Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008

  Which is not to say that the films can’t be entertaining: They can be. George Lucas is an appalling storyteller in himself, but at the very least he has common tastes, or had when he first banged together the original Star Wars film. The original Star Wars is a hydra-headed pastiche of (as I wrote in my Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies) 30s adventure serials, 40s war films, 50s Kurosawa films and 60s Eastern mysticism, all jammed into the cinematic crock-pot and simmered in a watery broth made from the marrow of Campbell’s thousand-headed hero. With the exception of Kurosawa, all of this was stuff was in the common culture, and Lucas did a decent enough job spooning out the stew. Star Wars also benefitted from the fact that it emerged at the end of a nearly decade-long string of heavy, dystopic SF-themed films, beginning with Planet of the Apes and gliding down toward Logan’s Run. After a decade of this (and combined with the film’s brain-jammingly brilliant special effects), Star Wars felt like a breath of fresh air.

  But even at the outset, Lucas was about something else other than entertaining people. As he noted in a biography of Joseph Campbell:

  “I came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what’s valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is…around the period of this realization…it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology…”

  What’s interesting about mythology is that it’s the residue of a teleological system that’s dead; it’s what you get after everyone who believed in something has croaked and nothing is left but stories. Building a mythology is necrophilic storytelling; one that implicitly kills off an entire culture and plays with its corpse (or corpus, as the case may be). It’s one better than being a God, really. Gods have to deal with the universes they create; mythmakers merely have to say what happened. When Lucas started Star Wars with the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” he was implicitly serving notice to the audience that they weren’t participants, they were at best witnesses to events that had already happened, through participants who were long dead.

  Why does this matter? It matters because Lucas’ intent was to build an overarching mythological structure, not necessarily to make a bunch of movies. If you listen to Lucas blather on in his laconic fashion on the Star Wars DVD commentaries, you’ll hear him talk about how he wanted everything to make sense in the long view—that all his films served the mythology. This is fine, but it reinforces the point that the films themselves—not to mention the scripts and the acting—are secondary to Lucas’ true goal of myth building. Myths can be entertaining—indeed, they survive because they can entertain, even if they don’t brook participation. These films could work as entertainment. But fundamentally they don’t, because Lucas doesn’t seem to care if the films work as entertainment, as long as they sufficiently conform to his created mythology.

  This is especially evident in the prequel trilogy, which is designed for the specific purpose of consecrating the mythology of the Skywalker family; in essence, putting flesh on the bones of the myth, so that the flesh could then turn to dust and the bones could be chopped up for reliquaries. Because they’re not designed as entertainment, it’s not surprising they’re not really all that entertaining; strip out the yeoman work of Industrial Light and Magic and what you have left is a grim Calvinistic stomp toward the creation of Darth Vader. Lucas was so intent to get there that he didn’t bother to slow down to write a decent script or to give his cast (riddled though it was with acclaimed actors) an opportunity to do more than solemnly intone its lines. Lucas simply couldn’t be bothered to do more; entertainment gave way to scriptual sufficiency.

  Now that the magnum opus of the Star Wars cycle is done, we can see that any entertainment value of the series is either unintentional (Lucas couldn’t suck the pure entertainment value out of his pastiche sources), achieved through special effects, or is the work of hired guns, notably Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett (those two wrote The Empire Strikes Back, the only movie in the series that has a script that evidences much in the way of wit, much less dialogue that ranks above serviceable. Kasdan and Brackett were clearly attempting to entertain as well as serve the mythology, showing it is possible to do both). It’s clear that Lucas doesn’t much care what people think of the films, and why should he? He got to make the films he wanted to make, the way he wanted to make them. His vision, his mythology, his structure is complete, and he doesn’t have to rationalize the means by which the structure was achieved.

  Ironically, I don’t blame Lucas for this. He is who he is. Personally, I blame whatever jackass at 20th Century Fox agreed to let Lucas have the rights to the sequels and to the merchandising in exchange for Lucas lowering his fee to direct the first Star Wars. I don’t know if the films of the Star Wars series would be better overall if there were real studio oversight, but I do know that each individual film would at least try to be entertaining. Because film studios don’t actually give a crap about mythology; they give a crap about getting butts into the seats. Perhaps someone could have asked Lucas if maybe he didn’t want to hand the script of Episode I over to someone who could, you know, actually write dialogue, or possibly if he might not be content to produce while someone else handled the chore of putting the actors through their paces, since clearly he found that aspect of filmmaking to be a necessary evil at best. In essence, people who would let Lucas fiddle with his myth-making, smile, then turn to a director and screenwriter and say “now, make this entertaining, or by God, we’ll feed your testicles to Shamu.” Oh, for a time machine.

