Their right-wing mind does not understand metaphors to reality so they don't see it
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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Right wing star wars fans probably love the empire and wish they were darth vader. Just because they like a piece of media doesn't mean that theyre interpreting it the way it was intended or the same way you are.
They love the Punisher, but perverted the purpose of the fictional hero
Which is why the Prequels were the worst thing ever. It made kids think Anakin Skywalker was a good guy and it's the Jedi Council's fault they didn't give him the respect he deserved because he was strong and powerful. Dude was a creepy weirdo when talking to Padme, told her fascism was cool, massacred a village, but because he's so powerful and awesome, Padme (a Senator) instantly becomes a trad wife.
Then came a bunch of cartoons showing how awesome this guy is (biggest Mary Sue ever) while making it seem like being a storm trooper would be a cool and honourable thing. And now we've got a bunch of video games that showcase how awesome and bad ass Darth Vader is.
It's not like a pro-fascist interpretation of the Prequels comes out of nowhere. An adult watching those movies sees these things and dsimiss it as George Lucas phoning it in while making those movies because he only cared about toy sales. But it's easy to see how a kid watching these movies would identify with Anakin Skywalker and be influenced towards having fascist tendencies.
Also The Last Jedi is the most misogynistic movie in the franchise if you ignore the marketing and think about how a child would interpret it. But that's a story for another time.
It’s also why they love the old Disney shit so much. Because in many of the old movies it’s the aristocracy who are being portrait as the good guys and who defend the peace from turning into anarchy.
Maybe we're not thinking of the same movies, but when I think of old Disney I don't see that pattern:
- Snow White: an orphan girl, bullied by her step mom, flees into the woods to live with dwarfs, then becomes a princess because she's pretty.
- Pinocchio: wooden puppet is given life by a fairy to reward its craftsman for being a good person.
- Fantasia: artistic vignettes
- Bambi: life of a deer.
- Cinderella: an orphan girl, bullied by her stepmom, becomes a princess because she's pretty, with the help of a fairy who rewards her for being a good person.
To me it seems like the good guys are mostly attractive youths with a strong work ethic and no parents.
Most of them succed in life by marrying royalty though.
Alex Jones does exactly this. He’ll start talking about Star Wars, but it almost always turns into him doing a Vader voice saying he’s going to kill all the “globalists”. It’s a sight to behold, lemme tell ya.
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Remember when Eric Trump compared the Democrats to the Resistance and thought that was a burn?
Strange how the felons kids have stayed real quiet in the last few months...
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Media illiteracy is part of the reason they are right wing in the first place. They do not make those connections.
Also see: every conservative Trek fan
Their brains should be studied for science. How are they not crushed under the weight of their own contradiction?
It might partially be that Worf's suggestion to shoot first and ask questions later tends to be the solution.
Or that TOS was progressive for the '60s but we caught up and passed it.
Or that Berman, who ran the franchise for the '90s shows, was actually pretty conservative and progressive messages had to be almost snuck past him.
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Three possibilities:
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No they don't.
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They kinda do see some vague similarities (there is a prison) if they squint but it's different because reasons.
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They do but they think it's woke garbage anyway.
- There is no such thing as a "right wing" Star Wars fan.
- They cried when Palpatine died.
I'm sorry to inform you that there are right-wing Star Wars fans. Just as there are right wing whovians and trekkies and bronies. No it doesn't make sense but there it is.
Right wing sci-fi/fantasy fans are cheering for the antagonists, or the societies depicted.
The extent I'll grant fantasy shows are sympathetic to right-wing politics is monarchies, but that's about it (without giving it very deep analysis 😅)
Right-wing SW fans make more sense than right-wing Star Trek fans, at least. In SW they can root for the Empire, but ST is a post-scarcity utopia from the ground up.
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It makes perfect sense once you realize that their media literacy is through the basement. Regular literacy too, I'd wager. 54% of adults (in America) read below the sixth-grade level. Source.
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Bro, Paul Ryan likes Rage Against the Machine. I don't even know if sarcasm exists anymore.
It wouldn't surprise me if a Nazi likes Inglorious Bastards.
