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matrilSome years ago, I contributed a number of articles to an online academic journal about the Star Wars saga. Sadly, it is now defunct, but I made sure to save all of my articles. This one might be my favorite. If anyone's interest is piqued enough, I'll happily post the others. :)
"If you wanted a subtitle for these movies, it could be 'Fathers and Sons'.”
-- Ian McDiarmid
Father and son relationships, both real and metaphorical, abound in the Star Wars trilogy. The most prominent of these in the original trilogy is, of course, between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. It is a disturbing and at once compelling relationship, fraught with violence and abuse. Set in the fantastic world of a galaxy far, far away, it bears a certain surrealistic quality. Certainly few abusive fathers in our real world have gone so far as to fight a son in armed combat and brutally sever his hand. However, a study of Vader’s behavior toward Luke during their confrontation on Bespin reveals that he is not so different from real, ordinary fathers in our world. The abuse, in either circumstance, can be traced to a struggle to attain an elusive ideal of masculinity. This ideal has always been that unattainable goal which motivates and tortures men from childhood onward and is inevitably passed along to their sons unless the cycle can be broken.
What is masculinity? The answer varies from culture to culture, from young boys to old men, and even from one individual male to another. In Frank Pittman’s Man Enough, he describes how he asked his workout buddies how they would define masculinity. Each one offered a different meaning. “‘Masculinity is weighing about 235, benching maybe 475, and being able to go anywhere on the field you want to go...’ ‘It’s not size, it’s aggressiveness.’ ‘...Masculinity is being big...Because girls want guys that are big...’ ‘...doing what you got to do without whining about it.’ (7-8)” There are several broad points, however, that nearly all notions of masculinity in our culture share. It is something that should be attained at all costs, but something that can very easily be lost. It is often associated with how a man relates to other men, or to women. It is determined by a man’s level of physical or sexual prowess, while an emotional man is considered decidedly un-masculine.
With such a myriad series of definitions, it is no wonder that masculinity proves to be so elusive. This might raise the question -- particularly from women -- of why men continue bothering to seek it. The answers would probably vary just as widely as the definitions of masculinity. But it is fairly clear that a man’s desire to achieve a given level of masculinity, through whatever various means, is closely associated with his relationship or lack of relationship with his father. Pittman points out, “When fathers are gone for whatever reason, little boys don’t get to learn from watching real men leading a real life with real women” (11). They are then forced to seek out models of masculinity from their peers and from figures in popular culture, which inevitably leads to a confused and exaggerated notion of manhood. “Boys without models are likely to overdo the masculinity, like a masculine impersonator” (12).
Unfortunately, even when fathers are present in their sons’ lives, they can still have a detrimental effect upon their sons’ idea of masculinity. A common result of masculine-driven fathering is performance-based self-esteem. In his book on covert male depression, Terrence Real explains, “Performance-based self-esteem augments an insufficient, internal sense of worth by the measuring of one’s accomplishments against those of others and coming out on top” (182). A father who offers love and respect for his son only after he has achieved something will lead the son to feel he is only worthwhile if he wins the big game, beats another boy in a fight, or, as he grows older, makes the most money or marries the prettiest wife. The son cannot achieve an absolute sense of self-worth; his esteem changes depending on whether he feel he has failed or succeeded.
Real points out, “Psychoanalysts and developmental psychologists have been clear that the capacity to esteem the self arises from a history of unconditional regard from one’s caregivers” (182). When parents fail to offer this regard, the results can be severe and even tragic. Consider the phrase “be a man!” which so many fathers use to chide their sons. From a literal standpoint the command is rather ludicrous -- genetically speaking, it is impossible for the son to not be a man. What the father truly means, however, is that the son must achieve masculinity, by some performance or another, or else he is in danger of losing his manhood -- and by corollary, his father’s esteem. Sons may resent their fathers for this treatment, and yet spend their entire lives continuing to seek that esteem. A man can despise his father while simultaneously believing that he is the sole person who can bestow or take away his title of masculinity.
