Bush, Cheney, and Literary Criticism
Over the weekend, Maureen Dowd recounted a conversation with George Lucas in which she asked if it had been fair to compare Dick Cheney to Darth Vader. Lucas replied:
Lucas explained politely as I listened contritely. Anakin Skywalker is a promising young man who is turned to the dark side by an older politician and becomes Darth Vader. “George Bush is Darth Vader,” he said. “Cheney is the emperor.”
Amy Davidson offers a strong rejoinder:
Bush as Vader is ludicrous. The comparison betrays a failure on Lucas’s part to understand the resonance of his own characters, which explains a lot, especially about Episodes I & VI. Other than being the father of twins, Anakin Skywalker, born a slave, with extraordinary abilities (the “best pilot in the galaxy”), has almost nothing in common with Bush, born to privilege and not much of an advertisement for the notion of a natural aristocracy. Is Jenna going to be Luke and bring him back from the Dark Side? If we are going to play this game, Bush has more in common with Count Dooku, the Jedi dropout turned warmonger, or, better yet, Jar Jar Binks, who, after a buffoonish youth, improbably rises to a prominent political position and obliviously fronts for the soon-to-be emperor in getting the “Star Wars” equivalent of the Patriot Act passed.
The larger point here is that it was foolish of Dowd to ever go to Lucas with this question. People often have an instinctive belief that the creator of an artistic work is the best interpreter of the work, but there’s no reason to see it that way. Indeed, the fact that all real Star Wars fans reacted very negatively to Lucas’ most recent Star Wars films is an excellent indication that Lucas himself has a fairly weak grasp on the material. The simple fact of the matter is that Bush doesn’t much resemble any Star Wars characters.
56 Responses to “Bush, Cheney, and Literary Criticism”
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April 21st, 2009 at 9:16 am
What are you TALKING about???
Mentally weak puppet placed into power by those more intelligent than him, manipulated by those people into starting a war that wasn’t in his nation’s best interests, and then used as a patsy for the reduction of freedoms and consolidation of power into a unitary executive?
George Bush is Jar Jar Binks.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:18 am
Jar Jar works, I guess, but since those movies never happened, it’s not worth discussing.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:22 am
“The simple fact of the matter is that Bush doesn’t much resemble any Star Wars characters.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Agreed. I’ve only seen the original 3 releases in the series. However, I doubt any Star Wars characters are as morally bankrupt, viscerally reprehensible and completely bereft of any positive, redeeming personal or professional qualities as George Bush.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:22 am
Amy Davidson FTW–although making the Bush/Jarj Dubya Binks comparison in that context is a pretty obvious slam-dunk.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:26 am
Bush is Salacious B. Crumb. Cheney is Jabba. Lucas is a tool.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:28 am
I hate having to agree with Dowd, but Cheney as Vader is the better comparison. The Emperor is a satanic symbol of the permanent, corrupting influence of evil. He’s not like any real person. Cheney was a flawed, misguided but talented man who out of fear and guilt chose to do evil and now finds himself enslaved by it.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:29 am
I believe Cheney was President Skroob and Bush was Lord Dark Helmet. And Rumsfeld was Colonel Sandurz.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:29 am
The larger point here is that it was foolish of Dowd to ever go to Lucas with this question.
No, the larger point is that Dowd is a moron. Nothing useful comes from her keyboard.
As for trying to compare Bush/Cheney to StarWars characters or plot points, why? The horror they unleashed on the world is all too real–exercises such as this just trivialize that.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:32 am
George Lucas is a composite of the four male characters in “American Graffiti.” As he’s grown older, the Steve Bolander, play-it-safe, insurance salesman, has come to dominate. Curt, the artist, is probbaly held captive down in a pit in Steve’s basement.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:33 am
Let the flame war begin! Bush is obviously more like Quark the Ferrengi, to Cheney’s Grand Nagus.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:36 am
OK, so the Emperor is the Corporate System, Cheney is Vader, and Bush is JarJar.