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Until Andor, Star Wars had paper-thin worldbuilding that let right-wingers see themselves as the Rebels.
Luke is a rural white boy who learns the true religion, which is being suppressed by the government. He uses his religious beliefs and skills honed as a farmboy to fight back. Han Solo is a businessman who just wants to make money moving goods from A to B, but the government keeps interfering, trying to destroy his business (and his personal property).
What are the rebels fighting for? Basically it seems to be about personal liberty and the right to practice their religion. If there's any ideology beyond that, the movies don't really get into it.
In most of the series, the empire is literally faceless. The storm troopers have full body armour that covers everything up. The Tie Fighter pilots have full helmets that cover their faces. The only people with faces you see on the empire's side are the generals and the emperor. That makes it really easy to have the empire represent anything you want.
Part of what makes Andor such a great series is that it puts faces to a lot of the mid-level people in the empire. You see their backstabbing, their jockeying for position, striving for promotion. It really shows what kinds of people work for the empire, and what the values of the normal people are, and why they might want to join the rebels instead.
That makes it really easy to have the empire represent anything you want.
Isn't that kind of the point? When you make villains too specific then it's easy to differentiate the villains in a movie from the evil in real life. Donald Trump doesn't resemble the villain from the movie so therefore I can hate the villain from the movie while still liking Donald Trump because they're not the same person. The evil that happens in the movie is because of that particular bad guy, now that bad guy is dead and it's all wrapped up in a nice little bow.
When a movie is about archetypes it's a little more difficult to ignore the ideas. The Rebellion is a diverse group of people, even a fish guy can be an admiral. A little green weirdo could be the powerful Jedi. The imperials are not all that diverse, are they? It's harder to rationalize that you're on the good guy side because that means taking orders from Admiral Ackbar which is contradictory to your political views which would be about wanting Ackbar fired because he must be a DEI hire.
Also Lando making a deal with fascists and constantly getting screwed over because fascists don't give a shit about doing as they promised seems a little relevant now. Lando was fine with some random guy called "Luke Skywalker" getting screwed over as long as he and his friends came out ok. Seems a lot like people voting for Trump knowing immigrants would get screwed but that's fine because they would come out alright. There's a lot of Landos on Wall Street right now. Trump altered the deal, pray he doesn't alter it further.
The ones made by JJ Abrams are really great about showing all of the reasons for people getting sucked into fascist movements... indoctrination (Finn), wanting to eliminate freedom to have order (Hux), bad relationship with their father (Kylo Ren), nostalgia for past greatness (Pryde), and ancestry (Rey). With Hux we even get to see how fascists are really just spiteful assholes that don't actually believe in anything, they just want power.
With Rey we see hesitation about being part of the movement against fascism because of her ancestry. Maybe she's unworthy because of her ancestry? Nah that's bullshit, you don't need to identify with the shitty people in history because they're your ancestors, it's up to you how you identify yourself. The repeated message of "they [fascists] make us feel like we're alone" seems particularly relevant given how social media divides us now.
And Palpatine... yeah fascism has come back to life again even though it's been defeated before. But ok, I guess we gotta do this shit again. People get all butt hurt they didn't explain the details of how Palpatine came back, but that's the point. Fascism comes back and you gotta oppose it when it does. Somehow fascism returned, and it doesn't matter how, because we have to oppose it no matter what. And if you really want to know how fascism returned, just look at the motivations of the fascist characters in the movies.
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- They think the Empire are the good guys
They won't believe anything that does not match their world-view. If you say the guy is innocent, they just say Fox news told them he was in a gang, and they treat that as a fact.
There is no way to get to these people, unless the GOP inflicts personal pain on them, and even then...loyalty and "purity" is everything to them.
EDIT: I'm having an existential crisis. I'm not sure I'm so dumb when I look at these people.
“Right-wing Star Wars fans” in for a rude awakening when they figure out who the Empire represents.
jfc
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The dismissiveness is intense, no matter the fan base.
“I can’t watch Star Trek any more because it’s woke.”
