Jenkins borrows a little from the Han Solo archetype: Steve is swashbuckling and funny, but picks up on the vulnerability in that character trope and expands on it. Her love interest, Steve Trevor, displays as much nuance as Diana does. I see the same complexity in Harrison Ford’s performance that so many people saw in Marilyn Monroe’s in Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend-in the second act of A New Hope, his machismo act begins to fall apart, as evidenced in the anxiety-laced interaction with the stormtrooper, and a later moment where he barrels down a hall of the death-star, screaming and shooting his blaster without looking back. White men have been trying a lot, recently, to prove that Star Wars belongs to them and only them, but Han Solo-with his humor, his insecurity, his romance-novel-worthy hair-has always belonged to me. And furthermore, isn’t it kind of antifeminist to shame a woman for taking pleasure in a narrative? It means that of course there are icky elements to Han and Leia’s romance, but there’s also pathos and danger and texture that I’m not willing to give up on just yet. It means that I’m perfectly happy to throw Casablanca, The Searchers, and Pulp Fiction out the window, but it’s kind of different with Star Wars, a piece of art that has influenced not only my writing, but who I am as a person. It means that, as a female-identifying fan and screenwriter, I find myself constantly analyzing my favorite stories and discovering messaging within them that undermine the ideals that I believe in.
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