Don’t Get Your Politics from Andor – Joseph Holmes

Reward has been almost common for Andor. The Disney+ Star Wars TV present, set between the occasions of Episode III and Rogue One, in regards to the rise of the riot towards the Empire, had its collection finale high the Nielsen rankings, and the general season has a 96 p.c critic score and an 89 p.c viewers score from Rotten Tomatoes. It’s been praised by shops like The New Republic as “The Greatest Star Wars You Will Ever See,” and gained over the favored YouTube critic (and hater of just about all the pieces fashionable Star Wars), “The Vital Drinker.” In an age the place followers are divided by almost all the pieces Star Wars, and all of their tasks appear to underperform, this present has seemingly achieved the not possible. And with the collection having formally ended with its second season, there’s little or no likelihood of opinions altering about Andor anytime quickly.

Some of the fascinating issues about discussions round Andor is that, not like most Star Wars fare, folks don’t simply see it as an ideal piece of leisure however a real work of political artwork talking about our time. The New Republic calls it “all too related to the real-life politics of 2025.” The New Yorker titled a chunk from their web site, “How ‘Andor’ Injects Modern Politics Into ‘Star Wars’ I.P.” The Guardian argues, “A lot of the language in Andor’s second season instantly recollects the fear-mongering that facilitates the present onslaught towards Palestinians in Gaza.” Likewise, creator and former Youth Pastor John Pavlovitz lately posted on X, “For those who watched Andor, what’s happening proper now in Los Angeles.”

That is the place Andor is considerably problematic. As a chunk of TV, Andor is nice. As a chunk of political commentary, it’s extremely doubtful. And the extra critically we take it, the more serious it makes our politics.

Andor follows the adventures of Cassian Andor, a reluctant member of the Star Wars insurgent alliance preventing towards the Galactic Empire, alongside together with his mates and enemies on both aspect of the battle. Within the remaining season, the Empire builds as much as creating its best weapon: the Demise Star, which it could actually solely do if it seizes by drive the minerals from the residents of the planet Ghorman, despite the fact that it is going to imply massacring lots of the inhabitants and taking direct management of it.

There’s little question that Andor deserves each little bit of inventive reward it’s getting. It’s actually well-written and mature storytelling towards a backdrop of the mythic fable of Star Wars all of us love. Characters in Star Wars have by no means been so layered, so morally gray, so thoughtfully filled with contradictions which might be so in line with how human beings are. By no means has Star Wars delved so deeply into why freedom issues, or how complicated and morally compromising rebellions are.

Leaders of the riot, like Luthen Rael, do horrible issues to their followers with an goal to beat the Empire. Senator Mon Mothma tries desperately to stability standing as much as the emperor publicly and supporting the riot privately with out giving him an excuse to jail her. Syril Karn actually believes he’s the great man for supporting the Empire. In the meantime, the Empire doesn’t merely invade Ghorman by drive. As an alternative, it resembles actual totalitarian regimes by taking part in a protracted propaganda marketing campaign that makes their invasion and occupation appear respectable.

However what makes Andor such nice TV is precisely what makes it such unhealthy politics.

Whereas this realism and mature storytelling elevate the fabric, it fosters problematic implications should you attempt to apply it to our present-day circumstances. Star Wars works on a binary of fine and evil, gentle and darkish sides of the drive, the Rebel and the Empire. That’s nice in case your movie is informed like a fairy story, the place these are summary concepts that took some work to use to explicit conditions in our personal world. Even the place Star Wars has been political earlier than—akin to making allusions to Vietnam and George W. Bush—they had been abstracted sufficient that the main target was on the underlying ideas, so the way you utilized that message was as much as you.

But Andor’s closely grownup storytelling continually insists you apply the franchise’s childlike reasoning and options to real-world grownup politics. Within the first season, they deal overtly with the politics of police brutality and their cover-ups, with non-public prisons, and the colonial occupation of indigenous peoples. On this season, they examine off stormtrooper crackdowns of unlawful immigration, sexual assault, and the enormous propaganda machine concerned in justifying state-sponsored abuse of protestors and genocide—issues that both have occurred in our personal society, or not less than replicate fees we’re repeatedly accused of.

Furthermore, they have a tendency to forged largely the identical stage of fascist symbolism to all of the above abuses. And so they condemn as naive anybody who doesn’t see the necessity to insurgent with violence. Mon Mothma’s try to combat the Empire above board, the Ghormans’ makes an attempt to protest peacefully, and Sryil’s perception in being an excellent particular person throughout the system all come to spoil. Ultimately, this have to be changed by violence and battle. Solely Luthen—who from the start sees violent overthrow as the one choice—is validated in the long run.

If our society is what’s being critiqued because the Empire, and violent riot is the one final answer, then it fairly awkwardly sides with those that use political violence in our personal nation at present. Adrienne LaFrance wrote for The Atlantic in regards to the disturbing development of bipartisan political violence:

Along with the current assassinations in Minnesota, People have up to now 12 months alone witnessed two assassination makes an attempt towards Donald Trump; the Midtown Manhattan homicide of the UnitedHealthcare CEO; an arson assault on the residence of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro; the homicide of a younger couple leaving the Capital Jewish Museum, in Washington; the homicide of an 82-year-old girl in a firebombing assault in Colorado; and the tried kidnapping of the mayor of Memphis. With startling frequency, People are trying to resolve political disagreement by violence. And all of the whereas, leaders on the highest ranges of American authorities are aggressively stoking this nationwide bloodlust and demonstrating a willingness to hold out violence towards residents.

Most individuals who love Andor would condemn such violence. However I’m undecided they’re being constant. People more and more imagine we stay in a dystopian empire nightmare. And once we are informed by fiction like Andor that the one approach to cease empires is thru violence, selecting violence is hardly stunning.

