First, Michael O’Connor took a look at Star Wars from a left-leaning political analysis. Now, Becky Sharp explores Star Wars and George Lucas from the centrist/right perspective.
This is the second in a series exploring political views in Star Wars and the inspirations of its creator. Read part one here.
By Becky Sharp | Recently, Michael O’Connor argued in “Sounding Like A Separatist” that the Star Wars saga aligns with a left-wing point of view. I don’t presume to speak for the entire American center-right, which includes fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, national security hawks, neocons, libertarians, Constitutional conservatives, and what I call “all of the above” conservatives but as a near-lifelong Star Wars fan who’s not a liberal, I’m here to answer his piece.
In 1977, Star Wars (A New Hope) struck a chord with a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America that was tired of being down on itself and wanted to be inspired again. Already it had found an escape in a roster of disaster films and the first super blockbuster of the decade, “Jaws” in 1975. The first sign audiences were ready for uplifting entertainment was the huge success of “Rocky” in 1976. Rocky Balboa was a simple man from Philadelphia who dreamed of becoming the biggest boxer in America. Even though he was defeated by Apollo Creed, he was still a winner because he dared to make his dreams come true. It’s been said “Rocky” and A New Hope heralded a cultural shift that in turn helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980 (and in the UK, Margaret Thatcher in 1979); as they say, politics is downstream from culture.
It might have been an unforeseen consequence of the kind of unapologetic good vs. evil story that was A New Hope. Anyone who has read extensively about George Lucas, his thoughts on his Star Wars films, and what inspired them is not laboring under the illusion that he’s a hardboiled conservative. He has mentioned President Richard Nixon as the inspiration for the Emperor and the Vietnam War as the inspiration for the Ewok battle in Return Of The Jedi. This is the same person who had a character named “Nute Gunray,” a play on the names of both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former President Ronald Reagan. He has lived in Marin County, CA–arguably one of the most liberal locales in America–for decades, openly supported President Obama, and is married to the politically connected Mellody Hobson. However, Lucas is far more complex in his views and experiences than any of this implies and that complexity is reflected in his saga.
Therefore, if a liberal or progressive can find things they agree with in Star Wars, so can conservatives. For one thing, Lucas is at heart a traditionalist. He might have come of age in the middle of the countercultural youth-quake of the 1960s but he is equally of a product of 1950s small town America. Lucas might have fled Modesto, CA for the brighter lights and cosmopolitanism of first Los Angeles, then San Francisco, but he’s still somewhat old school in his values.
For example, Star Wars reflects traditional ideas about love, marriage, and family, which appeals to social conservatives. There was no divorce, dysfunction, or upheaval in Lucas’s childhood, and even though Lucas himself did have a broken marriage and raised three kids as a single parent, he never gave up on the traditional family as the ideal. He never used Star Wars to promote the idea that the traditional family was outmoded or oppressive. It would have been easy at the onset of the 21st century to have gotten away with Anakin and Padmé having a torrid affair and a pregnancy without a secret marriage. But Lucas made a point out of having them unite as husband and wife first. Even though Lucas does not at all demonize Shmi Skywalker, Anakin’s mother, or blame her for what happens to Anakin, it is obvious the lack of a father figure in his life as well as losing the love and influence of his mother played an important part in his downfall. Further emphasizing the value of having a mother and a father, Lucas has twins Luke and Leia placed in two-parent homes.
While there is the “alternative” family formed via friendship in the original trilogy among the good guys, by Return Of The Jedi they are a family in fact: Luke and Leia have discovered they are siblings, Luke reconciles with their father, and Han and Leia are soon heading for the altar. (One of the fun things about the prequels is that they establish that Artoo and Threepio are not only faithful droids, they are family heirlooms, brought together by Anakin and Padmé.)
