My favorite example of this.
Hint: George Lucas has stated in the most plain-English unambiguous terms that the empire does in fact represent US imperialism in A New Hope. It's in a director chat interview thing with with James Cameron if you feel like searching it up.
Oh boy now I can add this to my “Americans being so far gone that they don’t realize a movie about US imperialism is a movie about US imperialism”. Almost like MAGA thinking Homelander is a celebration of Trump for 3 whole seasons before realizing it may actually he the opposite.
For people that say "don't make x media political" I think that almost all media is inherently political, your making a statement about something that has real world connotations and people are going to form an opinion from it.
I was just thinking of the ex-gf who didn’t believe Star Wars was about Vietnam. I should add that to the list of reasons for the break up.
Never date a centrist. If they’re not a militant leftist, don’t bother kids. 😂
Not good thoughts, not good thoughts by the way. Thinking about the writing group I dropped because “that’s always been my thing”.
disagreed. my wife, when we met, was right wing. but also very smart. also very empathetic. not very politically aware.
we were friends for a decade. dated for a bit. got married. talked politics for a few years. i asked a few pointed questions over the years. in 2015, agent krasnov's response to the attacks in Paris in November of that year were enough for her to leave the republican party, without any of my prompting. dear gods i love that woman. i remember, the responses were all about him being right about some bullshit and nothing about calming and unifying people. nothing what a politician is supposed to do.
nowadays, yeah, never date anyone more right than Rick Allen.
The story goes that George Lucas was supposed to direct Apocalypse Now, but the studio didn't like that he was gonna make it a 35mm black and white documentary instead of a blockbuster movie, so he said he'd make his own Vietnam war movie...with spaceships, and lasers!
I'll direct my own movie! With blackjack and hookers!
And eventually he really did.
he just did space chess and, uh, what are those women in cages called. gogo dancers?
I thought that was lady gaga on the far right
And unlike the original Star Wars film, which made the parallels to the Vietnam War paint the US in a bad light, the latest Star Wars film riffs off the helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now!, but instead of presenting napalming the shit out of people as a bad thing, presents it as a good thing.
Which film?
TMAG
I had to look that up, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" is the name of the film for anyone else curious. I guess they learned all the wrong lessons from the success of The Mandalorian.
Not the Delorean and Groggy!
does lil grogs at least eat eat everyone he spacenapalms?
Glad to see a new spin on this meme format.
Too bad the stormtrooper on the right still missed.
And what exactly is the difference between Western imperialism and other kinds of imperialism?
I know your question is rhetorical, because you always, always cape for the imperial core, but: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
“Western” is inaccurate. The fascist Japanese empire was a monopoly-stage capitalist empire much like the others, and Japan is still a junior partner today’s neocolonialism, but it’s never been “Western.”
This isn’t about cultures or genetics or location on the map, but about ownership of the means of production, international power dynamics, and sovereignty. It’s about imperialism vs anti-imperialism.
“Western” is inaccurate. The fascist Japanese empire was a monopoly-stage capitalist empire much like the others, and Japan is still a junior partner today’s neocolonialism, but it’s never been “Western.”
So similiarly to Russia today? Is Russia also part of "western imperialism"?
Over 20 years go Russia—at the time lead by Putin—wanted to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected them: Ex-Nato head says Putin wanted to join alliance early on in his rule. Now Russia, rejected by the Global North, has no choice but to join with the Global South as allies instead of neocolonizers. Hence BRICS+ and the larger developing multipolar bloc that’s going its own way, ignoring the US’ “rules-based international order” sanctions, developing its own international balance of payments outside of US dollar hegemony, and working to get out from under the boot of the IMF’s & World Bank’s debt traps.
Honest question from a non-communist, based on your reply here. Does one need to support Putin to be a Marxist?
In a word, no. In a few more words, support for Russia (not Putin, as historical materialists don’t subscribe to great man theory) is only a partial, temporary, tactical one, in the context of imperialist liberation. Russia is still a capitalist state, though, so it’s a two stage strategy: first liberate colonized bourgeois states from colonizer states, and second revolution within those liberated bourgeois states.
Russia is an interesting case: it has already liberated itself from the post-Soviet “shock therapy” neocolonizers. This occurred during Putin’s administration, which is why he is especially hated by the US. So now the support for Russia is in the context of keeping the colonizers from recolonizing it, and supporting Russia to the extent that it helps other states liberate themselves. But Russia isn’t trying to “liberate” Ukraine, at least not all of Ukraine. It’s trying to resolve the genocidal attacks on the people of the Donbas, and it’s trying to resolve the imperialist military expansion at its border.
One is an actual problem for the world and the other exists as a hypothetical?
So Chinese military presence in Africa is not imperialism?
Is that what imperialism means to you? Can you show me this Chinese military presence? Because it doesn't fill me with confidence that you can't get any more specific than the name of the continent.
Depending on the context, it could just be who's doing it. Star Wars was originally specifically an allegory for the Vietnam War, which was a war of Western imperialism because the two countries making it a war rather than a country gaining its independence were France (who'd conquered Vietnam as part of their empire and weren't happy that the Vietnamese didn't want to be in their empire) and the US (who wanted to stop communists gaining power anywhere), both of which are Western countries. It was about that war in particular rather than imperialism in general because that war in particular was the one that was a big deal for the target audience at the time - if Lucas had been Japanese and making the film decades earlier, maybe he'd have made it an allegory for something else, but he wasn't, so he made the film he made.
No. It's literally just space Nazi's.
Guys... There are STORMTROOPERS in the Empire. It's not subtle lol.
george lucas has stated very plainly it was about US imperialism in vietnam
NO! THEY are the space nazis!
Space nazis of the US empire.
Just like Starship troopers are space nazis of the US empire to it's filmmaker.
Now excuse me while I cut off your hand.
Sorry, it's pretty clearly stated in this interview by Lucas.
LITERALLY
Watching Star Wars as a kid is LITERALLY one of many reasons I give a fuck as an adult.
I paid attention to the fucking story.
