On the evening of the 12th April 2019, just after the teaser trailer release for Episode IX, the Star Wars official Twitter page decided to create an online twitter poll for thousands of their followers to take part in. Now this sounds innocent enough on paper but the question that was asked was soon proved to be quite controversial and, in the end, the Star Wars social media team decided to delete the poll from their Twitter page.
The question asked was simple.
If you were part of the Star Wars universe, what side would you be on? The Resistance or The First Order?
To answer this, one has to either be all in for the Resistance or all in for the First Order. I was glad to see that the result was a landslide for the Resistance, with 73% of followers (44,488 votes) preferring them over the First Order with 27% (16,455 votes). So, with a clear winner for the ‘good guys,’ why in the end, did the social media team delete the poll?
Well…. politics
Here are some humorous responses to the poll:
So where do I stand on this? I do actually agree with the comments above, however I do not agree with the social media team deleting the poll. Predictably, the poll deletion resulted in a lot of rants from reactionary ‘anti-SJW’ (Social Justice Warriors) fan boys:
As expected, all these guys appear to be quite triggered. When clicking on these guy’s channels, it will not take you long before you come across some more of their reactionary videos about ‘SJWs’ or video rants about diversity and political correctness in the Star Wars universe or any other mainstream film. You see, none of these guys even attempt to address the controversy of the poll – which makes me think they are either clueless when it comes to understanding fascism, they don’t actually understand the politics of Star Wars or just have a soft spot for the alt right rhetoric’s of attacking ‘SJW’s, feminism and political correctness etc. Nevertheless, they all appear to be using their pre-conditioned political biases to directly attack certain elements of the Star Wars fanbase.
Firstly, you do not have to be a political expert to determine that the First Order is indeed fascist. You actually see this on the big screen in Episode VII – blowing up an entire planetary system (Hosnian) for no apparent reason and causing mass genocide, certainly is a characteristic of fascist aggression. Secondly, we hear Rose Tico in Episode VIII, The Last Jedi, explaining to Finn on Canto Bight how the First Order occupied her homeworld and forced her people into slave labour before exterminating them – which of course is another example of fascist aggression. And thirdly, even Episode VII director J. J Abrams hints at a link between the First Order and Nazism in this interview with Empire Magazine in August 2015.
“That all came out of conversations about what would have happened if the Nazis all went to Argentina but then started working together again? What could be born of that? Could the First Order exist as a group that actually admired The Empire? Could the work of The Empire be seen as unfulfilled? And could Vader be a martyr? Could there be a need to see through what didn’t get done?”
Bearing this in mind, although not intentional, the poll that was created by the Star Wars Twitter team did indeed come across as ‘do you prefer fictional freedom fighters or fictional fascists?’. Basically, the twitter poll was uncomfortable, not necessarily offensive, but just odd and for those readers who believe Star Wars is not political, then quite frankly you have been watching the films wrong.
To conclude, no one is stopping you from criticising Star Wars. I myself am not a massive fan of the Star Wars Disney brand or the new Canon, but my criticisms are mainly in frustration of weak script writing, poor character development and some odd continuity issues (especially in the case of Episode VII & VIII). Disney are of course a capitalist, mega rich, media conglomerate who want to profit from increased merchandise sales and tourist attractions (see Galaxy Edge) and have diluted the George Lucas’s era of cosmic politics to make it easier for younger children and adults to understand and enjoy. However, please do not be an idiot or a dupe and pander to the poisonous alt-right political criticisms of the Star Wars Disney brand which includes nonsensical rants about SJW’s, diversity, gender wars, cultural Marxists or political correctness. This is clearly dangerous as this could lead you toward radicalisation down the alt-right Rabbit Hole, which is a cauldron of apologia for fascists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other reactionaries.
Please feel free to watch the You tube links below for more information about the anti-SJW culture.
Outlander Club - The Politics of Star Wars 