Lucas created some powerful, very capable, and admirable women for his saga but he never seemed interested in trying to be revolutionary in gender roles either. In 1997, I attended an event held to commemorate the opening of the Smithsonian’s “Star Wars: The Magic Of Myth” exhibit in Washington, D.C. George Lucas was being honored by the Smithsonian and was the main featured speaker. During a question and answer session, a young girl got up and asked Lucas why there weren’t very many women in the original trilogy. He said that it was because he had a very hard time putting women in war situations. There were many gasps coming from the younger, largely politically-correct audience. No one in Hollywood would dare say something like that today! It is true that Leia was widely described as a “liberated” character in 1977. It is true that the prequels introduced more women who were pilots, Jedi, and other more action-oriented characters. But unlike a lot of modern films that try to sell the Strong Female Character, the prequels also presented women who were homemakers (Shmi, Beru) and portrayed Padmé Amidala in a multidimensional way. She is not only a leader and a pretty good fighter, she is also a young woman in love, a wife, and a mother-to-be. For today’s politically- correct pop culture critics, showing a woman who’s traditionally feminine or emotionally/physically vulnerable is a horrible outrage. But Lucas recognizes that a multi-layered character isn’t always going to serve as wish fulfillment or to advance a social agenda.
While Lucas allows some of his male protagonists an emotional vulnerability, Star Wars still values the manly traits of courage, strength, honor, and chivalry. It isn’t to say these traits are exclusive to men but Star Wars certainly celebrates them in its heroes. In fact, I would argue an important reason why superhero movies are so popular in spite of there being a new one out in theaters seemingly every month (on top of superhero shows on t.v.) is that they are among the few cultural outlets left today where expressing those traits is still permissible.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Lucas chose to make Star Wars basically family-friendly rather than raw, graphic, and gritty: the violence is antiseptic and an awful lot of it is left to the imagination rather than depicted onscreen, there’s nothing from the FCC dirty words list, there’s no nudity except for poor Oola’s accidental slip in Return Of The Jedi and various non-human characters’ lack of pants, and there are no sex scenes. He even throws in a nice anti-drug message in Attack Of The Clones, even though I’m sure libertarians would argue death sticks should be legalized and taxed.
Star Wars has moral clarity throughout the saga, which also appeals to conservatives. A moral relativist would have shown a Rebellion and an Empire that were equally bad, with both sides hypocritically fighting for ideals they don’t really practice and wrecking the galaxy in the process. Yet Lucas clearly establishes who the good guys and bad guys are in A New Hope, dressing his heroes in white and his main villains in black or dark somber colors. The Force is divided into the “light” and the “dark” sides. The good guys are likable and relatable while the villains do terrible things. It isn’t to say his heroes aren’t flawed or that all of his villains are irrevocably evil but it’s obvious at all times where everyone stands. The prequels might not seem as Manichean but even with the deep flaws of the good guys and the revelation that the Jedi weren’t quite as Obi-Wan fondly remembered them, the moral center of the saga doesn’t change. Lucas might get us to empathize with Anakin but he doesn’t excuse Anakin from moral responsibility either. Evil in Star Wars is like a cancer; it has to be utterly defeated or else all is lost. Over and over through the six films, compromise with evil is shown to be a mistake even if there is good intent behind it. Luke refuses to compromise himself, even to the point of sacrificing his life. Padmé refuses to compromise with the Trade Federation. When Anakin turns to the Dark Side, she refuses to follow him down that path. The Alliance has to destroy both Death Stars, even if there were innocent contractors onboard. Lucas almost seems to have the neoconservative idea that sometimes only force can bring about peace and stop the aggression of evil. Obi-Wan’s “only a Sith deals in absolutes” is perplexing or at least ironic because the saga itself has absolutes throughout. Obi-Wan had his absolutes in destroying the nascent Darth Vader.
