So why is he pummeling Queen Amidala in the Star Wars March Madness competition?
Fans have been handwringing all day over the inexplicable beating that Padmé is taking against Jar Jar. Twitter has been more or less beside itself:
But not everyone was so quick to join the parade—despite a brief rally earlier in the day, Padmé is trailing further behind than ever. Over on Wookieepedia, where StarWars.com encouraged fans to create their own brackets, the hatred was even more pronounced.As frequently happens with online polls, accusations have abounded that fans on Wookieepedia and 4chan have been running scripts to generate the results they want in the challenge. While the goal may just be to prank the results, it's frustrating to see one of the only two main female characters in the entire franchise be subject to what looks like vote-rigging. So far in this first round, all of the female characters listed except Leia have lost—and she was paired off against another minor female character.
Not only is the message being sent that fans would literally rather vote for a racist stereotype than a female character, but it's coming at the worst possible time. Geek girls are already protesting the lack of women-oriented merchandise for the upcoming franchise reboot.
"It’s important because right now, it looks like no one appreciates or even likes the female characters in [S]tar [W]ars," wrote becauseofloki on Tumblr. "And since this voting is taken at least a little bit seriously, it could mean that we don’t get much more than the few female characters we currently have."Chin up, Star Wars fans. Princess Leia faces off against R2-D2 in the next round, and if there's anything that can send a message that girls in the fandom should be taken seriously, it's watching our favorite overlooked Jedi Knight trounce everyone's favorite droid.
Photo via inacentaurdump/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)