#Headlanders

[freeshavacado]

I’m so sad.

[manny-jacinto]

MANNY JACINTO as 'The Stranger' BEHIND THE SCENES OF 'THE ACOLYTE'

[shesnake]

Jodie Turner-Smith as Mother Aniseya in The Acolyte season 1 episodes 3 & 7 (2024) dir. Kogonada

[jonathanrogersartist]

How 'The Acolyte' Disappointed Me, and Why the Themes of 'Star Wars' Matter

Someone recently commented on my 'On the Dark Side, the Jedi and the Moral Decay of Star Wars' essay with these words: 

"A lot of words for saying 'I don't like the newer media, but I won't get into specifics as to why.'"

Okay! I shall then finally clarify those specifics....

That first essay has, so far, been my biggest success on this blog, and it's attracted a number of interesting responses. Full disclosure: I wrote that fresh off the heels of feeling depressed over how the Acolyte ended, and after reading/listening to several of Leslye Headland's interviews, where she went into great detail about her ideas behind the show's choices, the themes she's trying to get across, and what personal baggage she brings to Star Wars. 

Why was I depressed?

Because the show's finale ended with the deeply problematic implication that Osha, by killing Sol and joining Qimir, has achieved true self-actualization. As Leslye herself put it, it's a 'positive corruption arc.' Interesting way to phrase it. 

Furthermore, Vernestra's actions that frame Sol for several murders, all to protect her own reputation, and to avoid oversight by the Senate, confirmed one of the things that I was really worried this show would do as soon as we began learning plot details, which is that it's leaning into this very persistent edgelord take that the Jedi are actually big ol' bastards not worth seeing as heroes. 

It's the Dave Filoni gospel of the Jedi Order as a morally broken and fundamentally hypocritical institution, a decaying monument to religious hubris, who brought about their own destruction with their arrogance and so-called rejection of emotion making them lack empathy. 

This is, as many of my followers know already, a giant misreading of George's storyline in the prequels, and what he was actually telling us about the Jedi's philosophy and code. And in my experience, it gets us some vicious pushback when we try to inform fans of it, even if we back it up with proof of George's words. 

George really did intend the Jedi to be the ultimate example of what a brave, wise, and all-loving hero should be, and are very specifically inspired by Buddhist monks. They do not 'repress emotions': they learn to regulate their emotions, so as to not let the negative ones feed the Dark Side, and they have the moral fortitude to focus on their spiritual duty. They're professionals that have dedicated themselves to a higher calling, and who still feel and display the same emotions we all feel, unless I watched very different movies from everyone else. We see that Jedi characters can still crack jokes, cry when they are sad, become scared or anxious, feel strong love and loyalty to their peers, and can even be righteously angry in some situations BUT always knowing when to pull back.

The Jedi of the prequels were victims of manipulation by Palpatine, and were caught in between a rock-and-a-hard-place with the Clone War, and they were ultimately destroyed not by their own actions, but by the treachery of Anakin Skywalker, who failed to overcome his own flaws because he refused to really follow the Jedi teachings, and was gaslit by Palpatine for decades on top of that. 

Leslye's take on Star Wars, based on how she wrote the story of the Acolyte, is that "yup, the Jedi were doomed to destroy themselves by being hypocritical and tone-deaf space cops," and she also outright compared them to the Catholic Church (this reeks of Western bias and misunderstanding of Eastern religions). The one that really stunned me, was when she said she designed Qimir to be her own mouthpiece for the experience of being queer and suppressed, who isn't allowed to just be her authentic self in a restrictive world. Which, to me, implies that Leslye wanted to depict the Dark Side as actually a misunderstood path to self-actualization that the Jedi, in keeping with their dogma of repressing emotions, only smear as 'evil.' 

Let me remind you all: Qimir is officially referred to as a Sith Lord, by Manny Jacinto, by Leslye, etc. And what are the Sith, exactly? 

Space fascists. Intergalactic superpowered terrorists. Dark wizard Nazi-coded wannabe dictators, whose ideology is of might-makes-right, survival of the fittest, and the pursuit of power for power's sake. To depict followers of this creed as an analogy for marginalized people who have literally been targeted and murdered throughout history BY the real-life inspirations for the Sith.... I find revolting and tone-deaf by Leslye. 

