Dispatches from the Culture Wars Part I: The Impossibility of Apolitical Popular Culture
Photo Credit: (Daily Star Trek News / Google Images)
Written by: Daniel Xie
On May 5, 2020 the worker-owned video gaming cooperative Pixel Pushers Union 512 released their video game, Tonight We Riot. It is published by Means Interactive, the game publishing arm of worker-owned leftist media company Means TV. The game was, according to it’s developers, made to be explicitly political, with Variety.com noting that the game was not only fun to play but also”unapologetically political”. The storyline of the game revolves around the player controlling crowds of revolutionaries as they struggle to liberate their nation from the tyrannical rule of a corporation that has made peaceful protest and reform all but impossible. Said themes have been interwoven with commanding the revolutionaries to liberate workplaces and fight giant robots deployed by said corporation and mutant squid monsters.
According to the developers of the game, Tonight we Riot is not an anomaly in seeking to bring forward a message deemed to be “unapologetically political”. Rather, popular culture and the media that it creates are inherently political, being influenced by a set of politics and biases even when these biases aren’t the message said work seeks to . For instance, the code steward for Tonight we Riot, Stephen Meyer, told Kotaku magazine that many games in the first person shooter or carrying military themes express neoconservative worldviews in enforcing the idea that everything can be resolved through military force and rampant jingoism.
Meyer states that by contrast, there are rarely games with leftist themes and the lack of games that have left leaning themes, and this in turn encouraged him to help in the development of a game with unabashedly socialist themes. Ted Anderson, the art steward of this project, was also inspired to create a game with unabashed socialist themes by the lack of games with such a message, citing how Bioshock Infinite portrayed a socialist black-led revolution against a white supramacist run flying city. However, they chose to frame it in a centrist narrative, with the revolutionaries seeking racial and socioeconomic justice being portrayed by Bioshock Infinite as just as bad as the racists.
In portraying all media as inherently political, Anderson and Meyer delved into a very controversial topic within the gaming community, let along popular culture itself: Are popular culture, in particular the media we consume, inherently political? Advocates of the idea that the media we consume inherently carries political messages have faced significant opposition from various detractors. In it’s moderate form, opposition to the idea of a politicized pop culture would rely on the idea that modern popular culture has been exploring too many political hot topics such as race, gender and socioeconomic issues, and seek a return to something less political.
In its most extreme form, which also manifests very commonly, opposition to the notion of a political popular culture manifests through the alt-right culture warriors on the far right, emerging in internet spaces through the Comicsgate movement, the GamerGate movement and the Fandom Menace movement. They lament the supposed perception that modern day entertainment in the western world, such as sci-fi giants like Star Wars, Star Trek, and Doctor Who have been infested with “left leaning”, “SJW”, and “progressive” politics.
In their mad drive to keep popular culture “apolitical”, the far-right have lashed out at anyone who stands in their way by whatever underhanded means necessary, unleashing a massive wave of online hatred that have forced celebrities off social media for fear of inciting the wrath of the far right, and have also put people at risk in the real world for simply calling them off. The leadership of the alt-right cultural purists have no remorse for anyone caught in the crosshairs, viewing anyone calling out their who refuse to approve of their actions or call out their xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia and misogyny as “soy boys” or people unwilling to understand “satire”.
Regardless of the legitimate shortcomings of modern Star Wars Sequel Trilogy or Star Trek, upon closer examination of the pieces of popular culture they lash out at, and the past history of such popular culture, the entire worldview of far-right culture warriors of a “apolitical popular culture” falls apart. The “sci-fi giants” that the alt-right accuses of being infiltrated by “social justice” and “leftism” such as Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who always provided space for progressive or even leftist interpretations of what constituted current politics in the past.
With regards to Star Wars, far-right culture warriors yearn for the days of the Original Trilogy, lamenting the supposed “political turn” of the Prequel Trilogy and the Sequel Trilogy. Yet the Original Trilogy was also written as political commentary for America in the 1960s and the 1970s. While the Galactic Empire is often associated with the Third Reich, George Lucas intended for the Empire to be a critique of American politics rather than a simple Nazi analogue.
