Bret Devereaux

And if he *does* believe in the genocidal fascism, why does he get the stirring music when he decides to keep fighting the [checks notes] rebellion against the genocidal fascism. There are not two morally equivalent factions! This is not a morally neutral choice! 6/12

But then, I think the folks at Lucasfilm/EA/Disney etc. have forgotten that too, because we keep seeing people of color in positions of importance in the imperial remnant. But the Empire was racist! That was a big part of the theming of Star Wars! 7/12

It wasn't an accident that all of the aliens, women and people of color in the original Star Wars were rebels while the imperials were uniformly white guys with posh accents! This was made explicit in the expanded stuff, but it was very clear in the original films! 8/12

And I feel like we should be clear just how obvious this framing is: the all-white, all-human Nazi-cosplay faction that brags about disestablishing the democracy and does some planet-wide genocide all in first hour of the first film... Probably, these are the bad guys! 8/12

And it reminds me most of all of the Lost-Cause Both-Sideism vision of the Civil War (e.g. Gettysburg (1993)). Everyone gets stirring music, each side gets to make their propaganda pitch with favorable framing. Except one of these sides are a bunch of racist slavers! 10/12

I am deeply bothered by a framing which presents fighting for the Nazi-cosplay Brigade as cool and tragically heroic, with lots of band-of-brothers framing. Yes, there is a part of the human psyche that finds fascism deeply appealing. That's what's so dangerous about it. 11/12

Storytellers shouldn't be trying to capitalize on that human weakness, they should be telling stories that are clear about the dangers of letting that part of our primal brain rule us. Friends don't let friends fly fascist TIE-fighters, is what I'm saying. end/12