George Lucas spoke about the didactic role of cinema and about his own work being presented through the “moral megaphone” of the film industry. A considerable body of scholarship on the six-part Star Wars series argues (unconvincingly) that the franchise promoted neo-conservatism in American culture from the late 1970s onward. But there is much in Lucas’ grand space opera to suggest something more ideologically complex is going on. This book challenges the view of the saga as an unambiguously violent text exemplifying reactionary politics, and discusses the films’ identity politics with regard to race and gender.

John C. McDowell is the director of research at the University of Divinity, and is based in Melbourne, Australia. He is associate editor and book review editor for Colloquium.

John C. McDowell

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 208
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2016
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6286-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2450-1
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments ix
Preface 1
Abbreviations 9
1. “Man your ships, and may the Force be with you”: Star Wars and Mythically Sanitized Violence 11
2. “Wars not make one great”: Redeeming the Star Wars Mythos from the Myth of Redemptive Violence 42
3. “There’ll be no escape for the Princess this time”: Re-Gendering the Patriarchal Star Wars Texts 78
4. “We don’t serve their kind here!” Star Wars and the Politics of Difference 116
Chapter Notes 155
Bibliography 177
Index 191