The other day I found myself chatting with a 4 year old and was reminded that keeping 4 year olds in your social circles is important. The conversation included super heroes. Because it should. I asked him who his favorite super heroes were and he responded as quickly as if the answer was a clear to him as knowing his own name, “Darth Vader. And Spiderman.”
As a superfan of Darth Vader, I couldn’t agree with him more even though some folks would say that characters whose story includes murdering young Jedis and cutting off your son’s hand aren’t exactly traditionally known as shall we say, “heroes.”
If you’re familiar with Vader’s story arc, you know he brings it back around to becoming a kinder, gentler bad guy, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what makes him cool.
It made me think about how neat it is that we’re drawn to different things.
Google says people are captivated (metaphorically) to Darth Vader in part because his status as a fashion icon. His glossy black outfit makes him a standout in a sea of white stormtroopers. It’s aesthetically pleasing. As a person who considers wearing gray stepping out into wearing “color,” I couldn’t agree more.
Apparently people are also pulled in by the (wait for it) power of the dark side. There can be intrigue associated with thinking about bad behavior. I’m sure most of us haven’t robbed a bank or throat punched an annoying person, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t thought about it. Ol’ Darth doesn’t worry about not giving into the intrusive thoughts. He just acts on them. The character triggers a thought line of wondering what you’d do if consequences were different or didn’t exist. Sure, we all want to be good people. But sometimes even good people think about doing bad things.
The rabbit hole search of why Vader fandom exists stopped here. Partly because I don’t want to ruin his coolness by over thinking why he’s cool. But mostly because the search results included things such as “Why am I in love with Darth Vader” and I really don’t need whatever that would do to my algorithms. Like, really.
Unlike my conversation buddy/co Darth Vader fan, I’m not as likely to pick up sticks today and wield them like light sabers. Although it is possible. I’m also not going to sing the praises of Spiderman. He’s neat and all, but red and blue?! Garish!
Anyways, thanks for the reminder Mr. 4 and thanks for reading!
Bifocals and Barbells 