The current era is a fraught one. There are things that we took for granted that now seem to be cast in doubt. As the grandson of Holocaust survivors and a World War II Veteran who fought for America against the fascists in Italy, it always seemed obvious to me that fascism, as a system, a worldview, and a political philosophy, were anathema to all things right-headed and good. I still believe that. What shocked me, is that over the better part of a decade, I've seen people embrace it, happy to reject the kind of freedom that liberal democracy strives to provide in exchange for brutality.
In part, I think it's because the fascists were so profoundly evil that they became a shorthand for any system you didn't like. As an example, in the 1990s, critics of feminism accused people who spoke out against sexism as "feminazis," which not only painted feminists as the "bad guys" by ironically associating them with an oppressive political movement steeped in traditionalist nostalgia, but also diluted the meaning of fascism and naziism to ignore the actual far-right ideologies that form their basis, which include a fetishization of violence and the belief in the total dominance of a patriarchal order, among other traditionalist values.
George Lucas chose to code the Galactic Empire as Nazis. Their obsession with greyscale uniforms, the use of "stormtroopers" as their elite troops, and the implication that the upper echelons of its power base were all jockeying for position in a deadly game all contributed to a clear parallel with Naziism.
Spoilers for the season finale of Andor, season one, as well as Mad Max Fury Road.
But the original movies were fairly light on political philosophy. Indeed, there are even moments in A New Hope - particularly the final medal ceremony at the very end - that borrow shots from Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," a key piece of Nazi propaganda, despite this sequence portraying the good guys. You could say it's confused, or you could say that there's a subtler message at work about the dangers of the very hero's journey worldview that Star Wars helped to better codify, though I'm inclined to think that the intent was not so complicated. That being said, many have pointed out that the Ewoks defeating the Imperial troops on Endor in Return of the Jedi arguably casts a technologically-outmatched guerrilla force not entirely unlike the Viet Cong in a fight against an occupying superpower, which, given that comparison, would make the U.S. the Empire. I don't know if this parallel was intentional. (Actually, apparently it was, according to Lucas in an interview).
Still, as iconic as the Rebel Alliance versus the Empire is, its purpose in the original movies is largely there to serve as a backdrop for Luke's individual journey - his rise to heroism and the confrontation with the dark path his father walked. Star Wars' space battles never shied away from the fact that heroic pilots died in droves, but they were typically characters only introduced in the battle scene. Biggs, for example, whose death is an emotional gut-punch for Luke during the Battle of Yavin in the original movie, is only shown to be an old friend of his in a deleted scene (which I think was maybe restored in the Special Edition, though I have no idea what iteration of the movie is currently available).
We know the Empire is evil, and see it commit evil acts, but none of those original movies spend much time showing us the day-to-day life of any of these people. Really, it's only in the first movie in the first hour , and the Empire is basically a remote threat that means very little until they happen to buy the wrong droid.
What's impressive about Andor is the way it shows how authoritarianism devolves into totalitarianism, and how it can get away with this by preying on peoples' inability to recognize the threat until it's too late. Ferrix, where Andor grew up, seems like a dreary place, but one that manages to survive by being a closely-bonded community. Truly, there's a kind of proletariat solidarity to the people on Ferrix, a class unity that resembles familial bonds. Andor himself is adopted - he was taken in by Maarva, shown all the love and affection that a child should have, and has benefitted greatly from it. (By contrast, we see Syril's biological mother constantly belittles him, seeming to show affection only on the condition that he "succeeds." He'll never be good enough, but he thinks that if he just chases power, he can prove himself worthy.)
But Ferrix is not free from the Empire. It's just that people have learned to keep their heads down, and the Empire is willing, at first, to delegate to corporate stooges, like Syril. Again, the corporate forces believe that they are benefitting from this arrangement, but Syril's ultimately a worker as well, and one who is seen as expendable by the system if he fails to live up to their the Empire's demands.
The original films had a theme of life versus machines - the Jedi dress in natural earth tones, while the Sith are in black and white and grey. The Alliance is colorful, while the Empire is not. And Darth Vader's corruption is represented by the way in which he has become "more machine than man," in Obi-Wan's words. (Granted, we're also made to empathize a great deal with robots that have human-like personalities, so I'm not saying this is universal).
But I think that Andor takes this idea in a different direction: humanism. The Empire fundamentally does not respect the humanity (or the equivalent thereof for whatever alien species they might be) of its people. The prisoners that Andor is incarcerated with are treated as factory machines, building, as we discover, a component that will be part of the Death Star's superlaser's focusing lens. Andor is literally helping to build the weapon that will one day kill him. But to the Empire, the prisoners there are nothing more than assembly units. They work an older prisoner to death, because why should they care? They'll just replace him with the next prisoner.
(As a note, I've seen some people complaining that the post-credits scene revealing what those components are is too much of a franchise-serving Easter Egg. I disagree, first off because I think that it's a fairly potent one, second because it's not as cloying as having some Jedi show up teasing some connection to another show, and third because it actually makes a ton of sense: while I'm sure that no Imperial prison is nice, I think the notion that they cannot allow anyone to ever be released might also be based on the idea that this project has to be kept absolutely top secret - they cannot risk anyone getting out and revealing information about the Empire's secret superweapon.)
In the finale, Maarva's recorded speech calls upon the people of Ferrix to choose the side of humanity, and to act with courage to strike against a system that works to turn them on one another, to break the bonds between them, and to force their heads down and act as cogs in the machine.
And, I really think Syril Karn is the key to this, because this rhetoric is not empty "us versus them." Syril is desperate, desperate, to be a perfect cog in the Imperial machine. His obsession with Dedra is probably a mix of attraction and jealousy - the attraction is likely because he sees her as a perfect exemplar of how to be a cog in that machine.
And, furthermore, what that machine is built to do is to exert downward pressure - from the Emperor on down, everyone is afraid, keeping their heads down, but yearning to rise to the top. There is no cooperative camaraderie, like what Cassian and his friends on Ferrix have. Dedra has no friends in the ISB, only rivals, a boss she wishes to impress (and who withholds praise to keep her working for his approval), and subordinates who clearly want her job.
What I always find myself wondering is why people choose to become part of systems like that. I don't know I have a satisfying answer, though I suspect that it's people who simply don't believe there's another way, who believe that if they are not the one stamping their boot on someone's neck, it'll be their neck that is being stepped on.
It isn't, or at least shouldn't be, hard to argue why to fight fascists. But Andor also reckons with its cost. Maarva's own speech takes place at her funeral. She knows that whatever freedom she seeks to inspire will not be one that she lives to see. And many at her funeral who are inspired to riot against the Imperial troops are also killed that day. This is a show about being willing to sacrifice your own future to buy a better one for the world.
Interestingly, in that sense, I see this as exploring a somewhat parallel theme with Mad Max Fury Road, which is a really great examination of the nature of fascism. The War Boys, that movie's villain's army (who, like the Stormtroopers, are robbed of color and painted in black and white,) are encouraged to die in spectacular ways in order to earn their patriarchal emperor's approval. The character of Nux is introduced believing that he must die in order to "ride eternal in Valhalla." The thing is, the deaths that the War Boys are programmed to seek are not sacrifices. It is not important what one earns with it, only that one seeks to die spectacularly, killing the enemy. Ultimately, Nux does wind up dying a glorious death, but it's one that saves the others. It is not a death for his own personal glory, but one that buys a better future for the people he cares about.
The fascist system idolizes death, and uses this to beat down and intimidate people away from opposing them. What is required is to find reasons to face the fear that they represent. Once that fear is overcome, fascism cannot stand up against the tide of humanity.
No comments:
Post a Comment