ELLYN TOUCHETTE
If you asked a five year old me what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would’ve said
PADME MOTHERFUCKING AMIDALA.
Queen Amidala does not give a SHIT.
Not about acting like a lady, not about listening
to Jedi, not about the Trade Federation
and their goddamned treaty.
The only things Padme Amidala cares about
are diplomacy and high gotdamn fashion.
I was Queen Amidala for Halloween in 1999.
Pricewise, my costume was about on par
with a small motorcycle, but my glorious geek
of a father cared more about parading
his tiny homemade nets around the culdesac
than he did about Christmas presents or, like, dinner.
My dad did my Halloween makeup that year
and it looked AWESOME. He told me
the red stripe on Queen Amidala’s lip stood
for the suffering she’d endure for her people.
I remember thinking that the kind of ruler
who paints her loyalty on her face in blood
is the kind of woman I wanted to grow up to be.
When Episode One debuted, I was five.
My dad let me believe that Queen Amidala
was the main character for as long as it took
me to realize the most respected political figure
in the galaxy, was a supporting character
for all one hundred and thirty three minutes of disaster
that was The Phantom Menace.
George Lucas, the real menace, had at his pudgy fingertips
the chance to give us one of the most compelling female characters
mainstream science fiction had yet seen.
And he robbed us of her. At no point is it revealed
how Padme was elected democratically
to lead an entire planet at fourteen, an age when most girls
can’t maintain diplomacy with their hormones.
We don’t get a lick of what is undoubtedly
the coolest backstory pretty much ever.
Instead, we get two dudes in a submarine dodging leviathans.
We get forty-five minutes of dudes pod racing.
We get a whiny nine year old dude with
SO MANY MIDICHLORIANS.
No one wanted to be a young Anakin Skywalker for Halloween.
I went as a brilliant, capable, and powerful diplomat
who spent one hundred and thirty-three minutes
taking orders from men, but I felt powerful for the first time
in my short life.
Now, as I recall, although every door opened
for me that night, as I reached for each bowl
of my well-earned reward,
each towering adult told my father
how cute I looked in my dress.
PADME MOTHERFUCKING AMIDALA.
Queen Amidala does not give a SHIT.
Not about acting like a lady, not about listening
to Jedi, not about the Trade Federation
and their goddamned treaty.
The only things Padme Amidala cares about
are diplomacy and high gotdamn fashion.
I was Queen Amidala for Halloween in 1999.
Pricewise, my costume was about on par
with a small motorcycle, but my glorious geek
of a father cared more about parading
his tiny homemade nets around the culdesac
than he did about Christmas presents or, like, dinner.
My dad did my Halloween makeup that year
and it looked AWESOME. He told me
the red stripe on Queen Amidala’s lip stood
for the suffering she’d endure for her people.
I remember thinking that the kind of ruler
who paints her loyalty on her face in blood
is the kind of woman I wanted to grow up to be.
When Episode One debuted, I was five.
My dad let me believe that Queen Amidala
was the main character for as long as it took
me to realize the most respected political figure
in the galaxy, was a supporting character
for all one hundred and thirty three minutes of disaster
that was The Phantom Menace.
George Lucas, the real menace, had at his pudgy fingertips
the chance to give us one of the most compelling female characters
mainstream science fiction had yet seen.
And he robbed us of her. At no point is it revealed
how Padme was elected democratically
to lead an entire planet at fourteen, an age when most girls
can’t maintain diplomacy with their hormones.
We don’t get a lick of what is undoubtedly
the coolest backstory pretty much ever.
Instead, we get two dudes in a submarine dodging leviathans.
We get forty-five minutes of dudes pod racing.
We get a whiny nine year old dude with
SO MANY MIDICHLORIANS.
No one wanted to be a young Anakin Skywalker for Halloween.
I went as a brilliant, capable, and powerful diplomat
who spent one hundred and thirty-three minutes
taking orders from men, but I felt powerful for the first time
in my short life.
Now, as I recall, although every door opened
for me that night, as I reached for each bowl
of my well-earned reward,
each towering adult told my father
how cute I looked in my dress.
Ellyn Touchette is an incorrigible Star Wars devotee from Portland, Maine. Her short pseudophilosophical manifesto The Book of Gene is forthcoming from Freezeray Press in 2015, & her first full-length collection of poetry, The Great Right-Here, is forthcoming in 2016 from University of Hell Press. Some of her most recent work is present or forthcoming in decomP, NAILED, Words Dance, & other.