Gina Carano and the Rise of the Corporate Fascist Empire, by R. C. VanLandingham

By R. C. VanLandingham, Crisis Magazne, Feb. 17, 20211

R.C. VanLandingham is a novelist. His most recent work is Peter Puckett and the Amulet of Eternity. Find out more rcvanlandingham.com.

My wife and I are both huge Star Wars fans, and naturally we have passed our passion for Star Wars down to our boys. So, when Disney+ announced that it was launching a new Star Wars television series titled The Mandalorian, we were excited. After all, a series about a bounty hunter that looked like Boba Fett was every Star Wars fanboy’s dream! Every Friday night my family gathered with popcorn and candy to watch the latest episode. The stories are good, the special effects are great, and the characters are well developed.

One of those characters is a woman named Cara Dune, played by Gina Carano. Cara Dune is not the overly sexualized, overly confident, underdeveloped, boring character that is all too common in popular sci-fi and fantasy today. She’s a war veteran with some serious PTSD. She is beautiful, but not in the fake, Hollywood way. She feels real. She looks real. She is everything the feminists have been demanding for years from sci-fi and fantasy—a realistic, strong female character that is valued for her abilities, not her sexuality.  …