A Galaxy of Despair or a Glimmer of Hope?

Abigail Reed bravely enters the fray of culture war discourse surrounding Star Wars by delivering a bombardment from the left to strike at Disney’s new neoliberal Star Wars universe. Reed concludes that Star Wars is lost and should be abandoned in favor of “divorcing ourselves from these corporate stories so we can find new loves in stories that are written by us, for us, and imagine a better future for us” (120). While this book is primarily useful for academics researching political communication, it also has potential to resonate with communications and entertainment practitioners.There are four chapters as well as an introduction and brief conclusion. Chapter 1 outlines Disney’s history of supporting capitalist exploitation around the world through the creation of stories that promote neoliberal individualist narratives while suppressing radical organizing and other forms of resistance to the hegemony of global corporate oligarchies (9–27). Through quotes from key individuals at Disney and information about the development of relevant Disney projects, Reed shows how Disney’s inclusion of diversity appears to be a mere means to its ultimate end of maximizing profit (9–14). Reed argues that the less-than-genuine integration of social justice concepts and diversity into the Disney Star Wars films is exemplified through racialized characters often being sidelined to subplots or being killed off (15–19). This is followed by a summary of the challenges Disney Star Wars films faced at the box office, behind the scenes with production delays, and in terms of fan backlash (19–27).Chapter 2 critiques Disney’s handling of the character Saw Guerrera, the Black, disabled leader of a revolutionary group. Reed argues that Guerrera’s portrayal as radical, as reckless, as an absentee father figure not meeting the criteria of Disney’s perception of ideal family values, and ultimately as “dangerous” (40) feeds into racist stereotypes about Black men (32–40, 52–62). The planet and city Guerrera’s Partisans are situated on has vague symbolism similar to Islam (40–44), which for Reed cements “the sub/textual connection between the audience’s Orientalist notions of the MENA region, of Blackness, of Islam, of the disabled body, and of political activist groups as inherently dangerous and threatening” (43). Disney’s framing of Guerrera is compared with Disney’s history of discouraging politics antithetical to neoliberalism and US imperialism, messaging that was antithetical to the more political commentary about systemic injustices and democratic decline that George Lucas’s Star Wars content expressed (44–52).Chapter 3 analyzes the relationship between two racialized characters in the sequel trilogy: Finn, a Black male and a former stormtrooper who defected from the First Order to join the Resistance, and Poe Dameron, a Resistance pilot and military leader played by a Hispanic actor (65–97). Reed argues that Finn and Poe showed signs of an emerging queer relationship in The Force Awakens (65–78), but this was abandoned in later films with the characters being straightwashed (90–97) while they were relegated away from main plotlines after being reprimanded by white female characters (78–90). For Reed, “Disney utilizes an exploitative strategy of incorporating the experiences of real-world marginalized communities for dramatic and economic benefit, but categorically dismisses the political ideologies, methods of resistance, and networks of support that these communities have forged” (65).Chapter 4 argues that the robot L3-37 in Solo: A Star Wars Story displays a radical queer politics of resistance that the audience is made to ridicule (99–117). The robot’s largely self-constructed body is analyzed as an expression of radical gender identity symbolizing opposition to a galaxy that largely equates droids to slaves (101–12). When L3-37 calls out the injustice of robots being forced to fight to the death while their human overlords place bets, she is talked down to like a child and told to remain quiet (101–2). While L3-37 is able to start a droid rebellion, she is quickly killed in the fighting that ensues and her mind is uploaded into a starship to help the main characters, which seems to leave her in a state of enslavement (112–16). Reed argues that if the film endorsed L3-37’s rebellion, the politics of Disney Star Wars content “would have to shift to accommodate coalition-based localized warfare, which has elsewhere in the franchise been characterized as terrorism and not an acceptable style of liberation movement” (117).The book would benefit from going deeper into Star Wars lore beyond the main films, as additional materials such as books, video games, and comics may have more clues to further reinforce Reed’s arguments. Similarly, a more in-depth analysis of fan contributions to Star Wars debates, such as the views espoused by notable influencers, would help readers better understand the spectrum of views among the fan base and which camps have the most followers. Including the voices of more content creators from marginalized backgrounds, especially content creators of color, would help bring perspectives of those from groups who have been historically shut out of the ivory tower into the academic discourse. Regarding better ways of story-making that work toward dismantling injustices of current corporate hegemons, I would like to see more exploration of the potential for creative power to be more decentralized so the revolutionary possibilities of Star Wars, including opportunities to theorize better politics in a science fiction setting and expand upon the anti-imperialist aspects of the original films, can be realized instead of simply discarding it. For example, can the story be continued to show the problems of a neoliberal system after Episode IX and follow characters working to improve galactic democracy? Can the creative process be democratized and/or contributed to via collaborative cocreation activities, and, if so, how should these activities be implemented? Can Disney’s imperial rule over the Star Wars galaxy be resisted?