SO.... seeing how that show ended, and reading up on how Leslye intended it to be interpreted (Osha's 'triumph' over the 'toxic paternalism' of Sol/the Jedi in general), really put me in a funk, because deep down, I could just sense that this was not at all compatible with the ethos of Star Wars. It made me go on a deep-dive into the BTS of the writing of the prequels and George's ideas about the Jedi, and it's how I discovered the truth that Dave Filoni has been pretty egregiously misrepresenting George's themes for several years now, usurping George's words with his own personal fanfic about the motivations of characters like Anakin, or Qui-Gon, or the Jedi Council, etc. 

His influence on the franchise has caused this completely baseless take on the Jedi to become so widespread as to rewrite history for modern fans. Who are utterly convinced now that this anti-Jedi messaging WAS George's vision all along, and they get real mad at you if you show them actual proof of that being a lie. 

And the Acolyte is perpetuating this twisting of the very core of Star Wars. This is what I meant by the 'moral decay of Star Wars.' 

The Star Wars saga was made by George Lucas in 1977 to accomplish these specific tasks: 

To remind people of what it really means to be good.

What evil actually looks like, and how it comes from our fears and greed.

To teach kids how to grow up and choose the right path that will make them loving, brave, honest people that stand up to tyrants.

To give the world a story that returns to classic mythological motifs and is fundamentally idealistic, to defy the uptick in cynical and nihilistic storytelling after the scandals of Vietnam and Watergate broke Americans' belief in there being such a thing as actual heroes anymore. 

THAT is the soul of Star Wars. That is what George meant for this remarkably creative universe to say with its storytelling. But I sincerely think that what the Acolyte told, was that morality is relative, the heroes of this saga are actually bastards, the fascist death-cult is misunderstood, and a young woman being gaslit into joining said death-cult is a triumphant girlboss moment. When it actually comes across as the tragedy of a broken person choosing the wrong path that will only make her miserable, full of hatred and powerlust, and hurt innocent people along the way. 

The Acolyte betrayed one of George's most critical lessons: that the Dark Side ruins people, and if you want to truly become your best self, you must choose the path of Light, and the Jedi are the ones who have best mastered that path. So if the future of Star Wars is to continue framing the Jedi and their teachings as some corrupt and immoral system that is making the galaxy worse, then I would rather stick to rewatching the classic scripture of Episode 1-6. George wrote a complete and satisfying story, that is thematically consistent, and in my opinion should have been allowed to rest. 

I will not hate on new fans that love the new material, but I will pity them if they really think any of this is actually faithful to George's vision (they may very well simply not care, either, which troubles me too), and I am afraid of a show like Acolyte teaching young people to see the Jedi's philosophy as wrong, and the Sith as having a point. 

(P.S. I have a moral duty to clarify this, given the discourse around the show: No, this is not a problem with 'wokeness,' or diversity, or representation; that side of the fandom is very sick in the head and not to be taken seriously. 

It's a problem with Leslye's themes and tastes as a storyteller, being fundamentally against the ethos of Star Wars and how it soured the entire show in hindsight for me... a show that I was actually really liking, before the finale dropped its thematic nuke.)

[gabaghoul-fandom-meme-queen]

OMG!! That finale!! Ships sailing, fandoms winning, sol crushing...what an amazing time to be alive!

The Acolyte Spoilers!

[prncssguya]

i’m shaking

[jewishcissiekj]

alright every bts pic from The Acolyte I found feel free to add anything you have I think we all need it now

[holdtightposts]

Actual footage of Qmir becoming The Stranger

[antianakin]

It seems like the height of arrogance to look at a story like Star Wars with some of the most blatantly obvious and evil villains in the history of sci-fi/fantasy and when asked "What went wrong to cause the situation we see in the main story" the answer isn't "the villains were working for years to undermine the heroes from the shadows piece by piece until they were able to topple everything and murder everyone" but, somehow, "the heroes were actually the REAL villains all along because they have a religion they follow and don't immediately believe everything they're told point blank."

[rose-of-red-lake]

Leslye Headland cares more about the Sith than the Jedi. I think her particular fascination is pretty undisputed at this point.

She explicitly says she wanted to write a Dark gothic romance featuring the Sith. And she got as much money as Dune 2 to do that. She got an enormous gift to tell the story she wanted. Okay. Fine. Not my cup of tea. But kudos to her for somehow collecting all those coins.

However, as a consequence of her lack of care for the Jedi, she ends up gleefully twisting them to fit her own power fantasy.

For example from the Collider interview we learned:

How the Jedi became stand-ins to attack the "institution" (of her choice, likely a religious one)

That the Jedi were used to critique patriarchy, with the Jedi master-to-padawan relationship somehow analogous to sexist father and oppressed daughter.

