Resistance, Rebellion, and Death a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Rachel Sipress
Rebellion and Violence in the Star Wars Original Trilogy
In the original Star Wars trilogy, there is aManichean moral dichotomy between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire. The Galactic Empire is seen as completely evil, destroying entire planets mercilessly, while the Rebel Alliance is presented as morally superior: celebrating after the destruction of both Death Stars with no thought given to the many souls who died in both these attacks. The rebels take lives but they are the lives of faceless stormtroopers or the hundreds of thousands who die anonymously on the Death Star.
Frantz Fanon opens Wretched of the Earth with a declaration of violence:“National Liberation, national reawakening, restoration of the nation to the people or Commonwealth, whatever the name used, whatever the latest expression, decolonization is always a violent event”(Fanon 1.) Fanon argues that decolonization cannot come without violence, and while violence is shown in Star Wars, it is violence without consequence. The only blood that is shown in all three movies in the original trilogy is during the cantina scene in A New Hope when Obi-Wan Kenobi slices off the arm of an alien who is bothering Luke.
Star Wars repeatedly takes complex topics and reduces them to black and white questions of morality. Yet, the act of rebellion is not so simple. Those rebelling must use violence and this violence is what makes that act so difficult. The choice for freedom comes at a moral cost.
Frantz Fanon was an Afro-Caribbean revolutionary who became involved with the Algerian National Liberation Front and the Algerian War of Independence. By studying his treatise on decolonization, Wretched of the Earth, and Algerian writer Albert Camus’ The Rebel along with the historical events of the Algerian revolution, the ways that Star Wars succeeds and fails to present an accurate representation of revolution can be seen.
In order to understand decolonization, Fanon first sets up the dichotomy between the colonist and the colonized. It is a“compartmentalized world, this world divided in two, is inhabited by different species…Looking at the immediacies of the colonial context, it is clear that what divides this world is first and foremost, what species, what race one belongs to”(Fanon 5). Race and colonization are intrinsically linked, and yet in Star Wars, this link is partially ignored. The Star Wars series does set up a divide between humans and aliens that seems to mirror the race relations of colonization, yet the Rebellion is overarchingly comprised of humans, particularly in positions of power.
In fact, in both A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, there are almost no aliens shown as part of the Rebellion.
It is not until Return of the Jedi that aliens are shown to be a large part of the Rebel Alliance and then only Admiral Ackbar is depicted as being a leader.
The outskirt planets, such as Tatooine, are the colonized sectors as Fanon describes:
The colonized’s sector is a famished sector, hungry for bread, meat, shoes, coal and light. The colonized’s sector is a sector that crouches and cowers, a sector on its knees, a sector that is prostate. It’s a sector of niggers, a sector of towelheads. The gaze that the colonized subject casts at the colonist’s sector is a look of lust, a look of envy. Dreams of possession.(Fanon 4)
Tatooine is depicted throughout the entire series to be a place on the outskirts of society. It is a planet with scorching suns and little water or vegetation. It is inhabited by moisture farmers, criminals, and aliens, all ruled over by the gang-like Hutts. One of the only instances in the original trilogy where the Empire is shown to be a subjugative force, outside of military engagements with the Rebellion, is on Tattooine when stormtroopers are shown patrolling Mos Eisley and questioning civilians.
If Star Wars is to be looked at through the lens of Fanon, then those who inhabit Tatooine and similar planets should be those rebelling against the Empire. Yet, this is not the case. The Rebel Alliance in the original trilogy is led chiefly by Mon Mothma and Leia Organa, both of whom are powerful humans from Core Worlds who have political agendas against the Empire rather than face oppression under its domination. This goes directly against the image of decolonization as viewed by Franz Fanon.
According to Fanon“In order to assimilate the culture of the oppressor and venture into his fold, the colonized subject has had to pawn some of his intellectual possessions. For instance, one of the things he has to assimilate is the way the colonialist bourgeoisie thinks”(13). Yet, nowhere in the Star Wars canon are the Rebels shown to be facing this sort of oppression. In fact, the only character in any of the films who is forced to assimilate his thinking to that of the“colonialist bourgeoisie” is Anakin Skywalker. Anakin is taken from Tatooine, a true backwater settlement, to Coruscant, the capital of the galaxy. He must assimilate not only to his environment on Coruscant but also to his role as a Jedi. In The Phantom Menace, it is clear that Anakin is an intelligent and gifted child, yet most of the knowledge he has gained from his life on Tatooine is useless for his new life as a Jedi and indeed he is pressured to forget his former life ever existed. Looking at the life of Anakin Skywalker through the lens of decolonization, the closest parallel is that of Algerians who were forced to forget their Algerian identity in order to assimilate and succeed in French society. Assimilation was one the most important tenets of French imperialism. French colonial policy told subjects of their colonies that if they adopted French language, customs, and culture that they would one day be accepted as French.
