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Mothers, Daughters, Rebels: Women's Bodies in Star Wars

Aikaterini‐Maria Lakka

A fierce politician who advocates peaceful negotiations yet is ready to defend herself and her loved ones when necessary, Padmé Amidala could be described as a feminist figure, at least in the first two prequel films, where she addresses the galactic Senate, forms an alliance with the Gungans, and brandishes a blaster. Revenge of the Sith (ROTS) tells a different tale. The plot revolving around Padmé's pregnancy and political career parallels Anakin's turn to the dark side, but it gets less screen time than it was initially supposed to in the theatrical cut. In his introduction to the deleted scenes of Padmé's involvement with the nascent Rebel Alliance, George Lucas comments that it was with “deep regret” that he had to let this whole subplot go, but he wanted Anakin's fall from grace to be the film's focus. Feminist criticisms of ROTS have pointed out that her character was thereby reduced to the stereotypical role of the mother, her function limited to giving birth to the twins1 and naming them.2

This chapter will examine Padmé's portrayal in ROTS through feminist philosophy, looking into the ways her character changed over the prequel trilogy. In order to explore how Padmé's pregnancy influenced her storyline, we'll employ feminist theories that study motherhood in regard to both the pregnant individual and social structures. Afterwards, we'll delve into the abusive nature of Padmé's relationship with Anakin, discussing how his anger and jealously contributed to her death.3

“I'm a Senator”: Padmé's Journey in the Prequels

ROTS brings Anakin Skywalker's character arc full circle, putting together all the missing pieces of the Darth Vader puzzle. Fans finally got to experience the young, promising Jedi's fall from grace in a spectacle that explored how Anakin, manipulated by Palpatine, surrendered to the dark side of the Force and became the infamous man behind the obsidian mask. It's no wonder that ROTS is considered the best of the prequels, since all the figures of the classical drama are here: the tragic hero, torn between his morally questionable quest for power and his duty to the Jedi Order; the corrupt politician planning to turn a democracy into an empire; the mentor who failed to instill the Jedi way in his former apprentice; and the love interest who dies in childbirth. The movie ends with Darth Vader having completely given in to his anger and despair caused by Padmé's death, unaware that his children, Luke and Leia, are safely hidden.

In Return of the Jedi, Leia tells Luke that she remembers their mother. “She was very beautiful, kind, but sad,” she claims, implying that Darth Vader's partner was in hiding with Leia and her adoptive family on Alderaan. ROTS tells a completely different story, with Padmé dying moments after giving birth to the twins. Fans have provided their own interpretations of why Leia remembers Padmé, but the questions surrounding Padmé's death do not stop there.4 Did she die of a broken heart? Had the medical robot, who informed Obi‐Wan, Yoda, and Bail Organa that “medically” she was “completely healthy,” failed to run the tests that might've diagnosed a brain injury caused by Anakin's violence? It's worth noting that ROTS's novelization and the comic book version both describe a more violent sequence, presumably based on an earlier version of the script, in which Anakin not only Force‐chokes Padmé but then dashes her against the wall.5 Or did Palpatine transfer Padmé's lifeforce to Darth Vader to save him, just as Ben Solo transferred his lifeforce to save Rey in The Rise of Skywalker (TROS)? This theory is supported by the sequence alternating between the twins' birth and Anakin's transformation.6

For any female or femme Star Wars fan, Padmé's destiny seems to be a big disappointment, and rightfully so. As Jeanne Cavelos notes, instead of becoming “a greater adversary to Palpatine,” a politician capable of revealing his authoritarian plans and protecting the Republic, Padmé is shown spending time alone in her luxurious apartment, worrying solely about Anakin, and revealing a passive side incoherent with her portrayal in the previous two movies.7 Of course, her professed love for Anakin since Attack of the Clones (AOTC) is already difficult to understand. The young Jedi had already expressed some worrisome (and meme‐worthy) opinions favoring dictatorship that Padmé diminishes by laughing them off. After he murders a group of Tusken Raiders, Anakin projects his own superiority complex – presumably trying to forget he was once a slave himself – by exclaiming, “They're like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals!” Instead of walking out on him, Padmé comforts him, failing to abandon him even after he proclaims his vision of complete power and declaring that he'll save the ones he loves from dying, defying the natural course of life.8

