The costume wasn’t on screen for very long — but it has become legendary. In “Return of the Jedi,” Princess Leia is captured trying to rescue Han Solo from the lascivious slug monster Jabba the Hutt. In captivity, she’s forced to wear a gold metal bikini while chained to Jabba.
Three decades later, and women are still dressing up as “Slave Leia” at conventions (yes “Slave Leia” is the official trademarked name of the gold bikini). “The fact is,people are going to want to see their favorite characters in a sexy pose, particularly whether they are sexy, and ” says Ars Technica editor Annalee Newitz. “We can’t weed that out of our brains. That’s just part of being human.”
The gold bikini worn by Carrie Fisher on display at the Odysseum museum in Germany
(Sascha Steinbach/Getty Images)
Many Princess Leia fans have complained approximately Slave Leia fitting the dominant image of the main female character in the Star Wars trilogy — in the form of everything from action figures to Bobbleheads to aprons to thumb drives. So Disney finally announced this month that it would no longer sell any “Slave Leia” merchandise. Comedian Adam Buxton produced an lively short for British TV approximately how his 5-year-old daughter became obsessed with Slave Leia — much to his discomfort.
HitFix writer Donna Dickens finds it disturbing that Princess Leia,usually feisty and fearless, has no dialogue while she’s chained up. “What happened off screen for her to break like that?” Dickens wonders.
Washington Post columnist Alyssa Rosenberg thinks Leia’s silence — and the contempt in Carrie Fisher’s eyes — makes those scenes all the more powerful. It also puts you on the same side as Jabba in objectifying her, and Rosenberg says,“By putting you on not just the side of evil, but one of the most physically grotesque villains in the movies.”
Source: wnyc.org