Learning from Andor: Rebellions are Built on Hope
Image: Stills from Andor / Rogue One
The world is a raging dumpster fire. And each day presents a new low – with hate, violence, oppression, and marginalization enduring aggressively. What does it mean to do the feminist thing in these times? What does it mean to call for feminist foreign policies at a time when the state has tried its hand at instrumentalizing feminism? What does it mean to hold the system accountable through a feminist lens?
Andor, the story of Rebel spy Cassian Andor's formative years of the rebellion in the Star Wars microcosm, and the many missions he and others around him take on for the cause, offers some answers. The show speaks to feminist ideas for transformation that start from the grass-roots – and offer courage and I daresay comfort for the times – a psalm, a reminder, and an affirmation that these are the times when the movement should hold on tighter. Here is an imperfect list of ideas from Andor that can anchor subversive efforts for transformation in an ocean of hope.
The limits of “add woman and stir”
Andor does an excellent job of showing you the limits of adding women for the sake of representation through the arc and journey of Dedra Meero. Serving as a lieutenant and supervisor on the board of the Galactic Empire's Imperial Security Bureau, she is the only woman in an all-male space, dominated heavily by older men. Upfront, you begin to see that she is fighting to be heard and included, to be included within the boys’ club. She speaks militarese, she behaves like the state, and she has internalized the idea that taking the shape of the patriarchal container will grant her inclusion. In short, Dedra Meero strikes what Deniz Kandiyoti calls a patriarchal bargain, and her wings are clipped by what Iris Marion Young calls inhibited intentionality. Dedra herself is none the wiser of the price this exacts from her and her life, until much later when she realizes that she has not only been gaslit and becomes responsible for a genocide, but that she also lost love in the process. Her cold willingness to torture people bring to mind the likes of Lynndie England and Sabrina Harman and their role in Abu Ghraib. Dedra Meero’s arc is a powerful reminder that merely adding women and stirring the mix will not result in the feminist outcome we want, and that women are equally capable of purveying the patriarchy without a thought.
Colonialism’s undoing is its own Hubris
The Galactic Empire operates with pride, arrogance, and entitlement. It settles, it occupies, it extracts, and it harms uncaringly. This hubris is in itself a catalyst for its destruction. Individual actors within the Empire that serve its mission and violent ways are also trod underfoot - the massive chariot of power does not pause to recognize, make room for, or even acknowledge the hands that enabled its power. This is the face of Empire: It won’t hesitate to turn heel on its “own” to hold onto its power. In sharp contrast, we see the rebellion recognizing every price paid, every life given, and every effort made in service of its efforts. At one point, Vel and Andor raise a toast, acknowledging that it would be impossible to name everyone – while also gently making place for all the names they knew. Andor also reminds you of the idea of a movement over hubris. Think of the scene where Andor waters plants before he embarks on a journey that will end his life, a powerful reminder that whether we remain or not, the work goes on. In the words of Dr Swarna Rajagopalan, the gestation period of social change is one generation. This is a movement that endures, that continues, that passes on from generation to generation even as the individual actors that held it no longer do.
Community Counts
In line with the arc in Episodes IV, V, and VI of Star Wars, Andor is also a powerful narrative of collective work. Every act counts, every actor counts, and every step moves transformation forward. We see the labour of Niya, a staffer in the Sienar Fleet Systems under the Galactic Empire, assigned to maintain the secretive TIE Avenger Prototype being built for the Empire, making it possible for Andor to infiltrate and escape with the Empire’s fighter prototype. We also see the subversive effort of a hotel staffer, who not only hides Andor by not recording his arrival into the hotel, but also fights all hands on deck when the time comes – a powerful hat tip to Vaclav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless, where he names the importance of every day acts of defiance.
We see the precarious work of Lonni Jung, whose timely inputs from inside the den of the Empire help the resistance take it down. We see the efforts of Mon Mothma, a politician in the Republican Senate and a founding member of the Rebel Alliance, as she steps up to counter the use of power unfairly in the senate – a powerful reminder that the movement also calls for what Debra Myers named “tempered radicals,” who can rock the boat and stay in it – even if only for a short while. We also see the powerful roles of Luthen Rael and Lieutenant Gorn, who were once part of the Imperial Army in different capacities, step up to keep the movement going. Their understanding of the inner workings of the Imperial Army, its Achille’s heel, and its next movies are powerful reminders of how the wholesome subversion of power is possible only when there are efforts from all directions.
As Partha Chatterjee teaches us how subaltern action is driven from their own political consciousness and not a worldview shaped by the elite, Andor reminds you that community makes transformation possible – and it is not a hero’s journey, for every hand plays a role in making transformation possible, and no labour is too small to shift the needle. In the touching words of Nemik, who wrote out a whole manifesto on this:
“There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try.”
The master’s tools can’t dismantle the master’s house, but they can certainly be useful
An enduring understanding in feminist spaces is that the master’s tools can’t dismantle the master’s house – a truth that shows that any change within the container will not be transformative, but rather constrained by the limited frame the container provides. In Andor, Luthen Rael says, "I am condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them," naming the difficult choices for those that engage in resistance. At its heart, this is a fight for freedom from oppression by a colonial Empire. Luthen doubles up as an antique seller to wealthy actors in the Empire, while carefully arming, supporting, mentoring, and directing a network of rebels to take the Empire down. He strikes at the wealth of the Empire, has “friends everywhere” and spies on the inner trappings of the Empire – using its own tools of espionage and surveillance, deception, lies, and profiteering – to turn it on itself. Luthen’s work reminds us that while some hope of working with and within the system to make change happen from within, it is imperative to understand the limits of the master’s tools and to lean on radical imagination to make that change possible.
We see a bit more of an on-the-nose representation of this reality in the brutally painful episode titled “One Way Out,” where enslaved labourers overthrow the controlling and oppressive imposition of the Empire, breakout of their prison, and leap to their escape. The prison-labour realizes that they would be condemned to a life of imprisonment and exploitation, and that the promise of being released is both a falsehood and a ruse to shift individual labourers into other cohorts – and make literal use of the master’s tools to fell the hands that hold the oppression in place.
Hope
In true Star Wars style, Andor is a reminder that Hope is alive so long as the resistance is alive, and resistance is alive so long as Hope is – a mutually enforcing and empowering feminist value. Grounded as it is in reality, Andor does not lose sight of hope, and does not make light of it either – in the face of oppression and grief induced by constant violence and hate, it is hard to find hope and it is easy to dismiss it as the fluffy stuff that makes up one’s imagination. And yet, this is the very thing that makes hope essential – the container we are in at the moment is the product of someone’s imagination, after all. Andor reminds you that an alternative, and a better one at that, is both possible, and within reach. Rebecca Solnit’s words from Hope in the Dark come to mind: “It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse narrative. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties with openings.”
