The Star Wars trailer came out the other day. Don’t know if it will be a good movie or not but the initial signs are positive. Movie trailers are not a huge event to most people but to devotees of the series, it was highly anticipated.
Nowadays trailers usually come out on YouTube and people on YouTube will film what’s called reaction videos. Basically videos of their initial and genuine reaction to the trailer. I could waste hours watching these. I find it somewhat fascinating to watch these. I was also shocked that so many people made these videos already.
I like watching not only the reactions but in particular I also like to note the diversity of the fan base. Not all Star Wars fans are pasty skinned, fat, glass wearing nerds. The phenomena that is the Star Wars series runs the gamut through all races, genders, and economic backgrounds and is worldwide.
It’s somewhat difficult to explain the appeal of this series. I mean it’s one thing to say that it all has to do with cool special effects and space movies and fighting but I feel that there must be more here. These are a series of movies that people have memorized all the lines and regularly quote these lines to one another during conversations. I don’t mean that they quote just memorable lines but they will quite literally quote each and every line to one another no matter how innocuous the line.
I don’t think that happens with any other series, even with venerated series like Star Trek. Something about the themes, the ideas behind the story reaches out and touches individuals no matter what their background or situation. They can relate to a character in the story, they can relate to the feeling of struggling against a system that feels oppressive, they can relate something of their own particular situation to what they see up on the screen.
Something else I noted watching all these reaction videos was the number of female fans that posted reaction videos. Nerd and science fiction culture has had to take a long and hard look at itself with regards to the ingrained discrimination towards female fans this last year. It has been a painful but most necessary process. We who have proclaimed ourselves to be the oppressed underdogs fighting against a system that discriminates against us. We have been guilty of the same sort of oppression against female fans. A lot of the old guard nerds have asserted that female fans are not as passionate about science fiction or that they just “don’t get it”. I think this puts that argument to rest.
Just one more to make the point.
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