Yes, Star Wars has always been about plucky rebels taking on the fascistic space nazis, but all too often the depth of that theme was about as thick as the plastic armor on a stormtrooper. Motivations were pat, plots were shallow, and any logical discrepancies were overwritten by a quick shout out to the magical force, or a good blaster, or a howling Wookie. Too often, it wasn’t just treated as material for children, it was treated childishly.
That the latest television series set in this “universe” would be the best presentation, not just of the threat fascism brings, but the road we’re all walking toward that darkness, is amazing. Just how much depth is embedded in these series is hard to express, but here’s a start. The show is divided into three arcs, each of them centered on an aspect of society that feeds fascism. Those three arcs are: capitalism, colonialism, and the prison system. That’s not exactly what you expect from a series produced by Disney.
The series Andor, is presumably named for primary character Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna, who played the same character in the film Rogue One. However, it might equally be named for Cassian’s adoptive mother, played by Fiona Shaw, whose role in the series is deceptively important.
Andor streams on the Disney+ service and is, like all Star Wars these days, a product of Disney studios. However, if you’re expecting the usual collection of laser swords, smart-ass robots, and cute aliens, all wrapped in a ball of fan service, you’ve come to the wrong place.
And if you needed it, here’s the phrase SPOILER ALERT, because we’re going to walk this show beginning to end. However, if you haven’t seen the show, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should stop reading now. Because I’m going to leave out almost all the characters and 90% of the plot points.
Capitalism’s role in a fascist regime
Andor opens with the Latino viewpoint character being unjustly assaulted by a pair of cops after leaving a nightclub. That unwarranted confrontation escalates, driven by the sense of power the cops clearly relish as they demean and brutalize Andor.
The whole first three episodes of the series are devoted to establishing Andor, his community, and their relationship to the fascist empire of which they are a tiny part. Andor is a a refugee, taken in from a world where his whole culture was destroyed after a corporate mining disaster made the place unlivable.
He lives on the ragged edge of poverty, engaged in hard labor jobs and committing minor thefts to generate small amounts of cash necessary to support himself and his ailing mother. Like anyone in this situation, he looks for a way out, but his hopes of finding it — or the sister he was searching for when he visited that nightclub—are slim.
When something happens that at first seems to give Andor a possible means of getting one step away from that ragged edge, it turns out to instead force him to leave his community and abandon his mother — something that causes him far more grief throughout the series than any grand idea.
Over the course of these opening episodes, the relationship between capitalism and fascism is explored. The authoritarian government is happy to tolerate both the corporate structure and the corporate police so long as capitalism is sufficient to keep the people distracted from concerns about the empire. Keeping those workers at the ragged edge, where they worry more about feeding their families is the goal. But the fascists don’t hesitate to directly take the reins when they believe the corporate rulers aren’t being adequately oppressive.
Even for the corporate bosses, the fascist government is as much a looming threat as it is a partner. Under the rule of an authoritarian government, there are no real laws. Except that things can always get worse.
Colonialism’s role in a fascist regime
Forced away from his home, Andor becomes part of a scheme to steal from an imperial military base on a planet where the locals have all been displaced to make way for the “more important” schemes of the government. Notably, the indigenous population hasn’t been killed directly. Instead, they’ve been driven off their land, directed into “enterprise zones” where they can engage in labor that serves the empire.
In this act, Andor becomes part of a cell of the developing proto-rebellion that includes one guy who wears his own selfishness on his sleeve, and another who is both cataloging the crimes of the empire and writing a guidebook for rebellion. They represent the extremes Andor might choose, but he is still trying to ride the center line. Trying to keep his head down, go along, and get through this with a paycheck.
Even though he is with them, Andor is still not one of them. He has more reason than ever to hate the empire, but hating the empire is not the same as being committed taking the risks needed to initiate change.
The world on which this act takes place is one in which the government has demonstrated it’s ability to erase the local culture. Not only have the indigenous people been removed from their land, their cultural practices have been undercut by limits on important ceremonies. There has also been active cultural appropriation, in which the empire has replaced portions of the rituals of these “simple” local people. Though it’s not seen on screen, representatives of the empire brag about how they’ve used “comfort houses” and “beverages” to distract the “smelly” locals from participating in those events that help hold their culture together.
If all this sounds like what the United States did (and does) to Native Americas, it’s meant to. The forcing of people that were spread thinly across large areas into small industrial zones is also spot on to how colonialism was practiced in Africa and elsewhere. Colonialism serves those in power. Fascism maintains itself by removing any competitors. If religion or cultural traditions can be warped to serve the authoritarian regime, they’re supported. If not, they’re removed.
The prison system’s role in a fascist regime
At the beginning of the third act, Andor is hoping to use some of the money he obtained in act two to finally relieve his material needs. Only he almost immediately has another run in with the legal system as it exists in an authoritarian state. His arrest is completely arbitrary — or would be, except that it’s largely driven by the fact that he’s an immigrant on the planet where he is arrested.
Though he has committed past crimes, Andor has done nothing at all in this instance. However, it’s in this instance that he’s sentenced to jail for a period of years. This is because in an authoritarian system, justice and punishment are disconnected. Andor doesn’t look right and doesn’t know the right people. That’s all it takes.
Once in the prison, Andor learns that even the pretense of his sentence is not maintained. For both those who resist their captivity, and those who cooperate, the end result is the same — a lifetime of doing free labor for the empire; a crushing, mind-numbing, never ending production line in which they are all engaged in building what, pointedly, turn out to be fresh tools of oppression.
It’s only here, in this final arc, that Andor steps back from his personal needs to realize that it’s not enough to hate the system. He has to take steps to end that system. It’s only here, in a prison that’s actually brighter and cleaner than anywhere else Andor has lived — but at a horrific cost — he sees how corporate oppression, police oppression, cultural oppression, and the subversion of justice all combine to feed the empire and keep individuals focused on their own needs, rather than taking action that might improve things for everyone.
Meanwhile, back on the planet where the story opened, Andor’s mother has died and his friends are being systematically tortured for information about his location—because the vast authoritarian system, held together by fear, is so inefficient that it doesn’t realize it has already captured the man it’s looking for. It’s only in this very last moments of the story that Andor’s mother’s recorded words finally move her oppressed community to rise up against the local oppressors. She has done, in this backwater place, what so many others have failed to do — kick off a rebellion in earnest.
There’s still no Russia in this story. Still no Ukraine. Not even a United States. What is there in Andor is a story of how injustice and oppression are fed by systems that all seem to offer the possibility of individual reward at the cost of betraying the community. The story of how good people are corrupted in moving through this system, and how bad people can exploit it for power. A story about how it is necessary to forcefully oppose an authoritarian system, at every step. Because if you’re not opposing fascism, you are definitely supporting it.
That the story is well acted and amazingly shot is almost a bonus. So are all the little “Easter eggs” that are dropped into the story not as fan service of the “ooh, look, he has a blaster just like Han’s!
variety, but in the sense that even tiny objects and peripheral characters are made to serve the greater theme.
Go watch it. And join the rebellion.
