I like
Lord of the Rings. A lot. I count eight Tolkien books on my desk at the minute, and while it’s not entirely as bad as it’s sometimes made out, it
is racist, and sexist – as is just about everything written in the 1930s and 40s to some degree. It has medievalist ranting about bloodlines and so forth, and (with some notable exceptions) essentially conservative roles for female characters.
Amusingly, Peter Jackson’s modern interpretation manages to be have even more of a fascist gloss than the original. What with making almost every elf character into a blonde haired blue eyed nazi ideal of ubermensch, when in the novels it’s so rare for them to be blonde that most of those who are (
Galadriel and
Glorfindel) have names referring directly to their unusual hair colour. Typical elven features in Tolkien’s writing tend to be ‘tall, dark haired and grey eyed’ (the last feature apparently coming from his wife). Even Legolas’ hair is only ever described in the novel as ‘dark.’ For that matter, Jackson managed the impressive task of cramming Minas Tirith with more honkies than it needed to have; the books mention ‘swart’ (ick) as many times about the denizens of Gondor (even Bree!) as they do about various Southrons. Even the trivial non-Western elements disappeared; Gondor was in the novel, partly Egyptian themed, its kings' crowns resembling those of Upper Egypt, with pearly stylised seabird wings on them, for example, while the film uses one more familiar to western audiences.
Sauron is evil looking and such (though, to fit with the Satan theme, he was once the most beautiful being ever seen) and the only major villain who isn’t evil looking in some way is Saruman. (On a related point of trivia, the only villain character Tolkien never had anything good to say about, is Grima Wormtongue, who just seems to be a conniving little snake, even Sauron and Saruman have ‘noble’ motives, at least when they start out) Regardless, it’s a very conservative book, and while what it explicitly says about racism (Legolas and Gimli overcoming their predjudice) and sexism (Éowen accomplishing far more than any other mortal in single combat) is good, it does have unfortunate terminology and outlook; partly because reconciling progressive attitudes with conservatism of that type is always difficult, and partly because it was written
during fucking World War Two when the
goddamn Nazis were a world power, and Britain was ruled by a man who once tried to gas the Kurds, and later sent troops around the world to fight independence movements with summary executions, which of course results in some reflection of prevailing attitudes of the time.
Star Wars, however, is free of much of this, and is by any reasonable standard, a much less racist/fascist/sexist (well, possibly not that last one, almost all of Tolkien's major female characters are stong in some way, from Éowyn to Galadriel, who 'off-screen' manages to blow up a large fortress) to various others in other books.) product. Anyone who says otherwise is obviously acting on some personal bias. While I like
Lord of the Rings for many reasons, it’s not perfect, and to ignore its flaws, like the knee-jerk conservatism of its author and highly Catholic theology (though actually I think this works quite well, if only because Tolkien’s version of god curiously enough doesn’t actually have
worship – there’s only one place of worship devoted to ‘God’ or the Valar in the entire world, and that’s basically a cenotaph used once per year by one specific people –
worship is supposedly the work of Morgoth and his minions, ironically, Sauron’s temples are closer to actual Catholicism than the actual god stand-in. I’m sure Tolkien wouldn’t be impressed with that point… I always thought one of the many fundamental flaws of Judeo-Christianity was the idea that a perfect god would need such endless flattery and fellation). Star Wars isn’t perfect, either, but it has less conservative attitudes.
Even though it has queens, kings, princesses and such, Star Wars is considerably more modern in its outlook (though it’s interesting to note that like Lord of the Rings, every technical advancement seems to be some new kind of super weapon) and Star Wars’ gaping flaws (its treatment of AIs for example) are less relevant to the topic of fascism. Palpatinism is actually fascism. Right down to the government canoodling with major corporations, as depicted in the EU, (Just replace Kaut with Krupp) it has everything you could possibly want to justify calling it a fascist regime. Even the cult of personality.
The ‘message’ of Star Wars is that this is evil. How anyone can conclude that it makes the series ‘fascist’ I don’t know. If Star Wars is fascist, so are all war films which have nazis in evil roles. Schinder’s List, for example.
Also…
The genetic aspect comes through most clearly in the overturning of the previous system of celibacy: Anakin's son has the natural strength to go up against Vader, but no-one else? Why not surround him with fifty guys and all start shooting?!
Because Lord Vader’s the guy with the giant army? Or did they miss that bit?
Why is it that the plucky band of freedom fighters can't defeat the monolithic and patriarchal forces of evil in twenty years?
…
The mind boggles.
...