  Now, hold on, you say: If the Star Wars films aren’t meant to be entertainment, how come so many people were entertained? It’s a fair question; after all, there’s not a single film in the series that made less than $200 million at the box office (and those are in 1980 dollars). I’m happy to allow it’s entirely possible to be entertained by Episodes IV, V and VI, due to their novelty and the intervention of hired guns who aimed for entertainment even as Lucas was on his holy quest for mythology. Even then, however, Return of the Jedi was pushing it. I defy you to find any person who was genuinely entertained by Episodes I, II and III. Episode I in particular is an airless, joyless slog; in the theater you could actually hear people’s expectations deflate—a whooshing groan—the moment Jar-Jar showed up. After the first weekend of Episode I, people went to the prequel trilogy films for the same reason so many people go to church on Sunday: It’s habit, they know when to stand and when to sit, and they want to see how the preacher will screw up the sermon this week. You know what I felt when Episode III was done? Relief. I was done with the Star Wars films. I was free. I’m not the only one.

  But even accounting for the fact that the IV, V and VI could be entertaining, they were still not meant as entertainment. In the final analysis they were means to an end, and an end that only one person—George Lucas—desired. This is not entertainment, save for Lucas, and it’s wrong to say it is. And it’s why saying we should have more entertainment like Star Wars is folly. Do we really need more entertainment that’s designed only to make one person happy? Look, I write books that I’d want to read, but I don’t pretend I’m not writing for others as well. George Lucas managed to con billions into thinking that he was entertaining them (or alternately, they so desperately needed to believe they were being entertained that they denied they weren’t), but honestly. Once is enough. Fool me once, etc.

  Look, here’s a test for you. I want you to go out and find this movie: Battle Beyond the Stars. It’s a piece of crap 1980 B-movie, produced by Roger Corman, that’s clearly cashing in on the Star Wars phenomenon. Hell, it’s even a pastiche of the same things Star Wars is a pastiche of (it even has a planet Akir, named for Akira Kurosawa), and it was made for $2 million, which is nothing money, even back in 1980. Thing is, its screenplay was written by John Sayles (later twice nominated for the Best Screenplay Academy Award), and it’s funny and smart, and the whole movie, rather incredibly, keeps pace. Watch it and then tell me, honestly, that it’s not more
entertaining than Star Wars Episodes I, II, III and VI. Unless you’re so distracted by the cheesy special effects and the fact that John Boy Walton is the star that you simply can’t go on, I expect you’ll admit you were more entertained by this little flick than all that Star Wars mythology.

  The reason: It wants to entertain you. Corman and Sayles, bless their little hearts, probably didn’t give a crap about mythology, except to the extent that it served to help them entertain you, the viewer. They cared about giving you 90 minutes of fun so they could make their money back, and that would let them do it again. I’m not suggesting that there should be more SF like Battle Beyond the Stars (though I can think of worse things). I am suggesting that if we’re going to talk about the Star Wars series as entertainment, we should note that as entertainment, it gets its ass resolutely kicked by a $2 million piece of crap Roger Corman flick. So let’s not pretend that the Star Wars series is this great piece of entertainment.

  Instead, let’s call it what it is: A monument to George Lucas pleasuring himself. Which, you know, is fine. I’m happy for Lucas; it’s nice that he was able to do that for himself. We all like to make ourselves happy. But since he did it all in public, I just wish he’d been a little more entertaining about it.

  LOATHSOME

  DOT-COM

  WHINERS

  It’s not every day that you read an article and hope that the people writing it have willfully made up the quotes and people in it, but, honestly, I’m hoping to God that Ruth Shalit and Robin Danielson Hafitz completely fabricated today’s lead story in Salon. It’s about how certain consumers feel personally victimized about the collapse of dotcom retailers, and is entitled, with typical Salon high drama, “The Day The Brands Died.”

  In the article, Shalit and Hafitz quote people who express self-loathing for taking advantage of the dotcoms’ increasingly insane loss-leader brand awareness tactics (“There was a looting mentality going on,” said one respondent. “Now we all feel shame”) and are now dealing with the soul-crushing reality that they may have to do their own shopping again, just like common trolls (“After sitting at home in my bathrobe, and having some nice man hand me my movie, how can I ever go back to Blockbusters?” asked one woman. “It’s like living in a Third World country.”)

  Who are these people? And more to the point, presuming they actually exist, why do Shalit, Hafitz or Salon think they’re worth even the least bit of sympathy or interest from the rest of us? I don’t feel at all sorry for the chick who’s confused her own sloth for genuine deprivation, although I do suggest we take up a collection to kidnap her and ship her down to Guatemala, where she can pick coffee beans for sixteen cents an hour until her fingers bleed, the better to contrast her new living situation with the need to actually leave the fucking house to rent a video. Look, I’m waving a dollar here. Who wants to join me? At least she’d be out of our country for a while.

  It’s embarrassing to think that one shares a planet with people whose priorities are as screwed up as those in this article, an entire class of human that apparently believes that whole point of technology is to allow one never to leave one’s own home. These aren’t like the people who lived on the virgin prairie and relied on the Sears Roebuck catalogue for their staple needs, after all. In order to take advantage of a dotcom delivery service, you have to live in a big metropolitan area, i.e., somewhere you can walk down to the corner and buy your own goddamned beef jerky.