The struggle for a masculinity of sorts is evident in Vader’s treatment of his son on Bespin. A detailed analysis of how he has become so obsessive would fill an entire separate paper, but by briefly looking at the prequel trilogy, we are made aware of the conditions that have brought Anakin Skywalker to this point. He is literally fatherless, and throughout his childhood and adolescence he is constantly seeking surrogate fathers, from Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan to, ominously, the duplicitous Palpatine. “While he is not, we must assume, Anakin’s natural father in this film, he’s certainly a father figure for him” (McDiarmid). It is no wonder that Vader has arrived at such a confused and destructive notion of masculinity. It will play out most horribly as he meets his own son for the first time.
Vader lures Luke into an intentionally frightening environment, the city’s hellish freezing chamber, and appears in a startling manner that is clearly meant to intimidate his son. Such scare tactics are common for a father with the misdirected idea of “making a man” out of him. Pittman describes one such father “who saw happiness as a sign of weakness...He brutalized [his son] in an effort to turn him into a contending brute: he emotionally attack-trained his son” (69). It is not simple hatred that motivates this father-son behavior. Trapped somewhere inside Vader’s brutality, his softer feelings for his son are evident. He praises Luke. “The Force is with you, young Skywalker.” But he must dampen the praise with, “you are not a Jedi yet.” To simply offer unconditional approval of Luke would, in Vader’s mind, encourage him to be satisfied with his skills, to give up the quest for masculinity. So he gives two insults for every word of praise. “You have learned much, young one,” he acknowledges, but then, after dropping him into the freezing pit, “All too easy. Perhaps you are not as strong as the Emperor thought.” And even when Luke performs the difficult feat of leaping out of the pit and escaping the carbon freeze Vader had planned for him, his father’s “Impressive. Most impressive,” carries an edge of sarcasm. It is all a part of the emotional attack-training.
Vader may believe that he is doing his son a great favor, but his motives are truly selfish. When Luke succeeds in pushing Vader off the platform, his father seems to decide to change the rules of the game they are playing. The danger of being defeated by Luke has evidently shaken him; his confused sense of masculinity compels him to win at all costs. So he plays dirty, using the Force to throw heavy machinery at his son even as they continue dueling with lightsabers. Pittman described this warped version of masculinity as “the contender” and warns, “Fathers who compete hard with their kids are monstrous. The father, for a throw-away victory, is sacrificing the very heart of his child’s sense of being good enough. He may believe he is making his son tough...but he is only making the child desperate and mean like himself. Fathers must let their sons (and daughters) have their victories” (55).
Yet even as Vader achieves the meager satisfaction of gaining the upper hand, he is filled with a violent disgust of his son’s weakness. He compares Luke to Obi-Wan, whose passive lowering of his weapon during the duel on the Death Star represents the polar opposite of Vader’s notion of masculinity. It is likely that he is also seeing his former self in his son. This projection of himself would explain much of Vader’s behavior toward Luke. Real explains, “Projective identification [is] the process...wherein a person injects into another the disowned aspects of his own personality. When my father took a strap to me he beat into me his unacknowledged misery” (206). The parallels between young Anakin and Luke, both in their situations and their moral struggles, are obvious. Whether Vader overtly or only subconsciously recognizes those parallels, it is clear that his violence toward Luke is in large part derived from a vicious repudiation of his old self.
The truly tragic aspect of father-son abuse is that it is perpetuated from one generation to another. “Carried shame and carried feelings...are the means by which the wound, the legacy of pain, is passed from father to son, mother to son, across generations” (Real 206). Luke does not even know Vader is his father during the bulk of their confrontation, but he has already identified him as the one who will determine his masculinity. It matters little that he hates him; indeed, that is quite typical for the more dysfunctional father-son relationships. He responds to Vader’s taunts and attacks just like a resentful son who accepts and strives for his father’s version of masculinity no matter how much he despises him. He shows bravado. “You’ll find I’m full of surprises,” he brags, and fights recklessly. He responds to Vader’s taunt not to let himself “be destroyed” by obeying, though he believes he is being willfully defiant, by fending off another attack. Vader says repeatedly, “Join me,” and though Luke overtly refuses, the hatred and violence in his refusal is a covert acceptance of the sort of masculinity that Vader is offering. Real speaks of the awful transference that occurs during abuse. “In this tragic moment, the very forces that betray the boy, forces he most often finds abhorrent, come to live inside him” (207). Luke, as he was warned in the cave on Dagobah, is in danger of becoming his father.