Anakin's fear of death and loss is completely antithetical to Yoda's mindset in Return of the Jedi (ROTJ), where, moments before dying, he peacefully tells Luke that death “is the way of things. The way of the Force.” Not heeding the wisdom of his first teacher, Qui‐Gon Jinn, Anakin never manages to mindfully ponder the present moment, nor accept the way of the Force when it's contrary to his wishes.9 In ROTS, Padmé becomes the object of his fixation with immortality, something that only adds to her passive portrayal throughout the movie. Not only is she depicted as the reason Anakin joins the dark side, but she's unable to convince him to return to the light, and, at the end, dies, her last words being about him and not about her newborn twins: “Obi‐Wan, there's good in him.” Although her final lines mirror Luke's belief that there's still good in Darth Vader in ROTJ, they are contrary to her independent attitude in the previous two movies when she repeatedly tells Anakin that they do not need each other and that she's perfectly capable of continuing to be her own person.

A Tale of Fathers and Sons, but Someone Has to Bear Them First

In the home video extra features and documentaries for ROTS, Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid observes how the Star Wars movies tell the tale of two generations of male heroes: “If you wanted a subtitle for these movies, it could be ‘Fathers and Sons.’” Palpatine and Obi‐Wan function as father figures for Anakin throughout his temptations to the dark side. Luke's journey echoes that of Oedipus – who killed his father, then married his mother – enduring the consequences of the nemesis to his hubris when he decides to confront Vader too soon in The Empire Strikes Back. However, unlike Oedipus, Luke's ignorance does not get him in more trouble than this; it is Vader himself who's committed the most serious acts of hubris. The fact that Luke must ultimately face his father reflects the influence of Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) on George Lucas.

Padmé's role in ROTS shows the ways in which Star Wars focuses primarily on fathers and sons. She's a senator in title only, her political voice limited to a handful of lines, the fiercest of which is her observation: “So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.” If it were not for Palpatine's pivotal role in Anakin's story, even this scene would seem out of context, since Padmé spends almost the entire movie inside her apartment, crying or worrying over Anakin. One of her worries is especially troubling: “This baby will change our lives,” she says to Anakin. “I doubt the Queen will continue to allow me to serve in the Senate. And if the Council discovers you’re the father, you'll be expelled.” And while we can easily understand how Anakin could risk expulsion from the Order for secretly marrying and having kids, it's Padmé's mention of the Queen of Naboo that strikes a nerve. Why would she be forced out of her political career for becoming a mother? Has the Star Wars galaxy failed to create welfare benefits for working moms at a time when many of the movies' fans have access to paid parental leave?

In a seminal work of twentieth‐century feminism, The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) discusses how women in literary and mythological traditions are represented as either “devilish” or “angelic,” two opposite poles both linked to motherhood.10 More specifically, Beauvoir studies how women are thought to have a good side, flowing from motherhood, and a bad one, related to sexuality: the Mother is “devoted,” whereas the Mistress is “perfidious.”11 According to the patriarchal narratives Beauvoir studies, a woman is good so long as she decides to become a mother and to concentrate on that; the sexual act should not serve as a source of pleasure, but only as a means to pregnancy. Since a cisgender woman is expected to be able to bear children, she's automatically “related to nature, she incarnates it,” her growing belly being a parallel to the spring blossoms.12 Beauvoir mentions how a woman, at least up until her time, was usually expected – in literature and in life – to “give up all personal transcendence and confine herself to furthering that of her male.”13 Her existence was, therefore, reduced to childbearing and playing the role of caretaker within a community.

