The Ideology of Saw Gererra
or, Why can't Star Wars say Revolution?
Saw Gererra is to me the most fascinating character in the Star Wars Canon. He is Che Guevara. He is Malcolm X. He's a man who has destroyed every part of himself in the single minded pursuit of freedom. And, most importantly, he is a white man's caricature of a black revolutionary. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at square one.
This is the first piece of concept art for Saw in Rogue One (2016). (Aaron Mcbride, 2014)
Take a moment to look at that. Really drink it in. What do you see?
I see a barbaric warrior king. A mutilated cyborg sitting alone atop a throne of skulls. In the background smoke drifts up from a hookah and draconic creatures soar through the air. On his forehead is an inverted symbol of the Rebel Alliance. This is an ogre with a dash of Orientalism for flavor.
This man is the antithesis to the Rebellion. He is everything the characters of Luke Skywalker (and by extension all Jedi associated with the Rebels) and Mon Mothma (representing the democratic core of the Alliance) stand against. He is maximum violence, minimum democracy.
This character is explicitly based on the villain of Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kurtz. Kurtz is a genocidal megalomaniac who has set himself up as a warrior god somewhere in the jungle between Vietnam and Laos. Kurtz is a colonizer. He is a warlord. He is a man who murders innocents, conducts terror campaigns, and collects grisly trophies from the people he has killed. He is dangerously intelligent. He is white. He is the embodiment of American Jingoism.
This is another piece of concept art from the same period by Vincent Jenkins.
And here is the classic Star Wars villain, Jabba the Hutt.
Saw Gerrera in his nascent state was a villain. And that, I think, is the core of my conflict with his later characterization. This character, this warlord, is a man who listens to no one but himself. This is the character who executes suspected spies and may or may not plant evidence to justify the execution. This is the character who leaves his allies to die after he's gotten what he wants. This is the character who will stop at nothing to exalt himself and his violence. This is the character who kicks puppies.
The writers for Rogue One ultimately settled on Forest Whitaker as the only actor who could play Saw Gererra. And before Mr. Whitaker was even aware of the project the team had put together concept art of who this character would be with Mr. Whitaker at the helm
Adam Brockbank. Saw's Throneroom, circa 2014?
Whitaker's Saw is a different character entirely. This Saw is frayed. He is visibly disabled and he has trouble concentrating. A lifetime of war and head injuries has left Saw dangerous, ethereal, and borderline incomprehensible. In Rogue One Saw is a man who knows he's at the end of his rope. He orders suicidal attacks, sees threats in every shadow, and ultimately embraces his death. To me this Saw Gerrera is the narrative foil to Darth Vader.
This has since been retconned to, 'he was high on gas fumes the whole time.' Which is why I hate Star Wars.
In his interviews Mr. Whitaker repeatedly uses the term 'by any means necessary.' This phrase is immediately identifiable with the black revolutionary Malcolm X. Mr. Whitaker also mentions that he discussed the philosophy of Saw with the director and introduced several elements to the character that were not present in the draft proposed to him. While I haven't found an interview where he explicitly mentions Malcolm X other fans of Saw's character have come to similar conclusions.
Another key piece of evidence for my interpretation of Saw Gererra is the composition of his Partisans. Saw's rebel group is the only majority alien force of significant size. The Yavin force is white and human, the Maia Pey Brigade is white and human, the planet Alderaan is the whitest and the humanest. The Galactic Alliance to Restore the Republic is by and large White and Human.
Unrelated Tubes is my favorite character design in the whole series
Aliens in Star Wars are a metaphor for minorities. This is most clearly seen in the light of the Empire. The Empire is explicitly racist. Its officers are for the most part white men. Aliens in the series are shown to be poor, dispossessed, and colonized. Wookiees are enslaved, Weequay are pirates with dreadlocks, Mos Eisley is a ghetto.
Hondo Ohnaka and his inexplicably well armed gang of pirates
Saw's Partisans are Black. Saw's Partisans are Arabic. Saw's Partisans are Latino. Saw's Partisans are Aliens. Which leads me to believe that, as a leader of a militant minority faction, the character of Saw Gererra is rooted in Malcolm X.
Our three direct inspirations for Saw's character are, therefore, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, and Colonel Kurtz. I would also argue that there is a healthy dose of Huey P. Newton, Mao Zedong, and the American interpretations of Osama Bin Laden and Mohamed Aidid present in Saw's character but I promised myself that I would only consult two books to write this post.
For simplicity's sake I will say that the common threads between Malcolm X and Che Guevara are colonization and socialism. Both of these men recognized that their people were suffering under colonial exploitation and both of them came to the conclusion that violence was the only viable path to liberation and self determination. They also came to the conclusion that a socialist system was the best way to create something new without recreating the systems of oppression they were fighting against. And they were both killed by imperial forces bent on preventing their goals of socialist liberation.
And with a little bit of Kurtz thrown in we have a man with a very clear goal and an actionable plan for change who isn't going to listen to anyone else. But if you're as interested in Saw as I am you might have noticed that he doesn't have any of those things.
My presentation of this leads to a simple conclusion. Saw is some form of revolutionary socialist. But Star Wars can't say Revolution. Star Wars can't say Socialism. Star Wars at its core is a reactionary piece of media focused on the idea of restoring American democracy. Or, as it is known in-universe, The Cause. Anyone who does not support the Cause, and does not embody American Values, is a radical extremist who must be high on something.
Does anyone mind if a sensitive white boy libs out?
The Cause is most clearly defined in the character of Nemik and his Manifesto. Nemik's Manifesto is drivel. It's 18th Century humanism with all the sharp edges ground down. In a universe where corporations govern entire star systems he doesn't talk about labor. In universe of overbearing colonizers he doesn't talk about exploitation. In a deeply industrial and political setting he doesn't talk about material conditions. Instead the ideology of the rebellion is the natural human desire to push away oppression and seek liberty. Whatever that means.
Which means that Saw can't talk about being black. He can't talk about being pushed out of his home after his government was overthrown by corporate interests. He can't talk about those interests being seized by the state. He can't talk about fascism, he can't talk about colonialism, and he can't talk about racism.
So what can he talk about? What is his clarity of purpose?
The Motherfucking Death Star
Saw's entire arc is the Death Star. His political motivations are destroying the Death Star. His rebel group exists to destroy the Death Star. He is gathering weapons, gathering intelligence, and setting up bases to hunt down the Death Star.
That's it. That's his white whale.
That is literally all he is doing within the narrative. That's his clarity of purpose. He knows that the empire is going to get even more imperial so he's gotta blow that shit up. He can't dream of revolution. He can't imagine a better tomorrow. He's gotta blow that shit up right now and damn the consequences. Everything else can be handled by someone else.
In conclusion, Saw is a black revolutionary who committed the cardinal sin of being rude to white people. And for this monstrous crime he is doomed to be trapped in the steaming pile of bullshit that its Star Wars.
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