Teaspoon
I don’t like being this guy. I’m the exact kind of lefty Star Wars fan Andor was made for, and I did like the show. I wanted to really like it, to love it and obsess over it like a lot of people did. But while I thought Season One was terrific and knocked it out of the park (it’s become an entry point for convincing people to watch Star Wars!), Season Two left a sour taste in my mouth. It’s weird to say it, but Andor has a gender problem.
I know, I can hear it already: Identity Politics is a distraction from real issues, there’s plenty of good women characters, and the show is too good to be critiqued like this. For a while I’d have agreed, but I can’t say or agree with this after the final season of the show. Truthfully, the show’s depiction of gender was always a bit problematic, it just became so much more visible at the awkward ending. Let’s talk about Bix Caleen.
Source: https://www.cbr.com/andor-why-bix-kept-cassian-baby-secret-explained/.
Bix Caleen – A story of Disempowerment
Here’s a bird’s eye overview of the character of Bix Caleen and the journey she takes through Andor. When we first meet her, she’s a friend and former partner of Cassian on Ferrix – they have a complex history, at odds though they do care for one another. Bix has a business, and is dating her workmate Timm in a relationship which is getting serious. In the first arc of season one, Bix helps Cassian get in touch with her rebel contact (Luthen Rael), and arranges a meeting between them. This is arguably the most agency Bix has in the show, so enjoy it while it lasts. Security arrive on Ferrix to arrest Cassian for a murder, and during their operation, Bix is arrested, beaten, and her partner Timm (who had sold Cass out) is killed coming to her aid. Cassian flees Ferrix.
When he returns later, Bix has a short and fairly terse conversation with him, providing an update. Later, she tries to contact the rebellion to let Cassian know his mother was dying. This proves a mistake, as Empire was watching. They arrest her and the man who housed the secret radio. Bix is then tortured, horrifically, with the sounds of a dying species being annihilated by the empire . It is implied (or at least, the implication has been argued) that she also experiences sexual violence during her captivity. In the finale of Season One, she is rescued by Cassian and leaves Ferrix with her friends.
This might sound bad, and that’s because it is. Bix’s story, though impactful and important in affirming and depicting the evil of the Empire, is also a one of a woman being traumatised, losing her agency, and being saved by her old boyfriend. Things take a sharp turn for the worse in season two. In the first arc, Bix has reignited her relationship with Cass, and is recovering from her trauma with some friends. They are waiting for Cassian to come home from a mission, but discover an imperial inspection is on route; since they are here illegally, they fear trouble. The empire arrives and during their inspection, an officer tries to rape Bix, leading to a violent altercation. Soon after, Cassian arrives and saves the day, though Bix does kill her assailant. In the second arc of the season, Bix is struggling with her trauma at a safe house, spending her time waiting for Cass to come home from a mission. She’s developed an addiction to medication, keeping her from nightmares over what she’s gone through. Alone, she is visited by Luthen (who warns her she’s becoming a liability for Cass), then gets an opportunity once Cassian returns to get revenge on the man who tortured (and may have assaulted) her. The duo track him down, expose him to his own ‘medicine,’ then kill him with a bomb. So ends arc two.
In arc three, Cassian and Bix are living on at the main Rebel base on Yavin. Bix has a conversation with a mystic healer, who tells her that Cassian is special and important. This impact’s Bix, but Cass doesn’t take it seriously. Then, Cassian leaves on a mission with their friend Wilmon, leaving Bix on Yavin, once again spending her time waiting for her boy to come home. She meets with a friend and affirms Cassian’s commitment to the rebellion, and welcomes Cass home when he returns from his mission. The next day, Cassian finds Bix gone. He finds a message from Bix, explaining that she has decided to leave the rebellion and him, believing that their relationship could make him abandon the effort. Saying if he gave the cause up to be with her she’d never forgive herself, she affirms Cassian has a purpose and role in the defeat of the Empire, and so she’s choosing to remove herself from the equation, to make the choice for him. This is, apparently, her choosing the rebellion. That’s the last we see of Bix until the very end of the show, in its final moments: we find Bix with friends, living a quiet and peaceful life. She stands in the fields, holding a child in her arms. We surmise that the child is Cassian’s.
Bix with her child. Source: Emmet Asher-Perrin, Reactormag, https://reactormag.com/andors-participation-in-one-tired-trope-is-uniquely-infuriating/.
Did Nobody Notice This?
I’m not the first to say it: this sucks. Bix was one of the most important women in the show, and the most prominent woman who wasn’t white. Not just that, the other most prominent woman in Andor is a fascist Intelligence officer, so the representation is sparse for positive women characters. We’ll dive into the other women of Andor in part two, because there is more to say. But we NEED to acknowledge Bix. What were they thinking? Bix is a woman of colour who is arrested, tortured, and abused in season one. Her major character beats are watching her partner murdered in front of her, being abused and traumatised, then spending almost all of season two in passive mode. She just waits for Cassian almost the entire time she’s on screen! We hear that she’s been on missions, which is great – maybe depict some of that? It’s important to depict the long-lasting effects of trauma, but why is it the woman who has this long effect? Why aren’t Wilmon, or Luthen, or Cassian struggling with their traumas? Cassian alone lost his home planet, saw his adoptive father die, witnessed a massacre on Ferrix, was imprisoned, and witnessed a Genocide firsthand, and yet he uses it all as fuel to be a stone cold badass. But the only time Bix is a ‘badass’ is to get revenge on the men who assault and abuse her. This not only reinforces an idea that women are somehow weaker and more fragile than men, it also discounts the real violence and trauma that men do struggle with! What are we doing here?
Bix spends season two passively waiting for Cassian, being sad Cassian isn’t around, being happy when he comes home, and just generally existing for his sake. Even when she decides to leave, the decision is for Cassian! It’s not so Bix can truly heal, or because she feels he’s not caring for her, or that she has a duty somewhere else – it’s so he can be special and amazing and wonderful. She is just a loving partner, so oriented to her man it’s the guiding force in all she does. And then we discover her choice to leave was also secretly about being a mother. It sucks.
It’s revealing that when we (men) start telling our stories of rebellion and resistance to fascism, we quickly fall into sexist stereotypes. Bix is the most damming example from Andor, existing for Cassian (or to experience and recreate violence, then retire into motherhood), but the trouble goes further. If we want to be anti-fascist, we need to also be feminist, and that means presenting women with agency, who are characters in themselves and don’t just exist for the sake of men. If we can’t do that, then all we will do if we win is rebuild the patriarchy with a new look.
The Teaspoon Brigade 