This shit is why I joke that every work of fiction needs to end with the protagonist staring directly at the camera and explaining what the audience is supposed to take away from it, 1950’s style, because people are too stupid for subtlety. Yes, yes, very clever to name the site of a genocide “G[horman Pl]aza,” and have a character specifically emphasize the word “genocide” in a Senate chamber, but StrikeEagle784 sees all that and goes, “Wow, cool lasers” without understanding anything about anything.
Now, imagine if Andor ended with Cassian taking a seat and saying, “Hi, I’m Cassian Andor, and I hope you enjoyed the show. Were you moved by the plight of the Ghormans and inspired to fight the Empire? Well, just like how the Empire conducted a genocide against Ghorman, in real life, the US and Israel are committing genocide against the people of Gaza. That’s actually the reason why that’s in the show. Early on, I tried to turn a blind eye to injustice, but I found that ignoring the problem didn’t make it go away. This is also true in real life. In summary, the genocide in Gaza is bad and you should do something about it.”
Would that be stupid and annoying? Yes. But this is the level of art that we deserve. At least, it’s the level of art that StrikeEagle784 deserves.
I don’t want to be the “Um, ackshually” guy, because I could see how the events in Andor can draw parallels to modern day events going on, but that’s more a byproduct of history endlessly repeating itself than any kind or profound political statement being made by the showrunners.
Case in point, the Ghorman Massacre was part of legends continuity long before the current snafu between Israel and Palastine became a politically charged topic and was loosely based on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India.
It is very telling that people are seeing something like Star Wars, which is well known for boiling down everything into binary good-versus-evil themes, and self-identifying with the bad guys because it resembles something their government has done recently.
The Ghorman Massacre was even in the new continuity as of (at least) the 2017 Rebels episode Secret Cargo.
And in Andor, the aesthetics were obviously drawing on the French Resistance in WWII.
But this doesn’t mean the parallels to Israel and Gaza were not there. The “history repeats” aspect might be part of it, but because this was the first time the Ghorman Massacre was portrayed on screen in current canon, they had considerable leeway in how they told the story, what events framed it, and what parallels they were trying to draw.
There’s a reason they chose to rewrite Mon Mothma’s speech in the Senate from the one shown in Rebels, and that is that they wanted it to tell their message. They chose to frame it as a genocide that the overall population is wilfully ignoring. They chose to have disinformation campaigns coming from those in power which present the Ghormans not as the oppressed group of freedom fighters that they truly are, but as terrorists receiving aid from outside. They chose to show the Empire as willing to deliberately kill their own and have it blamed on the “terrorists”. Heck, they chose to place it in a place specifically called, as @Objection@lemmy.ml notes, the Ghorman Plaza.
Still, even if it is directly informed by the Gaza genocide itself, it’s obviously not meant to be a perfect allegory. It’s meant to be broadly applicable to all sorts of freedom fighting against oppressive authoritarian states.
To quote the grandfather of the very genre in which Star Wars as a franchise* sits:
I much prefer history – true or feigned – with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
La mort de l’auteur. The best literature can be applied to a wide variety of real-world situations, depending on what the audience’s personal history is and which elements of the art they choose to concentrate on. So the Zionists look at the WWII French aesthetics and cling to that desperate to ignore the parallels to the crimes they themselves are complicit in. The most literate audience brings their own perspective, but also opens themselves up to hear other perspectives, and thus sees that there are multiple possible readings. The narrow-minded audience picks their interpretation and uses it as a reason to reject others.
* I would argue that Andor as a show is really a political thriller and science-fiction. But the core movies and most of the animated shows are fantasy.
Yes, yes, very clever to name the site of a genocide “G[horman Pl]aza,” and have a character specifically emphasize the word “genocide” in a Senate chamber […]
Very well put. However, the last part is up to you and yours, not them. Exactly what you’re doing with this comment, do it in real life, and have others do it too. Spread the word from inside out, because that’s where the heart is. That’s where REAL change happens, the people closest to you. Get THEM on board, and make them advocates. That’s how we change.