That Anakin murdering Tuskens and keeping it a secret inspired how Vernestra kept the Brendock scandal a secret (and that Vern is on a tragic arc too).

That she roots for Mae because the Jedi would never hold themselves accountable.

How the Jedi destroy children's worlds and how empowering it can be when, for example, they reclaim the saber that killed their parents.

How Sol and the Jedi caused Osha's loneliness.

That Sol talking about his love for Osha somehow robbed her of her agency? The agency Osha uses to join forces with the man who kidnapped her, killed her friends, and tried to kill her sister the previous day.

How she's using Senator Rayencourt as the voice of reason, and an audience stand-in, who asks "legitimate" questions about the Jedi having too much power.

That the Jedi have become cluelessly unaware of how they are perceived or that they could do wrong, because they've relied too long on their high status.

How the Jedi have always been "extremely flawed" (from the GQ interview)

A lot of this is not just divisive or cynical. It's creepy?

Headland wanted a dark Jane Austin romance featuring the villains in Star Wars - okay fine. I still think it could have been done without burning her Jedi Barbies to create new canon. I mean...its just brutal.

[pyjamatranslation]

I feel for Master Sol. He did what he thought was best from his perspective of things. He really did care about Osha and wanted to protect her. He was good-intentioned the whole time, ignorantly so. He's just a Space Dad doing his best.

But he's like the perfect personification of the Patriarchy. Save the girl. Teach her how to live. Tell her to stop being so emotional. Downplay all that trauma you caused her. Keep the truth from her and let her blame herself for years.

The fact that he tries to say 'I love you' with his dying breath is insanely tragic. Especially since it's what causes Osha to complete her arc. She warns him to stop talking. He doesn't listen. He can't see that his love is hurting her. She finally stands up for herself and it makes her the villain.

This show was so clearly written by a woman. In this essay I will...

[msanonships]

Lesyle Headland mentioning the female response to The Acolyte and Oshamir. x

[short-wooloo]

I really hate that "eventually one of you is going to snap" bit, because it's obviously referring to Anakin while completely misunderstanding the point of Anakin

Anakin did not snap because he was forced to control his emotions (I mean you could say he snapped with the tuskens, but that's him snapping because he stopped trying to control himself), he chose the dark side, that's how it works, the dark side is not some thing you do subconsciously and have no control of and is therefore "not reeeeeaaaaally evil" (as headland so obviously believes), it's a choice, it's evil, it's giving up on being in control and indulging in your baser desires

Really Anakin only snapped AFTER he turned to the dark side, when he lost his shit and started strangling Padme, when he had already betrayed the Jedi/Republic, murdered children, and destroyed democracy

The idea that he snapped just seems like more of that "he wasn't really in control of himself therefore he's not culpable for his actions" crap

[david-talks-sw]

"The Acolyte" wasn't 'woke' propaganda.

I had my issues with the show (you can check out my other posts to see what they were) but there's this notion that The Acolyte was created to spread The Message™ of "woke propaganda"... and I think there's a bit of a mix-up going on, there.

Because that's simplifying things a lot.

When you're a minority, you're not "being woke" when you're just being yourself! Conversely, you're not "writing to be woke" when you're a minority drawing inspiration from your personal experiences to tell a story.

I talked before about how George Lucas implemented elements of his personal life in his own films. In his own words:

"There's no way to write without writing from yourself. Y'know, the stuff gets made out of things that you care about… whether you've actually lived them or not. There are emotional issues that you deal with, and I think that's always a major factor with any writer. I don’t think— it's hard to write without having some kind of emotional connection to the material. I've never seen any reason not to. It’s easy to write that way. It's hard to write in the abstract. So when I write a scene, I write a scene that moves me or I care about, or is something that is personal to me." - George Lucas, Q&A with Lynne Hale, 1994 (StarWars.com)

Any piece of writing worth some salt needs to come from a personal place to some degree because that's where the heart of the story, the truth, lies. That's what an audience will relate to.

Example: The six original Star Wars films are purely George Lucas. As in, everything in those films, from the characters, to the cinematography, to the editing style, etc are all a reflection of who George is as a person and what he stands for:

anti-Vietnam / "fight the corporate & imperial machine"

60s-70s white kid from Modesto, California

single father of three

who defines himself as Methodist-Buddhist,

has an anthropology major and

a passion for Kurosawa,

cinema vérité,

cinema history in general

art and visuals and

car racing.

You see all that in those films.

Same thing with The Acolyte.

Leslye Headland drew from her personal experiences.

Among other things, Leslye is gay. So that's what she uses as inspiration to, for instance, craft Qimir's character motivation.