And Lucas was an idiot for telegraphing who the bad guy was in Episode 1, it spoiled his chance for another “I Am Your Father, Luke” scene.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:40 am
Waaah! The issue Davidson has with Lucas’ interpretation is NOT that he misunderstands Anakin Skywalker but that he misunderstands Bush by choosing to think of him as a misguided man of talent instead of as the idiot he is assumed to be by the left. Why do you choose to include the bit about Lucas not understanding Star Wars? Because that would not allow you to make an independent, pointless criticism of Maureen Dowd? Because that would mean you wouldn’t be making an independent contribution instead of just linking?
Show me where (actually, don’t show me; this is just rhetoric) in the quote cited that Lucas is shown to misunderstand Star Wars as opposed to being generous in his opinion of the 43rd President of the United States of America.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:41 am
The corporate system is Melkor, Cheney is Sauron and Bush is Saruman. Easy. Then Hitchens is the Voice of Sauron.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:44 am
Isaac Asimov has an interesting scene in one of his autobiographies where a professor of literature pointed out to Asimov that he didn’t necessarily have the best understanding of his own stories/characters. It isn’t clear from the text if Asimov agreed, but unlike Lucas at least he thought about the question.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:48 am
Waaah, Adam Lewitt#12! I believe the correct name of the character in Return of the King is the Mouth of Sauron. Clearly, the Moral Panicker is more of a loser than you and therefore SUPERIOR to everyone else in the world!
April 21st, 2009 at 9:49 am
Although I could call myself a rather-dedicated Star Wars fan, I have to agree that comparing Bush and Cheney to these characters is wasteful conversation (and also that GL does himself no service by playing along). At face-value it would imply that W was a war-hero before his “fall” and that Cheney was a skilled politician when in fact he was a master bureaucrat. And besides, there has to be countless other fantasy/literary worlds that prove a better fit for these two. In fact, I’ll give 1 million galatic credits to anyone who can fit the last 8 years into the Harry Potter canon.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:49 am
Both sides of the debate seem to fall into the trap of seeing Cheney as a genuine force. Cheney had no power that Bush didn’t allow him, and Cheney’s comments after leaving Washington reveal him to be as vain-glorious and pig-ignorant as ever. There is no correlate between Cheney and anyone in Star Wars because there’s no place in a fictional world for someone as dull and functionless as Cheney. Cheney’s basso growl was always theater, a butch transvestite.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am
Domage: The prequel trilogy was bad, but to say it unleashed horror on the world is a bit much, don’t you think?
April 21st, 2009 at 9:51 am
Jar Jar is the 2004 electorate.
Rumsfeld is Grand Moff Tarkin, at any rate. And Chuck Norris is Darth Maul.
Who is Chewbacca? I think I’d go with Kucinich. Reid is obviously C-3PO.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:52 am
None of the analogies hold up perfectly, so given that t I say Cheney is like the Yoda of “Empire”, hiding out in an undisclosed location, training his young protege in the mysterious arts of The Force. Just make Yoda and Luke all evil and stuff and replace The Force with Untrammeled Executive Power and the comparison holds up pretty well.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:54 am
Bush doesn’t much resemble any Star Wars characters
I’d say he’s a lot like Jar Jar Binks, but without the rugged masculinity.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:57 am
And, you can’t tell me that Ian McDermid wasn’t cast with Joe Lieberman in mind — if not, then McDermid surely based his portrayal on Lieberman…
It wasn’t just the appearance, it was the pitch-perfect imitation of Lieberman’s smarmy hypocrisy, twitching jowls and all…
April 21st, 2009 at 9:58 am
I resent that remark!
It’s an open secret that C-3PO was modelled after me, and R2-D2 was my special friend Jeff Gannon.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:03 am
And, you can’t tell me that Ian McDermid wasn’t cast with Joe Lieberman in mind — if not, then McDermid surely based his portrayal on Lieberman…
FYI: McDiarmid first played the Emperor in “Return of the Jedi” in 1983—which makes Lucas remarkably prescient.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:07 am
Re: People often have an instinctive belief that the creator of an artistic work is the best interpreter of the work, but there’s no reason to see it that way.
Oh, God, not more of this postmodernist, literary-criticism, ‘transgressive’ crap. Really, Yglesias, put down the Foucault and the hookah, and grow up.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:13 am
NOTICE: This thread is still taking nominations for the douchiest attempt to crowbar a Bush analogy into a literary work.
