#HeSheIt: love died

[lilitblaukatz]

Gay true happy endings are much more rare in the contemporary media than whatever you are planning, Jeff, fucking heartbreak junkie.

So, I'm just saying.

[maren-lesta-blog]

Star Wars, from a Marxist point of view

This post contains spoilers of The Last Jedi. I live in mainland China and the film won’t hit theatres until January 5, so what I say about the plot is only derived from the reviews I read, not the film itself. The TLJ spoilers about Rey are at the end, part 4 of this post. This post is recommended for Marxists who happen to enjoy SW series or SW fans that are not intimidated by the concept of communism. If your understanding of communism are ‘OMG Gulag!’, ‘BUT famines’ or ‘Jesus Christ it’s totalitarianism!’ then I suggest you ignore me and move on. Also this is not a formal analysis, just me mumbling jumbling to myself because none of my friends in real life watch Star Wars.

1.Jedi the Space Brahmins The whole thing about Jedi is blatantly and shamelessly Orientalist, like Disney’s Mulan level of Orientalist. The Jedi robes, the padawan hairstyle, the pseudo Taoist-Buddhist-Bushido-whateveritisyouwhitepeoplecanttellthedifferenceanyway hybrid philosophy, the ridiculously unscientific and ahistorical sword fights, and even the word Jedi itself - an American’s absurd misunderstanding of Japanese syllables… Every element is screaming ‘middle class shitheads jerking off by the bizarre delight taken from ancient mysterious Oriental otherness’. And jerk off happily they did, as every single SW film has miraculous box office. The capitalists who own the series are loaded. (Though, to be precise, only the Jedi masters are Space Brahmins, while the average Jedi knights are Space Kshatriya. The Jedi’s faith and morals and Yoda's 'enjoy every shit fate throws at you' attitude are basically Space Neo-Confucianism. Anakin was forcefully pulled up from Space Dalits, breaking the age-old norms. No wonder he later turned his back to Space Confucianism.) 2. Republic the Space Ancien Regime Orientalism aside, the Jedis are set up to be the good guys - the light side - during the entire Star Wars saga, while Sith, their opponents, are set up to be some sort of fascist-ish bad guys. This seems to be trendy among Hollywood blockbusters these days : the good guys are always some vague neo-liberal-ish (sometimes it’s even openly feudal, like Thor) individualist heroes trying to hold up the flawed but ultimately good status quo, while some vague ruthless fascist-ish villains trying to break the status quo so that hesheit could rule the world or get famous or get avenged or something. e.g. the recent Kingsman sequel and Thor sequel. As for the third route, coughrevolutioncough, well, it doesn’t exist. There could be Resistance and Rebel, but no revolution. There is no Galactic Internationale, only the rebels led by the literal aristocrats ( princess leia everyone) of the old republic, and the Empire led by the relatively new (compared with the centuries old Jedis) oligarchs. 3. Princess Leia the Space Hilary and Emperor Palpatine the Space Trump So, in contrast to the black and white version - the Star Wars ideology - which the filmmakers and fans try to present, the whole story of Star Wars actually goes like this: Jedi knights are the essential components of the State Apparatus, functioning as a violent force of repressive execution and intervention in the interests of the ruling classes in the class struggle conducted by the space bourgeoisie and its allies against the space proletariat. A proof for this would be that haunting scene in the Phantom Menace in which slave boy Anakin asked an armed Jedi knight if the Jedis are gonna free the slaves. The answer is no. And throughout the whole SW series no one mentions the abolition of slavery ever again. Why is it so? Because the ‘peace and order’ that the Jedis protect with lightsabres is precisely the societal system which is built on the labour of slaves - be it the feudal-ish serfs on the third worldly planets like Tattoine or the hired slaves on the first worldly planets like Coruscant. Padme teared up when she thought democracy died in thunderous applause, but the truth is there never was democracy in the first place.The Senators and Queens and Princes and Counts and Capitalists may meet in their air-conditioned council chamber while the actual labourer, the working people who produce every single thing in the Galaxy, have no say in anything, as they don’t even appear in the story. The fate of the Galaxy is decided by a very small group of people, usually force-sensitive, while the majority of the Galaxy is not even qualified to have a presence on screen. When oppressed nations(planets) want