisy Ridley playing the lead female character Rey. By the end of its theatrical run it had made $2 billion at the box office and had thwarted fears that it would end up with the mixed audience and critic reception of the prequel trilogy (The Phantom Menace, 1999; Attack of the Clones, 2002; Revenge of the Sith, 2005). Rogue One: A Star Wars Story followed a year later debuting December 16th 2016, acting as an immediate prequel to Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). Rogue One made $1 billion worldwide, making it the highest grossing Star Wars film after The Force Awakens. Rogue One also had a female lead in an ensemble cast with Felicity Jones playing Jyn Erso. The characters of Rey and Jyn are worthy of scholarly attention as they are not only new characters, but Rey was a lead character in the reviving of the Star Wars franchise. Rey’s story begins on Jakku where she lives and works as a scavenger. She teams up primarily with Finn (played by John Boyega) to deliver robot, BB8, to the resistance. Many have seen this as a call back to Leia’s intentions on delivering a map in Star Wars: A New Hope. Jyn is the daughter of a man who helped to design the Death Star but decides to join the resistance and steal the schematics. Rey and Jyn’s characters can certainly be perceived as heroes in the Star Wars world. Although the Star Wars franchise has always had a female among its lead actors, (Carrie Fisher playing Princess/General Leia Organa), a loud minority were unhappy with the casting choices in the newer instalments. This was not limited to the female leads but also to the casting of John Boyega as a Stormtrooper, where some fans questioned his ethnicity compared with existing Star Wars canon (Proctor, 2017). This problematic rhetoric was not simply reserved for the cast members but was also levied at female fans. This study was conducted because female fans have often been overlooked in academic fan studies (Pope, 2010: p. 471). In other fandoms, studies have shown that female fans are often accused of not being ‘real’ fans, and that often they are simply present due to romantic attachments (Esmonde, 2013). For example, some male fans resenting the presence of female Twilight fans at Comic Con, their misconception being the girls were only present because of their romantic attachment to characters in the books/actors in the films (Scott, 2011: p. 59; Busse, 2013: p. 73). In fan studies it has been noted that the prevailing stereotype of fans is gendered as male (Scott, 2013; Geraghty, 2014) and this may have contributed to why research on female fans of Star Wars has been sparse thus far. Although Will Brooker devotes a chapter to female fans in Using the Force: Creativity, 47 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916-985X “ STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, Legend, Canon? « I thought he was a myth! »”, June 2018, www.kinephanos.ca “Fan Girls Going Rogue” The Reception of The Force Awakens and Rogue One with Female Fans Community and ‘Star Wars’ Fans (2002), ethnographic studies are limited. Male fans were not considered in this piece of research as they have often been the overwhelming majority in other studies (Proctor, 2013; Brooker, 2002) and so it was prudent to conduct research on female fans only. This study has had two main research foci, whether female fans have been receptive to the new female characters and if they feel as female fans they have subordinated by male fans and by merchandisers. Methodology Data was collected and analysed in this study using the concept of Netnography as outlined by Kozinets (2010). Netnography is designed to be able to tackle ethnographic studies of online communities (Kozinets, 2010: p. 6). Netnography has been used in previous Star Wars research conducted by Proctor (2013). In Proctor’s work (2013) he suggested that Netnography was appropriate for online study as his project aimed to ‘capture affective reactions as close as possible to the ‘fan-event’ (Proctor, 2013: p. 205). At the time of conducting this research Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), was to be imminently released, making data collection close to a fan event, ensuring that participation was at an elevated level. Netnography allows for the use of mixed methods (Kozinets, 2010: p. 60) which is appropriate for studying online communities as it allowed for the collection of both quantitative data (such as demographics) as well as qualitative data on fan experience. An online survey was created and distributed via social media platforms. This study differs from Proctor’s study (2013) as Proctor would be described as an ‘aca-fan’ and a ‘map-maker’ (Hills, 2002: p. 18). This study has been conducted by a researcher with no ties to Star Wars fandom. Ergo, this study has avoided a problem noted by Jenkins; some academics have felt ‘too close’ to the fandom they are studying due to their affinity with the community due to being fans themselves. Jenkins noted he felt a ‘high degree of responsibility and accountability to the groups being discussed’ (Jenkins, 1992: p. 7) in his research. The inclusion criteria for those completing the survey was that respondents identified as a woman and that they considered themselves fans of any part of the Star Wars franchise. Distributing over social media can be problematic as it has been noted that online surveys can sometimes produce lower response rates than postal surveys (Tse, 1998). Bryman notes that ‘certain kinds of populations are less adversely affected by coverage problems’ (Bryman, 2012: 48 Kinephanos, ISSN 1916-985X “ STAR WARS, Expanded Universe, Legend, Canon? « I thought he was a myth! »”, June 2018, www.kinephanos.ca “Fan Girls Going Rogue” The Reception of The Force Awakens and Rogue One with Female Fans p. 674) and this is true of the Star Wars fandom which has a heavy online presence. Also, online surveys has been largely successful in other fandom research (Barker and Mathijs, 2008). Furthermore, Kozinets notes that surveys ‘have been useful for providing an initial overview of the area of online communities, from which we have been able to discern large-scale patterns’ (Kozinets, 2010: p. 43). By using an online survey, this research was able to discern some patterns from 330 responses filling a literature gap on female Star Wars fans. The decision was made to focus questions on the most recent films in the franchise for three reasons. Firstly, the Expanded Universe is now considered non-canon. Secondly, an expectation that a higher proportion of respondents will have seen the most recent films compared to knowledge on expanded universe stories. Thirdly, the films are a fan event making data collection easier. The online survey asked 15 questions beginning with collecting demographic data of gender and age range. Due to the ethical challenges of collecting data from participants under the age of 18 this survey was not open to those under this age. To prohibit the collection of data from those under 18 the survey automatically closed if they selected the ‘under 18’ option for the question ‘What is your age range?’. The second section of the survey collected information on merchandising as one of the main gripes found in preliminary research for this study was that female fans had felt left out when it came to the merchandise they could buy. They often cited the fact that the female characters in the films had little merchandise (action figures and the like) available to them for purchase compared to male fans, who they perceived as being catered for.