So there’s a planet famous for producing silk where peaceful protesters are massacred in a public square and you only think of Gaza? There is definitely no place on Earth like that other than Gaza!
I’m pretty sure the Israel Gaza war kicked off with terrorists masscring people in villages and taking hostages, but it wasn’t the IDF doing that shit. Did Andor portray that at all?
I tried to find clips to see what it’s referencing some more but holy shit that show is 90% pretentious speeches. But even then it’s pretty obvious.
You are correct there are some people that need things spelled out for them or they don’t understand it. Some even resort to Qanon style numerology to try to prove weird connections between things.
Anyway, which silk producing country massacred peaceful protesters in a public square? Come on… .you can figure it out! Somewhere where vehicles were used to crush protesters? Maybe someone made a memorial and an authoritarian regime took it down… Hint
So, I just finished writing a rather lengthy comment about why you’re so obviously wrong to say it’s not about Gaza.
But I did also add that there are other equally valid possible interpretations because it’s about applicability and metaphor, not direct allegory. Even so, I find your attempts here to compare it to China to be rather tenuous. The fact that the country produces “silk” and did a massacre is pretty much the only parallel. To me, the silk thing is more about adding to the obvious aesthetics of WWII French Resistance, with the silk thing tying in to France’s famous connection to high fashion. I’d say the fact that Tiananmen Square was crushing an internal resistance, while on Ghorman, as well as in both WWII France and in Gaza it’s outsiders seeking to invade and kill the locals, makes the Chinese connection especially weak.
See, again, people like this are exactly why we need the protagonist to look directly at the camera and explain things to them. Because the average Westerner’s worldview is so propagandized that when they see a work critiquing their own government, they assume that it must be about foreigners, because obviously we’re number one and everyone else is worse than us. If you make a US allegory look bad, they assume it couldn’t possibly be about the US. Combination of media illiteracy and a delusional, chauvinistic worldview.
I’m pretty sure the Israel Gaza war kicked off with terrorists masscring people in villages and taking hostages, but it wasn’t the IDF doing that shit. Did Andor portray that at all?
Well, the show kicks off with Andor shooting two corporate security guards, after they tried to rob him. Does that count? I mean, it’s not like Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonization and apartheid is unprovoked.
Anyway, which silk producing country massacred peaceful protesters in a public square?
The silk producing planet did not massacre peaceful protesters in a public square. The Empire, an occupying force in Ghorman, massacred Ghormans. I guess if Ghormans had massacred Imperials, your China comparison might make a certain amount of sense. But that’s the complete opposite of what happened in the show, where the “silk producing planet” was the victim of genocide, not the perpetrator.
Incidentally, Gaza is also famous for textiles, or at least, it was, before the dark times. Before the Empire.
Next you’re going to tell me that the original trilogy wasn’t about the Vietnam War
Which country do you think the people masscred in Tiananmen square were from? Were the people massacred there people known for making silk?
Why would they be referencing silk at all? Yeah they referenced silk thinking “I’m sure people will get get the connection from silk to textiles to Palestinians.”
The Ghorman massacre was referenced in Star Wars Rebels in 2017 and was referenced in the EU in the 1990s FFS. Do you really think the people making Star Wars are clairvoyant? Tianamen Square would’ve been fresh in the minds of people in the 90s I think it’s more likely referencing that event than events that hadn’t happened yet.
See, again, people like this are exactly why we need the protagonist to look directly at the camera and explain things to them.
Ghorman has been a part of Star Wars lore for ages, yes. There is nothing about the word “Ghorman” that connects it to Gaza. The things that connect it to Gaza are mainly twofold, first, the specific phrase “Ghorman Plaza,” (which did not exist in the lore prior to Andor, to my knowledge) and second, the intentional use of the word “genocide” in connection to it, especially in Mon Mothma’s speech. Just “Ghorman” vs “The genocide in Ghorman Plaza” is a huge difference.What the writers did was to take an existing, largely undefined part of Star Wars lore, and flesh it out in a way that ties in to current events.
