Rogue One And The Politics Of Extremism
When Rogue One writer Chris Weitz tweeted in November that the film was a reflection of and comment on the rise of Donald Trump, the response from Twitter eggs and the Alt-Right clique was predictable. The breathtakingly original #DumpStarWars hashtag was trending on Twitter — the home arena of outrage — in no time. Every angle of this sad theater should have surprised exactly no one. Of course a Hollywood film about resistance to a fascistic empire is inherently political, and of course the eggs on twitter would use their considerable creative talents to express their disapproval.
What was somewhat surprising disappointing was the public comment made by Disney CEO Bob Iger : “…this is a film the world should enjoy. It is not a film that is, in any way, a political film. There are no political statements in it, at all.”.
Forget, for a second, that the Venn Diagram between Star Wars Fanboys and Alt-Right Fuckboys is probably pretty slight in the middle. Forget, for a second, that those overly concerned with negative depiction of Fascists have priorities to reexamine. And forget, for one second, that cowering in response to the threats and outrage of an extreme, vocal minority directly contradicts the spirit of this movie. All of that aside — the idea of Rogue One as apolitical is one of the dumbest, most wrongheaded and most dishonest to emerge from any bogus controversy this year. It’s a scared lie, serving only to protect the appeal of a film that would have suffered almost nothing at the hands of keyboard cowboys anyway.
Rogue One is a Star Wars film — it’s right there in the marketing: “A Star Wars Story”. And like the rest of the canon, it’s a war movie. Actually, more so than the rest of the canon. Rogue One sets aside all the family tragedy and internal character drama of the other seven films, and instead focuses squarely on conflict. Conflict between the rebels and the empire, of course. More broadly, though, the conflict between the extremes and the center, within any ideology.
Because it’s able to take a granular look at the events of the Star War itself, the movie presents the rebellion as a more rough-shod and fractured outfit than Star Wars fans are accustomed to seeing. The alliance in Rogue One is a patchwork of disparate segments. They disagree on methods, and have different motivations. They are divergent in conviction, and disagree on the worth of their cause. Sure — this movie is about stealing the plans to the Death Star. But it’s even more so about the challenges presented to scattered, diverse populations struggling to meet their respective needs in the face of oppression; and the ultimate need for a rallying point, a person — or martyr — to follow.
I imagine that what Bob Iger means when he says Rogue One isn’t political is that it isn’t specific to American politics right now. Which is a safe hedge. It’s a hollow defense, to make sure no sensibilities are offended. But its delusional. Saw Gerrera, Forest Whitaker’s character, makes it impossible to deny that the movie is lacing this Star Wars Story with political commentary. Gerrera is a rebel, long ago ousted from the rebel alliance. He’s a casualty of his own extremism. His militancy and uncompromising ideology threaten whatever diplomatic solutions the Alliance could hope to find. He is a zealot, and his would-be comrades run him to ground — because they disagree with his methods, and because he makes things inconvenient for them.
By the end of his story, he is also a mishmash of human and machine. Some limbs are metal, others natural. He periodically sucks air from a rudimentary respirator, one he carries wherever he goes. His breath in those moments directly mimics the wheezing of his ideological opposite, Darth Vader.
The implication is clear — Gerrera, like his nemesis, is being physically and mentally eroded by his conviction. They both exist as fringe actors within their respective movements, regarded mostly with fear by their so-called allies. If Rogue One wants to make one thing clear, it’s that belief can be poisonous when uncoupled from reason. The movie might not be completely anti-Trump, but it’s definitely anti Twitter troll. With apologies to Iger, that is political.
The politics of Rogue One don’t start and stop with the condemnation of extremists. More baldly, it positions itself (like the nine films before it) against authoritarian rule. The empire, as it has always been, is a mostly homogenous and predictable looking organization. Their primary motivation, as it has always been, seems to be the enrichment of its constituents and the extinction of dissent. That this happens to strike a chord in our particular cultural moment says much less about the motivations of Hollywood writers shepherding a decades-old story than it does about the unfortunate state of our particular cultural moment.
You aren’t supposed to sympathize with the Empire. That there are segments of the population who would boycott Rogue One because their desired model of government bears even a fractional resemblance to the bad guys in a blockbuster is a reflection of those segments, not a reflection of the film’s politics. Rogue One is political (like any war movie, ever), but A Michael Moore Star Wars Story it is not.
It’s highly unlikely that the brief petulance on twitter, or the subsequent weak defenses by Iger, affected the performance Rogue One. Of course Star Wars is for everyone. Of course it was going to make all the money; these films always have, even the bad ones. Still, it’s natural to wish that Disney’s CEO hadn’t dignified the outrage of social media warriors with some half-hearted response. It’s natural to wish that he had told the truth instead — that Rogue One is first and foremost a Star Wars movie. It just happens to be the perfect Star Wars movie for our time.
