Of Catharsis and Dreams: Why Star Wars gives Hope

Every zeitgeist has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes examining weaknesses can point to interesting directions. A weakness in current storytelling is that the dominant perspective is so heavily focused upon realism in terms of reflecting behavior that on the whole it very often lacks a proposed idealization to strive for.

The role of iconography is not to hang up the representation of what one is experiencing currently but what one wishes to experience. It is a reminder of what to strive for.

Chuck Wild, (who produces ambient music under the title Liquid Mind) had a nervous breakdown while working on the Max Headroom project (keeping in mind he was also in the 80's pop band Missing Persons... most folks might know the song "Words"). That is when he gave up his pop-culture life.

One of the novel concepts he conveyed to me when we were talking once was that he said everything changed when he stopped making music that sounded like he felt and started making music that sounded like he wanted to feel.

Catharsis has its place, and it is important. But the art of iconography has become overly atrophied in the desired pursuit of gaining audience connection through empathy.

It is the easier task to discover what people will empathize with because of what they have gone through than it is to find what idealism will cause them to feel better after adopting it as their desire. It is easier to point out what there is than it is to offer what there could be.

Catharsis and idealization are not incompatible, either. Many reasons why iconographic figures have remained relevant to so many down through the ages is because their stories have relatable experiences embedded within them to some extent. The principal difference is that they use those moments to show the individual take an action that is considered the much harder option. The action which does not inherently come naturally but is desired.

Art is at its most interestingly complex when it works to seduce the audience with an empathetic cleansing, but then challenges them to become something more than they can be.

What does this have to do with Star Wars?
Well, Lucas' Star Wars gives a dream. It proposes an answer. It doesn't just tell us how things are. It accomplished the hardest thing possible. It found an idealism that people want to believe in.

That's its staying power.

The next time you watch Lucas' Star Wars, realize that you're not watching something that reflects how you are feeling. You're watching something that changes the way you feel.
It doesn't simply reflect what you are. It challenges you to aspire to be more than you are.

This may seem obvious, but I think right now it's very easy to lose sight of this. To see Star Wars for its skin and want to see it filled with our selves; people like us. People who feel like we do. Whom we can vent through.

To lose sight that Star Wars is a soul that fills our skin and asks us to be better people.

The biggest hope in Star Wars is that it can touch people and make them want to be better.
And I hope it does. I hope we don't lose that.

Cheers,
Jayson