It would not be possible to do this work without the emotional support of my friends and family. Thanks to Debbie Armour, Alex Neilson, Sophie Sexon, (Big) Emma Cardwell, (Wee) Emma Spence, Joanna Helfer, Arild Giske, Kyle Lonsdale, and (Sarah) Pickles, the best coven a chaotic writer with an impending deadline could hope for (even when you don’t all know who Rian Johnson is). Thanks, as ever, to Lizzie Lay and Todd Wisdom for indulging all the midnight Star Wars screenings, even when you had to get up for work the next day. May the tiny Death Star chocolates be with you. Thanks to my parents – first and foremost for their love, but second and no less importantly for all the hours they endured watching Ewoks cartoons when I was a child. Thanks also to my sisters, for a more innocent time in our childhood when we thought the prequels were the height of brilliance (it’s working … IT’S WOR-KING!).
Thanks, too, to all the academics, friends, and online acquaintances who have contributed in large and small ways to this project. Thanks to Hannah Hamad and David Martin-Jones for their comments and feedback on drafts. Thanks to Shira Peltzman for her archive suggestions, and to her and Ben for the use of their sofa while doing research in LA. Thanks to Lisa Kelly, Azadeh Emadi, Lizelle Bisschoff, Amy Holdsworth, Anna Backman-Rogers, Julia McClure, and the many other feminist friends and colleagues who have challenged and inspired my thinking. Thanks are also due to the film history community for its generous impulse to share knowledge and resources (thanks to Keith Johnston and Sheldon Hall, among others, for the loan of VHS and other materials). And, for her unceasing kindness, and for reading drafts and listening to my ideas and always asking the right (if unexpected) questions, thanks to Melanie Selfe. Yours and Conor’s support, wine supplies, and midnight lasagnes have provided much-needed intellectual sustenance throughout this project.
I also extend my warmest thanks to all the unsung guardians of the sacred texts: the librarians and curators who made this work possible (particularly Wendy Russell at the BFI, the team at the Margaret Herrick Library, and Lucas Seastrom at Lucasfilm); to interviewee Terri Hardin who is keeping the Star Wars fandom alive; to Audrey Estok for her beautiful cover art; and to Rebecca Barden and her team at Bloomsbury, without whom this project wouldn’t have seen the light.
And finally, I would like to thank the enormous, diverse, and supportive Star Wars community – the Star Wars Representation Matters writers, the Looking for Leia crew, Amy Richau’s 365 Days of Star Wars project, and the plethora of feminist and queer podcasts. Star Wars is for girls, people of colour, queer people, disabled people … in short, all of us.