The new Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and/or The American Dream; presented to Western Social Science Association national conference, 2000

The new Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

and/or The American Dream?



by Chris Rodgers



autonomous cultural productions







Is Star Wars: The Phantom Menace meant to rationalize and propagate the myth of the American Dream?

Intention is one of the thorniest concepts in the human, behavioral, and social sciences. This is evident in the (neo)classical economic assumptions of rational self-interest on the part of economic actors. Another example is the psychological distinction between the conscious and unconscious areas of the mind. Both of these analytical assumptions have come to positions of popularity in U.S. discourse and culture. Both notions are premised on a distinction between what is intended and what is not (be it accidental, incidental, or otherwise). However, the false antinomy, or forced choice between intentionality and its opposite makes difficult analysis that takes both possibilities into account.

In the final analysis, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (T.P.M.) has every indication of a valorized trope of national, white, male supremacy in the face of threats thereof. Forcing the discussion through the question of whether this was intentional or not, or whether George Lucas meant it, elides the more appropriate analysis of production and reception. The perception of nationalistic narrative is an empirical issue, not to be settled by the authoritative philosophy of artistic creation, the loss management strategies of lawyers and corporate executives, nor by the prophetic pronouncements of intellectuals or scientists.

Thus, we are immediately confronted with at least three distinct illusions of consciousness. First, it would be fallacious to attribute to Lucas, or Lucasfilms, sole creative talent, and thus sole responsibility for the portrayal and propagation of various stereotypes. Second, it is fanciful to dismiss the reification and reaffirmation of socially approved forms of domination as “only entertainment.” Third, as audience members have differential access to the generative competence necessary to decode such symbolism as is contained in T.P.M., it would be as illusory to assume conscious perception of Americanism, as it would be to assume a total lack of perception thereof.

AN AMERICAN DREAM

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that two major aspects of U.S. nationalism are prosperity and freedom. That is, these two ideal-types are well used in official governmental discourses and less consecrated discourse alike. Of course, both are abstract vagaries that tend to encourage denial of the historical violence of colonial empire building within which the Enlightenment, as well as the U.S.A., are founded. This would be an appropriate environment for the propagation of the myth of class ascension: if you work hard enough at capitalism, you can move up the economic hierarchy, no matter the disadvantage. Correlate to this is the perception of the liberating force of education. This is not idle speculation. Rather, it is the impression of a native informant and scientist. More importantly, this discussion contains heuristic value. If we remember that T.P.M. was released into an extant social and cultural situation, we might be more inclined to ask how that situation may have influenced the film’s construction.

In a country as large as this one, with the (relative) cultural diversity, is there one coherent ‘American Dream?’ Let me start by clarifying that I am using this phrase in a specific, restricted sense (of narrative ambiguity). A respondent to a survey conducted by autonomous cultural productions concerning The Phantom Menace suggested the idea, not on the survey but speaking with me afterwards. At that moment, I was not fully aware of how influential Nathan’s comment would be, nor of how incredibly he was showing the value of empirical fieldwork when making pronouncements on the social and cultural universes of humanity.

Nathan told me how he had the uncanny feeling that T.P.M. sounded and looked suspiciously like ‘The American Dream.’ He did not fully explain how he came to this decision. This paper is as much about the process of making sense of that clue, as it is about the reification of national identity. That is, stories of nationalism can be told in absolute denial of their telling. The implications and effectiveness of such a denial can be seen in the usage of the term “America” or “American” to refer exclusively to the U.S.A., when the whole continent shares the name of Amerigo Vespucci, the cartographer associated with the earliest continental maps of the ‘new world.’

Telling stories seems likely the oldest form of cultural transmission. Though, truth be told, that is probably the discursive bias of storytellers, including contemporary intellectuals, considering that children will wave before they will say good-bye. That is, bodily imitation, or mimesis, especially when guided by the movements of prior generations, is possible for organisms and species without speech. Perhaps the evolution of speech, however, is one of the critical factors in our so called rise to predominance. Though this may seem a matter for evolutionary biologists, out of place in a discussion of film, the issue of speech has intense implications. The capacities to produce a relatively wide range of distinct and discrete vocal sounds, and the discriminations between them, combined with the capacities to associate and discriminate meanings or information with and among these sounds, are interrelated with the larger processes of cognition, regardless of their temporal position in our evolutionary heritage. However, we are not simply the summation of our genetic histories. Similarly, T.P.M. is not the summation of the history of The American Dream. And though both appear as epiphenomenon, ‘obvious’ signifiers waiting to be interpreted, in both cases this is more a function of ethnocentrism, and less truth about the situation.

