Editorial: Celebrating International Women’s Day With the Incredible Female Creators Behind ‘Star Wars’
It’s International Women’s Day, and it’s time to make the yearly tribute. I found this article surprisingly difficult to write. What to say that hasn’t already been said? Reiterating each year that it’s frustratingly inaccurate for Star Wars to be generally perceived as a ‘boys’ thing’ isn’t going to change the fact that it can be nerve-wracking going to trivia nights in sports bars full of men, or posting in online forums with your female-presenting profile picture on display. It can be hard seeing female Star Wars characters you like be despised or sexualised, when all you want to do is enjoy the universe with like-minded folk.
I’d much rather celebrate the incredible women who have made Star Wars what it is today, both credited and uncredited.
Starting off with the one and only queen of science fiction, Leigh Brackett, the little known co-screenwriter of Empire Strikes Back. She was responsible for writing the original script before she sadly passed away due to cancer, and the screenplay was taken over by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. She is the only woman to have been credited with writing or directing a Star Wars film.
Moving on to a much more subtle, but significant contributor, Gloria Katz – a screenwriter and friend of George Lucas who helped to improve the dialogue for the first film. She and her husband worked on doctoring around a third of the script at the request of Lucas himself.
And of course, Marcia Lucas, who won an Academy Award for Best Editing as a result of her work on A New Hope. She went on to edit the rest of the original trilogy films, but was uncredited for her work on Return of the Jedi.
In the Disney era of Star Wars, Carrie Beck, Rayne Roberts and Diana Williams are all creative executives at Lucasfilm who have contributed to several different Star Wars projects, including the animated series, sequel trilogy and immersive VR experiences. They have been on the forefront of Star Wars storytelling through new technologies.
Cynthia Martin, Adriana Melo, Jan Duursema, Delilah S. Dawson, Claudia Gray, and Beth Revis are just some of the incredible women who have written, created, or illustrated comics and novels set within the Star Wars universe. From Martin’s work on the Marvel Comics Star Wars in the late 1980s all the way to Claudia Gray’s The Fallen Star (The High Republic), women have been responsible for the galaxy far, far away in print as well as on screen.
It would be remiss to not acknowledge the more recent achievements made via the highly anticipated collection of Disney Plus live-action series. Bryce Dallas Howard has directed some of our favorite Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett episodes, Obi-Wan Kenobi was the result of Deborah Chow’s wonderfully executed vision and Leslye Headland is at the helm of the yet-to-release Acolyte series we are all waiting on with bated breath. (All of these people are women in case any of you missed the theme here.)
And there are so many more who deserve our recognition. I will continue to watch on with awe (and a twinge of envy!) as more female creators join the behind the scenes world that makes Star Wars so special. They are truly living the dream, and represent keystones in this grand architecture of content that we are lucky enough to experience.
Rosalie Lambert is a law student from Australia with a deep love for Star Wars, fantasy, and epic stylistic storytelling. Growing up in the country, Rosalie has always loved nature and outdoor activities, and has a passion for human rights and social justice that she wants to work towards in her field of study.