to free themselves from this fake democracy, the Republic shows its true nature by branding them seperatists and sending Jedis to repress them with violence, which resulted in fancy lightsabre fights. Well, the thing is, lightsabres are cool, and lightsabres are also weapons. The function of sabres is to cut people, not to cut fruit. By lightsabres alone we should be able to discern that Jedis are the instruments of State Violence, just like cops. They are Superpowered Space Cops. It is also very worth noting that the major seperatists are aliens instead of humans, and are located in the financially worse off outer rims instead of the loaded developed central planets. Still their highest leader is Count Dooku, white male aristocrat Sith opportunist who uses the righteous dissatisfaction of alien peoples to gain more power. And failed. Because white male aristocrat Sith opportunist Space Trump. (so dooku’s romney then) After the Jedi and the Ancien Regime were overthrown and replaced by the (i must resist the urge to say louis bonaparte)Sith, Space Obama Organa and his adopted daughter Space Hilary Leia came into the picture. Just like the Sith, they used the righteous dissatisfaction of the galactic people to mobolise rebels to work for their class. Thus, the plot of Rogue One goes like this: Space Aristocrat recruited Space Lumpenproletariat to do their bidding. Suicide squad was formed. The squad also contained two former minor Space Brahmins who were now overthrown and homeless. They were smashed, along with Space Julian Sorel Krennic, by Space Thiers Tarkin. Space Aristocrat continued to recruit Space Lumpenproletariat, the kind of rascals who shot first. This time also including third world farmer Luke. Fast forward to the Return of the Jedi, a fitting title for the film, as Jedi, the symbol of the rotten old world, is restored, just like the English monarchy was restored after Cromwell died, and continued to exist to this very moment. What a happy end for conservatives. 4.Rey the proletariat The self proclaimed progressive youth often complain about the lack of feminism/LGBT representation in Hollywood movies, yet they are perfectly fine with the lack of working class representation. Though this time there is one actual proletarian protagonist in the new Star Wars, at least by definition. Rey is nobody’s daughter, a natural phenomena among proles. As Marx famously stated in the Communist Manifesto, ‘all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.’ Rey, sold by her parents, owns nothing but herself, her labour force. On Jakku she has no access to the outside world, the only way for her to survive is to sell the products of her labour to the landlord, who owns means of production, in exchange of means of living. Rey has no power over her wages, and could only accept what the landlord distributes to her, while the landlord could sell the junk she picked to outside buyers ten times her wage. And, like her predecessors, Rey is recruited by the galactic Aristocrat. Brainwashed by Bourgeoisie Ideology, she mistakes Space Ford for her father and Space Hilary for her mother, in a manner not unlike K in Blade Runner 2049. Old Luke, the Space Diogenes, laughed at her naive mindset, but did not correct her. It was only when she forceskyped with Space Snape that the illusion got debunked. Space Snape, like Wizard Snape, is a misguided young fascist. I say misguided, because communist revolution is a thought crime and the only acceptable outlet for anger at the Capitalist status quo is fascism. Better Nazi than Red. So Wizard Snape who suffered bitter poverty in his youth did not recognize his true enemy being unequal distribution of wealth, and turned his loyalty to fascism instead. Later, he went back to the vague neoliberal-ish good guys, because of personal romantic reasons. On the other hand, Space Snape, whose fate is yet to be set in stone, is neither a full blown fascist nor a penitent confessor kneeling at the feet of neoliberal justice. Yet. According to the spoilers, between Space Snape and Space Diogenes, the former actually has the moral high ground, despite the latter being the biggest Tom Sue self-insert in the history of filmmaking. Which is probably why the Last Jedi pissed so many old SW fans off, cuz it deconstructs their narcissism reflected in Luke. Personally I’d love to see Ren’s outcome in the next film. All in all, although Star Wars doesn’t play into historical materialism at all, but since no film is produced in a vacuum and is always made by real people living in the real world, it couldn’t help but shows some distorted mirror image of the politics of the Capitalist society we live in. It’s fun to do mental gymnastics with it.