If Anakin is the closest parallel to a colonized subject that is shown in the Star Wars films, what does it mean that he fights on the side of the empire? Anakin’s son, Luke, also grew up on Tatooine but he does not show the same effect of being a colonized subject as his father. Yet, he fights for the Rebel Alliance. Perhaps this is because Luke never had to assimilate to the metropolitan society as Anakin had to, but rather went straight from Tatooine to becoming a member of the Rebel Alliance. Luke also never had to assimilate to Jedi culture in the same way as his father. The Jedi Order of Anakin’s time was a very bureaucratic entity while Luke had one-on-one training with two different Jedi masters in a very adhocratic manner.
Compare Yoda’s training of younglings in the Jedi Temple to the training that Luke undergoes under Yoda’s tutelage.
While Luke’s training in a very singular and introspective process, the training that younglings in that scene and Anakin received were much more about becoming a part of the Jedi bureaucracy. The Star Wars films present the Jedi and Sith, and furthermore the Rebels and the Empire, as simply good versus evil, yet the more that one investigates, these lines of good and evil become more and more difficult to ascertain.
This presentation of black and white morality in Star Wars for situations that are in fact morally dubious again reappears when looking at the actions of the Rebel Alliance through the lens of Albert Camus’ The Rebel. In the introduction to The Rebel, Camus states“Our purpose is to find out whether innocence, the moment it becomes involved in action, can avoid committing murder”(Camus 1). Camus is questioning whether an innocent person can avoid murder when involved in violence and rebellion. Yet this is not even a question that is posed in the Star Wars canon. The innocence of the Rebel Alliance is never questioned despite the deaths of countless Storm Troopers and the hundreds of thousands who occupied the Death Star at its moment of destruction. However, the destruction of Alderaan is viewed as a monstrosity of epic proportions.
By ignoring the violence inflicted by one side in a conflict, the true cost of rebellion is also ignored. This can be viewed in comparison to the Algerian War of Independence, particularly the 1966 Italian-Algerian historical war film La Battaglia di Algeri. This film depicts the urban Guerrilla warfare that took place from 1954-57 during the Algerian War of Independence. The film has been critically celebrated for showing violence on the side of both the Algerian National Liberation Front insurgency and the French counterinsurgency. The National Liberation Front commits atrocities, including bombing French citizens, in the name of freedom. The rebels in La Battaglia di Algeri are shown to be much more morally dubious than the Rebel Alliance, but that is what gives their rebellion meaning. The National Liberation Front are not heroes but they are fighting against oppression.
Let us look at the depictions of the bombings upon the French by the Algerians that are shown in La Battaglia di Algeri:
These are attacks on civilian locations: an Air France terminal, a cafe, and a bar. Individuals are shown. A child at the cafe is shown licking an ice cream cone. The Algerian woman sees the child and still proceeds with the bombing.
Now let us look at the destruction of the First Death Star in A New Hope:
The difference between these two clips is staggering. No individuals are shown in the destruction of the Death Star. No moral quandary is presented. French civilians were not innocent in the subjugation of Algeria. Even if they were not in the military, every French citizen or “pied-noir” as they were known, was complicit in the institution of imperialism over Algeria. In the Star Wars films, not only are individual deaths not shown but only members of military institutions are depicted rather than Imperial civilians. This changes the way the viewer sees the violence shown in a revolution.
In the original Star Wars trilogy, the fact that Rebel Alliance is good while the Galactic Empire is evil is clear. There is no moral grey area seen in these films. Yet, in actual rebellion, it can be seen that this is not true. Star Wars repeatedly takes incredibly complex topics and presents them in ways that are not completely logical. Fanon presents rebellion and decolonization as a thing intrinsically connected to race, yet this aspect of rebellion is completely ignored in Star Wars. Furthermore, violence, as presented as a moral quandary by Camus, is also completely ignored in Star Wars. Rebellion, violence, and decolonization are topics that can not be reduced to black and white dichotomies; yet, this is what the Star Wars films attempt to do.
Annotated Bibliography
Camus, Albert. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. Vintage International, 1951.