Even should you purchase that we stay in a dystopia, it doesn’t observe that violence is often an excellent reply. In actual fact, it’s usually a horrible one. A 2024 comparative evaluation of 65 quantitative research revealed that “nonviolent revolutions usually result in extra optimistic institutional outcomes than violent revolutions throughout domains like democracy, safety forces, overseas relations, ethnicity, tradition, and well-being.” Furthermore, “nonviolent resistance actions usually tend to facilitate transitions from autocracy to democracy, enhance democratic qualities like civil liberties, remodel safety forces and judicial programs in rights-respecting instructions, and improve well-being measures akin to life expectancy.”

However you hardly want a examine to let you know that. Historical past is affected by violent revolutions that had been then merely changed by comparable or worse dictatorships: the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Iranian Revolution, the Chinese language Revolution, and so forth. In the meantime, well-known non-violent revolutions have had nice success—significantly in Western nations that Andor’s followers are so fast to match the present to. Take into account the Indian Independence motion and the American Civil Rights motion of the ’60s.

That’s to not say violence isn’t justified. However you must be clear when it’s and when it isn’t. That is one place that Andor, for all of its “grownup” politicking, doesn’t ever appear to truly wrestle with. What’s the road between a authorities that does fallacious however you’ll be able to nonetheless protest peacefully, and one you’ll be able to’t? There’s a temporary debate between the Ghormans that goes nowhere.

This cavalier perspective towards political violence could stem from its very romantic views of freedom and tyranny. The manifesto of freedom by the present’s Karis Nemik from the primary season is usually quoted by starry-eyed followers and is quoted within the present’s collection finale:

Keep in mind this. Freedom is a pure thought. It happens spontaneously and with out instruction. Random acts of revolt are occurring continually all through the galaxy. There are entire armies, battalions that do not know that they’ve already enlisted within the trigger. Keep in mind that the frontier of the Rebel is in all places. And even the smallest act of revolt pushes our strains ahead. After which bear in mind this. The Imperial want for management is so determined as a result of it’s so unnatural. Tyranny requires fixed effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the masks of concern. Keep in mind that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance, may have flooded the banks of the Empire’s authority after which there can be one too many. One single factor will break the siege.

To not be imply, however that is foolish. Most of world historical past has been outlined by tyranny, and the freedoms now we have at present developed solely with lengthy expertise, and had been conceptualized by good thinkers like John Locke, Montesquieu, and plenty of extra who laid the mental groundwork for the type of freedom now we have. It’s why we couldn’t militarily transplant it someplace like Afghanistan or Iraq. 

This brings us to an important level. America (or Western civilization, if you wish to broaden it) isn’t the Empire. I’ve written earlier than about how the concept that we stay in a dystopian totalitarian hellhole is basically laughable. Not solely is violence persistently happening and wealth and prosperity persistently going up for the wealthy and the poor alike, however charges of racism and sexism are happening, whereas freedom itself stays sturdy and continues to develop. We don’t stay below an Emperor Palpatine who can direct all the media as a propaganda machine to his will. (For those who don’t imagine me, have a look at the numerous information shops that criticize every democrat or republican president at any given time.) We don’t stay below an empire that commits mass slaughter towards its personal residents. Maybe that’s why, the place there’s been police brutality lately, peaceable protests have introduced it down. Maybe that’s why, when the federal government tried to mandate COVID vaccines for workers, regular lawsuits acquired the Supreme Court docket to strike it down.

The fact is that we wish to assume that our political opponents are villains, however they’re usually not that totally different from us. One examine confirmed that each the left and the appropriate vastly overestimated how many individuals on the opposite aspect agreed with extremist views. As creator and evolutionary psychologist Steven Stewart Williams described: “For instance, lefties guessed that the majority conservatives wholeheartedly agreed with racist views, when lower than 1 / 4 of them agreed even just a little. Conservatives, for his or her half, guessed that the majority lefties wholeheartedly agreed with banning free speech, when solely a 3rd did even barely.”

So why can we think about folks on the opposite aspect are so unhealthy? One purpose is that it’s extra thrilling to think about the opposite aspect is so unhealthy that it justifies violence. As one examine confirmed, “sensation in search of predicts assist for a violent activist group.” That’s the attraction of reveals like Andor, too. A present about rebels preventing the empire is rather more thrilling than abnormal individuals who disagree just a bit bit on politics.

It additionally satirically makes issues really feel extra hopeful. Whereas we’d not stay in a dystopia, we nonetheless have issues on this planet. If our issues are as a consequence of some villain we will combat and defeat, then the issues may go away. If not, there could also be no approach to repair them as soon as and for all. As creator and Soviet Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago, “If solely there have been evil folks someplace insidiously committing evil deeds, and it had been essential solely to separate them from the remainder of us and destroy them.” However the fee is just too excessive. As a result of if we aren’t residing in a dystopia already, we would be the ones who make it that means by our try to overthrow it.

Then what can we do? How can we combat the injustices we see in our day and our time? The boring reply continues to be the true reply. We do what we’ve at all times achieved, as a result of it’s labored, and it’s continued to work. We stay our abnormal lives, working, loving one another, making artwork, talking out, and utilizing the political course of to vary the world for the higher. It’s not as enjoyable because the model we see in Star Wars. However it’s the grownup reply.

Andor is a good present that brings a stage of grownup drama to Star Wars by no means earlier than seen. However it’s nonetheless finally a fairy story. These wishing to use the politics of a galaxy far, distant to our personal will seemingly discover themselves on the darkish aspect fairly than the riot. And like Syril, they might not discover out till it’s too late.