But this is no idle venture from the subject. Thinking about language in an evolutionary context, generally though by no means universally avoided by non-biologists, helps to make an important point that seems difficult for most academics. Because our relation to the world is one of discourse, interpretation, and more discourse, we tend to mistake our position in the analysis for analysis itself. But communication is primarily a means of action, not primarily a form of information transmission. Or more accurately, information transmission is a form of action oriented toward the practical activity of survival, adaptation, and the reproduction of circumstances in an ever changing world. To treat T.P.M. as an intent to communicate stereotypical representations of historically exploited peoples in the construction of nationalistic culture is to misconstrue the intellectual construction of arguments for the practical relation to the activity of film making. This is no slight against Lucas; in fact, some may think that I’m letting him off the hook. However, I’m the one presenting the horns of T.P.M. dilemma.

Lucasfilms has gone on news record saying that T.P.M. in no way represents the world today.1 This comment was made in response to query about the ethnicity portrayed by Jar Jar Binks, the movie’s bumbling buffoon. A few scholars have commented on Jar Jar’s blackness and Watto’s anti-Semitism. Though I seem to have missed the initial newsmedia outcry, some folks told me during the survey that they saw something on the t.v. or read something in the paper. Of course, they didn’t write it down, but would mention it aloud. So, horn number one is that the movie’s producers (in the sociological sense of having ‘put it together’) claim it has no racial overtones in response to criticism that it does. As a quick aside, I myself was intensely offended in the first three minutes of my first viewing, well before I was introduced to Jar Jar. Not because I am a politically correct academic (which I am not), but because I have been trained to tend toward hypersensitivity to sublimated, transfigured representations of the social world, especially when they involve the further exploitation of historically overexploited groups. I was also primed by friends with burgeoning interests in post-colonial criticism.

Horn number two involves the history leading up to the film. Not just the ‘author’s’ articulation, but the appropriation of cultural memory in that pursuit. For a time there was on display an exhibit that materially displays these appropriations at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. The book written by the curator of the exhibition provides evidence of an interesting formal logical contradiction that can only be resolved in practical logic. In this book Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, Lucas is quoted explaining how he had tried to incorporate a number of mythological principles of a Jungian scholar named Joseph Campbell into the writing of Star Wars: A New Hope. He said that he had difficulty and tried to write the script without these archetypal mythological representations. He then went back through the script and found he had written them in, though he had not known at the time how. He is presented in the book as an historically interested storyteller with an aim toward constructing ‘modern myth.’ Thus, the second horn of Lucas’ dilemma is his prior position on his scriptwriting. According to the least interested interpretation, that is, the most disinterested in material profit, Lucas wants to be received as the teller of modern mythological tales, perhaps an historical poet.

But what, if anything, does an historical poem, or a mythological narrative have to offer me if it does not have anything to do with my experiences, does not offer me solace and affirmation in return for my contribution of belief. On the one horn, in order to avoid legal difficulties or marketplace backlash, it apparently seemed expedient to distance the film from any negative attribution or reception, especially concerning the ethnic representations involved. A colleague in collusion with this study says that the Star Wars web site no longer offers many articles concerning the historical bases for aspects of the films construction, conspicuously absent following what newsmedia outburst there was concerning ethnic slurring. The movie is claimed to be a pure fiction, having no basis in reality. On the other horn, the film is part of a tradition of storytelling: the (re)making of myth. If myth has a primary function, it is the construction of social coherence, based on a consensual violence that no one specifically gives their consent to. If your story contains nothing that I can attach value to, why would it retain my attention? At least that is, if I am coming to you for entertainment. And therein lies the crux.

The two claims are logically incompatible. If the film has no contemporary political import, it likely offers us little of value with which (or against which) to identify. If we can and may appropriate from the film to help make sense of our lives, it likely has some political import. But this certainly does nothing to inhibit such rhetorical strategies. The contradiction is based on the theoretical reconstruction of the practical logic involved.

The best way to explain this is by foregrounding a major assumption of my claim. Star Wars movies are not avante-guard. That is, they were put together for the recognition of the expanded paying market, the consecration of the dollar. This orientation is in the opposition Pierre Bourdieu refers to in The Field of Cultural Production: heteronomy on the one pole of attraction, or production for an expanded capital market, as opposed to autonomy on the other pole, or production for a restricted market of similar producers, both colleagues and competition (a relationship that should sound familiar to scholarly readers). One does not make much money forging the advance ground necessary to construct an autonomous market. In other words, autonomous oriented artists are skeptical of those that accept immediate monetary gratification, while heteronomous artists seem to be aimed toward the most, and quickest possible profits. This is simply the restatement, in ‘economic’ terms, of the principle of expanded accessibility necessary for a successful myth, given contemporary economic organization.

I will describe why the story of T.P.M. could work as rationalization and justification of (mis)recognized American supremacy in the post-WW II era. The following sections illustrate a sample of specific symbolic structures of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (by no means meant as exhaustive). This paper is then summarized in a discussion of the relationship between markets and cultural productions.

