12 Years a Droid
December 18th, 2015




Here’s the final piece in my case for the Empire triptych: An extended examination of slavery in Star Wars. Basically, I don’t think Melissa Harris-Perry is crazy for seeing unsettling race problems in Star Wars. I just think she’s looking at the wrong characters–it’s the droids who are obviously a stand-in for the African-American experience.

Which makes the Jawas the most repulsive characters in the Star Wars universe. Because they’re slave traders.

Update: An email from reader Keith Rabenberg:

I have used for some time now a simpler method of provoking Star Wars fans.  At some point during a discussion of the movies, when someone refers to Chewbacca, I like to make a reference to “her.”  And then I go on to explain what a tragic figure she is: flying around the galaxy with that cad Solo, with whom she clearly was in love, and then having to watch him flirt right in front of her with the girl with twin hair buns, all the while being unable to express her emotions in English … hence the loud moaning and howling.

I’m always amazed at how strongly the Star Wars fans react, even when they know I’m just making fun: “Chewbacca is not a girl!”  They become even more agitated when I challenge them to prove I’m wrong.

Anyway, I find it entertaining.

I kind of love this.

  1. Gabriel December 21, 2015 at 9:05 pm

    Really snuck that one in under the wire given all the SW:TFA exposition about how stormtroopers are basically janissaries.

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  2. Jason O. December 29, 2015 at 4:48 pm

    Contrarian POV: It is JVL’s writing on the Nolan Batman trilogy which far surpasses anything published on Star Wars, even “TCFE.”

    Besides, the reason we love A New Hope is because Lucas’s USC film school friends Spielberg and Milius helped him make it, isn’t that obvious?

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  3. Chase January 4, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    Hey reader Keith Rabenberg, challenge this…

    Finn: You can understand that thing?
    Han: Yeah, and he can understand you too!

    Also, Han can understand Chewy, so even if he was a girl, which he’s clearly not, he would be able to express his emotions to Han. Who cares if he was able to do it in English or not?

    As for writer Jonathan Last, on your point of droids being slaves, they’re no less slaves than our pets are, which is real life, but I don’t see you writing about how we call ourselves their masters and not let them into restaurants. You also tried to call an organization that blew up a planet “enlightened”, which confuses me, are you ok with them committing genocide so long as they don’t enslave them? Based on your link to Sonny Bunch (whom I’ll also be writing to) on the justification of blowing up Alderaan, should I assume you think we should nuke the whole of Iraq and Syria because SOME terrorists occupy space there and that it would be justified, militarily speaking of course? I’ll be anxiously awaiting your follow up article about how animal shelters are slave traders and how we all clearly should vote for Donald Trump because Alderaan has terrorists.

    For the record, I’m just really bored at work right now.

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