Star Wars Blog: Cleavage Square

When the Clone Wars team announced Ahsoka Tano’s change out of her initial outfit, I wrote up this blog.  I don’t mind it, but does it reveal a startling look at how LucasFilms may just be a little bit out of touch with reality?Despite not being someone who has watched a lot of The Clone Wars, this is still a topic I would say I’ve learned a bit more about since initially writing this.  One thing that I’ve learned over the past few years is that the last paragraph of this might be the most important.  While sex is the impetus for many of the fashion choices that have become popular among young women, that’s not necessarily why they continue to wear sexy outfits – in our world, at least. So I don’t need to ascribe any non-Jedi desires to Ahsoka for wanting to wear this.  At the same time, based on images over the course of the war, she seems to be older than she seemed in Season 1.  I’m willing to admit that I might not be familiar with puberty in Togruta.All of that said, it still doesn’t make sense for the Jedi to bankroll this.  A society like that specifically enforces uniforms to prevent the kind of questions that this blog post brings up.  I always saw Anakin’s outfit as being a bit edgy and non-uniform for a Jedi, but this is a bit beyond that.  I don’t know if this has to do with out of story decisions, like the likelihood of preteen girls watching a series in which everyone dresses like Jedi, but if so it should be explained in universe.  Then again, none of that is to say that it doesn’t make more sense in the actual show, which I still need to find the time to watch.

Let me start by saying that I don’t have any problem with Ahsoka’s new look in general.  To start with, it’s not a very sexualized image – it’s obviously designed to look more trendy and cool than it is to be about titties.  It also is like something a teen girl would wear, especially when her father figure is not that much more than a teen himself.

But while Ahsoka’s image may not be about sex, is there really anything that points more blatantly to emphasizing sex than a solid shirt in which a hole has been cut in it to allow a window to your boobies?

Sure, it doesn’t show much.  Star Wars has certainly been known to show a bit more cleavage in its Jedi.  The difference is that Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura were dressed for Felucia.  They showed some cleavage, yes, but that’s because they were almost naked.  Yet still Aayla managed to look almost conservatively dressed at times.

Ahsoka, on the other hand, took a perfectly normal – if not conservative enough for Yoda – shirt and cut out a hole so she could show off her cleavage line.  Or rather…where do people get clothes in the Star Wars universe?  I always assumed they just texted the Jedi Council when they needed new robes, but I tend to doubt that Mace Windu footed the bill for some of the outfits Jedi have been seen in.

In any case, I don’t think it’s so much how questionable of the content itself is that should be looked at in this case as the mindset it portrays.  Ahsoka has become a role model for a lot of young girls.  She belongs to a group of monks; chaste, depending on interpretation.  Yet she dresses in something that would not exist were there no desire to seduce the opposite sex.

Then again… how many young girls, younger than Ahsoka, thank you very much, are buying these shirts because they look cool, not even understanding why it is that their mothers want them to wear another shirt underneath them?  Perhaps Her Universe might have something to say about that?