Although ‘Star Wars’ depicts a
new world, it is one permeated with the ideology of an old one. If films are
the ‘unconscious instruments of the ideology which produces them’, Lucas
portrayed a world not dissimiliar in its ideaology to the world he grew up in.
Therefore, the values we associate with white middle-class California of the
1950s, which include sexism, racism and the promotion of a patriarchal,
capitalist culture, are prevalent in ‘Star Wars’. Indeed, Lucas admits his
desire to return to the values of the 1950s. ‘I wanted to make a kids’ film
that would...introduce a kind of basic morality.Written by Kathleen Ellis.