GOOD VERSUS EVIL (OR GOD VS. DEVIL)

“At the heart of these stories there often lies a central conflict between some pair of opposites: good versus evil, light versus dark, even male versus female. As we watch this conflict unfold, we find the germ of meaning that can help us make sense of our own lives.”2

The social world tends to be organized through the oppositions between complimentary antagonistic agencies representing poles of attraction in fields of social relations. This is a social fact confirmed in every major area of critical studies: feminism, racial/ethnic criticism, and class analysis. The most coherent theoretical account I have found of the vision and division of the world into complimentary antagonists, painstakingly evidenced through decades of consistent, rigorous research are the works of Pierre Bourdieu, and affiliated researchers.

T.P.M. is a well articulated piece of cultural discourse, thoroughly nuanced with the application of this perspective to American society. The oppositions are clear and concise. It would be convenient to start with the officially propagated contradiction between good and evil. This is implied in The Magic of Myth, following George Lucas and Joseph Campbell as a universal characteristic of myth. What, then, defines good and evil? I argue that the opposition manifests the more general opposition between the sacred and the profane; what is appropriate and encouraged, according to the magic of social consecration is opposed to that which is to be stigmatized, devalued, and denied. In a logic shorthand maintained throughout to make clear oppositions involved: (good : evil :: sacred : profane :: appropriate : inappropriate)

No matter how I put this together, those presently concerned with avoiding binary or dichotomized thinking will resist the interpretation this evidence provokes. I mention this because it seems so popular now to deny social organization along such seemingly simplistic lines. In this case, Lucas’ work with the magic of myth has every indication of a metaphorical reification and reaffirmation of socially misrecognized power relationships, structured through sets of oppositions, forced choices with only a stigmatized mediating ground. All that is required is to put the associations together, removed from their ‘fictional’ context and re-immersed into the surrounding cultural situation. As the alignments made along self-declared political lines, symbolic oppositions are organized according to the pragmatic dimensions of power; though symbolic representations often deny their import in a number of ways.

The opening scrolling text orients the viewer to the coming situation. The planet of Naboo has been blockaded by the greedy Trade Federation, for a relatively ambiguous issue concerning the taxation of trade routes. Ambiguity, as we will see, is a major theme that is utilized throughout the movie. Nonetheless, this is the positioning of an opposition. A negative association seems implied by the Trade Federation’s greed.

The scrolling text continues: two Jedi Knights have been dispatched to negotiate the trade dispute. If someone is in the wrong, these guardians of peace and justice will fix their wagons. Keep in mind the western orientation of the movie, in terms of its similarity to the genre of American Western films, a correspondence concealed by seemingly obvious differences. I would venture to guess that a large percentage of the first wave of excited viewers at the box office knew that Jedi Knights were the enforcers of The Force, a mystical euphemism for righteousness. Only research would prove or disprove it. But in this movie we find out how The Force relates to the Jedi. The Force manifests itself through microscopic organisms, called midi-chlorians, that live inside the cells of all living creatures. Jedi have the highest midi-chlorian concentrations of all beings. I will come back to this interesting essentialization, but let’s return to the first set of oppositions the audience encounters.

The Trade Federation is opposed to the Naboo through the imposition of a possibly unjust trade blockade. The Jedi are flying in to negotiate with the Trade Federation representatives in charge of the action: Nemoidian trade viceroy Nute Gunray. When the pilot demands immediate boarding, the reply comes in a choppy sounding English. “Of course. As you know, our blockade is perfectly legal.” I cannot fully reproduce the sounds, just like I can’t fully reproduce the narrative and its implications. But I am attempting to convey a Southern California native’s perception of an Asian sounding accent. Having spent a fair amount of time in English-language discussion with various Asian-born folks, I insist, and am not alone in the opinion, that the Nemoidians sound like a transfigured Japanese accented English. It was only writing this presentation that I remembered why the Trade Federation characters at the helm, and thus subordinated to the elites sound specifically Thai, that is, English spoken in America by a person born and primarily enculturated in Thailand. A childhood friend’s mom was Thai, and I now stand firm that the helm-figure (named TEY HOW) speaks a digitized Thai English. The more important issue here is the Japanese association constructed by the way most of the dialogue is enunciated.

The first exchange of dialogue between the two Jedi Knights that occupy the primary representatives of that group establishes a rather British sound for both Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan Learner Obi-Wan Kenobi. Immediately after, we learn that the Trade Federation has an alliance with Darth Sidious (who is a Sith Lord that uses the Dark Side of The Force). Darth Sidious orders them killed, which clearly places the two groups in opposition.

When we hear from the Naboo, they are represented by Senator Palpatine, Queen Amidala, Bibble, and Captain Panaka. Panaka sounds American, Bibble sounds British, and Queen Amidala speaks English with the intonation of one not quite completely native sounding, but with a mild British manner. One colleague thought she sounds like she was educated at a colonial boarding school. As it becomes clear the Trade Federation means to invade Naboo, the relationship seems oppositional.

