Summer, 1983. All the kids in my exurban Minneapolis neighborhood are crazy for "Return of the Jedi." We spend the summer hooting like Ewoks and battling with our lightsaber branches.
One day we gather in a friend's backyard to role-play our favorite "Star Wars" characters.
My older sister Stacy and I are the token girls in this clique. Just 11 years old, Stacy is doe-eyed and beautiful, already attracting male attention with her cascading brunette locks. She's also an expert with the hairbrush. She can easily twist her hair into Princess Leia buns. Or achieve the more complicated rope braid from "Return of the Jedi."
I don't even argue. Stacy gets to be Leia. Obviously. Of course.
"There's another woman in the movie," offers my sister. "You can be Mon Mothma."
Huh? I hardly remember another female character. Turns out, she appeared in "Return of the Jedi" for all of two minutes.
We are gender essentialists, my friends and me. Even though I'm a 7-year-old tomboy with a tricked-out BMX bicycle tossed nearby, I have zero interest in playing one of the many male "Star Wars" characters. Someone suggests C-3PO, and I'm quick to decline. R2-D2? I need to stop and think about that one. But, in the end, a "bubbly girl" (as my parents call me) isn't interested in playing a mechanical droid.
Here's the other thing about the 7-year-old me, the thing that marks me as special. In contrast with my sister, my hair is a perfect globe of light-brown frizz. My curly hair is the first thing people notice about me. Wherever I go in my predominantly white, Christian community, they constantly inquire about my ethnic heritage. They constantly ask whether they can touch my curious hair.
I'm a pretty tough kid, though. It doesn't bother me too much. I'm naturally outgoing, friendly, perhaps even popular in my elementary school. When I do get teased, however, it's always about the hair. Kids in the neighborhood call me "Bush," "Q-Tip" or "Fuzzy."
I don't remember how, I don't remember who, but we're standing in the backyard when someone unearths a certain line from "The Empire Strikes Back." Remember? Han Solo is bickering with Princess Leia when he turns to Chewbacca and says: "Laugh it up, Fuzzball."
And suddenly the Wookie character is thrust upon me. "You can play Chewbacca!" squeals one of the boys. In my memory, he's missing a tooth and wielding an enormous branch from a red maple tree.
Now all the boys are laughing, gurgling like Chewbacca and demanding I do the same.
Then another lightsaber duel ensues, and I'm able to slip away. And from this day, I swear, I disappear every time someone mentions "Star Wars."
It isn't easy. I come from a family of "Star Wars" obsessives. My sister owns the full set of action figures, a toy landspeeder, a tauntaun. My parents took me to see "The Empire Strikes Back" when I was just 4. We saw "Return of the Jedi" repeatedly during the summer of 1983.
But I'm not interested in "Star Wars" anymore. There's nothing in those movies for girls like me.
Rey to the rescue
Decades later, I married a "Star Wars" nut whose fanaticism rivals my sister's. Like a lot of Gen X dads, he's eager to share his pop culture obsessions with his child. He taught our daughter about the leitmotifs in the John Williams score. He quizzes her on the lineage of the various characters.
My husband hasn't taken our 4-year-old daughter to see "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," but he has exhausted considerable energy selecting age-appropriate clips from older "Star Wars" movies.
An outgoing girl with a taste for adventure, our daughter adores any scene featuring Princess Leia or Rey. And someday, when we allow her "Star Wars" universe to expand, I'm sure she'll have similar affections for Jyn Erso. (I like to think she'll share my distaste for Queen Amidala.)
Am I saying Hollywood sexism has been solved by the evolving "Star Wars" franchise? Definitely not. I'm simply pleased my daughter can choose from an array of intergalactic role models. I'm pleased the "Star Wars" universe has expanded to include more than one strong woman.
"Mommy, who do you want to be?" asks my daughter one evening as we crack her Little Golden "Star Wars" book.
"I want to be Princess Leia," I answer, stubbornly. Certain wounds never heal.
"OK," she says contentedly. "I get to be Rey."
Christy DeSmith • 612-673-1754