Star Trek is the original, ultimate woke TV. Since the original series, they’ve always incorporated the “woke” of their times, starting with the casting of Uhura. The cast of Roots is sprinkled throughout, which includes Avery Brooks and Lavar Burton. They didn’t quite make it with a female second in command, she ended up as Nurse Chapel instead. Even so, Star Trek TOS is pretty woke for the times.
I can’t imagine blinders aren’t worn regarding the Empire as well. Granted, this comes from recognizing authoritarianism for what it is.
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I poked my fan into the Star Wars Reddit fandom once, and it seemed like they hate Andor?
I was honestly baffled at the time. I’m not a huge fan, but it’s like the best Star Wars thing I’ve ever seen (with the runner up being kotor II)
Honestly only ranks below the original trilogy for me. It's really fantastic on all levels.
To me, the original trilogy is… ok.
That’s probably why I’m not in the Star Wars fandom, heh.
Still, Andor felt so fundamental, quintessential Star Wars.
To me, the original trilogy is… ok.
The original trilogy has a very mythological feel that none of the other works have ever managed to fully capture (and, honestly, that feeling was on the wane even as early as Episode 6). I can name the modern works, outside of Star Wars, that have that atmosphere on one hand. It's a very delicate balance to get that atmosphere, and I think even the OT only succeeded at it by happy accident.
Still, Andor felt so fundamental, quintessential Star Wars.
I agree entirely. Can't wait to see Season 2!
The original trilogy has a very mythological feel
First time I paid any attention watching the original trilogy was after playing Mass Effect, watching DS9, and consuming some other sci-fi/fantasy, even some other Star Wars stuff ... I get what you're saying, but I guess it didn't strike me as "remarkably mythic" when I first saw it, and that might be because I'd already seen so much?
@AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net is getting at what I feel. Andor's characters and the details of the worldbuilding are so strong. Same with KOTOR II. Even if they're more inconsistent, rough, or 'lacking wonder,' that more than makes up for it to me.
"The original trilogy has a very mythological feel"
I can't remember where I saw it, but I read something that part of why Andor feels so different to other Star Wars is that the original trilogy (OT) felt like a space opera — the characters exist on a stage, and the world around them ceases to be when the characters leave. This probably contributes to the "magic" of the original trilogy.
Andor, by comparison, has such strong world building and supporting cast that it feels like the world is real, and we only get a small glimpse into what's going on. My favourite minor character was the dude who hits the anvil-bell thing; he takes his job so seriously that it gives a ritual feel to the job, and I get the sense that this is an honoured role.
I don't think it's better or worse than the feel of the original trilogy — just different — but Andor is refreshing because far too much of Star Wars has captured neither the mythological magic of the OT, or the realism of Andor. I think Andor is the last piece of Star Wars that I care about, so I'll be devastated if season 2 is disappointing
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Actually (not so) funny story.. I had a neo-nazi kid in my class growing up.. like wear a nazi arm band to school level, and he was a massive star wars nerd. He actually liked the empire tho, so.. he'd be fully on board with this representation
I overheard two kids talking about how much they liked American History X in the late 90’s… they loved the curb stomping scene and how “badass” Derek was. Safe to assume they missed the point.
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Yeah no shit. Everyone's friggin asleep. Nobody realizes what they see is not some master plan or 4d chess. It's consolidation of power for something very different than a democracy. A battle with the tech billionares afraid of death and a morally rotten to the core chewy center authoritarian up your heiney.
The Force AWOKEens
OTOH, look at all the Stormtrooper cosplayers, who actually have formal legions and get into character about defending the Empire the way Good Germans would about the Third Reich.
One problem with Star Wars is that it makes fascism look cool to enough of the public that the next generation of real-world Nazis approvingly quotes it. (Compare this with Doctor Who, whose in-universe fascists, the Daleks, are kind of pathetic and not something anyone would emulate.)
The downside of the Daleks being kind of weird-looking is that people don't recognise them as fascists and so fascists happily keep watching Doctor Who (even though they hate everything about it and will write books about why it's being cancelled any day now).
It's no use depicting fascists in popular media, they don't recognise themselves in the villain.
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Pffft. Law&Order types love Robin Hood stories for their kids.
It fits in with the 'it's okay to break the law when we do it' mindset.
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