Influenced by Beauvoir's works and by Marxism, Silvia Federici observes how women's unpaid labor at home has contributed to the accumulation of wealth for men in modern capitalist societies, as well as to gender‐based discrimination against women in the workforce.14 Even though Padmé is quite privileged, living among the most privileged beings of the galaxy and having a protocol droid tending to her every need, in ROTS she incarnates the stereotype of the pregnant woman gradually being transformed into a stay‐at‐home mom. Almost every time we see her, with a few exceptions including her Senate service, Padmé is inside her luxurious apartment with C‐3PO as her only company. Her handmaiden from AOTC, Dormé, is nowhere to be seen. Has her salary been cut due to war expenses? Or has Anakin's jealousy forced her to isolate herself from her friends and family?

In the deleted scenes for ROTS, Padmé is seen in the Senate, actively campaigning for the Petition of the 2000 and participating, along with Mom Mothma, another strong female character we do not get to see in ROTS's theatrical cut, in the creation of the Rebel Alliance. When she finally presents the Petition to Palpatine, Anakin silently observes, without supporting her cause, and Padmé seems annoyed. This reaction is quite different from the reactions she has in the first half of the theatrical cut, where her role is strictly connected to Anakin seeking help from Palpatine.

Her passiveness could also be stressed, according to Diana Dominguez, because she gives birth to the twins in “a supreme form of martyrdom” but also out “of selfishness,” since she dies of a broken heart, not caring enough to raise her children.15 However, even if we accept that Padmé did die of a broken heart, it's not at all certain that her will to raise her children would have sufficed for her to survive and be medically healthy. Considering her death “selfish” or “selfless” does not really bring anything to the table other than a criticism, echoing the (false and potentially dangerous) conviction that an individual has complete power over their body and health. In the case of a woman dying in childbirth, such criticism could also take the form of “mom‐shaming.” Many patriarchal narratives would certainly see in Padmé's death a form of martyrdom, or a self‐sacrifice; after all, the Christian canon promises immediate entry to Heaven to any baptized woman who sacrifices herself in childbirth in order for her newborn(s) to survive.16

Padmé's stereotypical representation as simply a mother‐to‐be throughout ROTS is highlighted through the transformation her body undergoes and her fashion choices, notably different than in the previous films. Padmé's blue nightgown in particular reveals that she spends more time at home than anywhere else. Feminist philosophers might see Padmé's body in ROTS fitting into a patriarchal narrative that links childbirth to the rebirth of nature every spring. By the end of the film, her task has been completed, and, like the fallen autumn leaves, she does not serve any further purpose. She dies, leaving audiences wondering how Leia could've ever remembered her. Judith Butler, in her book Gender Trouble (1990), studies the mother's separation from the girl‐child. Relying on the work of feminist Julia Kristeva, Butler says that the moment a woman gives birth she becomes her own mother, performing a specific role within a continuity of childbearing. Butler observes that the separation between the mother and the girl‐child “is never fully completed,” resulting in melancholy for both.17 Since Padmé's dead, we can only guess that Leia has sensed through the Force this very melancholy of separation, her own burden of becoming a woman within a patriarchal society.

“It Seems, in Your Anger, You Killed Her”

“You're not all‐powerful, Ani,” Padmé warns in AOTC, while Anakin is mourning his mother's death. “Someday I will be,” he replies, eyes glazed with anger, fists clenched, mouth trembling. “I will be the most powerful Jedi ever. I promise you. I will even learn to stop people from dying.” Soon he realizes how un‐Jedi‐like his behavior is and rushes to blame another for his anger: “It's all Obi‐Wan's fault! He's jealous! He's holding me back!” It's not the first time Anakin's anger management issues become physical and certainly not the last. Overall, his behavior could easily be called “abusive.” Again, Lucas may have been inspired by mythological and literary tradition: rage has been one of the predominant themes in storytelling ever since the Iliad, where Achilles's anger drives the plot and changes the course of events for both armies fighting the 10‐year war. In Shakespeare's Othello, the titular character, blinded by his anger and jealousy, chokes his wife, Desdemona, to death after accusing her of adultery.