I have no clue why you think I’m saying the word “Ghorman” has anything to do with Gaza, on it’s own or as it existed in the lore.
Which country do you think the people masscred in Tiananmen square were from? Were the people massacred there people known for making silk?
This is incredibly dumb, and I’m just highlighting this part of your comment as an example to others of how far a brain is capable of stretching something to make it be about what the person wants it to be about. Obviously, there’s no reasoning with that, but the whole plot regarding Ghorman revolves around a foreign, occupying force planning to exterminate or drive out a population in order to seize resources. There is zero connection to China, apart from silk.
Yeah they referenced silk thinking “I’m sure people will get get the connection from silk to textiles to Palestinians.”
People in the Star Wars universe probably don’t really remember Ghorman as “the place that makes silk” in the same way people from our universe don’t think of Palestine as “the place that makes textiles.” But it’s important to be included to illustrate that Ghorman had an economy and culture before it became known as the site of a massacre, regardless of the Empire’s attempts to erase it, in the same way that it’s important to remember Palestinian culture despite Zionist attempts to reduce them to animals. I doubt the audience was expected to specifically to make the connection, but even if you’re unaware of Gaza’s history with textiles (and even if it wasn’t intentional), it still conveys the message in broad strokes.
Obviously, this wouldn’t convey anything meaningful if it were about China. But then, that’s the level on which reactionaries understand art.
This shit is why I joke that every work of fiction needs to end with the protagonist staring directly at the camera and explaining what the audience is supposed to take away from it, 1950’s style, because people are too stupid for subtlety. Yes, yes, very clever to name the site of a genocide “G[horman Pl]aza,” and have a character specifically emphasize the word “genocide” in a Senate chamber, but StrikeEagle784 sees all that and goes, “Wow, cool lasers” without understanding anything about anything.
Now, imagine if Andor ended with Cassian taking a seat and saying, “Hi, I’m Cassian Andor, and I hope you enjoyed the show. Were you moved by the plight of the Ghormans and inspired to fight the Empire? Well, just like how the Empire conducted a genocide against Ghorman, in real life, the US and Israel are committing genocide against the people of Gaza. That’s actually the reason why that’s in the show. Early on, I tried to turn a blind eye to injustice, but I found that ignoring the problem didn’t make it go away. This is also true in real life. In summary, the genocide in Gaza is bad and you should do something about it.”
Would that be stupid and annoying? Yes. But this is the level of art that we deserve. At least, it’s the level of art that StrikeEagle784 deserves.
I don’t want to be the “Um, ackshually” guy, because I could see how the events in Andor can draw parallels to modern day events going on, but that’s more a byproduct of history endlessly repeating itself than any kind or profound political statement being made by the showrunners.
Case in point, the Ghorman Massacre was part of legends continuity long before the current snafu between Israel and Palastine became a politically charged topic and was loosely based on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in India.
It is very telling that people are seeing something like Star Wars, which is well known for boiling down everything into binary good-versus-evil themes, and self-identifying with the bad guys because it resembles something their government has done recently.
The Ghorman Massacre was even in the new continuity as of (at least) the 2017 Rebels episode Secret Cargo.
And in Andor, the aesthetics were obviously drawing on the French Resistance in WWII.
But this doesn’t mean the parallels to Israel and Gaza were not there. The “history repeats” aspect might be part of it, but because this was the first time the Ghorman Massacre was portrayed on screen in current canon, they had considerable leeway in how they told the story, what events framed it, and what parallels they were trying to draw.
