Are Star Wars, Hunger Games, and Pride and Prejudice Anti-Cult Cult Movies?
Why did we all root for Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion, cheering as one when the Death Star burst into a ball of flame? Why do we unanimously detest Panem’s Capitol, sharing a surge of joy when District 11 erupts after Rue’s senseless murder in The Hunger Games? What accounts for our universal loathing of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Jane Austen’s most refined dictator who, insisting Mr. Darcy marry her insipid daughter, rivals the Emperor and President Snow in her own Georgian way?
Would it really have been so awful had the Empire ruled the Galaxy? Nobody appeared to be starving. It’s true the citizens of Panem were hungry, but at least they were safe from “war, terrible war.” The demise of Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet’s proud and prejudiced love would have cost them their status as the most beloved couple ever to live and breathe papyrus and yet, Darcy and Anne de Bourgh would have been rich — lacking neither the company of polite society nor polished silver.
A deep anguish probably stirred within your heart at these proposals. This malaise would turn to raw anger if we replaced these light-hearted examples of tyranny with darker ones, the true shadows of history whose malice brought real and lasting ruin and misery. Unanimous indignation meets the suggestion that since basic necessities of life were often provided by Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, totalitarianism is a viable living condition. Why?
We instinctively know, as human beings, we need more than food, shelter, and the absence of violence to be happy. This consuming hunger for joy is so important that Aristotle, the Definer himself, designates happiness as the final end for which we are created. To insist people, whether flesh and blood or birthed by quill, content themselves with crusts of bread or caviar instead of true human happiness violates our deepest sense of what it means to be human.
So what necessary ingredient of bliss was missing in the Emperor’s Galaxy, in Hunger Games‘ haunted Panem, and in Austen’s corset string-strangled English countryside? The essential right to self-determination. Nothing is more human than this internal principle of self-direction; the ability to freely select for ourselves from among the near-infinity of goals and the means to attain personally defined success. Without this, we are not human, but animals. This freedom is the condition for our joy and this is why, confronted with all forms of invasive denial of freedom, we rebel.
In Cults: The Mind Enslaved Parts I and II, we considered the normal and cultic human intellectual processes. It seemed that nothing could be worse than surrendering a mind to the shared Gnostic Brain of a cult. Understanding now the primary importance of human freedom for happiness, we consider how cults damage this even more fundamental faculty, the free will.
Don’t ask for forgiveness for referring to Luke Skywalker or Katniss. They are generally recognized cultural characters an important part of the zeitgeist. One should never underestimate the importance of the zeitgeist.
The Star Wars movies could be subject to even more discussion. I think the “prequel” movies were widely disliked because the Republic (which we were supposed to be rooting for) felt every bit as repressive as the empire – you either conformed or you were the enemy. The Jedi’s were bizarrely cultish. This is not what George Lucas intended to depict – but he’s very liberal, which is itself a cult, so he’s probably blind to it.
Can’t disagree with any of this, only the hypocrisy of those concerned. All groups {families, school, businesses} work the same way to a degree. Not much can be done about it.
Why did we all root for Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion, cheering as one when the Death Star burst into a ball of flame?
Star Wars was based on real scriptures and apocrypha in ancient history. We cheered because the audience around us was cheering, making the theater a mind-robbing cult in itself.
Rigid-structure cults such as Scientology’s Sea Org or fundamentalist Mormon polygamy not only substitute the establishment of utopia for the true dream of members,
Both groups were evolving socially alongside mainstream religion. Someone in Washington didn’t like this and decided to infiltrate Scientology to make sure it couldn’t compete with their own sacred faith. They also promoted Warren Jeffs’ cult, then kept a racket going by pretending to fight the group and to educate the public about cults.
But I’m cynical.
Scientology was never going to turn into something mainstream; it was founded with the intention of being malignant.
The good vs. evil dichotomy in Star Wars and the first Hunger Games movie (and probably the second but not the third) show less a cult effect than the very human tendency to allow someone else to define another person or group as “good” or “evil” without analysis. For some reason the Republic and the Rebellion are “good” while the Empire is “evil,” even though the Rebellion has no idea how it intends to govern, the only real evil act we see from the Empire in the original trilogy is the destruction of Alderaan, and in the prequels the Republic is shown to be so ineffective it can’t prevent a planetary blockade between its members (making it like the corrupt, not very good UN more than any other real organization. The Capitol is more objectively evil, effectively using slave labor, occupation, and child murder o retain power over the districts, but the alternative is unclear.