Anakin also chokes Padmé using the Force. His violent act probably puts her life in danger, making it necessary for the medical robots to rush to induce the delivery of the twins. Like Othello, Anakin accuses Padmé of adultery, since he believes she's having an affair with Obi‐Wan, or at the very least has been colluding with him. This is specifically implied in his question “Because of Obi‐Wan?” when Padmé says she cannot follow him down the path he's chosen. In Anakin's mind, his wife seems like a possession that his former mentor took away from him. Anakin's jealously is not restricted to Obi‐Wan. In The Clone Wars Anakin believes Padmé is cheating on him with her ex‐boyfriend, Clovis.18 He asks her to step down as senator in the episode “An Old Friend” before beating Clovis in “Rise of Clovis.”

In ROTS, Anakin seems irritated when he senses that Obi‐Wan has been to Padmé's apartment: visions of her dying in childbirth and Obi‐Wan being there for her flood his mind. “Obi‐Wan's been here, has not he?” he asks, not in a casual fashion, but as if interrogating his wife. Padmé responds by caressing him, attempting to ease his irritation with physical contact, before stressing that Obi‐Wan is worried about him. At this point, Padmé's logical take on things could've helped Anakin realize that part of the problem stems from himself, his anger management issues and irrational jealousy. By the time Padmé confronts him on Mustafar, he's become a mass murderer who cannot be talked back into reason. Instead of admitting his crimes, Anakin tries to manipulate Padmé into believing that Obi‐Wan is jealous of their relationship. Like elsewhere, Padmé repeats that the only thing she needs is his love, but he insists, “Love cannot save you, Padmé. Only my new powers can do that.” Anakin becomes more and more delusional, ignoring Padmé's words and refusing to engage in dialogue. Once more his authoritarian opinions take the lead when he asks her to rule the galaxy with him, so that they can “make things the way we want them to be.” When he becomes aware of Obi‐Wan's presence, he uses the Force to choke Padmé, calling her a liar, and leaving her unconscious.

The scenes on Mustafar illustrate the abusiveness in Anakin and Padmé's relationship. Anakin constantly directs his anger against her, is controlling, and is not open to honest, equal communication, despite her best efforts. Padmé's left feeling responsible for his anger and violence and constantly tries to console him, apologizing for everything, and assuming the caregiver role that patriarchal societies have traditionally assigned to women.19 Beauvoir describes heterosexual marriage within the patriarchy as a form of “imperialism” that the husband imposes on the wife. He demands to be admired, viewing every small step of hers that smacks of independence as an act of rebellion that must be suppressed.20

Maybe Palpatine does not lie after all when he tells Darth Vader, “It seems, in your anger, you killed her.” In the original trilogy, the Force choke was Vader's favorite way to kill off anyone who disappointed him, disobeyed his orders, or whose lack of faith he found disturbing. Maybe Padmé held on just long enough for the twins to be born, then succumbed to her injuries. Padmé's death could be a feminicide – the murder not just of a woman, but of a woman as a woman, the result of an abusive patriarchal relationship, of a husband's anger and his need for absolute power.

A New Hope? Inclusive Representation in the Galaxy

Padmé's story in ROTS's theatrical cut is marked primarily by her abusive relationship with Anakin, whose anger is often directed against her. When she becomes pregnant, the story focuses more on her stereotypical role as a mother‐to‐be and less on her heroic deeds that contribute to the creation of the Rebel Alliance. Had the deleted scenes where she discusses the need to resist Palpatine and his authoritarian turn with the nascent Rebel leaders been included in the theatrical cut, we'd be speaking of a quite different film with quite different character development.

