Imaginary Worlds - Empire vs Rebels

Episode Date: November 18, 2015

The epic battle between the Evil Empire and the Rebel Alliance has become a metaphor we love to use in sports and politics. But what happens when you realize that you're the Empire in someone else's story? Do you tell them they're wrong? Do you embrace being bad? Or do you argue that "evil" is all relative? With Alyssa Rosenberg, Chris Taylor, and Jonathan V. Last. This is Part II of a V part series on how Star Wars changed the way we see our world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Eric Malinsky. So I'm not really a big sports fan, but I have a tribal loyalty to the Boston sports teams, especially living in New York. And that's partially because the Red Sox have such a great narrative. Now, you may have heard the story back in 1920, the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees. And then for decades and decades after that, the Yankees seemed to have this supernatural power to stop us from ever winning a title. And after the Star Wars trilogy came out, a Boston Globe sports columnist called the Yankees the evil empire. And suddenly the Star Wars terminology was adopted by countless other sports columnists

in Boston and New York. I mean, it's crazy. The Yankees actually embraced it like damn straight. And the empire always strikes back. And then things got complicated. At first, it was great. I mean, we beat the Yankees finally and won the World Series. And then the New England Patriots, our kind of hapless football team, suddenly became a powerhouse and won a bunch of Super Bowls. I mean, they were winning a lot. Like, they were just crushing other teams. I mean, not that we were complaining.

But then came the cheating scandals. The NFL kicks off a new season tomorrow night, facing brand new allegations of cheating by the New England Patriots. The Patriots were involved in illegal taping of 40 games as opposed to eight. The issue is whether the New England Patriots cheated in the AFC title game against Indianapolis by under-inflating the footballs they used, in theory making them easier to handle. And very soon, football fans around the country started taking our Star Wars metaphor and using it against us in football. And this just puts us in a weird position because, I mean,

how can we be the evil empire in one sport and then the rebel alliance in another sport? It's just, it's like the very definition of cognitive dissidence, where you just have two conflicting ideas in your head and you just can't reconcile them. Or at least that's the way I feel. You're right. It's absolutely a transition. Alyssa Rosenberg grew up in several different New England states. She now writes for The Washington Post. Growing up, one of the things that was fascinating and frustrating about the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry was the extent to which the Yankees felt no shame, right? I mean,

George Steinbrenner was not someone who could be shamed about anything. He was sort of the Donald Trump of baseball to a certain extent. And the Yankees were sort of cold and confident and really secure in being the best, really secure in being the dynasty. But it's interesting what you're saying, though, because so the Star Wars imagery for the Yankees were like stormtroopers, like the pinstripes. They all look the same. They line up. You know, it's just sort of this like army you're defeating. But I feel like the Star Wars iconography around the Patriots is more about the dark side. Either that or they're a bunch of smugglers, right? They are a little, you know, I could see Bill Belichick with his own version of the Millennium Falcon.

He is, you know, he ain't in this for our revolution. Let's put it that way. She's talking about the Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, who is allegedly behind many of these cheating scandals. Now, I did a Google image search on Belichick and Star Wars. And immediately a dozen images popped up of him as the emperor or wearing Darth Vader's helmet. There are no images of him as Han Solo, but that's how Alyssa likes to see him. You have to just sort of think of him as a pirate or you'll start to hate yourself as a Patriots fan. So why is this evil empire metaphor so tempting? Why does it feel so good to use in

sports and in politics, even when we know that it's slippery? Alyssa says we have to break the metaphor down to its component parts because each one is really compelling. The emperor is the puppet master. Darth Vader is the person who's actually going out and causing trouble. You know, the insurgent energy of the rebellion, the moral and intellectual purity of the force. And there's a role for almost anyone in any given conflict, even if the fit's not great. No one was more aware of this than Jon Stewart.