The Ewoks that were instrumental in helping the Rebel Alliance overthrow the Empire in Return of the Jedi was based on the National Liberation Front, or Viet Cong, that successfully defeated the US and their South Vietnemese client state during the Vietnam War. Now, it could be argued that the parallelism was coincidental, and there wasn’t a message regarding opposition to American imperialism in Indochina that was intentionally stated by Lucas. Yet Lucas stated that the inspiration for the franchise’s main antagonist, Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious was partly rooted in his observations during the Nixon administration, which got him thinking about political corruption and how democracies are subverted into dictatorship. Tthis plot point being explored through the Prequel Trilogy and the accompanying “The Clone Wars” animated series. From these observations of Lucas’ behavior, it is clear that Star Wars did have a clear political message: Democracies are susceptible to Fascism and rampant imperialism under the wrong hands and through the complicity of the masses.
As with Star Wars, the original Star Trek also expressed the “progressive” politics of it’s time. While the far-right laments how the lead of Star Trek Discovery is a black woman, what their perception of a previously “un-progressive” Star Trek ignores that the Original Star Trek series embraced diversity, with multicultural representatives who demonstrate competence on the job and who are accepted as equals and professionals. For instance, the original series had George Takei, a Japanese-American, play the role of Sulu, while Nichelle Nichols, an African-American woman played the role of Lieutenant Commander Uhura.
The latter casting was significant because back then, it was a rarity to see a black woman on prime-time TV, and even rarer to see a black woman (or woman full stop) cast as one of the leads. The significance of a black woman as one of the leads on the small screen was recognized by Civil Rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr, who urged Nichols to stay on after the end of the first season as part of the cast. This was as she was becoming a role model for many black people--including Caryn Elaine Johnson, known by her stage name Whoppi Goldberg.
In addition, the various pre-Discovery Star Trek series contained various episodes that expressed themes that would be ripped apart by the far right today for being “social justice oriented”. These include:
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (The Original Series), which explores how unwillingness to give up racial hatred and the desire to pursue genocidal goals to the bitter end will lead to nothing but self-destruction
A Taste of Armageddon (The Original Series), which explores how Cold War bomb drills and nuclear war simulations only worsens paranoia and desensitizes the population to an apocalyptic conflict
Patterns of Force (The Original Series), which explores how even attempting to establish a neo fascist regime with “good intentions” will always backfire and succumb to hateful and ultranationalistic behavior
The Measure of a Man (The Next Generation), which explores themes related to slavery and the sentience of artificial intelligence
Far Beyond the Stars (Deep Space Nine), which explores the experiences of black people facing racism during the United States in the 1950. It should be noted that it was directed by Avery Brooks, the actor for Benjamin Sisko because the writing team felt that a black person would be best positioned to talk about the lived experiences of black people
Past Tense, Part II (Deep Space Nine), which explores homelessness and the civil unrest that is generated from not finding a equitable solution to the problem of rampant poverty
The same can be said about Doctor Who, which also expressed left-leaning and political viewpoints before the supposed “leftist politicization frenzy” of the 21st century. Apart from having the Daleks, sentient killing machines that serve as villains in some of Doctor Who’s classic era storylines, be an allegory for Nazi Germany, various classic era episodes and story arcs expressed themes the alt-right would deride as “social justice oriented” or “leftist” such as:
Various episodes by Malcolm Hulke, who was a British Communist that wrote for the show, had explicitly socialist views. One example of such is The War Games, which involved clear anti-war and anti-imperialist themes.
The Two Doctors expressed support for vegetarianism
The Happiness Patrol had a clear anti-Thatcher message, with the main antagonist being a caricature of the conservative prime minister herself
The Sun Makers story arc revolves around anti-corporate politics, it features a private corporation price gouging people in exchange for providing them with heat and light from their artificial suns. In fact it begins with the Doctor having to talk down a character from comitting suicide because he can't pay his bill.
Timeless themes and Ethics?
Obviously both those that think popular fiction should be apolitical along with the literal far right culture warriors they might be unwittingly enabling would deny that the progressive themes expressed from time to time by Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who are political. They would insist that these themes are “moral”, “ethical” and “timeless” themes on how societies should behave and how societies can go wrong in contrast to the “politicized” themes of modern day popular culture. Yet who decides what is timeless, moral and ethical and what constitutes just behavior in a society?
Many values now taken for granted as timeless morals that should be reflected by everyone, just decades ago weren’t. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Fascism was seen as a effective form of government, with the Nazi government, along with the Italian and the Spanish fascists being championed by capitalists and right wing politicians in liberal democratic countries as a bulwark against Soviet communism. Meanwhile, prior to the end of the Second World War, eugenics was seen as a perfectly acceptable form of science. Even further back in time women had no rights outside of being a wife, child labour was employed in all factories, slavery was the norm in the American South, and the Divine Right of Kings was the law of the land.