Nowadays, the #MeToo movement stresses the need for inclusive representation in the film industry, and the Star Wars saga is no exception. Since ROTS, the sequel trilogy has introduced a female protagonist, Rey, whose storyline does not revolve around her love interests (at least not until the very end of TROS). Ahsoka Tano has become a fan favorite as a formidable Jedi turned rogue warrior for justice. Rose Tico persuaded Finn to go with her on a mission to save the Resistance, and if not for Jyn Erso's dedication and fierceness Luke Skywalker could never have destroyed the Death Star. The various television series and anthology movies have introduced the possibility for more female, femme, and queer characters, as well as for more BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) representation.21 At the end of the day, the galaxy is vast enough for us to enjoy stories about all these diverse kinds of people, not just those about the Skywalker family.

Notes

  1. 1 See, for example, Jeanne Cavelos, “Stop Her, She's Got a Gun! How the Rebel Princess and the Virgin Queen Became Marginalized and Powerless in George Lucas’s Fairy Tale,” in David Brin and Matthew Woodring Stover, eds., Star Wars on Trial (Dallas: Benbella Books, 2006), 305–327; Veronica A. Wilson, “Seduced by the Dark Side of the Force: Gender, Sexuality, and Moral Agency in George Lucas's Star Wars Universe,” in Carl Silvio and Tony M. Vinci, eds., Culture, Identities, and Technology in the Star Wars Films: Essays on the Two Trilogies (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007), 134–152; and Carolyn Cocca, Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 101.
  2. 2 Megen de Bruin‐Mole, “Space Bitches, Witches, and Kick‐Ass Princesses Star Wars and Popular Feminism,” in Sean Guynes and Dan Hassler‐Forest, eds., Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017), 230.
  3. 3 For another feminist perspective on Padmé's pregnancy, see Cole Bowman, “Pregnant Padmé and Slave Leia: Star Wars’ Female Role Models,” in Jason T. Eberl and Kevin S. Decker, eds., The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy: You Must Unlearn What You Have Learned (Malden, MA: Wiley‐Blackwell, 2015), 161–171.
  4. 4 There have been many theories all over the Internet on why Leia remembers Padmé, ranging from her Force sensitivity to Sabé having joined forces with the Rebel Alliance and being present in Leia's upbringing. See for example Eirenical's post: http://eirenical17.wordpress.com/tag/and‐the‐whole‐eyes‐openeye‐closed‐force‐using‐thing‐is‐actually‐pretty‐cool (accessed January 6, 2022); and Thomas Bacon's analysis on Screen Rant: https://screenrant.com/star‐wars‐leia‐remember‐padme‐why‐book (accessed January 6, 2022).
  5. 5 See the analysis on Padawanlost: https://padawanlost.tumblr.com/post/173031258845/i‐have‐a‐morbid‐question‐to‐ask‐you‐what‐is‐the (accessed January 6, 2022).
  6. 6 For a more in‐depth analysis of this theory, see C.J. Hawkings's piece on Fansided: https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2019/07/08/star‐wars‐theory‐palpatine‐padme‐death (accessed January 6, 2022).
  7. 7 Cavelos, “Stop her, She's Got a Gun!,” 318.
  8. 8 Ibid., 320.
  9. 9 For further discussion of Qui‐Gon's example as a portrayal of Daoism, see Russell Johnson's chapter in this volume (Chapter 1).
  10. 10 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H.M. Parshley (London: Jonathan Cape, 1953), 206–207.
  11. 11 Ibid., 206.
  12. 12 Ibid., 256.
  13. 13 Ibid., 256.
  14. 14 Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (Williamsburg, NY: Autonomedia, 2004), 94–95.
  15. 15 Diana Dominguez, “Feminism and the Force: Empowerment and Disillusionment in a Galaxy Far, Far Away,” in Silvio and Vinci, Culture, Identities, and Technology, 123.
  16. 16 Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 141.
  17. 17 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999), 107.
  18. 18 Cocca, Superwomen, 101.
  19. 19 Cocca, Superwomen, 110; Federici, Caliban and the Witch, 80.
  20. 20 Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 450–451.
  21. 21 For further discussion of representation in The Force Awakens and other latter‐day Star Wars incarnations, see Edwardo Pérez's chapter in this volume (Chapter 26).