star wars – Bifocals and Barbells

Tall, Darth, and Handsome

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!

Star Wars Made Moral Ambiguity a Thing

Hear me out.

Back in the day, there was this bad guy named Darth Vader. He was the quintessential bad guy. Great clothes, great theme music, horrible behavior. Dude could care less about your title, or your degree of loyalty. If you were in between him and his intended outcome, he’d kill you. He’d blow up entire planets just to show dominance and force. Sometimes he’d let people fight, sometimes he’d just choke them out without touching them. Spoiler alert (for a movie that was made 40 years ago…sooooooo,…if this spoils it for you, that’s on you): Vader was so bad, he cut off his own son’s hand to win a battle.

The first movie, New Hope, came out when I was 6. Vader wore all black, did awful things, and had a theme son g that called the hairs on the back of my neck to attention. “Ah. He’s a bad guy. Got it!”

When Empire Strikes Back came out, I was 9. He was still that guy. He’d upped his game. He was using some psy ops to futher mess with people’s heads. He was being a barrier to true love by ordering Han frozen in carbonite. He lusted for power, and oozed wickedness. His imperial march that played as he strode about was synonymous with corruption. As my little brain was growing, all this was helpful. I knew I’d be able to navigate future life experiences by paying attention the characters in black with their own march music.

Then, things got complicated.

Return of the Jedi came out when I was 12 years old. For reasons unknown to my 12 year old self and also unknown to my 48 year old self, we all learned a lot about Vader. We were funneled into compassion for him. He was unmasked. A face that looked like skin after a bandaid had been left on too long was revealed. Think about when you’ve been in the water so long that you’re pruney or maybe finding a grape when you’ve done that seldom task of moving the fridge to clean below it. That’s what Vader looked like.

The loss of his ability to strike fear wasn’t caused only by the stripping of his nefarious exterior. We were emotionally influenced by his intent with taking the mask off. He wanted to see his son with his real eyes instead of through his mask. Is that right, Vader? I’m just saying, the mask didn’t seem to be an issue when you CUT OFF HIS HAND.

Surely that’s as weird as it will get, right? Wrong. There’s a “heartwarming” scene where Vader is spiritually dwelling with Obi Wan and Yoda. The same Obi Wan that he killed. They were just chilling with no hard feelings. 12 year old me had some real “What the frick?!” moments.

The movies were re-released when I was a mostly formed adult. I was still saddened that Vader couldn’t have just stayed bad. Three more movies were released that furthered the narrative that Vader was complicated. That perhaps in the absence of adverse childhood experiences he’d have been good guy.

I’m not sure if movies are where we’re supposed to formulate our values, or if they’re a reflection of them. In my social work heart, I know that everyone has a back story. We are all products of our life experiences. And, grown up me knows that the world is very complicated. There is a whole lot about humaning that was left out the brochures. Maybe that’s what makes me miss just regular old bad guys. He’s fictional. We don’t need to try to help him live his best life. We should be able to dislike him and be okay with that.