Myisha Nawar
Thirty-nine years ago a movie was brought to life with a somewhat ridiculous name-STAR WARS! Almost nobody fathomed that it would become the defining saga of a whole era. How did it manage to pull that off? Mirroring the tactics of a great novel or poem, Star Wars does not tell you what to think. You have to extract thoughts by yourself, understanding it in different, even contradictory ways. Let’s look at four of them:
• Star Wars bound to Christianity: Anakin Skywalker is the product of a virgin birth. He has no human father. He turns out to mirror a Christ-like figure, dying because of humanity’s sins, which he incarnates and symbolizes. Star Wars is an imaginative reconstruction of Jesus’s life, in which the figure subtly portraying Jesus is the sinner-unable to say No to Satan until the very end, when he sacrifices everything for his child. His child is symbolical for all children. *gasps*
• Oedipus Jedi: Star Wars is sometimes approached as a deeply Oedipal story about fathers, sons and unavailable mothers. Fatherless Anakin is in desperate search for some kind of strong paternal figure about whom he is entirely and inevitably ambivalent. Anakin’s path to the Dark Side begins only when his real mother is murdered. To some extent, he is in love with her. The Tragedy of Darth Vader is a complex and psychologically acute rebirth of Sophocles’ tales.
• Star Wars and its link to Feminism: From a feminist point of view, Star Wars is either pictured as awful and kind of embarrassing or actually terrific and inspiring. “The Force Awakens” strikes a strong blow for sex equality. Rey is the unambiguous hero and she gets to kick some Dark Side butt! *drum roll* THE NEW LUKE! By contrast, the original trilogy and its prequels are easily taken as male fantasies about both men and women. When you feel The Force, you get stronger and you get to shoot or kill them, preferably with a lightsaber. Lightsabers which look more than a little philliac-THE LONGER THE BETTER *smirks*. There is, however, another viewpoint. Leia is the leader of the rebellion. She knows what she is doing. She is brave, tough and great with a gun, in a skimpy costume.
• Thomas Jefferson, Jedi Knight: The series could easily be pictured as profoundly political, meant to limelight how republics turn into empires and to emphasize the craving for rebellion. In aspects of this view, the need for political freedom is the central message of Star Wars. The whole tale poses a conflict between an authoritarian Empire and the rebels seeking to restore a Republic. The Empire is more than a little reminiscent of Nazi Germany, and the goal of the Rebellion is to restore peace and justice to the galaxy