There’s a reason they chose to rewrite Mon Mothma’s speech in the Senate from the one shown in Rebels, and that is that they wanted it to tell their message. They chose to frame it as a genocide that the overall population is wilfully ignoring. They chose to have disinformation campaigns coming from those in power which present the Ghormans not as the oppressed group of freedom fighters that they truly are, but as terrorists receiving aid from outside. They chose to show the Empire as willing to deliberately kill their own and have it blamed on the “terrorists”. Heck, they chose to place it in a place specifically called, as @Objection@lemmy.ml notes, the Ghorman Plaza.
Still, even if it is directly informed by the Gaza genocide itself, it’s obviously not meant to be a perfect allegory. It’s meant to be broadly applicable to all sorts of freedom fighting against oppressive authoritarian states.
To quote the grandfather of the very genre in which Star Wars as a franchise* sits:
La mort de l’auteur. The best literature can be applied to a wide variety of real-world situations, depending on what the audience’s personal history is and which elements of the art they choose to concentrate on. So the Zionists look at the WWII French aesthetics and cling to that desperate to ignore the parallels to the crimes they themselves are complicit in. The most literate audience brings their own perspective, but also opens themselves up to hear other perspectives, and thus sees that there are multiple possible readings. The narrow-minded audience picks their interpretation and uses it as a reason to reject others.
* I would argue that Andor as a show is really a political thriller and science-fiction. But the core movies and most of the animated shows are fantasy.
🤯 Holy shit that’s brilliant!
Yes, Star Wars Rebels is so brilliant that they were referencing the Isreal-Hamas war in 2017.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Secret_Cargo
Y’all are sounding like qanons with your numerology now.
News flash bub, they’ve been killing each other for a while now. Since, let me check my notes, before Israel was even a modern country.
This is the platonic ideal of thinking history started in 2023
Ctrl+F plaza
Phrase not found.
Very well put. However, the last part is up to you and yours, not them. Exactly what you’re doing with this comment, do it in real life, and have others do it too. Spread the word from inside out, because that’s where the heart is. That’s where REAL change happens, the people closest to you. Get THEM on board, and make them advocates. That’s how we change.
So there’s a planet famous for producing silk where peaceful protesters are massacred in a public square and you only think of Gaza? There is definitely no place on Earth like that other than Gaza!
I’m pretty sure the Israel Gaza war kicked off with terrorists masscring people in villages and taking hostages, but it wasn’t the IDF doing that shit. Did Andor portray that at all?
I tried to find clips to see what it’s referencing some more but holy shit that show is 90% pretentious speeches. But even then it’s pretty obvious.
You are correct there are some people that need things spelled out for them or they don’t understand it. Some even resort to Qanon style numerology to try to prove weird connections between things.
Anyway, which silk producing country massacred peaceful protesters in a public square? Come on… .you can figure it out! Somewhere where vehicles were used to crush protesters? Maybe someone made a memorial and an authoritarian regime took it down… Hint
So, I just finished writing a rather lengthy comment about why you’re so obviously wrong to say it’s not about Gaza.
But I did also add that there are other equally valid possible interpretations because it’s about applicability and metaphor, not direct allegory. Even so, I find your attempts here to compare it to China to be rather tenuous. The fact that the country produces “silk” and did a massacre is pretty much the only parallel. To me, the silk thing is more about adding to the obvious aesthetics of WWII French Resistance, with the silk thing tying in to France’s famous connection to high fashion. I’d say the fact that Tiananmen Square was crushing an internal resistance, while on Ghorman, as well as in both WWII France and in Gaza it’s outsiders seeking to invade and kill the locals, makes the Chinese connection especially weak.
another dumbfuck
The empire depicting the Gorman resistance as evil terrorists who attacked unprovoked was indeed depicted in Andor.
When great Britain partitioned off land and help kick out the population.
Weird how that’s also what happened in Andor…
And of course the zionist is trying to deflect it to a different situation
Sure… we’d all be better off if only the Ottoman empire continued to exist forever!
