blog entry

George Lucas and his Cool Broads

It’s official…Star Wars legos have now been replaced by Indiana Jones in our household - even though my kids have yet to lay their eyes on an Indiana Jones movie (another example of brilliant marketing). Because my husband and I are quite principled (not), we decided that before we spent anymore of our hard-earned money on Indiana Jones legos, action figures and whip (yes, my 4 year-old wants his whip), the boys HAD to watch at least one of his movies. So this weekend, we hunkered down with Raiders of the Lost Ark and a big tub of popcorn.



The movie was as good as I remembered. And as I watched Indiana’s love interest Marion (played by Karen Allen) drink some burly guy under the table in her dive bar and not ten minutes later hold her own in a gunfight while guzzling booze that leaked from a bullet hole in the barrel (a girl after my own heart), it hit me. She’s SO a Cool Broad! She’s spirited, independent, strong, not afraid to go after what she wants, and yet still manages to look cute in the process (wearing a pair of men’s trousers cinched high at her waist, a tattered shirt, and cool scarf no less).

But then, halfway into the movie, Marion was inexplicably put in a fluffy, white evening gown in the middle of the desert. And if that wasn't enough, as she and Indiana traveled on a shipping barge to deliver the lost ark to the museum, the only thing she could find to wear was a silk negligee. On a barge? Huh?

Then I remembered that this was a George Lucas flick and he was the guy who put another iconic Cool Broad, Princess Leia, in a bikini with a chain around her neck in Return of the Jedi. I guess that’s one of the perks of being a famous moviemaker…you get to live out your boyhood fantasies on the big screen. I get it.

And though I’m not sure that it added much to the movie for Marion to go from this...



to this...



or that it moved the story line forward for Princess Leia to go from this...



to this...



I know that you can’t keep a Cool Broad down for long (bikinis, chains and boyhood fantasies notwithstanding).

And if I’m completely honest with myself, I’d have to admit that if given the chance to be Marion (fluffy white dress and all) in this picture...



…I would. So there.
~tcb