I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Empire Did Nothing Wrong memes and associated interpretations of Star Wars (cough palpatine was AKTUALLY preparing for the yuzang vong cough) are a result of people making the connection that the Empire = America but being unable to admit to or acknowledge America’s many crimes around the world, so they decide that the Empire was actually cool and based for napalming Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, and Alderaan was harbouring terrorists so they git what was coming to them
Actually I’m just going to paste a previous comment of mine here since there’s no point t it typing it out all over again:
Empire did nothing wrong memes are literally just a pipeline to fash ideology. I would say I don’t understand why people began to sympathize with the obviously fascist stand in that is the empire, but I have a theory.
The empire, especially in the Lucas films, represents the American empire and their post-ww2 imperialist projects. Meanwhile, the rebels represent anti-imperialist fighters. In A New Hope, we see how the imperialist occupiers create or expand opposition to themselves through their actions. Luke at the beginning of the movie still dreams of going off to the imperial academy and joining the empire. However, reality ensues and he experiences firsthand violent oppression at the hands of the empire, losing his family and home in a napalm bombing drone strike stormtrooper attack. This of course begins his radicalization and causes him to commit himself to combat the empire.
Now of course this introduces a contradiction into the mind of the average american viewer. On one hand, it is obvious why Luke dedicates himself to the destruction of the empire, it is the force that murders his family and countless others (multiple american invasions Alderaan). However, this also causes the average american to think about why people around the earth hate america, and if it could be related to the decades of american military actions around the globe. For some, this may be the wake up call that causes them to think “hey, are we the baddies?”. For others, they have to go in the opposite direction. The Empire’s actions are America’s actions, and america can’t be the bad guy so the Empire can’t be the bad guy! There must be more nuance™ to this empire who’s stormtroopers murder an innocent farming family and later annihilate a planet.
Or they’re just fash that loves the mainstream acceptability of fascist inspired symbolism
I always thought the whole Empire Did Nothing Wrong meme started out as an ironic attempt to deconstruct real world apologia by applying the same style of rhetoric to a case where the subject is inescapably evil because it’s a fiction where that evil can simply be asserted. It’s a testament to the propagandization of the West that even satire as blatant as ‘Luke Skywalker was a terrorist who killed thousands of innocent stormtroopers stationed on the Freedom Star’ is treated as a bridge towards decreasingly ironic expressions of support for cartoon fascism rather than criticism of the fascistic tendencies in America.
Then again I also thought for a while that the attack helicopter meme was supposed to be in support of the trans community and based on frustration at the otherkin phenomenon for appropriating and trivializing the language, experience and struggles of trans people.
I bet one could also synthesize that with things like the trend towards darker and edgier antihero stories that hit its stride in the 90s and how much liberal storytelling has leaned on vapid aesthetic tropes to delineate villains and heroes.
The Empire is the US, and it acts like the US, and to drive home to American audiences that despite the Empire acting like the US they were the bad guys Star Wars steeps them in Fascist aesthetics. Then you get another generation of Americans raised on darker and edgier media where the heroes are also villainous, and lazy stories where instead of making the villains villainous they just toss some allusions to Fascist aesthetics on them and call it a day, and just outright Fascist media like CoD, so when they look at Star Wars they just see America doing normalized things and looking powerful doing it.
Like I think it’s not exclusively a problem with Star Wars but rather an entire media environment that helps socialize people towards making fascist conclusions, caused by the collaboration of liberals and fascists in Hollywood, in the comics industry, and in the games industry, as well as liberal creations tending to be vapid and aesthetics based things that can never really criticize the status quo (to which the whole darker and edgier trend was also a reaction). There’s also a point to be made about how much American counter-culture has been reactionary and libertine instead of liberationist, and as those reactionary and libertine elements got mainstreamed they pivoted towards fascism as they started to perceive the left as a threat to their treats.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Empire Did Nothing Wrong memes and associated interpretations of Star Wars (cough palpatine was AKTUALLY preparing for the yuzang vong cough) are a result of people making the connection that the Empire = America but being unable to admit to or acknowledge America’s many crimes around the world, so they decide that the Empire was actually cool and based for napalming Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, and Alderaan was harbouring terrorists so they git what was coming to them
Actually I’m just going to paste a previous comment of mine here since there’s no point t it typing it out all over again:
I always thought the whole Empire Did Nothing Wrong meme started out as an ironic attempt to deconstruct real world apologia by applying the same style of rhetoric to a case where the subject is inescapably evil because it’s a fiction where that evil can simply be asserted. It’s a testament to the propagandization of the West that even satire as blatant as ‘Luke Skywalker was a terrorist who killed thousands of innocent stormtroopers stationed on the Freedom Star’ is treated as a bridge towards decreasingly ironic expressions of support for cartoon fascism rather than criticism of the fascistic tendencies in America.
Then again I also thought for a while that the attack helicopter meme was supposed to be in support of the trans community and based on frustration at the otherkin phenomenon for appropriating and trivializing the language, experience and struggles of trans people.
I bet one could also synthesize that with things like the trend towards darker and edgier antihero stories that hit its stride in the 90s and how much liberal storytelling has leaned on vapid aesthetic tropes to delineate villains and heroes.
The Empire is the US, and it acts like the US, and to drive home to American audiences that despite the Empire acting like the US they were the bad guys Star Wars steeps them in Fascist aesthetics. Then you get another generation of Americans raised on darker and edgier media where the heroes are also villainous, and lazy stories where instead of making the villains villainous they just toss some allusions to Fascist aesthetics on them and call it a day, and just outright Fascist media like CoD, so when they look at Star Wars they just see America doing normalized things and looking powerful doing it.
Like I think it’s not exclusively a problem with Star Wars but rather an entire media environment that helps socialize people towards making fascist conclusions, caused by the collaboration of liberals and fascists in Hollywood, in the comics industry, and in the games industry, as well as liberal creations tending to be vapid and aesthetics based things that can never really criticize the status quo (to which the whole darker and edgier trend was also a reaction). There’s also a point to be made about how much American counter-culture has been reactionary and libertine instead of liberationist, and as those reactionary and libertine elements got mainstreamed they pivoted towards fascism as they started to perceive the left as a threat to their treats.