![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Apparently I need a TV Star Wars tag
Okay, first of all, we finished The Mandalorian tonight and I really enjoyed it, but I just gotta say -
I have literally never seen a female character like Cara Dune on TV before.
This is Cara Dune, and Gina Carano, the actress and MMA fighter who plays her:
You almost never see this body type on a female character who is portrayed as a physical badass. It's the wrestler/weightlifter kind of physical toughness, on a frame that carries some extra weight as well. It's not that you never see female characters who are not extremely thin, but it's just so incredibly rare to see live-action female characters who are built like tanks in a way that's portrayed as an asset. And I mean, I can even think of a few of those, including some of Gina Carano's past roles (she was in Deadpool, for example), or Topaz in Thor: Ragnarok. But, like most female characters with an atypical physical look, they're generally antagonists and background characters. They're around to menace the protagonists and to eventually be defeated or disappear or die.
And Cara is the main female lead - which, okay, only means she's in three episodes, but they're good episodes, and she's front and center. She's a fully developed character; she has an entire past, she's brave and resourceful and gentle and kind and loving, as well as fierce and angry and tough. And she lived!
... and I mean, she's utterly gorgeous! She's just gorgeous in a way that Hollywood never, ever allows a major female character to be. I just. I was LIVING for every time she was onscreen. I could stare at her arms forever. And I really, truly loved her as a character as well. I think she still would've been my favorite (well, okay, as well as Baby Yoda) if she'd looked like the way we usually expect a Female Space Marine to look, but then they did this and, yeah. She's a Space Marine who actually looks like a fucking Space Marine. Don't ruin this in season 2, show, please.
There were definitely times when this show frustrated me with the setup of its gender roles, but I will forgive it a lot for giving me Cara Dune.
.... And for giving Cara Dune to Gina Carano, for that matter. I just read a really touching interview in which she talks about how she thought the only way she'd ever get to be in Star Wars was as a Wookiee. This is the first time she's ever gotten to have a mult-faceted lead role, in a role that Jon Favreau wrote especially for her.
She also has action figures! (I mean, given that it's a fairly major Star Wars role, I would be very disappointed if she didn't, but YOU NEVER KNOW and I'm pleased that the Disney merchandising machine managed not to live down to my lowest expectations in this case, and also that the action figure actually looks like her.)
So anyway, in conclusion, Cara Dune is the best and I think her action figure might need to hang out with my Defenders action figures in an unlikely and yet not completely copyright-implausible Disneyverse crossover.
I have literally never seen a female character like Cara Dune on TV before.
This is Cara Dune, and Gina Carano, the actress and MMA fighter who plays her:
You almost never see this body type on a female character who is portrayed as a physical badass. It's the wrestler/weightlifter kind of physical toughness, on a frame that carries some extra weight as well. It's not that you never see female characters who are not extremely thin, but it's just so incredibly rare to see live-action female characters who are built like tanks in a way that's portrayed as an asset. And I mean, I can even think of a few of those, including some of Gina Carano's past roles (she was in Deadpool, for example), or Topaz in Thor: Ragnarok. But, like most female characters with an atypical physical look, they're generally antagonists and background characters. They're around to menace the protagonists and to eventually be defeated or disappear or die.
And Cara is the main female lead - which, okay, only means she's in three episodes, but they're good episodes, and she's front and center. She's a fully developed character; she has an entire past, she's brave and resourceful and gentle and kind and loving, as well as fierce and angry and tough. And she lived!
... and I mean, she's utterly gorgeous! She's just gorgeous in a way that Hollywood never, ever allows a major female character to be. I just. I was LIVING for every time she was onscreen. I could stare at her arms forever. And I really, truly loved her as a character as well. I think she still would've been my favorite (well, okay, as well as Baby Yoda) if she'd looked like the way we usually expect a Female Space Marine to look, but then they did this and, yeah. She's a Space Marine who actually looks like a fucking Space Marine. Don't ruin this in season 2, show, please.
There were definitely times when this show frustrated me with the setup of its gender roles, but I will forgive it a lot for giving me Cara Dune.
.... And for giving Cara Dune to Gina Carano, for that matter. I just read a really touching interview in which she talks about how she thought the only way she'd ever get to be in Star Wars was as a Wookiee. This is the first time she's ever gotten to have a mult-faceted lead role, in a role that Jon Favreau wrote especially for her.
She also has action figures! (I mean, given that it's a fairly major Star Wars role, I would be very disappointed if she didn't, but YOU NEVER KNOW and I'm pleased that the Disney merchandising machine managed not to live down to my lowest expectations in this case, and also that the action figure actually looks like her.)
So anyway, in conclusion, Cara Dune is the best and I think her action figure might need to hang out with my Defenders action figures in an unlikely and yet not completely copyright-implausible Disneyverse crossover.
no subject
no subject
It's not without flaws, and the amount of enjoyment you get out of it might depend on how much you enjoy westerns, because it is drawing VERY heavily on spaghetti western tropes. But you can also just watch her episodes (4, 7, and 8) and get most of the plot that way.
no subject