"I was on the treadmill being like, “What is [Qimir] gonna say?!” And my wife, who is a huge part of my creative process, finally she said, “What do you wanna say? Stop thinking of it like you have to somehow tap into a different guy.” [...] I was like, “I wanna say that people don't want me to exist as a gay woman, as a woman in this particular space, working in this wild sandbox.” There was a whole crew of people who believed in me, but deep down, I felt like, “I am unaccepted for who I am because of what I believe in and wanting to wield my power the way I'd like without having to answer to the legion of people that just exist out there.”" - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

She took this specific life experience of hers, and then made it more universal, so that a bigger audience could relate to it.

"By the way, I think everybody feels this way. I think that's why it resonates when you're honest about yourself, and you get personal about it. When [Qimir] says, “I want freedom,” that's what I want. I just want freedom. I want to be able to just be out there and be myself and be the type of artist I want to be without having to answer to anybody." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Same goes with Osha and Sol's relationship, or how she defines the Jedi Order. It derives from her own relationship with her father and how she felt being raised straight, in a Christian household.

If you have the time, listen to this audio clip where she describes that.

In the context of the whole interview, her voice goes down a few octaves and starts to crack a bit. This is a vulnerable moment, when she's talking about it... and it's this experience that she turned into fuel for her writing of Sol and Osha's father/daughter bond.

"There's this thing that's called benign sexism, and part of it is this paternal protectionism — it seems like this good thing, but like you said, there's this, “I have to protect you from everything. I have to make sure you're okay. I have to tell you what track to get on, and then once you're on that track, I need to support you.” Ultimately, what happens is — again, this is a father-daughter relationship — as women evolve in their lives and develop their own personalities separate from their fathers, at some point, they have to reject that protectionism. [...] She cannot stay a little girl or an adolescent or young adult. She has to, at some point, say, “I reject what you have told me I need to do to make you proud, to follow in your footsteps.” She has to do that." - Leslye Headland, Collider, 2024

Now... if we're talking consistency with the themes in Lucas' Star Wars, then yeah, The Acolyte misses the mark.

The Jedi Order isn't the patriarchy or the Catholic Church. They're more like Buddhist monks, George has stated so multiple times.

The Jedi teachings aren't narratively meant to be the same traits found in toxic masculinity or benign sexism.

When a Jedi tells you to be mindful of your emotions, it's not meant in the "boys don't cry" sense.

When they talk about letting go of attachments, it's not meant in a stoic "don't get emotionally involved" sense.

Anakin too, the whole point is that he's wrong, the narrative frames his fall to the Dark Side as his own fault, it's not meant to be perceived as a failure in upbringing.

But she's not the only one who does it. Filoni does it too, a majority of fans have this take on the Jedi.

And because of her experiences, I can see why her takeaway would be that. Same goes for Filoni, they're products of their generation, upbringing and experiences.

My point is:

Leslye Headland is writing from a personal place, when she's writing The Acolyte. It's partially informed by her politics because - like she quotes, "personal is political" - but when it comes to the writing of the show, it's personal first and foremost.

What this was, was a Star Wars fan (arguably the nerdiest one we've had so far, in terms of creators) putting all of herself in the creation of a show that perfectly reflects who she is and what she stands for, resulting in:

a story about growing past your father's paternal control and accepting that our guides aren't infallible,

where her wife holds a role and gets to wield a lightsaber,

a show about taking corrupt religious institutions to task

about the Sith and the Dark Side

and questioning the unquestionable

and exploring whether the good are really so good and if the bad are really so bad.

This was a project written from the heart, and regardless of whether the resulting art found its mark, I think it's important to note that it wasn't written to spread a propaganda message in some "pro-woke holy war" or whatever the hell the YouTubers are peddling.

[mid-nighttiger]

the entire leslye headland collider interview is a hot mess but this exchange especially is driving out of my mind. in what galaxy are these people living?? in any other work, someone forgiving you even as you kill them would be the ultimate expression of compassion and unconditional love. that is so, so good! it's delicious and heart-wrenching, i love it!

but to these people, it's... taking away the killer's agency?? what??? so now luke skywalker throwing away his lightsaber and telling darth vader that he won't fight him in return of the jedi (1983) is taking away vader's agency? adding insult to injury? and not, i don't know, the other third guy in the shadows making them fight in the first place?

also, IN WHAT UNIVERSE ARE KILLS SUPPOSED TO BE SATISFACTORY. THIS ISN'T A VIDEO GAME!!!

[jewishcissiekj]

more acolyte btssss