When Sara Westcott protested Donald Trump’s administration at a “No Kings” march in Albany, New York, she got inspired by a fight against a fictional fascist empire.
“The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil,” the protest sign reads. It is a quote from “Andor,” the Disney+ “Star Wars” TV series.
In a risky anti-authoritarian speech, Sen. Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) calls out the Empire for its propaganda. For Westcott, that moment also rang true to her experiences living under the Trump administration. That’s because in “Andor,” what happens in a galaxy far, far away feels all too close to what’s happening in U.S. politics right now.
“We’re living in a space of objective reality, but there are people who want to take that and twist that,” Westcott, a paralegal, said about why she wanted to quote Mothma’s speech. She also cited dehumanizing propaganda against undocumented immigrants that inaccurately claims they commit more violent crimes than U.S.-born citizens.
The second season of “Andor,” which aired its finale in May, wrapped production before Trump got re-elected, but it has eerie real-life parallels. People on TikTok, for example, are creating video edits that compare U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla being pinned to the ground by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for speaking up at a press conference to the Ghorman senator who cries out “No warrant, no charges” in “Andor” as he gets forcibly removed from the Senate by stormtroopers.
When asked in an interview about the show’s historic inspirations, “Andor” creator Tony Gilroy has demurred, saying, “You could drop this show at any point in the last 6,000 years, and it would make sense to some people about what’s happening to them.”
“Power dictates the narrative, and always has tried to always do that,” he continued. “Look at what the Empire does to Ghorman with their propaganda campaign. The very first scene [in Season 2] that Krennic has where he talks about Ghorman, that’s based on the Wannsee convention — the convention where the Nazis got together and planned the final solution over a business lunch.”
But out of the many TV shows and movies that could be referenced in protests against the Trump administration, it’s not by chance that it’s “Andor,” a show where “oppression is the mask of fear” is a popular resistance manifesto.
Why ‘Andor’ Is The Most Politically Relevant Sci-Fi Series Giving People Hope
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Despite the many real-life parallels, “Andor” is fictional, and that could be one reason for its enduring popularity, said Michael Lechuga, the chair and an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of New Mexico.
He said the show’s references at recent protests could be because science fiction is a safe medium for people “to test out their political views.”
“There’s not real people dying,” Lechuga said about “Andor.” It can be a less controversial topic to discuss with others than “What do I feel about what’s happening in the Middle East?” he said.
“The rise of fascism has happened multiple times in the recent past, but yet for most Americans, the history books aren’t the places where we’ll go to help make sense of this,” he said. “Media like ‘Star Wars’ give us a common language that we understand each other with.”
And the overarching message of “Andor” is that resisting a fascist regime is a slog, which may be more relatable to Americans against Trump at this time.
“It’s not like in the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy where they get off scot-free for the most part,” said “Andor” fan Chris Mallard, a Philadelphia-based digital marketer. “In this huge galactic civil war, there’s a lot of loss and just a lot of setbacks, which is true right now, it feels like.”
Season 2 of “Andor” takes place a few years before Luke, Han and Leia become the medaled heroes of the rebellion in “Star Wars: A New Hope.” In “Andor,” victory against a galactic Empire that uses military force and mass surveillance to maintain its chokehold on its civilians is unlikely. As resistance spy leader Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) puts it, “We fight to win. That means we lose, and lose and lose and lose, until we’re ready.”
“Andor” excels at showing how draining, terrifying and unglamorous it is to work for a rebellion. In this world, the show’s lead Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), along with most of the main cast of rebels, are everyday civilians toiling away in shops, hotels and fields who die before ever seeing a world free of tyranny.
Unlike In ‘Andor,’ ‘We Don’t Know How This Is Going To End Right Now.’
The final season of the show is bleak: It features the injustice of police-sanctioned raids hunting down undocumented people, unarmed singing protesters facing violent beatdowns by the authorities, and a galaxy where the word “genocide” to describe a planet’s massacre is taboo to say out loud by bootlicking broadcasters spinning the truth.
But “Andor” fans, at least, have the comfort of knowing that the resistance eventually prevails and topples the Empire.
“We don’t know how this is going to end right now,” Mallard said about the future of the real world under Trump. “Yeah, it does suck that ‘Star Wars’ is what we have to rely on [for hope] right now, because when we turn on the actual news, or we look into the actual world, everything seems so dire and chaotic.”
Mallard said he enjoys wearing his shirt, emblazoned with the show’s phrase “I have friends everywhere,” as a “quiet nod” to other fans who understand that it’s a code resistance members use to identify who is a friend and who is a foe.
Rosie Knight, a co-host of the “X-Ray Vision” podcast, which analyzed the latest “Andor” season, said the “I have friends everywhere” line is meant to convey solidarity.
“Even though you may feel like you’re by yourself, you’re actually not, and there’s so many other people who are willing to fight alongside you,” Knight said. Like Luthen declaring that the rebellion is beyond him now, the line has evolved beyond its original meaning, “by the audience who are now giving it a different life,” she said, referring to protest signs.
When Mallard wears it, he believes it can be a signal that communicates, “There are other people, regardless of our background or our specific political beliefs, that understand, at least, that this is not right, what’s happening, and that we have to do something about it.”
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