As the duel becomes increasingly one-sided, culminating in the severing of Luke’s hand, Vader’s tone shifts from that of a contender to what Pittman calls “a controller,” yet another guise of distorted masculinity. He explains, “the need to control may appear selfish and intrusive to the objects of it, but the men who are doing the controlling see themselves as fixing things, correcting them, or getting them back on track. A man would feel irresponsible and ashamed of himself if he let things go out of control when he had the chance to make them ‘right’” (82). This serves as a remarkably accurate portrait of the man who once said, “I’m good at fixing things...Why couldn’t I save [my mother]? I know I could have...I should be [all-powerful]. Someday I will be.” Such notions, taken to the extreme, have led Vader to this confrontation with his son. “I will complete your training,” he declares confidently. “With our combined strength we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy...Join me, and we can rule the galaxy as father and son.” Ruling the galaxy -- the ultimate form of control.
But it is at this point, at last, that Luke begins to envision another form of being a man that does not involve destructive masculinity. Unlike Vader, who insists that his way of life is “the only way,” Luke is able to release the aggression and resentment that has proved so damaging during this first confrontation, and literally releases his hold on the structure that is holding him up. He escapes Vader and his dark vision of manhood. When they meet again, he will not be so susceptible to that vision. Standing on the verge of achieving the Sith’s violent version of masculinity, urged on by the Emperor’s “Take your father’s place at my side!”, Luke definitively throws away his weapon and all destructive notions of manhood with it.
So there is hope even when faced with the destructive cycle of father-son abuse. It need not be perpetuated; both fathers and sons can be healed. It is not an easy process, nor is it one without pain. In Star Wars, this is symbolized as Luke must watch his father die just when he is truly beginning to know and understand him. However, that knowledge will give him the strength to pass on a better legacy to future generations, not one of resentment and violence, but of the quiet strength and courage of true manhood.
Sources:
McDiarmid, Ian. Revenge of the Sith DVD, special features
Pittman, Frank. Man Enough: Fathers, Sons and the Search for Masculinity.
Real, Terrence. I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression.
"If you wanted a subtitle for these movies, it could be 'Fathers and Sons'.”
-- Ian McDiarmid
Father and son relationships, both real and metaphorical, abound in the Star Wars trilogy. The most prominent of these in the original trilogy is, of course, between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. It is a disturbing and at once compelling relationship, fraught with violence and abuse. Set in the fantastic world of a galaxy far, far away, it bears a certain surrealistic quality. Certainly few abusive fathers in our real world have gone so far as to fight a son in armed combat and brutally sever his hand. However, a study of Vader’s behavior toward Luke during their confrontation on Bespin reveals that he is not so different from real, ordinary fathers in our world. The abuse, in either circumstance, can be traced to a struggle to attain an elusive ideal of masculinity. This ideal has always been that unattainable goal which motivates and tortures men from childhood onward and is inevitably passed along to their sons unless the cycle can be broken.
What is masculinity? The answer varies from culture to culture, from young boys to old men, and even from one individual male to another. In Frank Pittman’s Man Enough, he describes how he asked his workout buddies how they would define masculinity. Each one offered a different meaning. “‘Masculinity is weighing about 235, benching maybe 475, and being able to go anywhere on the field you want to go...’ ‘It’s not size, it’s aggressiveness.’ ‘...Masculinity is being big...Because girls want guys that are big...’ ‘...doing what you got to do without whining about it.’ (7-8)” There are several broad points, however, that nearly all notions of masculinity in our culture share. It is something that should be attained at all costs, but something that can very easily be lost. It is often associated with how a man relates to other men, or to women. It is determined by a man’s level of physical or sexual prowess, while an emotional man is considered decidedly un-masculine.
With such a myriad series of definitions, it is no wonder that masculinity proves to be so elusive. This might raise the question -- particularly from women -- of why men continue bothering to seek it. The answers would probably vary just as widely as the definitions of masculinity. But it is fairly clear that a man’s desire to achieve a given level of masculinity, through whatever various means, is closely associated with his relationship or lack of relationship with his father. Pittman points out, “When fathers are gone for whatever reason, little boys don’t get to learn from watching real men leading a real life with real women” (11). They are then forced to seek out models of masculinity from their peers and from figures in popular culture, which inevitably leads to a confused and exaggerated notion of manhood. “Boys without models are likely to overdo the masculinity, like a masculine impersonator” (12).
