The Star Wars saga is built on dualisms, the binary thinking which underpins patriarchal society, categorising its subjects into a complex hierarchy based on racial, sexual, gender and class distinctions, among others. The Jedi, dressed in white, moving in open and well-lit spaces are placed in opposition to the Sith-led Empire, clad in black, inhabiting closed and oppressive dark spaces. The opposition of black and white is just one manifestation of Lucas’ reliance on, as Deyneka puts it, not only “the antediluvian theme of good vs evil but also humanity vs technology” (2012: 33), updating Joseph Campbell’s heroic monomyth for the modern age. The filmmakers cannot resist, however, offering a technological spectacle for the viewer through the use of advanced special and visual effects, with the result that “every frame of the film
What separates ‘good’ from ‘bad’ technology within the logic of the films is the degree of human control involved in the implementation of machines and the maintenance of individual identities of the humans operating within these mechanical systems. Both the Jedi’s personalised lightsabers and the Resistance fighters’ small ships, the emphasis is on the skill or art of those wielding technological weapons, rather than the technology itself. Therefore, the technophobic anxieties in the film arise, as Patell observes, “not from the fear of technology per se, but rather, the fear that technology will be removed from [individual] control and misused to enhance the agency of the few at the expense of the many” (2012: 177), as seen in the planet destroying Death Star, which seems to swallow up its technicians, stripping them of their unique identities in hiding their faces behind a hard mechanical mask, with only the push of a button required to unleash enormous destructive potential. In this opposition it becomes apparent that the saga advocates the protection and promotion of human individuality and subjectivity in the face of technological developments —for example in mechanisation of production—
that seem to threaten individual agency.
It is only Anakin/Vader who transgresses the film’s binaries through his transformation from innocent boy to evil Sith Lord, thereby situating himself at the centre of the saga’s narrative structure. The monster is thus placed at the heart of the film, and yet on the margins of normative society, a liminal, abject figure. It is only Anakin/Vader who transgresses this binary through his transformation from innocent boy to evil Sith Lord, thereby situating himself at the centre of the saga’s narrative structure. The monster is thus placed at the heart of the film, and yet on the margins of normative society, a liminal, abject figure. Darth Vader represents a subject whose unique human identity as Anakin Skywalker has been erased by his fusion with technology to create a posthuman hybrid subject, subjugated to the will of the crushing
machine-like imperative of the Empire. Donna Haraway hoped the representation of the cyborg myth of ‘hopeful monsters’, taxonomically unstable beings “not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (1991: 154), may provide a metaphor through which to deconstruct the binaries on which patriarchal society is built.
Darth Vader, however, represents what Haraway identifies as the main problem with the cyborg metaphor, that it is “the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism” (151). Rather than challenge the binary logic of the Star Wars universe, the cyborg Vader exists under the control of the patriarchal and militaristic regime that created him. He remains the monstrous Other that defines and justifies the norm —in the case of Star Wars represented by white, male, heterosexual Luke Skywalker.
Far from demonstrating liberating potential, Anakin’s transformation into the cyborg Darth Vader is defined by abjection and the loss of individual agency. The transgression of boundaries inside/outside, human/machine etc. make his body the site of monstrosity, a quality that he carries into adulthood as Vader’s body is marked by the blurring of these same binaries. This abjection is not, however, the defining feature of Anakin/Vader’s monstrousness. Instead, it is his apparent lack of identity and agency that inspires fear. As a teenager in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith Anakin’s greatest desire is to prove his manhood according to the hegemonic masculine norm in order to earn his place as a man in the patriarchal hierarchy of the Jedi. He finds himself constrained by the failings of his mentor and father figure Obi-Wan who, in disregarding Anakin’s need to assert himself as an independent adult subject, effectively blocks his path to establishing a functional masculine identity. Anakin’s resulting frustration at being denied his perceived entitlement to power and status as a man operating within patriarchy ultimately develops into rage directed at not only the father figure but also the system he represents. What Anakin experiences is ‘aggrieved
entitlement’, a term conceived by Michael Kimmel that he defines as “the sense that those benefits to which you believed yourself entitled have been snatched away from you by forces unseen and more powerful” (2013: 63). Kimmel applies the term to those young white American men who have come “to believe that power was what they were entitled to, by birth” (54) and who consider that birthright to be eroding, resulting in a kind of directionless anger which can easily be manipulated and directed towards specific groups of people who become scapegoats, for example women and other minorities (89). Anakin’s discontent is manipulated and channeled by Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious into a hatred of first Obi-Wan Kenobe and later the Jedi as a whole. Anakin is therefore constructed as monster by a monstrous Other to the Jedi hierarchy, removing the weight of responsibility from the protagonist and the patriarchal Jedi, placing it instead at the feet of an evil outsider, an anomaly. In this way, the film attempts to excuse hegemonic masculinity, to suggest that it is not white men who are at fault but those who threaten to disrupt the system, as is the case with Darth Sidious. Despite the filmmakers intentions, it remains clear that if it were not for the failures of the patriarchal hierarchy of the Jedi in their upbringing of young Anakin, he would not have sought an alternative father figure in Palpatine and thus would not have become angry and therefore open to the manipulations of the Dark Side.
When examined from this point of view, Anakin/Vader does emerge as a victim, as George Lucas intended, although I would argue he is not only Palpatine’s victim, but also a victim of the patriarchal Jedi hierarchy. Palpatine and Obi-Wan represent two sides of power: “the one that is excessive and must be, therefore, limited for the Force (patriarchy, of course) to stay balanced and the one that […] is not ready to abolish Jedi privilege, masked as duty, for good” (Martín 2011: 160). Anakin is trapped between the two powers, faced with an impossible choice between two flawed systems. Ultimately,
he chooses to join the Palpatine on the Dark Side, convinced by the promise of unlimited power and control over his own life and that of others, as opposed to the eternal submission of the Jedi to both the Force and the control of the Jedi council. It is, in the end, Anakin’s desire for excess power that constructs him as literally, physically monstrous, in aiming to surpass and destroy the patriarchal order —an intention that is signalled by his attack on the Jedi temple— he positions himself as Other to the hegemonic system and, therefore, a monster.