#this is the same argument as the 'relationship all have to be conflict-free perfect cinnamonroll coffee shop aus' you realise that right

[frumfrumfroo]

I get where you're coming from, but since we're seeing a really disturbing resurgence of white supremacy and fascism via the "alt-right", wouldn't it be irresponsible for a franchise like Star Wars- which happens to have all this fascist-y imagery on hand- to *not* address or comment on that in some way? I think Hux could be a good vehicle for that but they haven't done much with him besides comic relief.

Short answer: No. Art is not beholden to topical commentary nor is it the responsibility of fucking Hollywood to teach you political orthodoxy. If you want to watch propaganda, I’m sure you can find it, but mandating the promotion of RightThink in creative expression is not exactly a road I want to go down. I mean, if you don’t see the irony here in saying this while supposedly condemning fascism…

Longer answer: What do you even mean? How do you think ‘Empire Bad, Rebels Good’ or ‘First Order Bad, Resistance Good’ with completely black and white Captain Planet level ‘politics’ is somehow an insufficient ‘statement’ that the authoritarian regime with totalitarian iconography is not something positive we should emulate? The authoritarian regime are the bad guys. They are the bad guys. Already. And always have been. The fascist imagery is being used as visual short hand for ‘these are the bad guys’, in fact. The entire reason there is any such imagery in the films is to establish who the villains are. What kind of condemnation do you think that lacks?

SW is about individuals and the journey to ethical adulthood. The Evil Empire is a cardboard stand-in for all forms of selfishness, injustice, repression, etc. which only exists to represent bad, selfish choices. The Empire has no policies, they have no ideology, there’s zero substance to them as an entity- why? Because this isn’t a story about politics or systems of government. It’s a story about the moral agency of individuals. That evil is a decision made over time and you can always change your mind, that every single person can be saved because the choice is all that matters. The power of the bad guys collapses based on the selfless actions of one man because we’re not here for realistic geopolitics. We’re here for a fucking metaphor. A universal metaphor, not a topical one.

What does it look like for you if they ‘address’ it if the basic war plot the themes are hung on doesn’t count? No redemption for the traumatised lost child who is depicted as apart from the mundane aspect of the conflict, alienated from and contemptuous of the true believers in the faction, having motivations entirely personal and derived from intimate family trauma, and whose position in the plot is entirely about his spiritual quest for identity? Because this metaphor for disaffected youth and vulnerable people who are abused by nefarious elements should represent a bad political position rather than universal human flaws?

The message is then what? ‘I hope you never feel angry or isolated, I hope you never fall in with a bad crowd or succumb to a cultish mindset in desperation for belonging or validation because if you ever do, if you ever make a mistake, you’re done and you can’t come back.’ Sounds like a brilliant approach to rehabilitating radicalised people. Tell them there’s no place for them outside the toxic cesspool they’ve fallen into, they can never be forgiven or rejoin society and the only thing to do is double down. Double down until you burn it down because healing is impossible.

The real message we need in these times is one of no mercy, no quarter, right? Because that’s how you change hearts and minds. Dehumanise everyone who falls prey to the rhetoric of power or the illusion of safety in tribalism and deal out revenge in place of justice, I can’t see that perpetuating a cycle of violence and further radicalising everyone.