Essays, Not Rants! 316: Star Wars As An Anti-Capitalist Discourse
Oh you thought I was kidding? Here we go.
Star Wars takes a lot of cues from Westerns. Characters like Han Solo and places like Mos Eisley’s cantina make it pretty obvious. But it’s also apparent in where it takes place: the fringes of society. Be they remote planets desert or frozen, these stories take place away from economic and cultural hubs. Which, given that we follow the good guys, makes sense. Implicit in the Star Wars movies is the idea that places of wealth and opulence are the breeding grounds of evil. In other words, the real villain in Star Wars is capitalism (and the Sith too but bear with me here).
Let’s look at where we spend time among the wealthy in the Original Trilogy. Outside of Imperial Battle Stations, the only place we visit that is remotely 'first world' is Cloud City, a gorgeous city whose wealth is built on Tibanna Gas mining. It’s beautiful in the way sci-fi modernity is. But its gleaming hallways belie a darker secret. It is when the Rebels come to Cloud City (the richest civilian place we’ve seen) that they are sold out. Han is tortured and frozen in carbonite, Luke is lured into a trap and told that the bastion of evil is his father. But Lando’s a good
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In an effort to undermine the villainous First Order, Rose and Finn go on a desperate mission to Canto Bight. A rich city most known for its casino, Finn quickly learns that the city’s wealth is built on the back of the military industrial complex. The rich folks wheeling and dealing are profiteering off a war the Resistance is fighting for survival. Though maybe not outright evil, they are decidedly not good people. The codebreaker Rose and Finn ally themselves with ends up selling them out, simply because the First Order offered him more money. It’s money, and the unfettered pursuit of it, that tends to create villainy in Star
John Leo is a columnist and contributing editor that has been writing for U.S. News & World Report since 1988. Prior to that he worked for Time magazine and The New York Times covering topics such as social sciences and popular culture. The thesis of John Leo’s latest U.S. News & World Report article, “Fu Manchu on Naboo,” does not leave the reader any room to guess what his discussion is going to be about. He drives the point home from the beginning of the article. The central idea is very direct and easy to locate. It appears at the end of the first paragraph and simply states “Episode I: The Phantom Menace is packed with awful stereotypes.”
Money can cause people to act selfish and arrogant, especially when they have so much money they do noteven know what to spend it on. In the novel,
Throughout time, literature—including films which are culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant—has reflected the cultural psyche of a particular society in the sense that it brings attention to and defines conditions which exist within a particular society. Fight Club is a postmodern drama that examines the impact of a post-industrial society (within this paper, the terms “postmodern” and “post-industrial” are used interchangeably and assume the same meaning) on masculinity within American culture. Postmodernity, according to David Macey’s Dictionary of Critical Theory (307-309), began with the period of accelerated growth that immediately followed World War II, and the era is characterized by increased growth in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Thus, as Macey paraphrases economist Ernest Belgian, “…in the postwar period, market capitalism…[has] been superseded by a third technological revolution that gives rise to an era of…late capitalism;” that is, the technologi...
In his article titled, “Star Wars and the Roman Empire,” Martin M. Winkler writes on Lucas’ trilogy and compares the storylines in the films to the Roman empire while placing focus on the similarities
It seems that money is the root of all evil and can make a man do things that he would
Through their use of allusion, symbolism and representation they portray many of societies flaws and imperfections. Such an imperfection includes the illustration of how totalitarian governments abuse the power they have acquired for their own gain, harming the people they are sworn to serve and protect. Through this abusive self-gaining government, we all are liable to become victims of consumer culture caused by the blind obedience to advertising and propaganda, being unable to form or voice an opinion of our own. But this lack of opinion can be at fault because of our own apathy, the ignorance and slothfulness that is contributed to the role we play in our society and the importance of that roles ability to motivate and inspire change. Whether you’ve read or viewed the novels or feature films I’ve discussed I have no hesitation in saying any text or film you have seen has been used in some way, shape or form to convey the criticisms of our ‘perfect’
...t happen even in Hollywood. You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems.”
Holm, Hans-Henrik. "STAR WARS." Journal of Peace Research 23 (1986): 1-8. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
The 2006 film V for Vendetta, a cinematic remake of the classic graphic novel series by the same name, is the epitome of a Marxist fairy tale. The film is complete with a bourgeoisie government who spreads their ideology, via mass media, to a citizenry composed entirely of proletariats, and a hero who sets out to break said citizenry from the prison of false consciousness. If one examines the setting and environment of the film, and follows the main characters as they fight against, or break free from, false consciousness, evidence of Marxist themes are present throughout the film.
A quintessential element in the preservation of societies social order is a combination of social influences to conform and be obedient. The social influences help to control the individual psyches of entire populations to create a more cohesive environment. Conversely, there are also those who seek to challenge the social controls of society through non-conformity and disobedience. Each of these social psychological themes, obedience to authority, conformity, and non-conformity, are present in director Stuart Rosenberg’s 1967 film, Cool Hand Luke. They are explored through the reinforced social roles of those in authority and those who are obedient, displays of conformity and non-conformity, and how an individual can have an effect on the
Society tends to associate propaganda films with issues such as Nazi Germany and their film messages for their country; however, it is also possible for small independent companies, groups of like-minded people and individuals to use the media of film to incorporate messages for our society (The Independent, 2010). These messages are often in relation to changes that individuals should make in order to improve the standards by which they live their lives and changes to everyday habits that will benefit the individual, the individual’s family, a group of individuals or even a single person (Barnhisel and Turner, 2010).
The love of money is the root of all evil, a statement that has proved itself true through the centuries. Loving money traps us, as human beings. It is not a bad thing to enjoy what money can do; however, the love of money is a wasted effort that can put all in grave peril. It is at our advantage that we have the ability to choose whether we ‘want’ to fall into that trap. Unfortunately, that choice is difficult since society associates one’s character with wealth and financial management. The mishaps, deaths, and hardships that occur from the beginning of the tale are the result of deliberate deception for personal gain. In Treasure Island, greed sends the characters on a voyage. Robert Louis Stevenson makes a social commentary on the role that money has come to play in our society.
Money affects today's society when it comes to people being greedy about it. Some people let money take over them, and they don't see the true values of life. When it comes to money and greed, it could be very dangerous, there’s never a good outcome when it comes to that. In “The Pardoner's Tale” they show how a group of friends get taken by the want in gold, how they'd be willing to even betray each other to just have all the gold to themselves. In the story even death is an outcome, in order to just have the gold.
The constant theme throughout this movie is the battle between good and evil, right and wrong, and light and dark. Anakin Skywalker is the main protagonist throughout this film. There is an internal fight going on within him concerning what side of the force he should follow. The light side means he would have to allow Padme, his wife, to die. The dark side would allow him to save her or at least have the fear of losing her. He slowly starts to turn to the dark side with guidance from Darth Sidious (Chancellor Palpatine). Anakin believes he is doing the right thing which in turn will save Padme from dying in childbirth.
Fight Club “Its only after we’ve lost everything are we free to do anything”, Tyler Durden as (Brad Pitt) states, among many other lines of contemplation. In Fight Club, a nameless narrator, a typical “everyman,” played as (Edward Norton) is trapped in the world of large corporations, condominium living, and all the money he needs to spend on all the useless stuff he doesn’t need. As Tyler Durden says “The things you own end up owning you.” Fight Club is an edgy film that takes on such topics as consumerism, the feminization of society, manipulation, cultism, Marxist ideology, social norms, dominant culture, and the psychiatric approach of the human id, ego, and super ego. “It is a film that surrealistically describes the status of the American