Earlier this week, the Disney-owned broadcast network ABC abruptly pulled the late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live from the airwaves after being pressured by the U.S. government. A few days prior, Dan Gilroy1 and the show Andor, another Disney-owned entity, was being awarded an Emmy for outstanding writing for this powerful speech delivered by Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma — who was totally snubbed in the acting category, by the way — warning of “the monster who will come for us all soon enough.”
It is not lost on us that the mega corporation that kowtows to an authoritarian government is the same media company that produces intellectual property that can, at times, critique and challenge that same authority. For nearly two and a half centuries, the bedrock of American freedom was the fact that the government could not abridge the people’s ability or right to speak out. That bedrock was shattered, not only because the government has been cracking at it since January 20, but because corporate media — in its relentless greed — was happy to go along.
You see, it wasn’t just that Disney succumbed to the FCC. It was reacting to its affiliates — run by right-leaning corporations like Nexstar and Sinclair currying favor with the Administration because it needs them to rewrite the rules. So not only is this an issue of government censorship, there’s also a dash of good old corruption on top!
When Andor season 2 premiered back in April, showrunner Tony Gilroy tried to make clear that the show wasn’t “ripped from the headlines” Law & Order-style.
Even then, it was hard not to see the parallels between a galaxy far, far away in the grips of the Empire while our own country was similarly creeping toward fascism. From jump, the second season of Andor showed masked storm troopers rounding up migrants and terrorizing communities. Later episodes chronicled how the Empire exploits tragedy for political gain and uses propaganda to keep its ordinary citizens ignorant of the truth.
In its most prophetic episode, the aforementioned Emmy-winning “Welcome to the Rebellion,” the Ghorman senator Dasi Oran — played by Raphael Roger Levy — is dragged out of the senate by Imperial forces. Less than a month later in a galaxy not so far away, California Senator Alex Padilla was similarly roughed up by government goons for simply asking questions about why federal troops were occupying an American city.
The reason why Andor was so prescient was not because Tony Gilroy had a crystal ball and could see into the future. Rather, Gilroy was able to draw from history. Everything that is happening in our country today is out of the same authoritarian playbook that has plagued humanity for generations. Only now, we have our own version of the Galactic HoloNet to supercharge disinformation and outrage across the globe and back in seconds.
Also, like history, there is (a new?) hope. Time and again fascism has been defeated, but it requires determination and solidarity among various factions and communities. One of the takeaways from Andor is that the Rebellion cannot ascend until it unites. In Season One and early on in Season Two, we see an opposition that is splintered and petty — warring among themselves, trying to prove whose cause is more righteous and pure.
We can’t let that happen to us. Otherwise the Empire wins.
There is no right or wrong way to resist. There is no litmus test to decide if you are good enough to be on the right side of history. If you do not like what is happening in the country (or in a lot of the world, let’s be real), then you are with us. (Only the Sith deal in absolutes, after all).
The only thing we can do at The Nerds of Color is to continue telling the truth. With that, we leave you with these words from Mon Mothma.
The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.
And shout out to what Maarva really wanted to say at the end of Season One.
- Looks like Dan had the same idea and just posted his own column at Deadline about the parallels between Andor and [gestures broadly at everything] ↩︎