Unfortunately, even when fathers are present in their sons’ lives, they can still have a detrimental effect upon their sons’ idea of masculinity. A common result of masculine-driven fathering is performance-based self-esteem. In his book on covert male depression, Terrence Real explains, “Performance-based self-esteem augments an insufficient, internal sense of worth by the measuring of one’s accomplishments against those of others and coming out on top” (182). A father who offers love and respect for his son only after he has achieved something will lead the son to feel he is only worthwhile if he wins the big game, beats another boy in a fight, or, as he grows older, makes the most money or marries the prettiest wife. The son cannot achieve an absolute sense of self-worth; his esteem changes depending on whether he feel he has failed or succeeded.
Real points out, “Psychoanalysts and developmental psychologists have been clear that the capacity to esteem the self arises from a history of unconditional regard from one’s caregivers” (182). When parents fail to offer this regard, the results can be severe and even tragic. Consider the phrase “be a man!” which so many fathers use to chide their sons. From a literal standpoint the command is rather ludicrous -- genetically speaking, it is impossible for the son to not be a man. What the father truly means, however, is that the son must achieve masculinity, by some performance or another, or else he is in danger of losing his manhood -- and by corollary, his father’s esteem. Sons may resent their fathers for this treatment, and yet spend their entire lives continuing to seek that esteem. A man can despise his father while simultaneously believing that he is the sole person who can bestow or take away his title of masculinity.
The struggle for a masculinity of sorts is evident in Vader’s treatment of his son on Bespin. A detailed analysis of how he has become so obsessive would fill an entire separate paper, but by briefly looking at the prequel trilogy, we are made aware of the conditions that have brought Anakin Skywalker to this point. He is literally fatherless, and throughout his childhood and adolescence he is constantly seeking surrogate fathers, from Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan to, ominously, the duplicitous Palpatine. “While he is not, we must assume, Anakin’s natural father in this film, he’s certainly a father figure for him” (McDiarmid). It is no wonder that Vader has arrived at such a confused and destructive notion of masculinity. It will play out most horribly as he meets his own son for the first time.
Vader lures Luke into an intentionally frightening environment, the city’s hellish freezing chamber, and appears in a startling manner that is clearly meant to intimidate his son. Such scare tactics are common for a father with the misdirected idea of “making a man” out of him. Pittman describes one such father “who saw happiness as a sign of weakness...He brutalized [his son] in an effort to turn him into a contending brute: he emotionally attack-trained his son” (69). It is not simple hatred that motivates this father-son behavior. Trapped somewhere inside Vader’s brutality, his softer feelings for his son are evident. He praises Luke. “The Force is with you, young Skywalker.” But he must dampen the praise with, “you are not a Jedi yet.” To simply offer unconditional approval of Luke would, in Vader’s mind, encourage him to be satisfied with his skills, to give up the quest for masculinity. So he gives two insults for every word of praise. “You have learned much, young one,” he acknowledges, but then, after dropping him into the freezing pit, “All too easy. Perhaps you are not as strong as the Emperor thought.” And even when Luke performs the difficult feat of leaping out of the pit and escaping the carbon freeze Vader had planned for him, his father’s “Impressive. Most impressive,” carries an edge of sarcasm. It is all a part of the emotional attack-training.
Vader may believe that he is doing his son a great favor, but his motives are truly selfish. When Luke succeeds in pushing Vader off the platform, his father seems to decide to change the rules of the game they are playing. The danger of being defeated by Luke has evidently shaken him; his confused sense of masculinity compels him to win at all costs. So he plays dirty, using the Force to throw heavy machinery at his son even as they continue dueling with lightsabers. Pittman described this warped version of masculinity as “the contender” and warns, “Fathers who compete hard with their kids are monstrous. The father, for a throw-away victory, is sacrificing the very heart of his child’s sense of being good enough. He may believe he is making his son tough...but he is only making the child desperate and mean like himself. Fathers must let their sons (and daughters) have their victories” (55).