Though it might be more entertaining to re-tell the story, during and as a story of the story, it would be confusing and inefficient. Simply keeping the characters straight with what nationality their language usage might imply is jumbling enough. I used this manner to recall the temporal experience of the filmic presentation, and the displacement caused both in the film and in this re-presentation.

I started off with the importance of linguistic exchange as premised on the language capacities of oral articulation and aural differentiation, both physiological-cognitive functions expressed in behavior. It is much more meaningful to bounce back to this argument when thinking about how dialogue is enunciated. In as carefully constructed a cultural production such as this ‘major motion picture’, many thousands of person hours and likely many millions of dollars were invested in the material articulation. The distributors in the theater seemed to be 20th Century Fox, a subsidiary of News Corporation. The accents are likely as accidental and incidental to the story’s ‘meaning’ as the size of the production is accidental or incidental to the resources available to the film’s financial associates.

Speaking of associations, lets take stock of the oppositions I have presented. Either T.P.M. has political import or it does not. Either the film offers us associations we can make sense of or it doesn’t. “Either choice represents grave danger,” as Queen Amidala says, in as much as the forced choice between these mutually competitive options, in this case false antinomies, disables an analysis that utilizes both perspectives. The Phantom Menace, however, presents a number of antagonistic, contradictory relationships. As the good are opposed to the evil, so the sacred are to the profane, the appropriate to the inappropriate.

But these characteristics are associated with characters in the movie. The Jedi, as guardians of peace and justice, using the Force only for defense, are good guys. The Sith, using the Dark Side of the Force for aggression, are bad guys. The Naboo are the victims of trade dispute invasion from the nefarious Nemoidians and Trade Federation droid army. Presented in shorthand, these oppositions would appear: (good : bad :: Jedi : Sith :: Naboo :: Trade Federation). But we may (or may not) associate these groups with nationalities. The Jedi and Naboo seem rather Anglo-American and British. The Trade Federation could be Japanese. The three pages devoted to the influence of WW II on the first three Star Wars releases in The Magic of Myth could certainly be appended to include T.P.M.

In this treasure of background information, one could view the visual similarities between the Emperor (and Empire) and Hitler (and the SS). The first three movies also had plenty of WW II imagery. But the moral associations (right : wrong :: appropriate : inappropriate), perhaps assumed to be shared, are not articulated in either forum. Instead, the portrayal of good vs. evil (light : dark :: white : black) seems meant to be taken as a substitute. Once the moral division has been established, the players all seem to fall into place.

In T.P.M. we are presented the younger Darth Sidious, who will presumably become the Emperor. Lord Sidious is the mastermind behind the invasion of Naboo. Regardless of the exact historical relation between Germany and Japan during WW II, there seems to be a homologous portrayal between Darth Sidious and the Trade Federation. Sidious may not have a German accent, and he is played by the same actor as Senator Palpatine, the Naboo Senator to the Republic. These transfigurations aside, the associations seem less than coincidental. Once again, the United Kingdom and United States of America have shown up to save the day from Germany and Japan. A myth that neatly glosses over the question of U.S. or U.K. imperialism, colonial or otherwise.

But we have not even established all the major players.

SYMBIONT CIRCLES (OF REASONING)

Interestingly enough, the people Naboo share the planet Naboo with another “great civilization.” Naboo, located in the system of Naboo, is polarized by Theed (where the Naboo live) and Otoh Gunga (where the Gungan live). They live at opposite ends of the planet, connected by the planets hollow core. Though the scene at the “NABOO SACRED TEMPLE RUINS” (where the Gungan go when in trouble) which is located in the “NABOO SWAMP,” makes this meeting place for the Gungan and Naboo seem close to both cities and in between.

The Gungan are intricately and bluntly ethnicized, in the sense of made to appear non-white/American. They are referred to as “locals,” “primitives,” and “warriors.” This alone could set off an association with the “noble savage,” the authentic traditionalist to be valorized and patronized, if not assimilated. We first meet Jar Jar, the film’s most controversial character. Jar Jar has been variously identified as a stereotype of African-Americans, Jamaicans, blackface comedy, homosexuals, and more generally class ascendant oriented members of dominated social groups. Boss Nass (of the Gungan) wears a robe identified as similar to an African chieftain garment and clicks suspiciously. However, Boss Nass also rolls a Spanish or Italian sounding ‘r’ sound (in the word “smarte”), and Jar Jar says “mooie mooie” (or spelled muy muy in Spanish) several times, seemingly meaning very, very something.

Gungan language is stigmatized by its incorrectness and inappropriateness. “Jar Jar speaks a pidgin Gungan dialect of Galactic Basic. Few Gungans speak the pure Gungan language.”3 Galactic Basic sounds like English, though there are a variety of recognizable accents (lingotypes seemingly premised on national stereotype) among the movie’s various characters. What exactly is meant by a pidgin here is ambiguous; but Jar Jar does not speak pure Galactic Basic, nor the pure Gungan language.4

The Gungan seem displaced. They are amphibious, yet live in hidden cities of air-filled bubbles underwater. The sacred place they flee to is in the swamp, at least above ground, though the ground may sink. The Naboo live on the other side of the planet on land, in other words they are landed. Whereas the Gungan are immersed in an environment not of their choosing, though they are from it.

