One of the things I dislike the most in Alexander Freed's take on Mon Mothma in Mask of Fear is the way he approaches the idea of her privilege and wealth, especially when it seems to explicitly contrast what we're shown in Andor.
And don't get me wrong, I think a lot of what he does with her DOES match the canon sources for her, mostly Andor and Rebels. He definitely took her quote about learning political strategy from Palpatine to heart, and he seems to have also incorporated her story to Hera from Rebels about seeking a more political solution to the problem of the Empire before hitting a point of no return later (this is a theme he explores with her in his novelization of Rogue One, too). And those parts are really great! I love a Mon Mothma who is REALLY invested in the politics of it all, who desperately wants to find a peaceful political solution to the very real problems she sees, but who doesn't QUITE understand just how impossible it will ever be to defeat Palpatine with politics alone. It's a great trait since it works as both a strength and a flaw depending on the situation.
But I think where he fails for me is in presenting Mon Mothma as a "working man's politician." His Mon seems to completely lack the flaw of privilege and power. He constantly contrasts her against Bail Organa, showing how Bail's wealthy connections keep him insulated from any consequences for his risky and reckless decisions, while Mon is often tortured and punished for the same crimes or even just for being associated with him. Bail is shown to have privilege that Mon does not and she suffers for it. Freed presents her as someone who had to work VERY HARD to climb the ladder to get to where she is now while Bail just got assigned here by marrying the right person and being charismatic. Mon had to fight and be cunning and sacrifice everything just to get an OUNCE of what Bail is given almost at birth.
And that's just not how Andor presents her. I don't know if any other media has really gone into her backstory and how she came to be a Senator, but since Mask of Fear is clearly connected to Andor more than anything else and working as a prequel to it (I believe that they've said it isn't necessarily intended to be an explicit prequel to Andor, but it DOES include characters who were introduced in Andor like Perrin, so it clearly wants to maintain that connection), her backstory in that show should be taken into consideration.
In Andor, Mon is so clearly someone who comes from immense generational wealth, which gives her power and privilege that sometimes conflict with her rebel activity and what it asks of her.
She is introduced to us as someone who regularly purchases expensive exclusive antiques for her husband as gifts. She has her own driver who drives her everywhere. Everything we see her wear is expensive and fancy. She has several servants working in her apartment who serve food and bring messages to her and her family. We are later told that both Mon and Perrin come from old traditional families on Chandrila. The accounts that Mon is having to replenish because she pulled so much money out of it for the rebellion are referred to her as her FAMILY'S accounts, it's FAMILY money and FAMILY wealth, something she clearly inherited as a result of being part of the Mothma family. And until people started looking closely, there was SO MUCH MONEY in those accounts that she could move 100,000 credits "easily," without anybody even noticing a change. Vel, Mon's cousin who does not have a political career or really any sort of career other than being a rebel which presumably does not pay well, is referred to as a rich girl by Cinta and wears clothing that appears to be just as fancy and expensive as Mon's. The reaction people have to her apartment on Coruscant seems to be less about how lavish or expensive it is and more about much it apparently caters to old-fashioned old money Chandrilan tastes in decor and design, something that is confirmed when we are shown the enormous Mothma Estate at the beginning of season 2 and its decor and design looks a LOT like Mon's apartment.
We also know that Mon became a Senator at about 16 years old, and that's unlikely to have happened overnight, so we can safely assume that Mon's likely been preparing to become a Senator for YEARS. It's entirely likely that this would have been expected of her and she was likely sent to schools specifically to help her achieve success (she, Perrin, and Tay Kolma all seem to have been sent to the same school, although we don't hear much more than that about it, but given that they're ALL clearly wealthy and powerful people, it feels like a safe assumption that it was a school for children of wealthy old money families). It's possible her marriage to Perrin was done as part of that effort, too. Who knows how much of Mon's assignment as a Senator was because she was legitimately voted in on merit, and how much that opportunity was created because she was born to the right family (which does NOT mean that she didn't work hard for it or that she isn't a good politician, just that we don't really know how Mon became a Senator and how much her family name may have played a part in that).
Andor tells us that Mon was born wealthy and privileged and has REMAINED wealthy and privileged ever since. While this doesn't mean she has NEVER struggled or that she hasn't worked hard for her success at all, it does mean that she is not and never has been a working man's politician who had to fight for every scrap of power she has. Nor does it make her somehow smarter, less privileged, and a better politician than someone like Bail Organa, whose primary character trait is that he's such an incredible politician that he manages to outsmart the entire Empire for almost two decades while simultaneously working to undermine it.
And this power and privilege is a PART of Mon's journey as a character in the show. One of the first things we hear her say is that she believes herself to be more vulnerable to consequence than anybody else if her involvement in the rebellion is discovered. And not only is she proven completely wrong in season two when we see quite a lot of people put in tons of effort to keep her from feeling those consequences, but her family doesn't seem to suffer any consequences either given that shot of Perrin on Coruscant in the back of yet another fancy vehicle while potentially having an affair with his daughter's mother-in-law a year after Mon's big speech. And Mon is the ONLY CHARACTER of the core ensemble who is confirmed to make it all the way through the war to see peace, so she's literally the LAST one to fall, not the first as she once tried to claim.
Mon IS privileged and the fact that she has a choice about whether to join the rebellion fully or not at all IS A RESULT OF THAT PRIVILEGE. We are told multiple times that Cassian does not ever get that choice. He will constantly be fighting the Empire, no matter WHAT he does or does not do with the rebellion. The only choice he really gets is what he chooses to do with that fight and whether he dies on their terms or his. That's it. But Mon could theoretically choose not to make herself vulnerable and not to lose her family and just... stay neutral. She could have stayed in her ivory tower with her riches and never really fought the Empire at all. It would have cost her nothing but some guilt. She chooses not to, and that's obviously a major core of her character, but she HAS A CHOICE that none of the other characters really have (aside from MAYBE Luthen, but we still know so little of his backstory that it's hard to say for sure). If Mon were TRULY the underprivileged working man's politician that Freed tries to present her as in his book, she would never have that choice at all. And it is SO central to Mon's character in Andor that she DOES have that choice and she has to decide what she's willing to sacrifice in order to make one choice or the other.
And I wish Freed had understood that and been willing to give her more of this flaw. I wish she'd been allowed to be privileged and arrogant and naive about her own circumstances. I wish she'd had to work a little harder to truly understand the choice she's being faced with in her new reality just after the Empire has risen. It would've provided SUCH a much more interesting contrast between her, Bail, and Saw if this was something Freed had been willing to truly acknowledge.