On The Daily Show, he loved comparing Dick Cheney to Darth Vader. I can crush people's throats with my mind. But you, if I pulled this, you pulled. Kind of shocked when the Republicans use the same Star Wars terminology in their election video to rally their base against Darth Nancy Pelosi. They had a plan to defeat Darth Nancy with a strategy built from the ground up, and it was up to their battle-tested incumbents to carry it out. They vowed to band together once more to deny the majority to Darth Nancy and the evil Democrat empire. Evil Democrat empire? I got news for you. If we're going to do the Star Wars Ewoks. At best. But the first time a politician used the term evil empire, it wasn't in good fun. In fact, it was pretty shocking.

So when Star Wars came out in 1977, Soviet Union, United States, were experiencing an era of detente. Both sides were kind of begrudgingly willing to accept that the other had a place in the world. And this push for detente wasn't just coming from liberals over here. Executives at IBM, Pepsi, and other major corporations wanted the U.S. to have a normal relationship with the USSR so they could sell stuff to the Russians. But Ronald Reagan saw things differently. They are the focus of evil in the modern world.

And when he said this, To ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding, and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. This was immediately dubbed the Evil Empire speech. Reagan's speechwriter swears blind that he did not intend the Evil Empire to mean Star Wars, but I think it just happened to come out right before they showed Star Wars on HBO, so I guess everyone had it on their minds. Chris Taylor wrote the book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe.

And he says this was really just the beginning of Reagan and Star Wars being linked. In 1983, when Reagan announced that he was going to develop a space-based system of lasers that could shoot down Soviet missiles, the press immediately called the program Star Wars. But Chris says reporters were actually taking a talking point from the Democrats in Congress. It was actually Teddy Kennedy. And then you sort of see him trying to walk that back in later speeches. He realizes that Star Wars is just too popular a thing to compare a project to. Oh, that's interesting.

He thought that he was going to show how out of touch with Reagan was with reality by calling it Star Wars. Exactly. He thought it was an insult. And of course, many people heard, whoa, Star Wars, cool. You know, bright lasers in space. Very exciting. So, you know, they had to back off from that. And then Reagan

doesn't even say anything until 85, until I think he's at the National Press Club. And he says, you know, some have compared this program to Star Wars. But you know, this isn't about war, it's about peace. And in that struggle, if you'll pardon me using a movie phrase, the force is with us. Which actually was never used in the movies was only used by a Sith, a Sith Lord and in episode two. So I don't know if Lucas was trying to take a dig back at Reagan with that. In fact, this metaphor was so malleable.

You even had the Soviets getting in on the act in the mid-80s. They, you know, in Pravda, they talk about how some unnamed American journalist had compared Reagan to Darth Vader. So, you know, both sides see themselves in the rebel alliance which is odd because the rebel alliance was initially supposed to be uh north vietnam oh that's interesting did lucas ever actually say that yeah yeah i mean it's it's right there in his uh in his early notes uh from the movie i mean basically compares the emperor to nixon huh you know and and a nice little anecdote from the set of return

of the jedi when we finally see the emperor's throne room uh lucas actually pointed out the the actor who was playing the emperor uh ian mcdermott and said hey do you notice the the shape of this room and mcdermott was like yeah it's it's an oval like yeah you get it you know this is supposed to be the oval office Office. But people didn't get that. And it's astonishing. By the mid-80s, you had people writing about how Star Wars, you know, took away our Vietnam angst. You know, when exactly the opposite was intended. You know, the Ewoks really were the North Vietnamese in that sort of sense of a primitive army overcoming a mighty empire.

Yeah, that was lost on 99% of the population for good reason. It had something for every bit of America, really, didn't it? I mean, you know, the South heard Rebel Alliance and they thought of something very different, you know, and I guess the Yankees thought of it as very much that revolutionary narrative, especially as all the bad guys spoke with British accents. But actually, then again, oddly enough, we saw ourselves in the Rebel Alliance as well, because the final attack on the Death Star

was based on the British pilots of 1950s movies, Dam Busters. And that's literally what Lucas took inspiration from, because before we had the special effects, he spliced together a reel of action from these 50s British RAF movies to stand in for that action. idea, you know, late 1960s kind of idea of America as the evil empire. Was he surprised how many conservatives and how much of middle America embraced it? No, he, you know, his primary goal was really to give the children of the 1970s some sort of positive, you know, set of role models, you know, something to look up to, a story to enjoy. But no, you know, he slips this stuff in. And obviously, for Revenge of the Sith, we hear Anakin Skywalker now becoming Darth Vader.

