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Skywalker: Bad Fathers and Good Sons

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSNChapter

Published
Publication date8/03/2023
Host publicationDetoxing Masculinity in Anglophone Literature and Culture: in Search of Good Men
EditorsS. Martín, M.I. Santaulària
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Pages197-213
Number of pages17
ISBN (electronic)9783031221446
ISBN (print)9783031221439
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Luke Skywalker, the embodiment of good masculinity in the Star Wars universe, cannot but understand the ‘detoxing’ of masculinity as the detoxing of the Jedi ethos and its institutions. The central triangular conflict of the original trilogy is between Luke, Darth Vader, and Obi-wan Kenobi, three Jedi in a patrilinear conflict, but Luke resolves Jedi masculinity at the end of Return of the Jedi through ‘saving’ his father. In the final trilogy, further issues with Jedi masculinity are problematically resolved in the figure of Rey, and revising masculinity away from action heroics and toward giving. Rey, in becoming Skywalker, is the Star Wars films’ final multiply gendered embodiment of the ‘good man’.