While most modern entertainment shies away from religion except to bash it, there’s a spiritual dimension to the lives of Star Wars characters that is refreshing to many conservatives. Lucas did say in a 1999 interview with Bill Moyers he had no problem with “organized religion,” not entirely a popular view in Hollywood. Faith in the Star Wars universe is not explicitly a part of any religion yet for all of the references to Buddhism, Taoism, or the New Age musings of Carlos Casteneda, there’s enough that is recognizably Christian so that there are piles of books, essays, and articles on the Christian influence on the saga. The concept of redemption is closer to the Christian version, where even a horrible sinner like Darth Vader can find forgiveness through surrendering his loyalty to evil. Star Wars can get a bit more controversial with economic conservatives. For instance, what about all that stuff with the greedy Trade Federation? While the original trilogy focused on the militaristic side of an authoritarian Empire, the prequels show the tools of the Sith are financial interests: the Trade Federation, the Banking Clan, and a bunch of other fun-loving types who throw in their help with the Separatist movement in return for policies that are supposed to favor them. Some have taken this to be some kind of anti-business statement. Or is it? What Lucas calls capitalistic democracy is what many on the right would call “crony capitalism.” The corporation or conglomerate in the vacuum of the classic liberal free market would have its power checked by competition and the wants/needs of the marketplace. But it’s the state that can give an advantage or disadvantage to individual businesses or an entire industry due to its power of regulation and taxation. A company or industry looking to protect its interests from the power of the state and use that power as leverage or to secure a competitive advantage can find itself in an unholy alliance with policymakers. In the prequels, we can see the symbiotic relationship between business and state, making secret deals right out of a Bilderberg meeting to build the Death Star, whack uncooperative politicians, and back the Sith’s rise to power.
While the Trade Federation carries a lot of weight in the Senate, has its own representative, influences the bureaucracy, and can weasel its way out of justice (I guess in the GFFA, the Supreme Court actually prosecutes cases and there’s no such thing as double jeopardy), the Republic still has great power of taxation and regulation over them. The whole enchilada gets started over the Republic jacking up taxes on the Trade Federation’s routes, which is why they were blockading Naboo in the first place. Maybe the Trade Federation had too many sweetheart deals with the right guys for too long, with big breaks for them while other routes were taxed so high, less wealthy and powerful competitors couldn’t even afford to jump into the market. In that case, the Republic would be acting justly. Or, perhaps that weasel Palpatine purposely raised the tax rates to ridiculous, confiscatory rates that would seriously hurt the Trade Federation’s business and even harm trade in that sector overall, which in turn would make goods and services very expensive for the people. Maybe he did it to force the Trade Federation into taking drastic action, like blockade his home planet, which would gin up sympathy for himself and get elected as Chancellor. Maybe he did it to make the Trade Federation so fed up with the Republic and its anti-business agenda, they would decide to throw in with the Separatists. Who knows? It’s all up to interpretation because it’s not specified in the films.
Even if you don’t buy any of my last couple of paragraphs, it’s hard to argue Lucas is some kind of socialist or a Commie. Lucas has expressed a few times discomfort at being a businessman as well as a filmmaker. His original intent was to make art, not billions of dollars. Young people in the late ’60s aspired to change the world and find themselves instead of getting rich. No doubt his late father, a rock-ribbed conservative who owned an office supply store, had a good chuckle at how his hippie son turned out to be an even more successful and savvy businessman. But Lucas always had the idea of using commerce to independently finance his films so he wouldn’t have to depend on the studios for the money, which would then guarantee total creative control. This was the same guy who took merchandising rights for Star Wars in return for less money to direct the film, something that would’ve been considered crazy in the mid-70s But it also turned out to the smartest gamble he ever made because Star Wars has sold more merchandise in 40 years’ time than admission tickets. The financial empire he built allowed him to remain in the Bay Area, run Lucasfilm the way he wanted to run it, and independently finance the prequels. The amazing book “Droidmaker” by Michael Rubin goes into great detail on the incredible technical work done by Lucas’s companies. ILM, THX, and Pixar would not exist without Lucasfilm and their breakthroughs go beyond just tools used to make movies. No one can attain this kind of success without being ultra-competitive, driven, ambitious, and eager to win. I’m sure Lucas himself drove a hard bargain when necessary. It may not be a part of how Lucas presents himself publicly but I’m sure there’s a little Nute Gunray in there. Plus in the end, he sold everything to one of the world’s largest conglomerates.