You say, you know, if you're not with me, you're my enemy. Lucas was quite clearly intending a George W. Bush parable. You even saw this in the 2000 campaign with McCain, who saw himself running in the primaries against Bush. He said, we're heading into the Death Star, and he started appearing at rallies when he was sort of making a late charge through the primaries, waving a lightsaber around. Jonathan V. Last writes for the Weekly Standard, a conservative news magazine.

He usually covers pretty dry and wonky stuff. You know, he wrote a book about demographics. Vincent V. Last writes for the weekly standard, conservative news magazine. He usually covers pretty dry and wonky stuff. You know, he wrote a book about demographics. But his most popular piece that he ever wrote, it's about Star Wars. If I'm ever remembered for anything for five seconds, it will be for that piece, funnily enough. He still gets angry emails to this day. By his count, over 15,000. They run the gamut, pro, anti, tongue in cheek, wishing he would drop dead. So why was this article so controversial? Well, Jonathan argued that even though

the empire is called the evil empire in the credits of the first movie, empires are not necessarily inherently evil. Not even this one. I would say I did not always believe this, but, you know, it's one of those things where you, you know, after you've seen Empire Strikes Back for the 5071st time, you start to, you realize things like, you know, when Vader says to Luke as they're, you know, battling, he doesn't say, come join me and we will oppress the galaxy and extract riches. He says, come join me and we will bring order to the galaxy.

We can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy. That's a very interesting pitch. You know, Vader does not see himself as evil. You know, the Emperor does not, I don't think, see himself as evil qua evil. You know, another big thing for me, what's the big sticking point in the email I always get from people, and God knows I still get, probably still get five emails a month about that piece. People say, well, what about Alderaan? And I say, well, you know, if what Leia says about Alderaan is true, then it's very important. She says, you know, Alderaan is a

peaceful planet. We have no weapons, no means of defending ourselves. You know, please, Grand Moff Tarkin, don't kill it. No, Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly... You will devour another target, a military target, then name the system. But the problem is that everything that Leia tells Tarkin and Vader up to that point in the movie is a lie. You know, at first she says we're on a diplomatic mission of mercy. They are not, in fact. She's on a spy mission. When they hear you've attacked a diplomatic... You're not so surprised, Your Highness. You weren't on any mercy mission this time.

Several transmissions were beamed to the ship by the spies. She says we have no Death Star plans. She's lying. She does have Death Star plans. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan. You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take her away! She says that she doesn't know where the Rebel base is. Of course, she does know where the Rebel base is.

On d'Antouille. Then she says about Alderaan, she gives them the location of the base, but it turns out it's an old base and a wrong base. And so I guess you could choose to believe that Alderaan, which is the fifth thing in this chain, is the one true thing. But we as the audience don't have any real reason to believe that. From the Empire's point of view, Princess Leia is pretty obviously the leader of the rebels. So Alderaan is probably a well-armed hotbed of rebel insurgents. Therefore, it's a legitimate military target.