SMH
Unironically yes, what are you talking about? The region was way more peaceful before the Ottoman empire fell than it has been since.
Ottomans also kept huge populations of Jewish people safe from Christian pogroms
So Armenian and Greek genocides did not happen? Do you think life was great for non Turks/Muslims before that? There were no massacres of Christians?
deleted by creator
You’re ignorance of history matches ignorance for star wars lore.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ghorman_Massacre/Legends
Thanks for the link!
I was aware of it being referenced in 2017 in Star Wars Rebels, but I wasn’t aware it was in Legends in the 1990s.
Whataboutism
See, again, people like this are exactly why we need the protagonist to look directly at the camera and explain things to them. Because the average Westerner’s worldview is so propagandized that when they see a work critiquing their own government, they assume that it must be about foreigners, because obviously we’re number one and everyone else is worse than us. If you make a US allegory look bad, they assume it couldn’t possibly be about the US. Combination of media illiteracy and a delusional, chauvinistic worldview.
Well, the show kicks off with Andor shooting two corporate security guards, after they tried to rob him. Does that count? I mean, it’s not like Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonization and apartheid is unprovoked.
The silk producing planet did not massacre peaceful protesters in a public square. The Empire, an occupying force in Ghorman, massacred Ghormans. I guess if Ghormans had massacred Imperials, your China comparison might make a certain amount of sense. But that’s the complete opposite of what happened in the show, where the “silk producing planet” was the victim of genocide, not the perpetrator.
Incidentally, Gaza is also famous for textiles, or at least, it was, before the dark times. Before the Empire.
Next you’re going to tell me that the original trilogy wasn’t about the Vietnam War
Which country do you think the people masscred in Tiananmen square were from? Were the people massacred there people known for making silk?
Why would they be referencing silk at all? Yeah they referenced silk thinking “I’m sure people will get get the connection from silk to textiles to Palestinians.”
The Ghorman massacre was referenced in Star Wars Rebels in 2017 and was referenced in the EU in the 1990s FFS. Do you really think the people making Star Wars are clairvoyant? Tianamen Square would’ve been fresh in the minds of people in the 90s I think it’s more likely referencing that event than events that hadn’t happened yet.
Indeed.
Ghorman has been a part of Star Wars lore for ages, yes. There is nothing about the word “Ghorman” that connects it to Gaza. The things that connect it to Gaza are mainly twofold, first, the specific phrase “Ghorman Plaza,” (which did not exist in the lore prior to Andor, to my knowledge) and second, the intentional use of the word “genocide” in connection to it, especially in Mon Mothma’s speech. Just “Ghorman” vs “The genocide in Ghorman Plaza” is a huge difference.What the writers did was to take an existing, largely undefined part of Star Wars lore, and flesh it out in a way that ties in to current events.
I have no clue why you think I’m saying the word “Ghorman” has anything to do with Gaza, on it’s own or as it existed in the lore.
This is incredibly dumb, and I’m just highlighting this part of your comment as an example to others of how far a brain is capable of stretching something to make it be about what the person wants it to be about. Obviously, there’s no reasoning with that, but the whole plot regarding Ghorman revolves around a foreign, occupying force planning to exterminate or drive out a population in order to seize resources. There is zero connection to China, apart from silk.
People in the Star Wars universe probably don’t really remember Ghorman as “the place that makes silk” in the same way people from our universe don’t think of Palestine as “the place that makes textiles.” But it’s important to be included to illustrate that Ghorman had an economy and culture before it became known as the site of a massacre, regardless of the Empire’s attempts to erase it, in the same way that it’s important to remember Palestinian culture despite Zionist attempts to reduce them to animals. I doubt the audience was expected to specifically to make the connection, but even if you’re unaware of Gaza’s history with textiles (and even if it wasn’t intentional), it still conveys the message in broad strokes.
Obviously, this wouldn’t convey anything meaningful if it were about China. But then, that’s the level on which reactionaries understand art.