Lots of good candidates upthread, but keep them coming!
April 21st, 2009 at 10:15 am
What about Rove?
April 21st, 2009 at 10:21 am
Another in a series of Matt trying to make the idea that the author is not final arbiter of the meaning of his or her work into an ought instead a rather obvious is. Sure, Lukas clearly doesn’t seem to understand his work too well. But what Matt needs to do is establish is that artists who do understand their work aren’t the final arbiters of interpretation–now this is obviously true, but it isn’t true that many artists aren’t good and useful interpreters of their work. Thomas Mann wrote useful explanations of his work; J.K. Rowlings has a firm understanding of her characters; it would be absurd to think that they aren’t useful voices in understanding their work. They just aren’t the best critics or the only voices that count.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:24 am
Hmm. Melkor as Morgoth, Rumsfeld as Glaurang father of dragons, Bush as Sauron, then Scooter Libby as Carcharoth the wolf of Morgoth. Have I missed anyone?
April 21st, 2009 at 10:26 am
Rove can be a Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, who fights Ecthelion of the Fountain (Axelrod?) and is slain.
Yes, I have very little in the way of what you inhabitants of middle earth would call a life.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:35 am
“all real Star Wars fans”
I see you’ve become something of a Star Wars fundamentalist.
According to you none of the 100 million fans who came to the enterprise since the Phantom Menace count?
April 21st, 2009 at 10:37 am
From the standpoint of personality, Shrub is Trelane. Except he’s a lot less fun, and has a much nastier mean streak. And his parents never showed up to tell him to stop torturing people and come home.
Hate to break it to you, Hector, but worrying about authorial intent went out of fashion with the New Criticism way back in the 1940s, which is pretty much the hallmark of modernist literary criticism, and not “post-modern” at all. In fact, Foucauldian critics are actually much more interested in authors than New Critics ever were. New Historicists aren’t trying to figure out what a literary work meant to the author, but they are very interested in what its purpose was to the author in the author’s world.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:48 am
why does anyone read, or even utter the name of Maureen Dowd?
April 21st, 2009 at 10:57 am
Wow, Lucas makes a throw away joke comment and some bloggers jump him for it while also saying it proves he doesn’t comprehend his own work or at least not as well as some fanatical fans.
More importantly, why can’t it mean Lucas doesn’t understand BUSH and CHENEY instead of Darth Vader and the Emperor?
April 21st, 2009 at 11:08 am
“According to you none of the 100 million fans who came to the enterprise since the Phantom Menace count?”
Not unless they realize the prequels are mediocre at-best entrances to a genuinely fascinating fictional reality.
Mike
April 21st, 2009 at 11:08 am
Jar Jar Bush: You’ze sayz peeple gonna DIE?
Cheney: For freedom, Jar Jar. For freedom.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:12 am
Read up a little more about Bush and Poppy, folks. Don’t buy the myth that the family themselves tries to propagate. Those creeps knew what they were doing.
Bush is more like…Palpatine/Sidious.
This idea that W was some kind of corrupted “innocent” is just not supported by the facts. I think it’s the Texas accent. It’s throwing you all off.
If Bush spoke like Christopher Lee, would you all be able to see him as the spawn of ancient, northeastern elite with decades-long ties to the CIA, international petro-crats, and Nazi war profiteers?
April 21st, 2009 at 11:16 am
New rule: Every time Matt links to or writes about Maureen Dowd or Megan McArdle other than to smack them down or note someone else’s smacking them down, I donate five dollars to the American Highway Users Alliance. This instance gets a pass from me, since he did say she was foolish, but watch it Yglesias–you’re on notice.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:21 am
Yes Pesto, Bush as the petulant Trelane is perfect though as you note nothing else fits.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:30 am
Um, you guys might be overthinking this. The point of the comparison is that, although Vader (W) looks like the main villian, he is actually just a pawn of an even badder villian, Palpatine (Cheney), who is the one pulling all the strings and causing the badness in the universe. This isn’t an uncommon comparison (I’ve seen it pop up online since 2005), and it really has nothing to do with Anakin’s/W’s upbringing. For a bunch of smart people, this is a pretty dumb thread.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:51 am
Notice that “Cheney is the Emperor” is never refuted.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Burrell = Cheney
Valchek = W
Hoping Obama is more Daniels than Carcetti.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I don’t understand what any of this has to do with politics or opinion or why anybody including this blog bothered to comment on or publish any thoughts on the subject.