  To feel an inexplicable sense of loss because now you have to go out onto the street and walk several yards for groceries indicates a disconnect from reality that borders on genuine psychosis, not to mention egomania. Webvan, one of the dotcoms featured in the article, managed to suck through a billion dollars in investor capital and put hundreds of workers on the streets, and all these jerks can think about is the idea that no one’s going to arrive at the door with their Cherry Garcia anymore (note: that’s what significant others are for, you dumbasses).

  Articles like this reinforce in me the idea that what we really need in this country is good, long, severe depression. Not for everyone, of course. Certainly not for me (I did my stint of being poor growing up, thank you very much. I’m done with it now). But the laid-off goatee-and-cell-phone set, for whom having to sacrifice is having to settle for $70,000 a year doing IT at a bank instead of the $85,000 and options they had at their dotcom, well, a good solid dose of honest, stomach-clenching poverty is just what they need to get their priorities reset to a less complacently smug level. After a year or two having choose between the gas bill and food whose protein component doesn’t come in a “flavor packet,” they’ll be happy to walk to Blockbuster under their own power and rent that video. And maybe they’ll even say “thank you” to the clerk.

  It’s not likely. But one can dream—and dream that once these people leave their apartments to go shopping in the big scary world, the first thing they do is go to buy a clue. That is, if they actually exist. Let’s hope they don’t.

  WHAT AUTHORS

  KNOW ABOUT

  THEIR CHARACTERS

  In a New York Times piece on Dumbledore’s homosexuality, critic Edward Rothstein suggests that J.K. Rowling, Dumbledore’s creator, might not know what she’s talking about:

  But it is possible that Ms. Rowling may be mistaken about her own character. She may have invented Hogwarts and all the wizards within it, she may have created the most influential fantasy books since J. R. R. Tolkien, and she may have woven her spell over thousands of pages and seven novels, but there seems to be no compelling reason within the books for her after-the-fact assertion. Of course it would not be inconsistent for Dumbledore to be gay, but the books’ accounts certainly don’t make it necessary. The question is distracting, which is why it never really emerges in the books themselves. Ms. Rowling may think of Dumbledore as gay, but there is no reason why anyone else should.

  Sure there is: Because he is. Because the author made him that way. Whether or not anyone but the author knew about it up to last week simply doesn’t matter. The author, in her formulation of the character, has this as part of his background, and that background informs how the character was written. Rothstein is under the impression that because Dumbledore’s sexuality is not explicitly in the text it’s irrelevant or not necessary. But it’s not true; if Rowling had as part of Dumbledore’s background that he was straight, or entirely asexual, his character would be different and his actions and responses and backstory would be different. He would be different. He wouldn’t be the Dumbledore he is today (or was, because he’s dead, but even so).

  Rothstein seems to be falling into the trap of assuming that everything that goes into a character shows up on the page. This is entirely wrong. What shows up on the page is the public life of the character, so to speak: The things about a character that a writer chooses to let you know about them. The private life of a character exists off the page, and takes place between the writer and the character. You don’t see that unless the author discusses it later, in interviews or commentary or whatever. Authors have privilege concerning our characters; we know more about them than the readers. Or as Neil Gaiman recently put it:

  You always wind up knowing more about your characters than you can get onto the page. Pages are finite, and the story isn’t about giving you all the information about everyone in it any more than life is. Things the author knows about characters (or at least, strongly suspects—it’s never really real until it hits the page, because the process of writing is also a process of discovery) that don’t make it onto the page could include the characters’ backstory, what they like to eat, the toothpaste they use, what happens to them after the story is over or before it began, and what they do in bed. That something didn’t turn up in the books just means it didn’t make it onto the page or wasn’t relevant to the story.

  Does the reader need to know Dumbledore is gay? Probably not. Does the reader have to care that he’s gay? That’s up to the reader. Do these facts mean that Dumbledore’s
sexuality is unimportant to who the character is? Absolutely not. The moment Rowling said (or discovered, however you want to put it) that Dumbledore was gay, it made a difference in how she perceived him and how she wrote him. The only way Rowling’s statement of Dumbledore’s sexuality would be irrelevant or should be ignored by the reader (should they hear of the fact at all) is if there were proof that Rowling was tacking on the sexuality of Dumbledore after the fact of the writing, i.e., that Rowling had no conception of Dumbledore’s sexuality through all the books, and then is throwing the “dude, he’s gay” statement out there now just for kicks. Given how much people have been saying “well, now such-and-such scene makes perfect sense,” regarding the books, this doesn’t seem like it’s the case. She’s got backup in the work.

  Which is not to say such after-the-fact author revisionism doesn’t happen. The reason that Ray Bradbury’s recent declaration that Fahrenheit 451 wasn’t about censorship but was instead about television destroying literature is looked upon with such utter skepticism is because for the last 50 years it has been about censorship (Bradbury himself has explicitly noted this); while Bradbury takes a poke at TV in the book, the core of the story—what’s in the text—is the effect of censorship on his primary character, who is himself a censor. Bradbury’s free to say what he wants, but his own words and his own text speak against him, and on balance I’m going with the text, because it doesn’t change its mind.