Disney CEO Thinks ROGUE ONE Isn't Political, But He Couldn't Be More Wrong

Bob Iger is clearly a smart person. Iger is the chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, and the one who brought Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm under the company's umbrella, so he obviously knows a thing or two about the film industry. But one of his recent statements about one of Disney's highest-profile films of 2016 is so utterly baffling, I actually laughed out loud when I read the transcript. 

Neo-Nazi protestors created a #DumpStarWars hashtag and threatened to boycott Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, largely because it has a diverse cast led by a female protagonist (Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones), and because one of the film's writers, Chris Weitz, drew parallels between the Empire and President-elect Donald Trump. When asked about this little online dust-up at Rogue One's Hollywood premiere this past weekend, Iger told THR:

"Frankly, this is a film that the world should enjoy. It is not a film that is, in any way, a political film. There are no political statements in it, at all."

Iger's statement is false on multiple levels. As this excellent piece in Filmmaker Magazine argues, all movies are political. Political decisions enter into every movie long before the first time the cameras begin to roll, and every film has a point of view that inherently falls somewhere on the political spectrum. On another level, this is a Star Wars movie. "War" is right there in the title, and no one — not even a fictional character — fights a war without politics factoring into the equation in some way. And that doesn't even include the fact that this whole film series is essentially an allegory about the rise and fall of fascism. ('Member stormtroopers? No, not the ones from earlier Star Wars films...the real ones.)

But on a third, even more specific level, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is explicitly about a rebel alliance fighting back against authoritarian forces attempting to suppress them. It doesn't get much more political than that. The movie is stuffed with lines that directly address our current political climate. 

Captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) is the first person in the movie to utter the line "rebellions are built on hope." He explains to Jyn his threadbare plan to secure a meeting with rebel extremist Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), and when she's unconvinced, his line serves as a way to express how hope is all they have at that moment. The sentiment must land with Jyn in a big way, because she repeats it later in the movie during a key moment when she attempts to persuade the rebel council to green light a mission to steal the Death Star plans.

But before she transitions into a daring leader, Saw asks Jyn if she can stomach the idea of the Empire taking over, if she can handle the idea of Imperial flags flying in the streets above them. Jyn's selfish response: "It's not a problem if you don't look up." At that point, which is relatively early on in the film, she's a reluctant participant in the politics of her galaxy. She has no intellectual skin in the game; she goes along with the rebels solely to find out what's happened to her father, whom she hasn't seen in the fifteen years since he was captured and torn from his family right in front of her eyes. It's not hard to see the connection between that line and anyone just putting their heads down and refusing to engage with the reality of the American political landscape post-election, or those who are fortified in their myopic info bubbles and are just being fed the same bits of information from the same perspective without "looking up" (read: seeking out information beyond the same couple of outlets). 

Later, Jyn has a bit of a verbal sparring session with Cassian that reminded me of another very modern phenomenon: seeing newcomers to a cause expressing themselves on social media and watching them get called out by those who have been entrenched in that cause for years. Even though Jyn is the protagonist and we follow her perspective through the story, Cassian points out that she's not the only one who has suffered at the hands of the Empire. Jyn's newness to the fight means she didn't take the time to consider what Cassian and his soldiers may have sacrificed to reach this stage and get the rebellion to where it is. Even though they're on the same side, it takes a bit of conflict before they can ultimately come to an understanding (this is something I've seen happen a lot on liberal Twitter).

Riz Ahmed plays a pilot named Bodhi Rook, a man who formerly worked for the Empire but deserted and delivered an indispensable message from Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) to the rebels. In the movie, his character grapples with the choice he made, saying, "I knew I could do something about it if I was brave enough and listened to what was in my heart." That line could double as a call to action for those still reeling from Trump's surprise win and who may need a nudge toward doing what we can to offset the effects of his presidency. But it's actually Ahmed, not his character, who has the best summation of the film's message. As he told the UK's Evening Standard:

"Rogue One is about waking up to the real political situation of your time and accepting you can't sleepwalk into the future because there won't be one." 

By saying Rogue One isn't political, Bob Iger seems to be trying to minimize the controversy and entice as many people as possible to see the movie in theaters. Time will tell how that tactic plays out for the film financially, but his response doesn't have any shred of truth to it. Rogue One is one of the most political films of the year, and thanks to the results of the election, it's now also one of the most timely. Hopefully audiences will see the real-life parallels when the film opens this weekend. After all, rebellions are built on hope.