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ziq wrote (edited )

She’s not presented as women are usually presented– from the straight male characters’ point of view, as a proxy for the straight male audience members’ point of view. Forthright, awkward, brilliant Rose Tico is presented as a real, well-rounded person exactly the way we portray male characters. For a woman of color in a mainstream film, this is remarkable.

Because she wasn’t shown through Finn’s point of view, the subplot didn’t then become about Finn trying to “win” her, making it feel pointless to people who see a male/female pairing and expect that dynamic. Instead of seeing it as “buddies race against the clock while facing impossible odds,” a very common trope even just in Star Wars films alone (GET THAT SHIELD DOWN), they saw it as a pointless diversion. If Rose had been a male character, this subplot would have gone as unremarked as every other time it’s been used in decades of filmmaking. Because she’s a woman who isn’t presented as an event in the life of a man, she’s everything from a flaw in the filmmaking to an affront to fragile masculinity.

I'm finally starting to understand where all the outrage over this character is coming from. Smh.

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