Ben Ament - Based Art Department

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACKLASH: REVENGE OF THE DISENFRANCHISED! The Dark Side of the American Dream and Why a Generation of Young Men Sees Itself in Darth Vader. Apparently, young men liking Darth Vader is the latest evidence that America is being taken over by FASCISTS, NAZIS, and EXTREEEEEME RIGHT-WINGERS! Or—bear with me here—maybe there's something deeper going on. A growing number of young men on social media are celebrating Anakin Skywalker and the Galactic Empire, and everybody seems eager to condemn them before asking WHY. I have a theory. They don't see themselves as cheering for tyranny. They think they're rebelling against it. They see themselves in a young man who wants freedom, a fair shot at success, a wife, children, and a home to raise them in. You know, the American Dream. HOW TERRIBLY REEEEEEEE-FAAAA-ACIST! I grew up with the original trilogy. These younger guys grew up with the prequels. Very sad, I know. I saw the British Empire in space, stomping all over poor farmers, merchants, and ordinary people trying to make a living—the Empire was OBVIOUSLY evil. They saw a decadent Republic plagued by corruption, crime, slavery, corporate greed, and a Jedi Order blind to it all—EVERYONE seemed kind of evil. Lucas spent three movies showing us everything wrong with the Republic and almost nothing worth saving. Then along comes Palpatine promising peace, security, prosperity, and ORDER! And we're supposed to be shocked that some young men find the Empire appealing? In the words of the incomparable Ed Lover, "Come on, son!" Now look at the world these guys are growing up in. Buying a house feels impossible. In 1981, the typical first-time homebuyer was 29 years old. Today? FORTY! A happy marriage and family seem increasingly out of reach. Jobs shipped overseas, corporations exploiting H-1B visas for cheaper labor, and decades of affirmative action followed by DEI policies that made race and sex central to decisions about college admissions and employment. They see a system where identity and victim status matter more than merit. And when they complain? They're told to check their privilege. WHAT PRIVILEGE? Unless you've got wealthy relatives opening doors for you, being a young white guy doesn't magically put a car in your driveway or a good job in your lap. They were told to work hard, play fair, and do the right thing. Instead, they feel like the rules keep changing, applying only to them, while they're always the ones getting screwed. Meanwhile, people are getting filthy rich selling pornography, promoting gambling apps, and feeding every addiction imaginable. Entire fortunes built on making society more vulgar, decadent, and enslaved to vice, while the guy working an honest job struggles to afford groceries. They see immigration laws ignored, violent criminals treated with more sympathy than their victims, and ordinary people dragged through the mud for believing in faith, family, and traditional morality. Things that were perfectly normal about five minutes ago. To these young men, society isn't merely unfair. It's upside down and the rules don't apply to the rule makers, who seem to profit the most from corruption and vice while making a mockery of virtue. So why Anakin Skywalker? Consider his story. A former slave, incredibly gifted, ambitious, and desperate to marry the woman he loves and build a family. But he's serving a corrupt institution that demands blind obedience, forbids marriage, questions his judgment, and controls his every move. An institution so consumed with preserving its own authority that it seems to have forgotten whom it was supposed to serve. He's powerful enough to change the galaxy but apparently not free enough to have a wife and kids. These young men recognize that frustration. Anakin fears losing the family he loves. These young men fear they'll never have one. When Anakin finally rebels, they don't necessarily see a villain. They see a man who's had it. What happens when these young men express their frustrations with a society that's been alienating them since birth? They get called FASCIST! NAZI! RACIST! Those insults don't hit like they used to. When people hear them thrown around over ordinary political and economic disagreements, eventually they stop caring. Worse, they may start questioning whether the villains they've been warned about were really so terrible. Not because actual Nazi tyranny was anything but monstrous, but because reckless accusations have destroyed the credibility of the accusers. If you're going to be called the villain for wanting secure borders, safe neighborhoods, traditional families, and a society that rewards hard work, why bother defending yourself? FINE! I'LL BE THE VILLAIN! If wanting a decent life makes you Darth Vader, why not put on the black cape and don that badass helmet? James Earl Jones made him sound so cool anyway! The Empire, while a lie, offered something they believe their own society has abandoned—ORDER. Discipline instead of decadence. Strength instead of weakness. Laws applying equally to all. A society that appears to reward people who follow the rules instead of punishing them for it. If these young men believe they're going to be slaves to some enormous government machine anyway, maybe they'd rather serve one that works for them than one they believe despises them. Better to be a privileged servant of an orderly Empire than the illusion of being a free citizen in a Republic that offers nothing but contempt, disappointment, and chaos. They're not dreaming of becoming Palpatine. They're dreaming of becoming Vader—powerful, respected, and finally in a position where nobody can push them around. Not even the Emperor. But we'll get to that. So who's to blame? Gen Z boys? Nah. BLAME GEORGE LUCAS! Lucas wanted to show us how liberty dies, but he made the civilization losing that liberty look so rotten that of course these young men would cheer on its demise. John Adams warned us about this very problem: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." And he was right, because an immoral people cannot hope to remain free—they will enslave themselves to every vice and sin. These young men see that happening today, and when a supposedly free Republic has devolved into moral bankruptcy, the promise of order begins to look a whole lot more appealing than chaos. What a lot of people seem to be missing is that these young men see Anakin as the victim of a corrupt system, and frankly, Lucas gave them plenty of reasons to. The ironic part is that the very people constantly demanding we see things from the perspective of Maleficent or Cruella, or understand how even a school shooter can be a victim of his or her circumstances, aren't willing to consider the perspective of ordinary young men who admire a character with an actual redemption arc—and it's actually a rather tragic one. The Jedi Order and Obi-Wan, the supposed good guys, seemed more interested in controlling Anakin than allowing him to build the life he wanted. So when he finally rebels, they cheer. And Anakin makes the very bargain these young men seem willing to make. He trades one master who denied him his dreams for another who promised him the power to achieve them. Peace, security, prosperity, a better future. Instead, he becomes the Emperor's slave, losing his principles, his family, and everything he was fighting for. It isn't until he defies the Emperor to save his son that Anakin finally becomes free. His greatest act of rebellion wasn't becoming Darth Vader. It was refusing to remain Darth Vader. And there's hope in that story. As well as a lesson. So perhaps it's not such a terrible thing that these young men admire Anakin after all. Their admiration tells us something about the world they believe they're living in, and what they desperately want to change. We might actually learn something if we stopped calling them idiots or Nazis long enough to listen. But who has time for THAT? This is social media! MAY THE OUTRAGE BE WITH YOU!