Can somebody explain to me how a filmmaker’s interpretation of his own work has anything to do with history or accuracy?
April 21st, 2009 at 12:51 pm
On Amy’s description of Dooku:
I remember a line in Episode 2 where the Jedi refuse to believe that Dooku could be responsible for betraying the Republic because he is a noble and once was a Jedi. That really supports the view many Republicans and Independents had for early President W, no?
To be fair to Dooku: My understanding is he resigned from a relatively successful Jedi career (a Yoda apprentice) to serve as Count rather than being an unsuccessful dropout like W.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:07 pm
The most fitting commentary for that prequel trilogy comes from Ray Bradbury, in his introduction to recent editions of Fahrenheit 451. He talked about various ideas he had over the years to “improve” the original, and how he was tempted to revise the text to include them, but then he said:
“I object to tampering with the vision of any young artist, even when that artist is myself.”
Also: Han shot first, bitches!
April 21st, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Ray Bradbury, of course, contends that Fahrenheit 451 isn’t about censorship, but about the evils of television.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Cheney is Jaba the Hut, and Bush is that little guy that assisted him and snickered.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:50 pm
There’s no way the Force was ever strong with W. The idea of him choking someone to death by waving his hand is laughable. I think he’s more like that guy who tries to tell Vader off early in the first movie and finds himself asphyxiated for his insubordination.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
@Medrawt–
I can believe it. Of course, Bradbury also used to like to mash up a pound of crackers into Campbell’s Tomato Soup to make a thick paste that he called “liquid pizza,” so you’ve got to consider that, too.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:52 pm
>“George Bush is Darth Vader,” he said. “Cheney is the emperor.”
Wrong universe.
The obvious corollaries are Harcourt Fenton “Harry” Mudd and the Gorn.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I will second Bush as Dark Helmut.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I think that the movies (rightly) focus on the larger-than-life characters. Bush, in spite of the horrible results of his policies, was simply not an awe-inspiring villain. Maybe there’s some stuff in the Expanded Universe, which lays out far more of the excruciatingly mundane, day-to-day detail of history and daily life in a galaxy long ago and far away. Like, maybe one of the Emperors of the Fel Empire was like Bush or something (the Fel Empire had an established hereditary monarchy, without all of the master/disciple based rule, Sith piety, and casual planet-destruction of the Galactic Empire from the movies, so it seems like a good place for a mediocre monarch-villain). I once spent a while reading a SW wiki with that sort of stuff, but I’m not sure.
I wonder if Hector thinks authorial intent should be the guide to reading the Bible, or it should be interpretted in the light of traditional teachings. Like, does 1 Timothy 3 mean that the idea of celibate clergy is un-Christian?
April 21st, 2009 at 8:48 pm
I agree with sleepyirv – this is all BS. One of Matt’s throw-away posts.
I’d say Lucas was approximately correct in terms of the relative relationships between Palpatine and Vader and Cheney and Bush. It has nothing to do with whether either of those clowns measure up to the characters in the movie.
But again, who the hell cares? We don’t have ENOUGH reasons to dislike Bush and Cheney?
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Everybody’s wrong, Futurama should be your guide.
Bush = Philip J. Fry, Cheney = alien brain slug.
The clincher being that eventually the brain slug died of starvation.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:59 am
Here’s the thing, the author’s interpretation is de jure the right one because that’s what was actually present in the creation of the material. Other interpretations have to be seen as alternates in relation to the original.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
To be fair to Lucas, he was responding to the premise of Dowd’s question: IF Bush or Cheney needs to be Darth Vader, which would it be? Lucas’ answer was correct: Cheney was the ‘dark’ force hidden behind the guy everybody wanted to burn in effigy.
Of course, the critics are ALSO correct. GWB = Jar-Jar Binks. Not just as a character, but at the meta-level: they both make you want to throw tomatoes at the screen and leave the theater.