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My parents had grave concerns about letting me and my siblings see the original Star Wars in 1977, fearing we were too young for its violent themes. Somehow, they relented and were rewarded with having their sons attack each other with stick-like things. We were intoxicated by the themes of heroism against tyranny and by the possibility that some day we might discover that our ancestry, and thus our destiny, was more than it seemed.
Now that I have children, I have rediscovered the joys of fighting with stick-like things. This time of year is especially rich in opportunity. Spontaneous battles with empty wrapping-paper tubes erupt frequently between my eight-year-old son and me. We charge around after each other alternating between victorious hero and defeated villain. The narrative is recurrent beyond the Star Wars canon: conflict is endemic, fighting ensues and good triumphs.
In part, these escapist fantasies are just that: imaginary places into which we can step out of ourselves. How many of us have not flown the Millennium Falcon in our minds? A world without imagination and fantasy would be a hollow place indeed.
In Star Wars, we have a grand cultural landscape on the scale and ambition of The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or, speaking sacrilegiously, the Bible: worlds that exist in whole cloth as doppelgangers of our own but with some of the details askew.
Our world does not have faster-than-light travel nor magic nor an evident God, but it does have a range of ideas about political and cultural difference that seem analogous to planetary systems, boarding-school houses or ancient tribes.
But there is a different form of imagination at work in Star Wars and its ilk, narrations of the firmament of human nature and society. These are stories that form the foundation of cultural coherence and which, in many ways, divide us.
In the Star Wars universe, the political opposition is inevitably evil and faceless, or, depending on the chicken and egg of your ontology, faceless evil inevitably becomes the political opposition. The political enemy is quite literally a bunch of clones. Where they come from is a bit unclear, but they are not content with simply living out their lives in productive Stormtrooper communes growing heirloom tomatoes. Instead, they are animated with the singular purpose of purging the universe of others.
These are the first elements of the foundations of this story: Evil exists as a political force intent upon bending non-conformists to its will.
Once this tableau has been set, the story mostly writes itself: A hardy band of rebels must, against all odds, rescue everything and everyone. There is no possibility of a peaceful negotiation because the opposition is incapable of rehabilitation.
This is the second element of the Star Wars narrative: The world is dominated by totalitarian forces and is beyond repair. All that is left of goodness can be found in a small band of humanity under siege. I find it mildly ironic that millions of people consume these stories and cast themselves as the humans, as the small band of rugged individuals.
Who do they think the rest of us are?
This is the crux of my discomfort: Star Wars does not give us a choice.
Our imagined others are always homogenous, evil and beyond redemption, suitable only to be conquered.
I am so bored with this narrative that now I wonder about the actors who play the faceless evil clones. Who are they under the masks? What do they say over dinner when their spouse asks, "How was your day?" Perhaps, "Well, I spent hours in a suit of evil; after dinner I'm going to tend to my tomato plants."
I am sure you can see where I am going here.
We tell ourselves the stories that we believe are true and in doing so we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not have to look too far to find examples of people treating others as faceless drones whose nature renders them irredeemable. Ironically, it happens on all sides: Racists treat people who look different as homogenous others and those who confront racism tend to feel the same way about the racists.
I'd like to believe that racists can understand the nature of their racism and that it is not in their nature but in their culture, and thus they can change. Similarly, I'd like to think of my life as the exploration of the world in terms beyond those I believed as a child.
Despite any effort I might make, the Star Wars firmament is real to my son because it is the foundational belief of the society in which he lives. I have given up trying to form a hardy band of humans who fight the totalitarian regime that is this narrative.
When he gets older, we'll go to see other movies together, stories that will upset the apple cart of this worldview. Then he will discover that his ancestry and thus his destiny are more than it seems. When this happens, he will begin the journey to adulthood and citizenry.
Until then, we will spend our time fighting with paper tubes and maybe, if I can convince him, we'll grow tomatoes together.
Andrew Martindale lives in Cedar, B.C.