Star Wars: In defense (and praise) of Kathleen Kennedy

It’s not easy being one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, so sometimes, Kathleen Kennedy will need to make the hard choices for us Star Wars fans.

Fact: Women constantly face an uphill battle in the workplace. They are constantly underestimated as their opinions are pushed aside. It’s especially difficult in a corporate setting when all eyes are on you and you carry the fate of the galaxy in your hands.

Star Wars is a massive machine. Just look under the hood of your car and take inventory of all the moving parts. Then, imagine that there a hundred more that you can’t even see. When you go to the movies, you sit down, watch, and enjoy. But it takes a lot to get the movie from the idea room at the studio to the audience. Everyone hopes for a seamless, easy experience when creating a movie, obviously.

Kathleen Kennedy’s job is to oversee all the moving parts of the saga films, the standalones, the games, the books, the TV shows … if it comes from Lucasfilm, it falls to her. Do I really have to sit here and explain what a massive responsibility that is?

So when things fail to go according to plan, it’s up to Kennedy to course correct. Now that this is the second time a project has lost its director, we can really see a certain PR prowess at work. And it happens to be a mighty force to behold.

When Lucasfilm kicked Phil Lord and Chris Miller off the Han Solo movie, an “inside source” gave The Hollywood Reporter enough information to cut the directing duo off at the knees. Lucasfilm carefully made it seem as though they’d done everything they could to avoid this step and if any fans were disappointed, they only had Lord and Miller to blame. It was the warning shot heard around the galaxy far, far away.

Then came The Book of Henry, critically panned by all. It forced Kennedy to reevaluate the talent Lucasfilm employed. She looked at all the variables and made the difficult decision. I don’t think she woke up and decided Lucasfilm just needed another debacle.

Unlike Han Solo, news of Trevorrow’s departure hit the internet quietly on a Tuesday afternoon. The official entry on Star Wars‘ website remains only a paragraph. It all comes down to “vision.” By now, we should all know and understand that there is only one vision: a billion dollars at the box office.

To be a powerhouse, you need to sell tickets. You need to get people buzzing about your film. I think Kathleen Kennedy took one look at the trajectory of Episode IX and decided they rather get someone more dependable than to waste time trying to force someone in line.

Directors aren’t puppets, but the fundamental rules apply here. To direct Star Wars, you have to be a team-player, first and foremost; your style has to match previous Star Wars films to a certain degree; and as a director, your film has to appeal to the entire audience—that’s men, women, old, young, and all races. (Those are the qualifiers measured the most in terms of ticket sales.)

When I think about everything that made The Force Awakens so personal for me and how much I enjoyed the tonal shift of Rogue One, I credit a lot of that to Kathleen Kennedy, as we all should. If The Force Awakens went smoothly and made two billion dollars at the box office but Rogue One went less smoothly and still made a billion dollars, what’s the common denominator? Star Wars, right? And who makes the Star Wars world go ’round?

When it comes to new Star Wars films, she has as much going for her as she does going against her. And I refuse to be a participant in the “Maybe the problem wasn’t those directors, but Kathleen Kennedy” narrative. Nowadays, this conversation is toxic. And what’s worse, I can’t believe people rather defend the guy who made Bryce Dallas Howard run around in high heels for two hours than the woman who gave us The Force Awakens.

Or rather, ask yourself this: What other woman has this much power and is forced to sit under the microscope of the fandom? Most people don’t even know the names of other women who are presidents or CEOs in the industry.

She’s doing something that no one else can do and she’s doing it with tact, poise, and vision. If you want Star Wars to endure for years and years, she has to carve out the space to do that and she’s doing it across all forms of media.

We focus so much on the movies because she’s a producer, of course. So go look at her producing credits. Go look at her history in film. Go look how tirelessly she’s worked to get to this position where female characters are more present in Star Wars than they’ve ever been. Or how about how our main trio consists of a woman, a black man, and a Latino right now? If you at any point in time think that Kathleen Kennedy is working against you or trying to keep all the glory for herself, you must think that Star Wars can only be one thing. But for it to be anything, it has to succeed.

And guess what? It needs Kathleen Kennedy to do that. #InKathleenKennedyWeTrust

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