Yet the Jedi claim that the Gungan and Naboo form a symbiont circle. What happens to one will affect the other. Padme’s persuasive speech to Boss Nass is even more ambiguous. “...Although we do not always agree, Your Honor, our two great societies have always lived in peace...until now. The Trade Federation has destroyed all that we have worked so hard to build. You are in hiding, my people are in camps. If we do not act quickly, all will be lost forever...I ask you to help us...no, I beg you to help us.” She then prostrates herself, or at least falls to her knees before the big Boss. He accepts the tribute and pledges the Gungan to battle, as distraction for a covert action to capture the viceroy. The formerly divided and opposed groups are suddenly united toward a common cause.

But the Gungan lived in hidden cities before. That kind of peace is where the colonized don’t take arms in rebellion. What exactly did they work so hard to build? More importantly, what of value did the Gungan ever receive from the Naboo? We might infer the local primitives, who might also be referred to as an “indigenous tribe” (Qui-Gon uses the phrase regarding Tuscan raiders on Tattoine) were forcibly introduced to the new language of power and money, Galactic Basic (which I hear as English). This sounds like the symbiance between a slave and an owner, or alternatively a colonized and colonizer, whereby both are allowed to flourish in the relationship, one by the hyper-exploitation of the other.

So, though the Gungan are opposed to the Naboo, the Naboo (including the Gungan) are opposed to the Trade Federation and Sith. In shorthand: (Gungan : Naboo :: black : white :: below : above :: primitive : refined/civilized :: pidgin : pure :: local : invader :: wet : dry). These oppositions are then reversed (or omitted) when the Gungan are lumped into the Naboo: (Naboo : Trade Federation :: below : above :: local : invader).

There is another oppositional symbiont relationship. Queen Amidala and Padme are played by the same actress. They are maintained as separate roles, but to persuade Boss Nass to unite against invasion, Padme reveals herself as the authentic Queen. There must have been times earlier in the film when the Queen was really the Queen. But the viewer must then re-evaluate the earlier presentations if they care to decode this clue.

Queen Amidala is opposed to Padme as the rational to the emotional, the calm to the expressive. They are opposed as the elected monarch to the handservant, the formal to the friendly, the state nobility5 to decoy/ protection/ bodyguard. However, after they are united, by way of reversal, we all know who is the real Queen, even if she looks like Padme. Padme also speaks a plainly American English until they are united, after which she literally slips back and forth between American and the formerly mentioned colonial British accent of Queen Amidala.

Perhaps the important message to be gleaned from this evidence, for my presentation, is that the low should work with the high, the dominated with the dominant, to fight off the economic and imperial advances of foreigners.

This is especially clear in the case of Jar Jar Binks. In the final analysis, Binks most seems to represent the invocation of class contempt for the ascendant (oriented) members of groups from dominated areas of social space. Jar Jar’s salvation seems to rely on his acceptance of his lot, his ability to bend without breaking. Most specifically, though he is resistant in symbolic ways, he can be persuaded to mediate. This role always presents danger to Binks, but he blunders through with the difficulties of the inappropriate and disadvantaged. In fact, both times he leads outsiders to Boss Nass, his Honor pronounces his upcoming death.6 Fortunately, both times a white person saved him. Of course, after Binks unites the Gungan and Naboo, Boss Nass promotes him to general. At the end of the film, Binks is depicted among the royalty and Jedi assembled in celebration of “peace!” Jar Jar has come up in the world. When we me him, he was sucking clams out of their shells in the swamp. Another shorthand representation: (ascendant : stationary :: submissive : resistant :: bent : straight :: middle : poles)

MIDI-CHLORIANS AND THE WHITE CHRIST CHILD

According to the screenplay, the explanation of the significance of midi-chlorians is:

ANAKIN: Master, sir...I’ve been wondering...what are midi-chlorians?

QUI-GON: Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells and communicates with the Force.

ANAKIN: They live inside of me?

QUI-GON: In your cells. We are symbionts with the midi-chlorians.

ANAKIN: Symbionts?

QUI-GON: Life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force.

ANAKIN: They do??

QUI-GON: When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear them speaking to you.

ANAKIN: I don’t understand.

QUI-GON: With time and training, Annie...you will.

Midi-chlorians, when replaced in the historical context of early biological thought, sound like a mystical essence of positively valued humanity. This is especially so if the Force is the living will of the universe. But it is likely not coincidence that this discussion takes place between two white males, both rather Anglo-Aryan seeming.

