The human mind’s ability to miss the point, or to rationalize two completely contradictory ideas at once, is amazing. When I did a piece about music and politics a while back, I mentioned the fact Speaker of the House Paul Ryan once claimed to be a big fan of Rage Against the Machine, which seems to disgust Rage guitarist Tom Morello. And as someone pointed out in the comments, it would seem to indicate Ryan has never paid attention to any of the lyrics … ever. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, an anti-federalist who killed 168 people and was tied to white supremacist groups, was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show centered on a united multicultural humanity leading a socialist interstellar superstate, and saw it as “a Utopian model for the future.” Just spend a moment trying to square that circle.
Last month, shortly after Election Day, one of the screenwriters for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Chris Weitz, tweeted the Rebel Alliance symbol with a safety pin along with the message: “Star Wars against hate. Spread it.” Weitz and fellow Rogue One screenwriter Gary Whitta also went on to point out the Galactic Empire is a (human) white supremacist organization, and it’s opposed by a multicultural faction led by brave women.
The relationship of Star Wars to comparisons with conservatives and the right has been going on for a while now, since the story is fundamentally anti-fascist. For example, Revenge of the Sith was seen by some critics as a direct rebuke of the Bush Administration. On the other side of things, just last year, Bill Kristol defended Emperor Palpatine and the Empire by saying they weren’t objectively “evil,” and the Galactic Empire was neoconservative “in spirit” —remember this is a fictional totalitarian government that blew up planets, and which George Lucas based on the Third Reich.
With the release of Rogue One later this week, the usual suspects feel they’re being criticized, with white supremacists and Trump supporters finding common ground in their spread of fake news and dislike of the film. The two groups, or possibly the same group where they cross on the Venn diagram, accuse the movie of having an “anti-white agenda” and falsely claim the film underwent re-shoots to specifically include an anti-Trump message.
From Danette Chavez at the A.V. Club:
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hasn’t even premiered yet, but the film’s already getting it from all sides. Earlier this week, reports surfaced that white supremacists intended to boycott the movie because they simply couldn’t bear the strain of seeing someone who doesn’t look like them up on the big screen (no idea what that feels like). And even if that Reddit-born initiative flails, there’s a new hope for the intolerant, as Mashable reports that Donald Trump supporters are calling for a separate boycott over claims that the reshoots were done to shoehorn some anti-Trump scenes. This is complete bullshit, of course, but misinformation or a lack of information never stopped the president-elect, so why would it give his supporters any pause?
The latest boycott began with some tweets from Jack Posobiac, the self-described “special projects director” of a Citizens For Trump Twitter account (organization, maybe?). Posobiac got all hot under the collar after learning about Rogue One writer Chris Weitz’s tweets that described the film as being against hate. Weitz also called the Empire a “white supremacist organization” in a now-deleted tweet. (Come to think of it, we can see how Posobiac could get confused).
Over the weekend, Disney CEO Bob Iger denied there was any attempt to push a specific political agenda with the film. However, since we’re now living in a post-reality world, the truth of the situation doesn’t really matter, so the #DumpStarWars hashtag was born. It will probably be about as successful as Trump supporters’ Hamilton boycott.
Although, it should be pointed out this is not the first time the darker crevices and wretched hives of scum and villainy got their panties in a twist about Star Wars. The release of The Force Awakens saw people freaking over black stormtroopers, the same men’s rights activists who threw a fit over Mad Max: Fury Road seeing feminist “SJW propaganda” in Daisy Ridley being the film’s main lead, and anti-Semites claiming there’s some sort of Jewish conspiracy to the whole thing.
Lucasfilm and Disney can likely manage the loss of significant portions of the idiot market.
