We Must Love One Another or Die: A Critique of Star WarsTo put it succinctly, Mr. Lucas insists that only hierarchical interactions are legitimate and that partnerships between equals are toxic. Those between women and men are destructive and doomed. Those between men are acceptable only if based on the ecclesiastic/military model of abject submission, in which alpha males apportion rewards at whim (there are no interactions between women in Mr. Lucas's opus, as there is a single girl in each trilogy). In Star Wars, old men rule joylessly over a wasteland; girls die before they become those dreaded aliens, women; young men are left bereft and isolated—in Anakin's case, literally walled off from all humanizing contact in his final incarnation as a demon in a can.
What follows--and precedes--this is an in depth and fascinatingly intelligent examination of the movies. The prequel utterly failed to make me emotionally involved enough to care about what happened--except with Padme--but I can find no logistical point of contention.
And something else she says that strikes down to the bone:
It's just a movie, I know. Still, it's a vehicle for the shared stories that orient our thinking and help us imagine the possible.
People say all the time, 'they're just stories/movies/tv, why get so worked up over them?' And some people do react to a ridiculous and unwarranted degree (abusing the actor because of a role they played, etc.) but these are not
just stories. Stories are simply organs--or cogs, if you will--of the great living, working machinery of communication, and nothing living is without communication. Giraffes have it. Cats have it. Octopi have it. Whether it's oral or body language or olfactory, communication is vital.
From my opinion based on what I've observed, humans structure their world around stories. Not just the stories about space and unicorns and fire breathing dragons, but the story of what could be, what they could accomplish. Ads, interviews, they all involve a story, a bit of word-smithery they hope to use as a tool. And stories are
ingrained in our culture. People know 'Achilles heel', they know Nike, they know 'Romeo and Juliet'. Don't tell me they're 'just stories'. They are never 'just stories'. They're a part of us.
End mad rant.
thoughtful
content