More specifically, midi-chlorian concentration is structurally homologous to the eugenic-oriented version of racial purity. In both cases, the group with a legitimate (or at least legitimated) monopoly on physical violence also has something superior inside their cells. Like racial purity, understanding how the Force in known through the midi-chlorians requires time and training. Neither is well evidenced by biological science.

This selection from The Magic of Myth evidences the connection between midi-chlorian concentration and national supremacy, especially of the post-war period.

From the beginning, Star Wars reveals that good and evil are at war. This first film divides good and evil clearly; the dark side uses the power of the Force for aggression, and the light side for defense. The heroes make the right power choices: they seek independence rather than dominance, and they fight because they must, not because they are consumed by bloodlust.

The Sith, the Emperor, and thus Darth Sidious have all been associated with Hitler and Nazi Germany. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn are both U.K. affiliated. Anikin Skywalker, however, speaks a rather American English. Though all of these characters has white skin, (save Darth Maul with black and red skin with horns) the Jedi are also clothed in white while the Sith are clothed in black. Therefor, Nazi aggression was bad, British and American imperialism was defensive. At least, America seems to have been assigned credit for winning WW II (with help from Allied forces).

In my own secondary schooling, Hitler was clearly attributed the negative contribution of ‘racial purity’ to the cultural discourse of history. I use a purposefully vague phrase as my historical education was vague. As well, ‘popular culture’ representations in the years since would have also led me to believe that as Hitler is bad, as Hitler represented racial hygiene, racial hygiene is bad. Interestingly enough, however, racial purity has survived at the level of popular discourse as the color “white” (or “black”), though the tendency seems toward clarifying nation of origin prior to immigration. This is not digression.

Anakin Skywalker has a midi-chlorian count that far exceeds that of all other Jedi. This accounts for Qui-Gon identifying him as the prophesied Chosen One who will bring balance to the Force. Anakin is the only human who can pod race, and thus manages to rescue the Queen’s stranded party and defenders on Tattoine. Anakin also saves the planet of Naboo from the droid invasion army of the Trade Federation with the help of his natural ability (or his midi-chlorian concentration, manifesting the living will of the universe through its Force).

Skywalker also seems to represent the white Christ-child. Not only is his performance excellent for the Naboo (who have a rather colonial American feel). But he comes from a desert environment, born from no father, possibly conceived by the midi-chlorians. The immaculately conceived Chosen One, Anikin is the savior to the Naboo twice in T.P.M., as well as to the universe in Episode VI when Darth Vader kills the Emperor. He truly brought balance to the force.

What is very telling is a comparison between the ascendant trajectories of Anakin and Jar Jar. Anakin comes up by his exceptional performance, premised on his high midi-chlorian concentration. This privies him to the will of the Force, the living will of the universe. But he starts the film as a slave, though of immaculate conception. He rises to the level of Padawan Learner in T.P.M. But Star Wars fans know Annie will become Darth Vader, helping rule over the galaxy from the Dark Side, then saving it from the Emperor (perhaps realizing his allegiance to his progeny, Luke Skywalker). Annie is also white and American, precocious and observant. So were (are) his children, Luke and Leigha Skywalker.

Binks is ascendant because of his (stigmatized) role as mediator, and his submissiveness to social necessity, or willingness to bend (and not break) at changes of fortune. He happens to be present when needed, useful and persuadable, and willing to accept his lot (though he doesn’t quite get it). Nearly his whole being (or existence) is a hindrance or disadvantage, but he fumbles though with noble effort. He may symbolically resist his superiors occasionally, but he will do what is necessary to fend off invaders (of an Asian kind).

The important thing is that everyone comes together to repel the outsiders, for the common good.

STRATEGIES, PROFITS, SCHEMES: ANTICIPATING EXPANDED MARKET CONSECRATION

T.P.M. contains the rationalization of its own consumption. The narrative presents the viewer with a worldview that legitimizes domination through its presentation of legitimate domination, especially, though not limited to, the domination of a cultural market by a cadre of experts. But in this case, the production of disbelief is just as important to the relationship between the dominant and dominated. The movie encourages a denial of the domination by consumption (which simply lines up with the dominant perspective on consumption: the specific encouragement of that denial through sublimation and suggestion), in the same way that the majority of academic work on ‘popular culture’ denies through valorization.

The description of the myth of national unity toward class ascendancy suffers drastically from a quasi-diagrammatic organization. Unfortunately, this is one of the major constraints of social/cultural scientific thinking. I am not trying to substitute for experience: if the reader is interested, they should see the film. The inability to see the connections between the ways ‘popular culture’ (and all culture for that matter) is put together and the relation with the rest of society and culture around it serves the interests of the dominant. It is necessary to tear the articulation out of context to order it in a way that makes the most possible sense. But this context cannot be permanently bracketed. In other words, the full truth of cultural productions can only be illuminated by the recognition of their position within a system of positions and productions: “Retaining what has been gained through the notion of intertextuality, that is, the fact that at each moment the space of works appears as a field of position-takings which can only be understood relationally, as in a system of phonemes, that is, as a system of differential discrepancies, one can form the hypothesis - a heuristic tool confirmed through analysis - of a homology between the space of creative works, the field of position-takings and the space of positions in the field of cultural production.”7 These social positions are accompanied by representations that bear the stigma of their history.

