Colin Hanks and his adorbs daughter perfectly explain why ‘Star Wars’ needs more female characters
Who doesn’t want to own some sweet Princess Leia merchandise, right? I’d love some Leia merch, I’m sure you’d love some Leia merch, but let’s be honest; Leia swag is hard to find. Actually, it’s basically impossible to find. I’ve hunted for it with less than stellar results, and now so too have Colin Hanks and his 4-year old daughter, Olivia. Listen up, everyone, because Olivia is wise beyond her years and dropping major truth bombs about the reality of toys today, and Princess Leia, and what a girl wants.
As Hanks — son of Tom, star of Orange County and Fargo — shares on his Instagram, he and Olivia recently watched Star Wars: A New Hope together. Olivia loved it, because she’s a girl after our own heart. She especially liked Leia, and kept on asking her dad where she was whenever Leia went off screen. A few days later, they continued their Star Wars viewing with Empire Strikes Back, and immediately Olivia noticed something alarming. As she told her pops, “It’s so tiring watching these movies. It’s always boys, boys, boys and there’s only one girl.” PREACH IT, OLIVIA.
Hanks, who was super proud of Olivia for noticing this, and decided it was time to take her to Toys “R” Us and get some Leia toys of her own so she could hang with Leia whenever she wanted. One thing, though — the only Leia toy around was golden-bikini clad “Slave Leia” from Return of the Jedi, and um, TBH no girl wants to play with Slave Leia.
Why can’t there be Masquerading Bounty Hunter Leia Who Frees Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, huh?
Once again, (as Colin and Olivia found out) a female character sadly falls by the wayside in favor of “boy toys” — even the lightsabers were in “the boys section” of the store. Check out Hanks’ whole illuminating Instagram post on the experience:
At the end of his post, Hanks mentions that Star Wars‘ new director, J.J. Abrams might be the only hope for more female characters (and he says it by echoing a Princess Leia line from the film). Now, we second that notion. Can we get some new awesome female characters? How about some non-slave Leia toys? And while we’re at it, let’s also get a bunch of toys from The Force Awakens for Daisy Ridley, Lupita Nyong’o, and Gwendoline Christie’s characters, too? Thanks in advance. And mega hat tip to Olivia, for being a 4-year-old with a totally girl power POV.
Images via here.