What constitutes as “moral” and “uncontroversial” these days were not in more reactionary times. So how is it now that eugenics, child labour, and slavery utterly discredited? The answer is that these all happened through popular struggle. Workers had to struggle to get a welfare state, women had to struggle against the norms of their time and the laws of their time to vote, blacks in America had to struggle to oppose slavery and later Jim Crow. These struggles later on influenced what is accepted now as morally right or wrong. It was only through fighting tooth and nail against the dominant sociopolitical trends of the day by whatever means available to those on the margins that any gains towards a more just reality were made.
This is what allowed the injustices that existed in the past to be finally condemned as injustices. Many of the ethical and moral beliefs we hold today(that the very same far right in reality wants to destroy despite painting them as timeless morals arrayed against political wedge issues) that are seen as uncontroversial or apolitical were not seen as such by the dominant narratives in the past, and these narratives only changed through confrontation with the sociopolitical establishment viewing said ethics to be disruptive.
Through an examination of how far right critics of the notion of politicized popular culture have expressed anger at progressive issues being explored by the media but have filtered through earlier instances of such as “timeless morals” being expressed, the reactionary character of said far-right critics goes on full display. Many of the things that the far right derides as polarizing and overly controversial “progressive issues” such as racial justice or income inequality would not be seen as such by those facing socioeconomic despair or by marginalized communities (ie: women, people of color, LGBTQIA2S+), but rather as moral injustices that must be addressed.
They would instead see issues derided by the far right as overly political and polarizing as timeless moral issues that have been ignored and trampled on by society for so long. The far right expresses outrage at calls for progressive messages to be injected into media, but not at the fact that militaristic themes in a video game can express neoconservative worldviews. This demonstrates clearly that the alt-right aren’t fighting to free media from politicization, rather they are fighting to ensure that the narrative being expressed by media either does not shift in opposition to reactionary politics. They wish to ensure that the scope of popular culture shifts decisively in favor of reactionary and far-right politics.
The Law of Applicability
Now opponents of the notion of political popular culture and media may fire back that just because some media were created with political intent it doesn't prove anything about how popular culture is inherently political or shaped by sociopolitical themes that may be relevant to society. They may point out that many authors simply don’t attach a message or a clear allegory within their stories, or would clearly out of the gate argue that their stories weren’t supposed to evoke any politics at all.
On a surface glance, they appear to be correct, there have been many authors that indeed reject the notion that their works have any allegorical intention or an intention to reflect on the politics of their time. An example of an author that supposedly wrote stories with no political and allegorical intention in mind would be J.R.R. Tolkien with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. When the Trilogy first came out, a vocal segment of the reader base interpreted the trilogy as an allegory for the Second World War, with Sauron and the forces of evil being stand-ins for Nazi Germany. Tolkien however, while having no love for Nazism or ultra-nationalistic politics, denied that Lord of the Rings was a anti-Nazi political allegory, himself stating:
“I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”
Yet, just because Tolkien did not write Lord of the Rings with a potential anti-fascist allegory in mind, does not mean a reading of Lord of the Rings with a specific political viewpoint in mind isn’t there. The reason for this is because of the very applicability that Tolkien talks about. To go into why the concept of applicability opens non-allegorical works such as Lord of the Rings up to “politicized” readings, and thus makes media inherently political, it is important to define what “applicability” means. According to a popular culture wikia on oft-utilized fictional tropes, “applicability” is a literary trope where the author “encourages the reader to interpret what the theme of any given work is.” These interpretations may vary based on how one interprets current events in the context of their own lived experience.
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Within the context of applicability, Lord of the Rings is open to various politicized interpretations even when there is none. For instance, the Ring of Power as corrupting anyone that touches it or opening them to corruption can be read as a message about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. As someone who has followed the resurgence of the Left in American politics in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ failed bids for the presidency, I have interpreted the One Ring as the powers of the bourgeois state wielded in the service of capitalism.
Those that seek the ring for good intentions, such as Boromir and his father Denethor, are akin to social democratic reformists that, like Sanders and the Squad in the US, seek to use the powers of the capitalist state to change things from within. Only to end up reinforcing capital and getting little reforms done barring massive popular mobilization for said reforms. Tolkien encouraged everyone to draw their own conclusions from the story; this in turn opens up media such as Lord of the Rings to interpretations that might draw on the politics of the 21st century.