I would suggest that it is the unconscious, yet objective tailoring for expanded market consumption, that best accounts for the films seemingly dominant meta-narrative. It is the film’s appropriation by assimilation, propagation, and distribution of appropriate cultural coding to sell to an American audience, and by extension to the world that is explicated by the triplet of habitus, capital, and field. As a ‘self-interested’ producer, Lucas may want to sell his product, but not necessarily wish to be sexist, racist, and/or classist. But that does not mean that those schemes of thought that assist the work of those types of domination are not represented in T.P.M. The self-interested are behooved by anticipating or ignoring (depending on how their capital structure relates to the field in question) their most likely market. But this anticipation is rarely fully articulated, rational, or conscious. Again, this does not disallow (and in fact would be encouraged by) the prior internalization of schemes of meaning that, appropriated, transfigured, and ‘marketed’ might be sold for cash. This meaning, or informational scheme, is only likely to be effective (box office sales & tie-ins, primary and secondary material profit) given a shared cipher or general code between producer and audience. That is, informational capital is only useful given the appropriate conditions of usage (or field of social relation). The common schemes of meaning, an interrelated set of complementary, oppositional pairs of agencies (and their related references) that both sublimate through denial and implicate through suggestion, should be recognized as forms of capital (the appropriation and utilization of work) that are only ever fully meaningful in relation to their opposites and contexts.

The idea of articulation (meaning putting together) is useful. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was put together to do more than just tell a story, though it certainly does that. George Lucas, the Star Wars ‘creator,’ has conveyed the impression that he wishes to be respected as a storyteller. This appeal seems an indication of pretensions toward that most autonomous of artforms: poetry. Lucas himself put it this way:

I was trying to take certain mythological principles and apply them to a story. Ultimately, I had to abandon that and just write the story. I found that when I went back and read it, then started applying it against the sort of principles that I was trying to work with originally, they were all there. It’s just that I didn’t put them in there consciously. I’d sort of immersed myself in the principles that I was trying to put into the script…[And] these things were just indelibly infused into the script. Then I went back and honed that a little bit. I would find something where I’d sort of gotten slightly off track, and I would then make it more, let’s say, universal, in its mythological application…
I’m very much of the painting school of fimmaking, which is you put a layer on, and you put another layer on, and you put another layer on. You look at it, see how it is, redo it. It doesn’t evolve linearly8

The movies have all done well in the capital marketplace. This is immediately evidenced by the most cursory glance at the dollar figures. According to data found at the IMDb website, in the U.S., Star Wars: A New Hope (the first one released in 1977, #4 in the storyline) ranked 2nd Top Grossing All-Time Box office at $415,645,312. The Empire Strikes Back (#5, the second released of the series in 1980) ranked 10th at $290,158,751. Return of the Jedi (#6 in 1983) ranked #8 at $309,064,373. The Phantom Menace ranks just behind the ‘original’ in #3 (#1 in the storyline, released in 1999) at $415,645,312.9 At the World Wide Box Office, A New Hope is #4 at $780,000,000, The Phantom Menace is #8 at $649,300,000, and The Empire Strikes Back is #12 at $533,800,000. [Titanic is #1 at over $1,800,000,000.]10

The fields of social relations that Bourdieu has referred us to are the spaces in place and time in which socio-historical struggles are carried out. It is important to remember several things when seeing the world through these analytical goggles. First, fields of social relations tend to be organized through oppositions between contrary agencies. This is the factual basis for the observation that the world, and thus cognition, tend to be structured in sets of complimentary binary oppositions. Though it is only proven by systematic reconstruction of the processes of the social world, it is possible to observe their effects in the cultural byproducts. Second, the actions of current struggles to impose the ultimate definition of what is most important (and thus to secure monopolization of the rarest and most valued resources) are always the partial outcomes of the past oriented toward the future.

The perceivable field of position-takings and positions taken is the symbolic manifestation of the struggle over actual social, cultural positioning. As in the whole field of popular culture, in T.P.M. there is a coherence found in the appearance of multiple positions taken. That stance is in favor of the recognition (and thus the misrecognition) of the legitimacy of domination by the dominant. This is not to be confused with a simplistic imposition of domination. “The field of cultural production produces its most important effects through the play of the homologies between the fundamental opposition which gives the field its structure and the oppositions structuring the field of power and the field of class relations. These homologies may give rise to ideological effects which are produced automatically whenever oppositions at different levels are superimposed or merged.”11 I would wager that very few cultural producers would be willing to admit that their work also does the work of domination encouraged by the owners of privileged position. This is nonetheless the case.

