Posted in: Movies | Tagged: politics, rogue one, star wars

'Star Wars' Logo Creator Says Its Fascist Roots Aren't Political

Published Mon, 19 Dec 2016 15:15:10 -0600

There has been quite a lot of talk about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and where its political leanings lie. Despite the fact that the connection between the Empire and fascism—mostly linked to the Nazis—couldn't be more obvious, and the fact that Star Wars itself was a reaction to Vietnam, there are people who think that a movie about rebelling against fascism has no place talking about politics.

Fascism, here defined by Dictionary.com as "(sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism" is what we are talking about here.

Now, The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Suzy Rice, the designer who created the iconic logo, and it's an example of just how far people are willing to look the other way when the media doesn't line up with their own political views.

In a 2011 essay, Rice wrote about her meeting with George Lucas, and his idea for the now-famous logo.

"At my first meeting with George, as I've described a bit already, he was not a highly talkative fellow. His few words to me included him saying that he wanted "something that is very fascist." He made a few hand gestures in the air while waving a pencil as he described what he envisioned various special effects would look like and as he later left the meeting, he said he wanted a logo that would "be intimidating", that would "rival AT&T.""

Lucas came right out and said that he wanted the logo to feel fascist because that is what Star Wars is about; it's about people overcoming fascism.

That aspect of Star Wars is built into the DNA of the series, right down to the designs of the logo. Rice understood this, and she also discusses the font she chose when she was creating the logo itself. She didn't really receive the credit she deserved until the mid-2000's because the logo was slightly changed, but Rice heard the words "fascism" and designed from there.

So Rice must understand that politics is central to the story of Star Wars, right?

It appears that isn't the case. The Hollywood Reporter emailed Rice and, much like the angry Neo-Nazis and the #DumpStarWars people, Rice doesn't think politics has any place in Star Wars. Rice, who says she voted for Donald Trump, appears to come down on the side of the #DumpStarWars people while also saying that there is a version of the Rebel Alliance in the real world—but it isn't who you think.

"Even if Lucas envisioned the Empire as a fascist organization, his first motivation was to channel archetypes for dramatic purposes. Reducing these archetypes to current political personalities is "an exercise in graffiti-with-crayons," says Rice. "It dissipates the drama and the archetypical characters while creating a new, inept thing in doing so," she says. "At no point, however, have I ever viewed the SW literary canon to be a comment on any phase or time in U.S. political history."

This is something that people love to say when they want to hand-wave something that they don't agree with in media away, but here's the thing that Rice doesn't seem to understand; media does not exist in a vacuum. Star Wars was a reaction to Vietnam, one of the greatest political blunders—next to perhaps the war in Iraq—that the United States has ever made. Lucas created LucasFilm as a "Rebel Alliance" against the almost fascist way Hollywood could take creators, chew them up, and spit them out. He famously quit the directors guild over the opening of Star Wars in a perfect reflection of rejection of the union requirements. These were movies created in a certain political environment and influenced by a man who clearly made his political views known. He wanted everything about the Empire to scream fascism right down to the logo.

Then we come to modern Star Wars, which is now under the arm of one of the biggest companies in the world. Lucasfilm isn't the Alliance anymore, it's the New Republic, and the creeping dread of the First Order isn't even in Hollywood anymore, it's modern-day politicians who are okay with fascism. It's a series that has Neo-Nazis and misogynists angry at the inclusion of new people because they wanted it to stay the same, and that isn't reality anymore. According to Rice, however, there is a version of the Rebels now, and it's the last people we want it to be.

"If there's any similarity from between this Rogue One activity to and the present, politically, it is simpatico with the Anonymous/WikiLeaks obtaining leaked documentation from U.S. political parties and making available to the public some quite grotesque correspondence among Democrats," says Rice.

So, according to Rice, Russian Hackers are the new Rebel Alliance, but that metaphor doesn't hold up when you learn that the hackers weren't working on their own, but were government sanctioned. They aren't the Rebels, they're the Empire, and Putin might as well be Emperor Palpatine at this point. He has his Grand Moff Tarkin too, and his name is Donald Trump.

To say that Star Wars has nothing to do with politics is to miss the fact that the word WAR is in the title. This is a series about people fighting against tyranny. There is no such thing as a war that doesn't have politics, and there is no such thing as media about war that doesn't have politics. A creator's beliefs, the world that media is created in, all of these things influence the choices they make. To ask that Star Wars or a video game or a book be devoid of politics is to kneecap creativity.

Suzy Rice created a logo that was designed to scream "fascism" under the direction of the man who created Star Wars. If she is willing to do that and then say that politics have no business in Star Wars, then the future of creativity looks bleaker the end of Empire Strikes Back.

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