Yet even as Vader achieves the meager satisfaction of gaining the upper hand, he is filled with a violent disgust of his son’s weakness. He compares Luke to Obi-Wan, whose passive lowering of his weapon during the duel on the Death Star represents the polar opposite of Vader’s notion of masculinity. It is likely that he is also seeing his former self in his son. This projection of himself would explain much of Vader’s behavior toward Luke. Real explains, “Projective identification [is] the process...wherein a person injects into another the disowned aspects of his own personality. When my father took a strap to me he beat into me his unacknowledged misery” (206). The parallels between young Anakin and Luke, both in their situations and their moral struggles, are obvious. Whether Vader overtly or only subconsciously recognizes those parallels, it is clear that his violence toward Luke is in large part derived from a vicious repudiation of his old self.
The truly tragic aspect of father-son abuse is that it is perpetuated from one generation to another. “Carried shame and carried feelings...are the means by which the wound, the legacy of pain, is passed from father to son, mother to son, across generations” (Real 206). Luke does not even know Vader is his father during the bulk of their confrontation, but he has already identified him as the one who will determine his masculinity. It matters little that he hates him; indeed, that is quite typical for the more dysfunctional father-son relationships. He responds to Vader’s taunts and attacks just like a resentful son who accepts and strives for his father’s version of masculinity no matter how much he despises him. He shows bravado. “You’ll find I’m full of surprises,” he brags, and fights recklessly. He responds to Vader’s taunt not to let himself “be destroyed” by obeying, though he believes he is being willfully defiant, by fending off another attack. Vader says repeatedly, “Join me,” and though Luke overtly refuses, the hatred and violence in his refusal is a covert acceptance of the sort of masculinity that Vader is offering. Real speaks of the awful transference that occurs during abuse. “In this tragic moment, the very forces that betray the boy, forces he most often finds abhorrent, come to live inside him” (207). Luke, as he was warned in the cave on Dagobah, is in danger of becoming his father.
As the duel becomes increasingly one-sided, culminating in the severing of Luke’s hand, Vader’s tone shifts from that of a contender to what Pittman calls “a controller,” yet another guise of distorted masculinity. He explains, “the need to control may appear selfish and intrusive to the objects of it, but the men who are doing the controlling see themselves as fixing things, correcting them, or getting them back on track. A man would feel irresponsible and ashamed of himself if he let things go out of control when he had the chance to make them ‘right’” (82). This serves as a remarkably accurate portrait of the man who once said, “I’m good at fixing things...Why couldn’t I save [my mother]? I know I could have...I should be [all-powerful]. Someday I will be.” Such notions, taken to the extreme, have led Vader to this confrontation with his son. “I will complete your training,” he declares confidently. “With our combined strength we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy...Join me, and we can rule the galaxy as father and son.” Ruling the galaxy -- the ultimate form of control.
But it is at this point, at last, that Luke begins to envision another form of being a man that does not involve destructive masculinity. Unlike Vader, who insists that his way of life is “the only way,” Luke is able to release the aggression and resentment that has proved so damaging during this first confrontation, and literally releases his hold on the structure that is holding him up. He escapes Vader and his dark vision of manhood. When they meet again, he will not be so susceptible to that vision. Standing on the verge of achieving the Sith’s violent version of masculinity, urged on by the Emperor’s “Take your father’s place at my side!”, Luke definitively throws away his weapon and all destructive notions of manhood with it.
So there is hope even when faced with the destructive cycle of father-son abuse. It need not be perpetuated; both fathers and sons can be healed. It is not an easy process, nor is it one without pain. In Star Wars, this is symbolized as Luke must watch his father die just when he is truly beginning to know and understand him. However, that knowledge will give him the strength to pass on a better legacy to future generations, not one of resentment and violence, but of the quiet strength and courage of true manhood.
Sources:
McDiarmid, Ian. Revenge of the Sith DVD, special features
Pittman, Frank. Man Enough: Fathers, Sons and the Search for Masculinity.
Real, Terrence. I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-11 12:44 pm (UTC)Anyway, this is a topic that's always been important to me even outside of Star Wars. My father and husband are kind, good-hearted men even though they didn't always have the best father figures as an example, and I want to perpetuate that positive cycle with my own sons.