Disney+’s Star Wars series Andor has been moved to a September release date, but that doesn’t mean we’re not getting new information about the series. In a new interview with Empire, star Fiona Shaw, who plays a character named Maarva in the series, brought up how the show takes on the Trumpian world, but specifically about how rights are being taken away by people in our society and how that’s a direct reflection of the people former President Donald Trump left in charge.
“Tony has written a great, scurrilous [take] on the Trumpian world,” Shaw said. “Our world is exploding in different places right now, people’s rights are disappearing, and Andor reflects that. [In the show] the Empire is taking over, and it feels like the same thing is happening in reality, too.”
All of this is pretty par for the course with Star Wars, and yet, most all Star Wars fans are already aware that the YouTube community and the “Fandom Menace” are definitely already foaming at the mouth at the chance of making fun of Andor before it has already begun for falling into the “liberal media” trap of pushing a “political agenda.”
This is … sadly commonplace because there is a subset of “fans” of this franchise who seem to think that Star Wars is not inherently political. I don’t know what about something that has “wars” in the title doesn’t instantly connect to politics, but hey, maybe they just missed the entire part of the original trilogy where Leia was general—fighting in a rebellion against a tyrannical government, an “empire”—and went on to be a senator, only for that to be reiterated in the prequels by Padmé Amadala and Bail Organa (and that’s just … naming a few).
Star Wars has always been against right-wing politics
This feels like the most obvious thing in the world to point out, and YET! Every time someone makes a joke about Republicans being the Empire or connecting the series to politics in any way, there’s someone on Twitter who decides to show their lack of media literacy. If you simply just look for this quote from Shaw online, the replies are filled with people completely misunderstanding the point of Star Wars.
The argument quickly went from “okay but it’s not political” to “okay but it’s not based in real politics,” which is also factually incorrect! Palpatine was based on Richard Nixon! “I love history, so while the psychological basis of ‘Star Wars’ is mythological, the political and social bases are historical,” George Lucas said in an interview with the Boston Globe in 2005. So, you know, the creator himself, George Lucas, TALKING ABOUT HOW STAR WARS IS VERY MUCH REAL-WORLD POLITICAL TO ITS CORE.
The typical cycle of this conversation is simply these Star Wars “fans” taking their talking points, using buzzwords like “woke,” and then going on 10-minute YouTube rants about the franchise and refusing to recognize the fact that they’re in the wrong about this world. They misunderstand or woefully ignore the signs that have always been prevalent in Star Wars to get rage clicks and use the right-wing mob to continue their warped messaging.
It has gotten to the point where the Fandom Menace and the right-wing “fans” of this franchise were present in footage of the Insurrection hearing because they were part of that. They’ve taken no lesson from Star Wars and have become the thing they think they’re fighting against.
So, if you see a tweet that says something about Star Wars suddenly being political, go ahead and point out to them that the franchise is called Star Wars—you know, that not-political thing called a “war.” I guess them going to the senate in the prequels or Leia being the daughter of a senator in the original films wasn’t enough for them to realize that this was a political thing.
(featured image: Lucasfilm)