That said, Lucas seemed to have been an example of what Whole Foods CEO John Mackey calls conscious capitalism, creating a comfortable environment and a unique corporate culture for his employees, and using his wealth to promote things like education and creating an art museum. He has donated generously to his alma mater, USC, including recently setting up a film school scholarship for black students.
Conservatives can admire Lucas’s personal story being what the American Dream is all about, and that dream is reflecting in his saga. The men at the heart of both the original trilogy and the prequels have dreams of bigger, better things than what the sparse sand dunes of Tatooine could offer them. This yearning seems to come from Lucas himself, dreaming of more than the simple life in a Central Valley town, but it also speaks in larger part to one of the things America is all about: the freedom to make whatever you want out of yourself and to go as far as your talent, ambition, and drive can take you.
In The Phantom Menace, Anakin is a slave but he knows he’s meant for a life greater than that and is surprisingly optimistic he will achieve them. He knows he can win the podrace even though he had lost it before. He wants to visit all of the stars in the sky. He literally dreams of becoming a Jedi and freeing all of the slaves. His dreams are probably even more ambitious than Luke’s (all he wanted to do was go to the Academy and become a pilot) yet this is something about Anakin Lucas finds admirable because he was that way himself. Anakin is blessed with the opportunity to make those things happen and even years later, as Palpatine tells him in Revenge Of The Sith, he wants a life of significance, of conscience. What Lucas does with Anakin is show how those dreams can become corrupted and twisted to serve a not-so-good end. Anakin really did have everything but his fear of losing Padmé and his ambition led him right into Palpatine’s web. Luke, on the other hand, ended up with a lot more than he’d ever wanted or expected and reaches the apotheosis that eludes Anakin in the prequels.
Lucas also understands that in order to fulfill one’s dreams, one must be free. Bureaucracy makes one less free, which is one of the cornerstone arguments behind the concept of limited government. Lucas’s earlier notes and scripts describe the Empire as really an authoritarian state run by bureaucrats with the Emperor as kind of a mysterious figurehead sort of hidden away from the public. But one doesn’t notice this take on bureaucracy until the prequels. In The Phantom Menace, Palpatine mutters in faux disgust to Queen Amidala, “Enter the bureaucrats, the true rulers of the Republic.” The bureaucracy favored the Trade Federation but it is also sclerotic due to its adherence to procedure, even in dire situations. All they could do to respond to an illegal blockade was form a committee to study it! It actually took a big battle action scene to put the blockade to an end. But perhaps a massive bureaucracy is the natural result of a centralized galactic government whose authority extends to an untold number of planets. How else would Coruscant be able to manage the affairs on far-flung worlds, even if its authority is weaker in crappy backwaters like Tatooine? A deliberative body like the Senate that appears to have a dizzying number of representatives couldn’t possibly get much accomplished with so many conflicting interests. Such lethargy in the system would be very frustrating to those who want/need more immediate action to resolve their problems. Whatever is accomplished would undoubtedly anger and alienate worlds that got screwed in the bargain. One has to wonder how many of those Senators have been there forever, spending most of their time on Coruscant and living la dolce vita on the taxpayers’ credit, making it easier to act in their own interests instead of that of their homeworlds. The Separatist movement might have represented genuine frustrations that many must’ve felt and Palpatine along with Count Dooku took advantage of those frustrations to gin up a war. In many ways, the Separatists WERE the first Rebel Alliance. The roots of Lucas’s disdain for bureaucracy comes from having to deal with the studios and Hollywood’s unions but he also knows that government that is too big and too powerful is antithetical to freedom, whether it’s through a bloated bureaucracy, a huge and unwieldy “Republic” rife with corruption, or an authoritarian Empire that rules with an iron fist.