The Rebel by Albert Camus is a book-length essay written in 1951. Albert Camus is French philosopher born in French Algeria and was heavily influenced by the conflicts that arose from the French colonization of Algeria. The Rebel deals mainly with the historical and philosophical implications of rebellion and revolution.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 2011.
The Wretched of the Earth is a 1961 novel by Afro-Caribbean writer Frantz Fanon. It has a become a famous treatise about the effect that colonization can have on an individual and a society. It critiques both imperialism and nationalism and is known as a “seminal work” for all those interested in decolonization.
Lucas, George, director. Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope. 20th Century Fox, 1977.
The first film in the original trilogy of Star Wars films. This film became a cultural mainstay for decades-spanning its release. The clips in this article of the Cantina Scene, Stormtroopers stopping Obi-Wan and Luke at Mos Eisley, Luke destroying the first Death Star, and General Dodonna briefing the rebel fighters are all from this film.
Lucas, George, director. Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the Sith. 20th Century Fox, 2005.
The final film in the second trilogy of Star Wars films. This film depicts Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the Dark Side and the destruction of the Jedi Order by Palpatine. The clip of Yoda’s training of Jedi younglings included in this article is from this film.
Marquand, Richard, director. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. 20th Century Fox, 1983.
The final film of the original trilogy of Star Wars films. The scene included in this article of Admiral Ackbar briefing the Rebels for the destruction of the second Death Star is from this film.
Musu, Antonio, et al. The Battle of Algiers. Allied Artists Corporation, 1969.
The Battle of Algiers is a famous 1969 Italian-Algerian historical film. It depicts the urban Guerilla warfare that took place during Algerian War of Independence between 1954-57.
Kershner, Irvin, director. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. 20th Century Fox, 1980.
The second film in the Star Wars original trilogy. The scenes included in this article of Yoda training Luke Skywalker and of the Rebel base on Hoth are both from this film.
1 thought on “Rachel Sipress”
Rachel states that Fanon “presents rebellion and decolonization as a thing intrinsically connected to race, yet this aspect of race is completely ignored in Star Wars” (19). I will respond to this argument using Ali Sadek’s paper, a few postcolonial texts, and some of the Star Wars films.
In postcolonialism, there is this idea of “otherness.” Distinguishing oneself from another has been used to control the “other,” generally based on physical and cultural differences. We see this at play in Said’s Orientalism, where he points to the Occident hegemony over the Orient, a relationship that emphasizes the Orient’s “backwardness” and the prejudice against their culture (Said 15). Fanon has also addressed this concept in his work, Black Skin, White Masks: “… one can have no further doubt that the real other of the white man is and will continue to be the black man” (Fanon 195). The colonizer finds it necessary that the other be “owned, altered, and ravished” (Al-Saidi 96). Now, the idea of otherness can crop up in science fiction as well. It can be conceptualized through physical differences, among others, and often “alienness” is used to signify this.
Before we delve into the theoretical component of this response, I’d like to establish this fact: the Star Wars franchise most definitely has a problem with minority representation. An overwhelming majority of the cast has been white, save the few black characters of Lando Calrissian, Mace Windu, and Finn. There have been only a few other minority actors, and they have come in more recent years, such as the men on the Rogue One team. To break it down even further, the only minority actors to appear in Star Wars have also only been men.
So there is an identifiable issue with minority representation, but it would be an oversimplification to dismiss the relevance of decolonization, or the fittingness of Fanon’s theories, to Star Wars, just because the same dichotomous constructs are not present. It would be more apt to see how postcolonial or rebellion theories can be applied to the context of Star Wars.
To say that Star Wars completely ignores the aspect of race is not wholly representative of the issue at hand – Star Wars perhaps was not intended to be a saga about whites against blacks, or whites against any other minority race. Let’s look at the way the films are set up: there is a colonizing force, the Empire, that is very powerful, wealthy, and technologically superior. Then, there are the multitude of other beings, of different species, cultures, regions, enslavement status, classes, and so on, that are oppressed by the dominant hegemony. From Wretched of the Earth, Fanon’s definitions of the proletariat and lumpenproletariat, along with social class and indigenous peoples, can surely be identified in Star Wars. Take the Tusken Raiders, for example, who appear first in A New Hope. They are the Sand People, a native group of Tatooine. As Ali Sadek states, the Tusken Raiders are “portrayed as being inferior to the human colonizers of Tatooine…they are shown to wield primitive weapons” (Sadek 4). Sadek also states that the language of the Raiders contributes to their non-human representation, by being characterized as “aggressive and unappealing” (Sadek 4). Alienation based on race can equally correspond to the dehumanization of colonized people based on other distinguishing characteristics. In general, although Star Wars does not set up white colonizer versus black colonized in the way that Fanon describes, it does not mean that decolonization cannot still be understood through the framework of the films. Really, the absence of a strict racial dichotomy is not entirely relevant to the plotline of Star Wars and its postcolonial implications. As previously mentioned, other divisions are present, such as species and social class, that can be substituted into these theories about decolonization and rebellion.
