Star Wars: Should Dee Rees become the next director?

Dee Rees has Carey Mulligan supporting her when it comes to directing for Star Wars; should she become the first woman to direct for this major franchise?

In the past week or so, a few new names have made their way onto the list of “women who have been tied, somehow, to directing Star Wars.” Earlier this week, it was Reed Morano. Now, according to Variety, it’s Dee Rees — although it’s not Rees herself who’s making the call, but rather Carey Mulligan.

And, well, Mulligan put it in some pretty certain terms: “If Dee Rees was a white man she’d be directing the next Star Wars, she’d be nominated for an Oscar without question.”

Variety carefully points out that Kathleen Kennedy has spoken about getting a woman to direct Star Wars before — and yet, here we are, staring down a slate that doesn’t have any women attached. Dee Rees is more than capable. Ava DuVernay is more than capable (and I’d bet that she’s a frontrunner because of her work with Disney). Greta Gerwig and Patty Jenkins, who are both namechecked in the article, are more than capable. Anna Boden, who’s directing Captain Marvel, is more than capable. Reed Morano is more than capable.

At some point, Star Wars will have to have a female director, and it’s a shame we’ve taken this long to get even rumblings about a possibility. Maybe it’ll even be for that Obi-Wan movie we keep hearing things about. Rees’ aesthetic, at least what we see in Mudbound, might not be a bad fit, since the speculation still is that it would be a movie dealing with Obi-Wan’s time on Tatooine.

Ultimately, while a woman should direct spinoffs focusing on women, the earliest chance we appear to have is for the Obi-Wan Kenobi film, and women shouldn’t just get to direct films that focus on female characters. That really shouldn’t be a radical statement, but it feels a bit like it is when it comes to this franchise, and that’s a problem.

Next: 5 things we want to be erased from Star Wars canon instead of The Last Jedi

To answer the question asked at the start of this article, yes, Dee Rees should be the next director — but she’s not the only woman, or even woman of color, who should. There are plenty of capable women, and if we can give directors like Rian Johnson a chance, then we can give a woman a chance with this beloved franchise.