Star Wars and the Modern Mythology Battles, Part One

Passing the baton of conflict onto the next generation

To call Star Wars fans’ reaction to recent movies, and in particular The Last Jedi, “mixed,” would be an understatement. The movies have indeed breathed new life into a franchise over forty years old, and garnered new generations of fans. However, the death of founding heroes earned well-deserved pushback from the first generation of fans, and the way the stories have thus far basically recycled tropes from the original movies show catastrophic lack of imagination.

This first-generation fan has mixed feelings. Certain complaints against the third trilogy are completely misplaced. As I’ve written elsewhere, complaints against Han Solo’s death miss the point: Solo lived a life standing against injustice, whether through economic resistance as a smuggler, or military resistance as a Rebel. He dedicated his life to opposing injustice, and earned a heroic death, standing up, speaking the truths of his heart. If only the franchise actually let him die.

More petty opposition has more destructive consequences. The flippant online harassment campaign against Kelly Marie Tran, co-star of The Last Jedi, revealed latent racism and sexism at the heart of Star Wars fandom. A handful of people were plain-spoken about hating a WOC in their beloved franchise, but far more used dog-whistle language. One-by-one, they could plausibly deny their racism. Lumped together, the bigoted pattern becomes impossible to disregard… though some insist on doing so.

This hatred has long roots in Star Wars. Given his incorporation of Buddhist and Islamic mythology into the original trilogy, I’d have difficulty justifying calling George Lucas racist. However, the first movie, latterly retitled A New Hope, originally had almost no non-white characters. While Lucas was perhaps not personally racist, he shared the institutional racism of 1977, an attitude that presumes White people are “normal,” and POC are “racial.” This attitude is tough to shake.

When several critics, including “Miss Manners,” Judith Martin, pointed out his galaxy’s chillingly Caucasian complexion. Lucas had dignity and honesty enough to correct himself. But his corrections still existed within the context of post-Vietnam Hollywood, and therefore didn’t change much. And improved less. He started by incorporating more Black actors into the background of action scenes: there are multiple Black Rebels on Hoth, and of course, they die like flies. As they do in Hollywood.

But Lucas also invented Lando Calrissian, who isn’t a particular advancement. Lando’s goals, besides collaboration (read: assimilation) with the Empire, include an attempt to seduce a White woman. Maybe this isn’t as problematic in a galaxy far, far away, but Lucas basically retreats here into common racial stereotypes. Lando Calrissian basically resembles an escapee from a Schlitz Malt Liquor ad, a depiction not improved by Donald Glover’s sexually omnivorous depiction in the Han Solo movie.

Rey and Finn fleeing the Luftwaffe—erm, I mean TIE fighters—strafing their squatter camp

So yeah, questionable racial depictions run deep in Star Wars. This attitude carries into the newest trilogy, where the Asian woman adheres to a mystical woo-woo religion, and a Black woman, Lupita Nyong’o, appears only as voice to a computer-generated character. This pattern doesn’t mindlessly reiterate the attitudes of the original trilogy, as one central character is a Black man. But it accepts the idea that White, even in a distant galaxy, is somehow normal.

When Doctor Who cast a woman, for the first time in over fifty years, in the lead, I took exception when activists complained that the character was still White. The “C” in “BBC,” I noted, stood for “Corporation,” and the BBC needed to acknowledge its corporate customer base, which is still preponderantly White. I granted Doctor Who latitude in reinventing its lead—especially after Peter Capaldi’s final episode, which addressed the character’s historic shortcomings directly.

I’m less forgiving of Star Wars for one reason: Rey, Finn, and Poe are different characters than Luke, Leia, and Han. Mark Hamill didn’t regenerate into Daisy Ridley; new actors were cast to play entirely new characters. They aren’t bound to the same kind of historic baggage the Doctor has. The Disney Star Wars unfortunately feels bound by cultural impediments it doesn’t actually have. And I can’t easily overlook the problems this causes.

George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy remains a landmark of American mythology… when viewed from the context of 1977. I’ll overlook certain limitations that transgress my ethics, because 1977 was a different planet. (Rimshot.) I’m less forgiving of the new trilogy because both its creators, and “fans” resisting even minor changes, espouse a social code that doesn’t exist anymore. Mythology, in the Joseph Campbell sense, is timeless, but arises from its time. And it isn’t 1977 anymore.

TO BE CONTINUED