Now, later on, when George Lucas made the Star Wars prequels, he spelled out this idea that the Jedi see the world in shades of gray, but their enemy, the Sith, see everything in black and white. Like in this scene, when Anakin Skywalker has turned to the dark side, and he's about to become Darth Vader as we all know him. And Anakin confronts his former mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the younger version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I have brought peace, freedom, justice, and security to my new empire. Your new empire? Don't make me kill you. Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy. If you're not with me, then you're my enemy. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

But Jonathan says if you actually look at what happens in these films, the Jedi are total hypocrites. They actually do separate the universe into good or evil. It's the Sith that are arguing the nature of power is complicated. I mean, one of the things that I think is really striking about the prequels is that the Jedi are set up as this really fantastic special forces kind of group, and yet they're wrong about everything. And they're incredibly arrogant. They say, well, does this planet exist? And the Jedi librarian says, well, no, it doesn't because

it's not in our files. And if it's not in our files, then it can't possibly exist for terrible consequences. So this happens all the time. The Jedi, I would say it's hard to look around through, especially in the prequels, and find a case where the Jedi are executing a mission successfully. Well, the interesting thing to me, too, about the prequels is that I always felt like Lucas was really not that interested in how Anakin became Darth Vader. He really was curious about how a democratic republic becomes an empire. And it seems that his answer, why, is that when democracy becomes so corrupt and so paralyzed by indecision, that having a benign dictator seems like a reasonable solution. Yeah, I think that's right. I actually, it's funny you mentioned that. I do wonder whether Lucas believes that himself but I think he was sort of saying like it was almost sort of a cautionary tale about partisan bickering in a way, you know, in a paralyzed, you know, ineffective Senate.

Yeah. And the idea of too big to govern. I mean, this is when we look at the Senate, the Senate seems to, if you just sort of go visually, have thousands and thousands of member planets. You just think to yourself, well, how could they ever agree on anything? I mean, you know, everybody's interests are always sort of slightly in tension. It would be impossible. And when Naboo gets invaded, you know, the Galactic Senate can do nothing, really, you know, even though the invasion is being masterminded by Palpatine behind the scenes. The fact that they can't muster, you know, the fortitude to do anything about it is itself an indictment of the old order, I think. I mean, if you look at throughout history and throughout, you know, fictional history, what do the bad guys do? The bad

guys want either money or they want power. We never see that with Palpatine or Vader. They really do seem to want order. And this is, goodness knows, that can be put to terrible ends. But we're never really shown that to be the case. Even on, you know, when we finally get to Tatooine in episode four. It's not clear that the Empire really affects Uncle Owen and Aunt Beiru's life all that much until they come to kill them. Yes, there's that. Except for that. Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

But, you know, as I said, again, if you flip it around a little bit, from the Empire's point of view, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beiru had been harboring fugitives. So, again, things are always slightly more complicated than they seem. If you're looking for somebody who sees themselves in the Star Wars universe as being a bad guy, Jabba is probably it. They're the criminals and the people who stand apart from the entire system itself. And that's the only bad guy. Everybody else really sees themselves as pursuing something which they view as a good. I mean, this is a fun mental exercise, but I know that Jonathan doesn't watch these movies and identify with Darth Vader or the Emperor. I mean, you can't when every visual cue and every music cue is telling you they're evil. But we all have these moments in life where you kind of have to play the bad guy,

you know, like you have to commit a necessary evil, or you're just going about your life and you realize you're the bad guy in someone else's story. But mostly we're all just in conflict with each other. And that's going to go on forever and ever, like the Star Wars franchise. So Boston sports fans, I say take your cues from the enemies to the south. The insult has less power when you embrace it. When Tom Brady got out of that four-game suspension and everyone was seething with rage online, you know what went through my mind? Good. Feel the hatred flowing through you. Seethe with anger and you will fumble the ball and we'll keep running up the score. I'm sorry, that was terrible. That was supposed to be the

emperor with a Boston accent. Anyway, that's it for this week's show. Special thanks to Alyssa Rosenberg, Chris Taylor, and Jonathan V. Last, who loves working at the Weekly Standard because his boss, Bill Kristol, will let him write about anything. You know, I would say I did an even more embarrassing piece about Frozen defending Prince Hans. I would say I did an even more embarrassing piece about Frozen defending Prince Hans.

And again, Bill was, you know, he sort of raised his eyebrows a little bit, but he said, sure, go ahead and do it. You can like Imaginary World on Facebook. I tweet at Emalinski. The show's website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org. If you only knew the power.