Star Wars: The Force Awakens Film Review

1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is an action-packed science fiction movie that perfectly fits the criteria for the Bechdel test. This is evidenced by the fact that the main protagonist is, herself, a young woman named Rey who is as skilled with a lightsaber as she is with a blaster. She has a relationship with one of the male characters, but any evidence of romance is not explored, as their relationship seems platonic for now. She also talks to two female characters about something besides their feelings for male characters. The main protagonist talks to a three-thousand-year-old alien woman named Maz Kanata about the nature of the Force after touching a lightsaber and having a vision of the future, or the past. She is also a brave, strong, and independent woman whose intelligence and precociousness is one of her defining features. She also demonstrates a dislike of being dragged by the hand by another man as though she couldn't handle herself. Thus, this movie also meets my personal criteria for an anti-gender bias movie.

2. My film test uses the following criteria to see if it is non-biased.

  • There is more than one named female character in the movie.
  • At least one of the female characters is a strong, proud, brave, independent woman who isn't content with being a background prop.
  • At least one of the female characters is someone who is every intelligent and doesn't exemplify the "women are intellectually inferior to men" cliche.

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