After the end of history, everything becomes a self-referential blob, losing all association with the fading worlds of the past. Perhaps the most obvious example of this increasingly context-less meta is the “promotion” of Carrie Fisher’s “Leia” from the Star Wars. In the original trilogy, she was a princess. In the Disneyfied Star Wars universe of today, she’s a general. At first glance this might be an inconsequential writing choice, but Disney and progressive-minded fans didn’t treat it like one.
Consider this tweet from Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker):
But is this statement actually true? Is a general actually more important and powerful than a princess? A good way to determine the validity of a claim can be to reverse the gender. Would it make sense to claim that a general is more powerful than a prince? Well no, of course not. A prince, by birthright, is better than almost everyone else in the land. A prince is more than just nobility, he’s in the royal family, which makes him an important person even if he’s not the presumed heir to the throne. All of these social and political connotations apply to a princess as well. Perhaps most importantly, the title of prince or princess cannot normally be taken away. After all, a woman born royal can’t be made unroyal. She can only be killed or imprisoned. In a country that takes aristocracy and royalty seriously, has the power to overthrow the monarch himself, and it’s not unheard of for princesses to attempt this.
A general, on the other hand, is simply the commander of an army. He’s probably someone of noble birth, but not always. The title of “general” is just associated with his job. The job of general can be taken away, or given up voluntarily at the end of a war or when that person retires from the military. In other words, a general’s importance in society usually has less to do with his position in the army and more to do with his “civilian” position. Arthur Wellesley is remembered as the Duke of Wellington, not the General of Wellington, and it would be silly for someone to suggest that being a general is more respectable than being a duke.
There’s no basis for this idea that a princess can’t also be a general. It’s not true at all to say a woman in history could not go to war or lead an army. Really, power always has, with very few exceptions, more to do with class than with sex. Joan of Arc wasn’t unusual because she was a woman, but because she was the daughter of a small landowner, basically a nobody. She wouldn’t normally be considered fit to be in charge of anything until, of course, she could adequately prove she was sent by God.
Reimagine that tweet shared by Mark Hamill:
-What’s your son’s name?
-Arthur.
-Like the Duke of Wellington?
-No, the General of Wellington.
What’s your son’s name?
-Edward.
-Like the Black Prince?
-No, the Black General.
What’s your son’s name?
-Louis
-Like the Sun King?
-No, the Sun General.
Powerful. Inspiring.
There are several overlapping explanations for what’s happening here with the reimagining of Princess Leia. One explanation is the shift in American (therefore Disney and globalist) attitudes toward war. Once upon a time, the USA didn’t have a standing army at all, and most human societies throughout history didn’t, because they’re very expensive. For most agricultural societies, war wasn’t a way of life, it was a disruption of life. Like the Bible verse from Isaiah:
Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
After the war is over, soldiers become farmers, swords are beaten back into ploughshares, tanks turned into tractors, and so on. School teachers and lawyers who volunteered to become colonels and captains go back to being teachers and lawyers. But in the era of Forever Wars, the military can’t be seen as a temporary necessity. It can’t even be seen as a career choice for a small group of people. It must be a brand that can be experienced by everyone, even people who have never been in the military and never seen a war. The army and the navy have to be literally like brands of shoes you can buy. By wearing trendy green fatigues, you are part of the army “lifestyle” just like with any other fashionable brand.
The second and related cause is feminism, and the way the feminist movement interacted with market forces. When I would give my dogs identical treats, they would, in unison,drop their treats and go for the (identical) treat the other dog had. That’s essentially what feminists have spent the last 100+ years doing. A military career is stereotypically a man thing, so feminists consider it better and more desirable than woman things. So to prove that Leia is now doing more desirable, manly things, she drops the princess dresses in favor of drab green fatigues.
Lastly, the de-princessing of Leia shows how our media has become increasingly self-referential and divorced from reality. We no longer have cowboy movies, or pirate movies, or princess movies. We have movies about pirate movies, about cowboy movies and princess movies. They’re all like Pirates of the Caribbean, a series of tropes and cliches that the audience has come to expect from that genre. There’s no originality and originality is actually bad because 1) it’s risky and 2) movies are about pushing the correct cultural and political messages. Propaganda has no room for originality, which by definition requires introducing a new idea. So when we think of princesses, we no longer think of real-life princesses. We think of Disney princesses. Disney has completed the process of commercializing a story based on a real thing, eliminating awareness that this real thing ever existed, or even the original fairy tales existed either, then, finally, decides that their original interpretation of the story is bad and change it, not acknowledging that there was any concept predating the Disney product.
Media becomes divorced from reality, erases reality, then creates a new reality. Megacorporations like Disney created of what leaders, whether they’re men or women, should look like, and now real leaders copy Disney. Consider President Volodymyr Zelensky, Clown of Kiev, dropping his professional tie and suit to spend the last 18 months in sweaty pajamas, you’re not alone. As Tucker Carlson put it, Zelensky is the first person in history to show up to US Congress in his workout clothes, dressed like the manager of strip club. And yes, it’s no less silly for Leia to clown around playing army than it is for Zelensky. This is because he is not a leader at all, but a performer on stage, like Mickey Mouse at Disney World. He’s one of the most recent and most obvious examples, but it’s easy to see how other prominent people easily fit into Disney molds. Hillary Clinton is a real-life General Leia, she wears pants and bombs Syrian children. Barrack Obama is the cool but serious black guy a million times in movies. Antony Blinken is the smart and charismatic leader who is also a caring, relatable dad who plays guitar. Yes, all of the people I just listed don’t really fit into these roles and are actually boring and stupid, but that’s just the nature of the system. People who are easily molded into cartoonish fictional stereotypes have to be bland and stupid.
Ian Kummer
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I loved the story, and it also resonates with my thoughts on loss of subjectivity somehow. There’s no “Tony Blinken the Secretary of State”, there’s “Tony Blinken dressed as the Secretary of State”, taking selfies probably. It’s like a drag show in a way.
Getting back to Leia, I think it’s actually misogyny on the part of Disney to overlook the fact that being a member of the Royal Family is infinitely beyond any military rank. Really, they’d never downgrade a Prince to a general.
Catherine the Great was smart enough to choose the right ppl who waged successful wars in her name. She was smarter and more powerful than any of her generals, including even Suvorov.
This tree has a lot of branches & leaves
Zelensky is an actor, acting a clown and acting President
Boris Johnson was also acting a part, and more of a clown than Z
Trudeau was a drama teacher, before acting the role of prime minister cum clown, an imitation of Papa Pierre
Macron came out of nowhere to pretend he was a statesman abrogating the traditional left/right divide
Reagan was recruited from Hollywood
Bush Jr wanted to be a baseball club owner, and they dangled that as a future possibility to get him to act like a governor
(He took logo therapy classes to sound like an ordinary Texas guy … being in Texas to act the part of an oil tycoon)
Klaus Schwab looks and talks more like a clown than Bozo himself
Look at Joe Borrell. Look at photo ops of European prime ministers, even heads of states
Look at conferences with the globoHomo defense ministers
It’s all two bit actors unwittingly & perpetually clownesque
Changing their former views at the drop of a dime is natural, actors are supposed to adapt to the current script
In defense of Princess Leia I’ll say she’s a peach and provides never ending erotic fantasies.
I laughed hard at that one remembering who else you told me is a peach. Wink wink. We’re in agreement on both of them, you devil you. I’m still laughing.
Kind regards.
All those Webej mentioned are clowns and actors filthy rich with filthy lucre.