In the field of cultural production the opposition is between autonomous producers (those that do what they do primarily for the recognition of others that also practice that activity) and heteronomous producers (those that engage in activities similar to autonomous producers, but do so for more immediate profits of money and/or power). Although The Phantom Menace clearly positions George Lucas among the later group, it is not the amount of money actually made by the film that provides the proof. It is the manner of articulation for the widest possible American audience that indicates the organizing principle behind the movie’s structure.

The idea that this imagistic, superficial manipulation of symbolism blurs, muddies, or implodes the meaning that is imparted is naïve. The social basis for the cognitive classification of society and culture into sets of binary oppositions starts with the basic fact of individual organismic existence (the self vs. the other or not-self). This basic misunderstanding landslides into us vs. them, as well as into notions of individuality and uniqueness only with generations of compounded interest. As all agents inside a system with finite resources (the only ones we know) are partially in competition with each other for those resources, this makes some sense. The catch is that culture is the social mediation that allows and encourages human cooperation, or in this case collusion. “The instruments of knowledge of the social world are [...] (objectively) political instruments which contribute to the reproduction of the social world by producing immediate adherence to the world, seen as self-evident and undisputed, of which they are the product and of which they reproduce the structures in a transformed form."12

The opposition structuring the field of cultural production, that between autonomy and heteronomy, is homologous in form to the structures of the fields of power and class relations. In the field of class relations, the relationship of economic domination overdetermines the agencies subject to its influence. The opposition between the economically dominant and dominated tends to exert itself, so to speak, in the practices of everyday life.

One informant told me Star Wars defined his generation. He said it was the only movie to come out in a long time that he was really excited about, because he had a strong identification with it. To treat this identification as superficial or inconsequential would be to misrepresent the relationship between the producers of commodified culture, and the consumers of culture produced for consumption by an expanded capitalized market.

This article does not lack in examples of productions of disbelief. But the surveys carried out and continued concerning this subject were developed with one main goal: to show that most people who had seen this movie and were willing to fill out a survey were not likely to think that they or someone they know is likely to be affected, as well as that these same folks are not likely to have ‘noticed’ representations of stereotypicality. As a work in progress, I will only suggest that from a total of 80 surveys carried out in Seattle, Washington and Albuquerque, New Mexico, sixty percent responded with a flat “no” or “none” when asked the open-ended question “Can you see The Phantom Menace having an impact/influence on yourself or someone you know?” Of course, asking for instant expertise on such touchy questions as are ‘probed’ in the questions preceding, knowing the questioner is looking for answers they do not posses, they are ‘tricked.’ Another ten percent try and rationalize before saying ‘no.’ And ten percent were influenced by the collective research project (having filled out the surveys at our house).

The popular culture business, a trade in things that have no influence, belongs to the class of practices in which the logic of the postcapitalized economy thrives (as it does, in another sphere, in the economy of exchanges between the sexes/genders). These practices, functioning as practical negations, can only work by pretending not to be doing what they are doing. Defying ordinary logic, they lend themselves to two opposed reading, both equally false, which each undo their essential duality and duplicity by reducing them either to the disavowal or to what is disavowed - to disinterestedness (the refusal of politics) or self-interest (the engagement in politics). The challenge which economies based on disavowal of the ‘political’ present to all forms of economism lies precisely in the fact that they function, and can function, in practice - and not merely in the agents’ representations - only by virtue of a constant, collective repression of narrowly ‘political’ interests and of the real nature of the practices revealed by sociological analysis.13

The classification that was undertaken in the construction of the film’s narrative structure, and thus that the audience experiences, was developed with a market intention. The biases that are revealed make clear who’s work is done for them. This is not to implicate Lucas as a tool of the bourgeoisie, but rather to implicate his complicity in the larger scheme of capital relations. This willingness to go along with one’s domination is then manifested in the audiences’ reaction, whether or not they claim they liked the movie.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace will not by itself make anyone think anything they didn’t already have access to. But it will be influential in the process of constantly re-cementing the symbolic relations between the classes, so as to work toward continued monopoly by some of the means of material, cultural, and social production at the expense of everyone else. The manner in which George Lucas and the supporting cast have done this is primarily by appropriating pieces of the larger narrative of human history, and transfiguring them out of contextual recognition (an example of dual misrecognition). Which is not the same as underplaying their meaning. We are left with a view of the world, presented as a fictional story, which makes efficient use of the dominant perspective on history.

This presentation is as much about the propagation of a scientific perspective on cultural phenomenon as it is about the reconstruction of nationalistic rhetoric. The strongest implication is the most subtle: The myth of the American Dream is the moral superiority, lack of aggression in the U.S. rise to supremacy, and denial of the foundations of exploitation, upon which stands the freedom and prosperity so valued and portrayed. In hindsight, if I was to anticipate as large an audience as possible, I would try to utilize the structured resources already available. If the educational experience is made entertaining it can be fulfilled and denied at the same time, utilizing the audiences prior educational experiences.