#i have long since learned to leave my star wars thoughts untagged

[dgcatanisiri]

I still say that the problem of Disney's portrayal of the Empire (and by extension the First Order) is that... They keep softening the edges of the fascism of the Imperials.

Sure, Andor has been showing the Empire BEING fascist, exerting control and crushing rebellion of the weak... But who really IS the "them" to the Empire's "us"? It's too... indistinct and nebulous. "Them" accounts for anyone the showrunners want to have as the good guys, but what has MADE them to be "them" in the Empire's eyes?

Like Legends!Star Wars always framed it as the Empire being a human male dominated environment, and that makes it all so obvious - aliens and their sympathizers are the reason we have the problems. Hell, the CIS helped justify this evolution, since that was an organization led by several aliens, while the good guys of the Clone Wars were predominantly human - so, in the aftermath of the Clone Wars, the Empire made non-humans the scapegoat for things. That became the grounds for a "High Human Culture" to grow in the halls of power of the Empire - humans were Imperial, aliens were the enemies (no matter how many non-humans were in the Senate).

And I feel like they're sort of dancing around this so far, with the higher echelons of Imperial society being shown as human-dominated in Andor, with Mon Mothma hobnobbing with the powerful of Coruscant who we only see as being human - there's a mention of Sly Moore, an incidental non-human character from the prequels, but she's still been seen with human Senators in pretty much all the scenes of her public life. But... That doesn't really fit with the other portrayals they have of Imperial worlds to this point. And while retcons are always a thing in Star Wars, it seems a little late in the game to try and retrofit this into it.

I've said it before, it feels like Disney is comfortable using the imagery of fascism for the Empire/First Order, sell those snazzy toys, but they don't really want to acknowledge that this group that they are making bank on and even having parade in their parks - Captain Phasma regularly marches the minions of the First Order through Tomorrowland. They have no problems taking the Empire, the First Order, the organization outright modeled after actual fascists, using them as a marketing gimmick, take the money of people who want the merch... But they don't want to acknowledge that they're making money off fascism. Fictional fascists, sure, but still fascists. That all these characters they want as "the face" of the franchise in terms of who is on all their marketing and posters and logos ARE FASCISTS. Y'know, Kylo Ren, Captain Phasma, Darth Vader... They all are the bad guys.

But these are the characters that Disney wants marching in their parks. And, in fairness, because I won't ascribe to malice what is easily attributable to convenience, a part of that almost certainly is also because they all wear face-concealing masks and are able to be played by multiple actors in multiple parks - much harder to make a mascot out of a character like Luke Skywalker or Han Solo or Obi-Wan Kenobi, characters who have a distinct face. So I can understand the reasoning in play here that aren't "let's indulge fascism" or anything like that.

But I still stand by that honestly just undercutting the stories being told, because it's trying to have characters fight fascism while refusing to really acknowledge the fascism.