The real world is sadly similar. Everyone important says Romney’s an out of touch greedy plutocrat, so the people believe him. The Egyptian rebels were defined by the media as the good guys and Mubarak was defined as the bad guy, so we duly lined up in support of the Egyptian Islamist rebels.
To Suzanne Collins’s credit, the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy flips it around, and points out that just because the Empire/Capitol/arbitrary oppressive government is awful, it doesn’t make the rebellion saints or even a particularly better alternative.
Good column, and I’m extremely pleased that for the “Pride & Prejudice” movie images, you picked from the 5-hour BBC miniseries version. That version is brilliant and by far the best adaptation of Austen’s novel ever.
Any socio-political-theological order that decides that it will live your life for you can become cultish in the way you describe. Let’s look at China and the way they pick and rear their young athletes. Those children are essentially taken from their families at a very young age and put into fairly intensive, you could say brutal, training regimes. They seldom see their parents after that. The parents, if asked, say they understand that necessity of the child being “for all China.” At the Olympics, none of the parents are ever in the stands watching their children compete. The children are never given a choice. No one asks, “Do you want to be a gymnast? Would you like to play ping-pong?”
It’s an essential issue of living life for yourself or having it taken out of your hands and lived for you, for your own good. This can be done for any reason, religious or political. Sadly, we are burdened with an entire class of people in America today who think this is entirely the life they want and they are working tirelessly to consign us all to it.
That’s totally false — vile propaganda you’ve fallen for. Ironically opera troupes pre-revolution were notorious for beating students to perform (mainly as singers and acrobats) and were plagued with man-boy sodomy. Only when they couldn’t do this anymore, the West got incensed and began spreading myths about “no freedom” in China.
I’m sure if Chinese kids were stealing cars and playing Guitar Hero six hours a day, then Americans would say it’s a healthy childhood.
So you’re saying a country which runs people over with tanks for disagreeing with the government and enforces a one child policy with mandatory abortions and sterilization is a paragon of freedom and personal choice?
Put away the kool-aid my friend, put away the kool-aid.
Is Iran building a bomb? Because it’s all the same lie… Gaddafi, Chavez, and “mandatory abortions”.
Dude. Get some help. Seriously.
If everything you’re claiming are lies really ARE lies, you’re accusing a collection of blithering incompetents who have trouble chewing gum and walking at the same time of maintaining world-spanning conspiracies involving thousands of people.
Ain’t happening. There aren’t that many people ANYWHERE who are smart enough to dream up a conspiracy like that, much less able to keep it secret for more than about 30 seconds. Come on. The guys who use “password” for their password are pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes?
Anyone who can believe THAT is either stupid or delusional, and in either case seriously needs help.
OMG, Tienanmen Square a lie? BWAHAHAHAH!!! Never mind, trying to talk to you is rather pointless.
Hell: definitely exothermic
Jeanette and Chris?
I am still patiently waiting for some reply to Part I of this article, comment3 from thread 38 on 9/26, or comment 5 thread 1 on 10/8 from Part 2 of this article……
Do you not reply because you have never been members of a cult? Do you not reply because you lost no money, no land, no one sought to tell you to not further your education, rather they gave Jeanette her fluency in French which she now uses as an asset (see linked in)? Is there no reply because no one told you whom to marry, to limit the size of your family, or to give your children to other people? I am assuming your lack of reply is because you acknowledge the SSPX is not a cult. Rather than calling people names on Twitter, consider defending your position or getting psychological help. I am really concerned about you, especially the fact you are currently cutting off contact with friends.
Best wishes to both of you as you continue your journey of personal discovery,
Mary
I am in absolute adoration of the rendition of Pride and Prejudice. Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle blend to make a beautiful Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy. I have often considered Jane Austen one of, perhaps, the best novelist of all time. Suzzane Collins is a fantastic writer I, however, prefer a classic to a teen fiction romance about murder and a horrid government. I am 14 years old and do not meet many other teens that are not obsessed with Twilight or the Hunger Games.