And Tolkien himself, while a conservative, not a socialist, was shaped by his own lived experiences and his own beliefs when writing Lord of the Rings; said lived experiences informing how he presented the story. As a critic of industrialization, the rule of the Shire by the villainous Saruman towards the end of the story and the chaos caused by his attempts at industrialization was informed by Tolkien’s perception on the negative effects of industrialization on the environment. In addition, much of the extreme mental stress and post-traumatic stress disorder that Frodo went through was influenced by the author’s own post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from his service during the First World War; which resulted in the deaths of all but one of his friends within the literary society he belonged to.
We can see the law of applicability with regards to how one’s lived experiences shape how we interpret and consume a work of fiction through an examination of the supposed “political” interpretations of the Star Wars sequel Trilogy. Far-rightists have attacked the Star Wars sequel Trilogy for having the neo-Fascist First Order, led in secret by a revived Palpatine through his puppet Snoke, as the main villains. Their reasoning being the idea that the First Order represented the alt-right, to be opposed by the “SJW” Resistance represented by Rey, Finn and Poe.
Yet it was never Disney’s intention at all to make social commentary about modern day America; this being because the Sequel Trilogy was in development since 2013 at the earliest, far before gamergate or the alt-right became a thing to worry about. Rather, the depiction of the First Order as equivalent to the alt-right emerged through progressives having to deal with rising neo-fascism manifesting through the alt-right. The toxic racist and sexist backlash against the casting for Rey, Finn and Rose and consequently relating to the struggle the Resistance faced against a new Fascist enemy was a result of their own lived experiences shaping how they interpret the film.
The politics of the Sequel Trilogy that was so derided by the reactionary Fandom Menace was never the theme intended by Disney, rather it was the theme that it became associated with by both reactionaries and those that have to struggle against them. The Sequels were never made arguably with allegorical intent unlike the first two eras of Star Wars film from my observation of the production of the new trilogy, but it was interpreted as having a message for modern-day audiences through applicability.
The Star Wars Sequel Trilogy isn’t alone as the only piece of fictional media to be interpreted as an anti-authoritarian, anti-fascist allegory outside the intention of it’s creators. In the Philippines, the Japanese animation Voltes V, created by Yoshiyuki Tomino, was credited by some as a symbol of resistance to the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled as president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, when he was ousted in a revolution. Voltes V was one of the television shows that was pulled off the air as a result of Marcos’ imposition of martial law in the Philippines.
It has been argued that while Voltes V was never made to incite rebellion against a kleptocratic regime, the children that grew up with Voltes V, known as the “Voltes V generation”, were angered that their show was pulled off the air, and this experience exposed them to the implications of authoritarian rule over their livelihoods and turned them against the Marcos regime. The experience of Filipinos with Voltes V is significant because it demonstrates that even through Voltes V was not made with a anti-Marcos message in mind, the lived experience of Filipinos under martial law created a situation where they interpreted the show to have been pulled off the air because of its themes. It involved children piloting giant robots being pitted against an evil alien empire. The people viewed the show to have been pulled off the air because challenged the narratives imposed by the Marcos regime and was seen as a threat.
Conclusions
Overall, despite what detractors to the idea of politicized popular culture on the right believe, popular culture as manifested through the media we consume is inherently political, with the concept of an apolitical popular culture being an impossibility. Many of the media criticized by apolitical and outright far-rightists for injecting “political discussion” into the discourse, such as Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who, have always provided space for progressive politics often mischaracterized as “timeless morals”. Despite the fact that many of these “morals” were established as such through struggle and activism.
While not every single author intended for their stories to have political messages and allegories in them, and some works may have different meanings in contrast how people commonly interpret said work, the law of applicability opens various works of fiction to be filtered through the lived experience of those consuming said work of fiction. Said interpretation possibly taking on a politicized nature as demonstrated with the Sequel Trilogy and Voltes V.
Rather than bend the knee and accept the falsified notion of media as apolitical, we should embrace the fact that the popular culture and popular media we consume are political, and use this as an opportunity to raise through penetrating into our popular culture and creating leftist content through the creation of popular media. This should not take over more pressing tasks such as the need to organize with and reach out to workers and marginalized communities or the need to build leftist organizations independent of control and influence by establishment political bodies.
However, it can be used as a weapon, or a tool, to encourage others to think about the issues facing millions under the boot of capitalism and social reaction and in turn help with movement building if used wisely. It will be an long and uphill battle, especially when facing up against reactionary communities and a increasingly corporatized media and entertainment industry, but through penetrating into popular culture, we have the opportunity to create an alternative to the dominant sociopolitical norms without popular culture that are defended or accepted by the reactionary right.