Ever since the viral video 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman brought widespread attention—and controversy—to the issue of street harassment experienced by women in the city on a daily basis, the video itself has been flooded with parodies. Some have been clever, and some have been satirical. Others have been hilarious addendums to the original. And many have been dismissive, mocking the intent of the original video and ridiculing the idea that women have anything to fear.
The latest parody that’s come along would seem to fall into the latter category. Still, we have to admit we find it funny—because, well, it’s hard not to love an excuse for Princess Leia cosplay?
In the video, Leia walks silently past familiar Star Wars characters. Some, like Luke and Yoda, quote lines that sound like poor come ons when taken out of context. (Or, you know, taken in context in the case of Han Solo.)
Luckily for everyone, the version of Princess Leia who walks through Manhattan and Brooklyn in this vid is the ‘help me, Obi-Wan” version. We’re guessing that if Leia’s actress had been courageous enough to walk through New York in a Slave Leia costume, the video would have quickly turned into an unpleasant reminder that cosplay is not consent.
The comments to the video immediately filled up with Reddit trolls and Gamergate anti-feminists attempting to mock the original video by pretending to be outraged over this one by claiming that it… mocked the original video. The fact that we live in a world where meta-trolls can meta-comment on a meta-parody of a video, be taken seriously, and then be deluged with hate speech proving the validity of the thing they were originally trying to mock probably says way too much about the state of gender relations on the Internet today.
Help us, Hollaback; you’re our only hope.
Screengrab via Are We There Yet?/YouTube