Al-Saidi, Afaf. “Post-Colonialism Literature The Concept Of Self And The Other In Coetzee’s
Waiting For The Barbarians: An Analytical Approach.” Journal of Language Teaching and Research5.1 (2014): 96. Web. 9 Dec. 2017.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press, 1952. Print.
Sadek, Ali. “Galactic Orientalism.” Postcolonial Star Wars. N.p., 2017. Web. 9 Dec. 2017.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1978,.
Rachel states that Fanon “presents rebellion and decolonization as a thing intrinsically connected to race, yet this aspect of race is completely ignored in Star Wars” (19). I will respond to this argument using Ali Sadek’s paper, a few postcolonial texts, and some of the Star Wars films.
In postcolonialism, there is this idea of “otherness.” Distinguishing oneself from another has been used to control the “other,” generally based on physical and cultural differences. We see this at play in Said’s Orientalism, where he points to the Occident hegemony over the Orient, a relationship that emphasizes the Orient’s “backwardness” and the prejudice against their culture (Said 15). Fanon has also addressed this concept in his work, Black Skin, White Masks: “… one can have no further doubt that the real other of the white man is and will continue to be the black man” (Fanon 195). The colonizer finds it necessary that the other be “owned, altered, and ravished” (Al-Saidi 96). Now, the idea of otherness can crop up in science fiction as well. It can be conceptualized through physical differences, among others, and often “alienness” is used to signify this.
Before we delve into the theoretical component of this response, I’d like to establish this fact: the Star Wars franchise most definitely has a problem with minority representation. An overwhelming majority of the cast has been white, save the few black characters of Lando Calrissian, Mace Windu, and Finn. There have been only a few other minority actors, and they have come in more recent years, such as the men on the Rogue One team. To break it down even further, the only minority actors to appear in Star Wars have also only been men.
So there is an identifiable issue with minority representation, but it would be an oversimplification to dismiss the relevance of decolonization, or the fittingness of Fanon’s theories, to Star Wars, just because the same dichotomous constructs are not present. It would be more apt to see how postcolonial or rebellion theories can be applied to the context of Star Wars.
To say that Star Wars completely ignores the aspect of race is not wholly representative of the issue at hand – Star Wars perhaps was not intended to be a saga about whites against blacks, or whites against any other minority race. Let’s look at the way the films are set up: there is a colonizing force, the Empire, that is very powerful, wealthy, and technologically superior. Then, there are the multitude of other beings, of different species, cultures, regions, enslavement status, classes, and so on, that are oppressed by the dominant hegemony. From Wretched of the Earth, Fanon’s definitions of the proletariat and lumpenproletariat, along with social class and indigenous peoples, can surely be identified in Star Wars. Take the Tusken Raiders, for example, who appear first in A New Hope. They are the Sand People, a native group of Tatooine. As Ali Sadek states, the Tusken Raiders are “portrayed as being inferior to the human colonizers of Tatooine…they are shown to wield primitive weapons” (Sadek 4). Sadek also states that the language of the Raiders contributes to their non-human representation, by being characterized as “aggressive and unappealing” (Sadek 4). Alienation based on race can equally correspond to the dehumanization of colonized people based on other distinguishing characteristics. In general, although Star Wars does not set up white colonizer versus black colonized in the way that Fanon describes, it does not mean that decolonization cannot still be understood through the framework of the films. Really, the absence of a strict racial dichotomy is not entirely relevant to the plotline of Star Wars and its postcolonial implications. As previously mentioned, other divisions are present, such as species and social class, that can be substituted into these theories about decolonization and rebellion.
Al-Saidi, Afaf. “Post-Colonialism Literature The Concept Of Self And The Other In Coetzee’s
Waiting For The Barbarians: An Analytical Approach.” Journal of Language Teaching and Research5.1 (2014): 96. Web. 9 Dec. 2017.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press, 1952. Print.
Sadek, Ali. “Galactic Orientalism.” Postcolonial Star Wars. N.p., 2017. Web. 9 Dec. 2017.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1978,.