Finally, while the Star Wars saga might be informed by Lucas’s personal politics to some degree but it is not ABOUT his politics either. George Lucas did not make these movies in order to get you vote a certain way, support a cause, or to even espouse a particular political or social philosophy. He was trying to create something like the westerns, sci-fi pulps, or adventure serials of his youth but done in an entirely new way. This is true even in the prequels, where castle politics figure a lot more into the plot than in the original trilogy. To quote from an essay by Mark Eldridge on Eleven-Thirty Eight.com, “The politics of Star Wars is dealt with in broad strokes, and is not specifically satirical or allegorical. It has instead what Tolkien described as ‘applicability’ – the viewer has the freedom to interpret and can apply it to a range of contemporary or historical events. Perhaps this is why fans of so many political persuasions find something in Star Wars to latch onto.” Because of those broad strokes, people are going to take away from it whatever they want, depending on “a certain point of view.” I once read a Marxist review of A New Hope that deemed the film reactionary and imperialistic. A guy named Frank Allnutt wrote a wacky book about A New Hope from a fundamentalist perspective that largely praised the film. Mises Institute, a libertarian organization promoting the Austrian school of economics, gave the prequels positive reviews. Critics at both the Huffington Post and the National Review trashed them. I’ve seen people accuse Star Wars of being anti-business or sneakily selling New Age/occultist ideas while others criticize Star Wars for not being leftist enough.
The films we got trade more in archetypes rather than in polemics. Lucas’s metaphor for the Vietnam War is watered down to cuddly underdogs, with the help of our Rebel heroes, defeating the pro team. This might have been how Lucas perceived the war but rooting for the underdog is also deeply ingrained in American culture. The country’s founding was based on underdogs defeating the mighty British Empire. In pop culture, there’s “Rocky,” “The Bad News Bears,” “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Rudy,” “Breaking Away,” “The Karate Kid,” etc.. It was at the heart of the final battle in A New Hope. It’s the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Winter Olympics or in the Bible, David taking out Goliath. In fact, none other than Newt Gingrich noted the American underdog theme in a 2007 televised Star Wars special, “Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed.” Oh, the irony! If Lucas had never mentioned Vietnam in his interviews, no one would ever have any idea it had anything to do with the story. Lucas’s Nixonian villain doesn’t resemble Tricky Dick any perceivable way; it’s not as though he asked Mas Amedda to get rid of any incriminating tapes or announced to the galaxy he’s not a crook. Palpatine is merely a cipher for the power-hungry and ruthless, and there’s plenty of that to go around.
Lucas could have used galactic turmoil as a soapbox but instead shied away from anything specific or partisan. The Rebel Alliance’s goal is simple: overthrow the Empire because it’s evil and is run by a megalomaniacal warlock. What do the Rebels want if they win? Smaller government? Fewer regulations? A bigger social safety net? Blaster control? Anarchy? I don’t know because they never say other than “peace” or “freedom.” The Empire is evil because of its actions, i.e. killing vast amounts of innocent people, and its ties to the Dark Side of the Force, not because of any specific policies.
All of this said I have to warn against something. It’s not healthy to try to categorize all art as belonging to one camp or the other, and insisting that those who don’t belong to that camp need to “leave.” People are a complex mix of their experiences and influences and those can be beyond popular culture or art. There are right-leaning Star Trek fans in spite of Gene Roddenberry’s utopian collectivism and the progressive Joss Whedon managed to somehow craft “Firefly,” a huge favorite among libertarians. One doesn’t have to buy everything an artist is selling in order to appreciate it. That is, so long as the primary purpose in telling the story is to tell a story that transcends partisanship, ideology, and other temporal things rather than to sell a package of ideas. Lucas’s political views might influence Star Wars but they are not the entirety of what Star Wars is about and as the above-mentioned points illustrate, there are aspects of Star Wars that conservatives find appealing. And after all, Lucas is like many people who hold a mishmash of views that in the aggregate may not neatly line up with any particular ideology.