Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord

The purpose of this blog is to show how sexuality and pop culture create the sociological norms constantly seen in society that cause individuals to feel isolated and feel like they do not have role in society and relate it to Star Wars and the society depicted across the movies.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim thinks that the moments when society is in rapid change and refuses to settle on social norms, or what is generally accepted and valued. When the economy, political scene, and the culture is constantly changing and never settles it can cause people to feel like they do not fit in or have a purpose in the society at hand. Instead of the suicide rates spiking or increasing due to depression, loss, or loneliness, increases are usually seen because of anomie. Anomie is the normlessness that can be observed in our society recently without a lot of traditions and values being thrown out to create new ones which also get thrown out and continue in a cycle, until society makes up its mind and puts it’s foot down on societal norms. In Star Wars Anakin Skywalker who is a Jdi suffers from a dilemma of being a Jedi knight, but going against the values of the order by pursuing his love interest with Padme. Later on in the series this relationship with Padme is what leads to Anakin being emotionally unstable and betraying the order for the hope of saving Padme from suffering the same fate as his Mother. Anakin never really fit into the society of the Jedi like most of the members did, he was known for being a lot more brash, reckless, and emotional. As well as being extremely strong in the force at a young age and having the pressure of being the “chosen one” from an old prophecy and being expected to live to very high expectations. Anakin was not caught in a rapidly changing society but he was caught in a society that would not bend its norms to accommodate him and refused to extend him the help and guidance he needed to continue down the right path, instead of the path of becoming Darth Vader. Even without a rapidly changing society, an individual undergoing the process of finding themselves and dealing with loss can find it really easy to fall out of the ongoing loop of society and feel outcast-ed. Once this happens individuals who already stand out a lot feel even more isolated from society and tend to lash out at those close to them or society as a whole for causing them to feel like that. Is it the rapid burst of change in society that causes the feeling of isolation and loss of purpose or is it a person who is very different from most who cant find their place in society due to their own misgivings and insecurities to be who they truly are regardless of how society reacts?

Regardless of light and dark, carve out your own path in life ~Keishawn

Diversity is a topic many sociologist, film makers, politicians, and the common person have debated heavily over and present differing opinions on the subject. Diversity is the composition of something that has multiple elements, usually referring to race of people involved. It is stated that white people, or Caucasians, are the most privileged group in the United States. Not only that they also make up the majority of the roles in Pop Culture here in the United States. Although other races have been steadily involved in more roles in extremely prominent movies. In the Star Wars franchise there were almost no characters that were not white, but now it is rare to see a movie in the franchise does not have multiple races in prominent roles and side roles in the movies. Diversity has become a lot more sought after in recent movies but all of the attention towards the topic has not been good. In a sense Scarlet Johansson, who played the lead in Ghost in The Shell, received a tremendous amount of hate because of her being white and playing a lead that was an Asian woman in the source content.  This could be seen as diversifying roles by freeing the perceived requirement that if the source has an Asian lead the lead in the adaptation needs to be Asian as well. Getting rid of that perceived obligation and expectation opens up the door for a lot more talent to emerge from all sorts of backgrounds and races. I see this increase in diversity as a really good thing in concept, but in practice I feel like it can really hurt movies or  shows if better talent is just dropped simply to increase the diversity in a production. The opposite end of this obsession with increasing diversity are movies like Black Panther which was praised for its all black cast but also turned a lot of people away by them not feeling like they can relate to the movie or theme if they are not black. Another example of the products of this craze for diversity backfiring would be the situation with the character Rose in The Last Jedi. The actor received a insurmountable amount of hate on social media from “fans” of Star Wars that were upset at her characters writing in the film. A lot of people hate the character because of her Rose not having very good writing behind her character or not being integrated well is from the result of focusing more on the race of the actor playing a character, instead of making the character interesting and relate-able to the general audience and possible fans that have not yet been introduced to the Franchise. Diversity is always seen as a good thing, but do you think its having more of a positive or negative impact on Pop Culture as a whole?

Stay classy everyone ~Keishawn