Population and Society
In the Star Wars: The Force Awakens film, the character of Rey is conceived and communicated as a stereotypical Mary Sue—a character who is seemingly perfect at whatever she does and goes through little or no struggle to acquire skills that an ordinary person would take years if not a lifetime to perfect. For example, Rey acquires the skills of a Jedi Knight within a short space of time, while it takes Luke in the original film a great deal of practice, training and perseverence before he can begin to harness the force. Rey portrayed as a Mary Sue creates a negative bias in the audience because it fosters an unrealistic expectation of womanhood—that women can do anything by virtue of their being strong women. As Byrd (1978) points out Mary Sue stories first emerged in Star Trek and described “the adventures of the youngest and smartest ever person to graduate from the academy and ever get a commission at such a tender age” (p. 53). They were more political than realistic—political because they presented an image of woman during the Feminist Movement, an image of a young woman who was beautiful, more talented than any other living being, and basically infallible: in short, a goddess. Presenting women as goddesses creates a negative bias because it causes people—both men and women alike—to view women unrealistically. Women have bad days, just as men do. Women do not always look or act perfectly, just as men do not. Women have to go through a learning process, just as men do, before they can be considered masters. The problem that the Star Wars film perpetuates is the myth of the female Mary Sue—the perfect woman who is so perfect that she becomes uninteresting and causes the viewer, ultimately, to despise her and the gender she represents (Kadish, 2018). This paper will explain the stereotypes and biases that can be seen being perpetuated by this artifact and discuss how it could be rewritten without the negative bias.

I selected this artifact because there is a new Star Wars film opening soon and the trailer recently dropped for it, depicting Rey once more in all her unstoppable and unrealistic glory. It seems fitting to address this Mary Sue stereotype, which does have negative connotations and does create negative biases.

A discussion of the problem of Rey is provided by Thor Skywalker (2018) on YouTube here. Thor Skywalker (2018) notes that the big problem with Rey being written as a Mary Sue is that she has caused many fans of Star Wars to reject the main character of the new trilogy who was meant to be iconic—which is a problem because “it...…of popular culture in communicating harmful or incorrect stereotypes or biases is something that should be considered very seriously because it does play a part in how people think about themselves and others. When pop culture presents a stereotype, people tend to accept it as reality. They judge people in real life according to the stereotype they have learned from popular media. So someone who does not know much about women or people in general but who has grown up watching Rey in Star Wars may not be prepared to handle reality.

In my rewriting of Rey, she would not be able to acquire the skills of a Jedi in the first film (Luke certainly did not) nor would she be able to save the day by flying a ship she has never been in. I would change the story completely so that the plot does not depend upon her having these unrealistic abilities. I would make the story focus instead on her own path, struggles and overcoming of at least one obstacle so that she is depicted as more realistic and human. This would prevent male viewers from loathing her, which would prevent others from attacking the viewers and accusing them of being sexist. It would cut out that whole negative loop of negative emotion and unfair judgments.