P5-B-Learners demonstrate their understanding of their chosen media product by analysing

P5-B- Relevant issues of representation.
In Star Wars original films  and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, gender is represented differently. In an interview with Good Morning America, JJ Abrams, the director of the new Star Wars; The Force Awakens, said that Star Wars was ‘always boys’ who went to see it and a movie that ‘dads take their sons to’ but the difference in the gender of the audience in the new Star Wars force awakens to a film that ‘mothers can now take their daughters to’ is mainly because the new film has more female leads in it, which is less male-dominated and women feel that the new Force Awakens film is more relatable to them because of the increase in women characters.
Star Wars (1977), the first film, Princess Leila appeared to be the only woman featured in the films , thirty five years later, The Force Awakens has a much more realistic gender balance; not only does the universe contain more than one woman; but it actually passed the Bechtel Test. The Bechtel Test is a test that asks films if it has a.) more than one woman, b.) if those women in the film talk to each other, c.) and talk to each other about something more than a man.  The original Star Wars trilogy has one grest female character, but by the standards of the Bechtel Test; it falls short.
In comparison, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has a better representation of women with more female characters in than the original Star Wars trilogy, such as Rey, General Leia, Captain Phasma and Maz Kanata. Unlike the 1977 Star Wars film, The Force Awakens easily passed the Bechtel Test, which shows how female representation has changed positively with more females in the new film.



 Race:
The representation of races in Star Wars (1977) had little diversity. In the first films there was no black characters which caused controversy as the films lacked diversity of other races apart from white characters. In addition, in the prequels, there was one black character, which still didn’t represent racial diversity within the film industry and the Star Wars films still lacked characters from other races that were not white.
However, in The Force Awakens, one of the main characters, Finn, created racial diversity across the franchise as he was the first leading black characters in the films. This appealed to other races such as Africian-Amercian fans who can relate to the film as it features a main black character. In addition, the casting of the character Finn (John Boyega) will promote diversity in a genre which was long dominated by white characters. This is therefore progress in the science- fiction genre which is very popular to fans of the films who are therefore glad to see main characters of other races being such a big part of the film.