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well I confess I fell asleep for about
10 minutes most recent Star Wars movie
the last Jedi and not just because the
movie had kind of wandered down a
tiresome subplot but because I think in
general the Star Wars movies have kind
of lost their way I'm part of the
generation that saw the first Star Wars
movies when we were kids and what began
I think is a pretty thrilling
exploration of what I call the
philosophy of perennis has devolved
today into much more early 20th century
ideological Wars now here's what I mean
go back to the 70s when the first Star
Wars movies came out like everybody else
I mean I was thrilled by the special
effects and them and all the explosions
you know which seemed pretty crude by
our standards today but believe me in
1970 whatever that was five or six those
were pretty thrilling however even
though we might not have been able to
articulate it there was something else
in those movies that was stirring the
soul as well as thrilling the you know
imagination and what it was was this
great exploration of the hero myth now
to understand this we have to realize
that George Lucas right the the creator
of these first Star Wars movies was very
indebted to Joseph Campbell who is a
comparative religion expert a kind of
Mythology expert taught at Sarah
Lawrence College for many years and
Campbell spent his whole career
exploring what he called the monomyth
the one great story that can be found
across cultures across time this
unfolding of the hero's myth think for
example you can find it again everywhere
it's usually a young man doesn't have to
be but a young man who is taken out of
his Cozine da Mosta city and is
compelled to go on an adventure think
here by the way of like Bilbo and Frodo
having to leave the cozy Shire and go on
a great adventure
so the hero then has to face down all
sorts of obstacles both exterior and
interior and then typically under the
tutelage of a great spiritual teacher or
master he develops the skills kind of
both physical and spiritual to deal with
whatever the crisis is it might be
battling nature might be battling an
enemy etc and then he carries the day he
wins the great battle defends usually
his city or country and he himself comes
to full spiritual expression another
connection here is Carl Jung the great
psychologist because Campbell was a
student of young and young is the great
archetypal psychologist who traced these
archetypal moves in the stories of the
world a good example here is Yoda in the
Star Wars movies sounds a little bit
like young doesn't it but a lot of
Yoda's lines are right out of Carl
Jung's playbook
for example I know don't try do as Yoda
well that's right out of Young's
handbook okay all the vets going on in
the in the early Star Wars movies you
know think of Luke Skywalker who has to
leave the cozy da Mosta city do you
remember what were their names
uncle Owen and aunt Beru remember and
he's living this kind of you know easy
life with them he's called out an
adventure he then comes under the
tutelage of obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda
these spiritual masters he has to face
down the great obstacles interior and
exterior he has to win the day the
struggle against Darth Vader etc etc so
there you find the hero's myth which is
part of what I referred to earlier the
philosophy of perennis the perennial
philosophy and that's a lot of what we
responded to in the early Star Wars
movies okay now here's my here's my
problem
I think certainly elements of this
remain in the more up-to-date Star Wars
movies I mean I get it elements of it
remain but I think this wonderful
reflection on the story of the hero has
largely been occluded by what I would
identify is a lot of early 21st century
especially gender politics and gender
ideology now I know I've complained
about this before but maybe you really
see it in the Star
movies where the male characters
practically without exception our
bumbling incompetent morally compromised
don't quite know what to do until they
get proper female instruction the women
characters are almost again without
exception brilliant intelligent heroic
virtuous etc the typical reaction
especially in this movie is is the women
characters kind of rolling their eyes
and exasperation at these poor you know
bumbling men I laughed out loud I must
say in this recent movie win ray who's
the the feminine great heroine of this
movie when she comes to the island were
Luke Skywalker a bit so now here's the
great hero of the first movies is this
deeply compromised figure of course she
comes there for your spiritual training
but she needs no spiritual training
whatsoever no obi-wan no Yoda thank you
very much she's in full possession
already of all the Jedi skills so it's
the all-conquering female figure now is
is occluding this great myth of the hero
compare it for example now to the way
the masculine feminine thing was handled
in the early Star Wars movies much more
deftly in the early ones you know the
the twinning of Luke and Leia well
that's a Jungian theme right of the
anima anima the masculine and feminine
energies that are in each one of us and
they exist in a sort of complementary or
twinning way well look in the first
movies did Luke have to assert himself
over and against Leia did lei I have to
assert herself and put down Luke no
there's a very interesting subtle
complementarity between the two of them
and then I think very telling Lee the
relationship between Leia and Han Solo I
this I'm just before my time I'll make
the reference to Tracy Hepburn you know
so the old movies with Spencer Tracy and
Katharine Hepburn we had two people man
and a woman both very smart very
perceptive very strong assertive and in
the appropriate way and kinda
playing off each other in a humorous
teasing way well that's the dynamic you
have with Leia and Han which is not won
at the expense of the other but really
both finding themselves in this in this
play I say for my money the earlier Star
Wars handled the the gender issues the
masculine feminine far more deftly and
effectively been this sort of you know
us-against-them
of women at the expense of men approach
because I think the the all-conquering
female character I mean I get it I mean
given our cultural situation I
understand it but I think in the end
it's bad for both women and men give me
any day the way the older Star Wars
movies handle then just one last thought
lest anyone think that I'm I'm against
female heroes on the contrary take
someone like Mother Teresa of Calcutta
all five feet a hundred pounds of her
going into the worst and most dangerous
slum in the entire world giving her life
to care of the dying and the poorest of
the poor
talk about putting up with obstacles
both interior and exterior talk about a
hero's journey as she leaves the
relatively easy Damascus City of her
convent behind high walls in Calcutta
and goes on a hero's journey and then
emerges as the founders of this
extraordinarily powerful worldwide
movement give me mother Teresa of
Calcutta who's not asserting herself
over and against the masculine but is is
following the hero's journey or Edith
Stein one of my great heroes one of the
most significant intellectuals of the
20th century student of who Cyril
colleague of Heidegger writer of
brilliant Tech's who thinks her way into
the Catholic faith and then takes on the
heroic role of Carmelite sister and then
at the climax of her life goes to her
death in Auschwitz defending her faith
and defending the integrity of her own
Jewish people I'll take them any day
over the sort of this early 21st century
Nietzschean power-struggle
us-against-them construe love femininity
I love female heroes but we don't have
to play the zero-sum game of men against
women that's bad for both men and women
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