![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Kids Are Alright 2008
Sep. 4th, 2008 06:52 pmCW has introduced SW to a whole new generation of young fans. These are kids born after 1999 and were too young to have seen any of the PT in the theater. Their only exposure to the saga thus far has been on cable or DVD. For a lot of them, CW is their first SW theatrical experience. Now they're in the toy aisles and clamoring for Happy Meals at McDonalds.
Sadly, this sort of thing drives some adult SW fans crazy. For those who think SW belongs to them and no one else, they hate that Lucas is trying to entertain this generation of younglings. The grumpy guses and stinky basement dwellers hate to see these foreign bodies invading what is theirs. It's not really a new phenomenon either. I remember reading in the Insider over a decade ago about a 16-year-old girl who was rejected from her local club because she was too young to truly appreciate SW.
Obviously, most fans with kids of their own don't feel this way and even though I don't have any kids, I don't feel this way either. I'm happy to see children fall in love with the same universe I did back when I was a weejun. It's about the only hope I have left for humanity.
One crucial fact about SW must be recognized: It's. Meant. For. Kids. This doesn't mean SW is frivolous or unimportant. It's not. There's plenty to chew on as one gets older. In fact, it was pretty cool recognizing new dimensions to a familiar story as I went through high school and college. But, as fan TPF1138 posted on the Anakin Skywalker Homepage forum: "Lucas has always attempted to engage with the child brain first and foremost. The whole intent of the enterprise was to create a modern myth that might ignite the passions and imaginations (and to some degree the spirituality) of children." SW was designed first and foremost to appeal to a child's sense of wonder. Ditto by the way for Harry Potter.
Adult SW fans can be contradictory in what they expect from the phenomenon, wanting it to change to their current tastes on the one hand and wanting to keep SW frozen in carbonite circa 1981 on the other. They have tried to appeal to older fans with everything from rated T video games to comics like "Legacy" to PG-13 novels that don't shy from more grownup issues. The live action t.v. show promises to be a little less family oriented than the films or CW. Not that it matters though.
I appreciate the young fans' fresh perspective and enthusiasm. They love all of SW in such an open-hearted way. I like that they are renewing the fandom and keeping SW relevant. To think that these kids watching CW now are going to discover there's more to Anakin and Obi-Wan's story in the PT, and that there is yet more to discover in the first set of SW films. Isn't that cool?
As I wrote in my old zine Blue Harvest on the same topic 10 years ago, "SW lives only so long as it keeps attracting new fans; if it's stuck as part of only one generation's identity, it ages and dies along with that generation…so a tip of the lightsaber to all of the young Jedi Knights out there--you guys are the future of fandom, the ones to carry on the torch while we're being spoonfed in the old folks' home."
Sadly, this sort of thing drives some adult SW fans crazy. For those who think SW belongs to them and no one else, they hate that Lucas is trying to entertain this generation of younglings. The grumpy guses and stinky basement dwellers hate to see these foreign bodies invading what is theirs. It's not really a new phenomenon either. I remember reading in the Insider over a decade ago about a 16-year-old girl who was rejected from her local club because she was too young to truly appreciate SW.
Obviously, most fans with kids of their own don't feel this way and even though I don't have any kids, I don't feel this way either. I'm happy to see children fall in love with the same universe I did back when I was a weejun. It's about the only hope I have left for humanity.
One crucial fact about SW must be recognized: It's. Meant. For. Kids. This doesn't mean SW is frivolous or unimportant. It's not. There's plenty to chew on as one gets older. In fact, it was pretty cool recognizing new dimensions to a familiar story as I went through high school and college. But, as fan TPF1138 posted on the Anakin Skywalker Homepage forum: "Lucas has always attempted to engage with the child brain first and foremost. The whole intent of the enterprise was to create a modern myth that might ignite the passions and imaginations (and to some degree the spirituality) of children." SW was designed first and foremost to appeal to a child's sense of wonder. Ditto by the way for Harry Potter.
Adult SW fans can be contradictory in what they expect from the phenomenon, wanting it to change to their current tastes on the one hand and wanting to keep SW frozen in carbonite circa 1981 on the other. They have tried to appeal to older fans with everything from rated T video games to comics like "Legacy" to PG-13 novels that don't shy from more grownup issues. The live action t.v. show promises to be a little less family oriented than the films or CW. Not that it matters though.
I appreciate the young fans' fresh perspective and enthusiasm. They love all of SW in such an open-hearted way. I like that they are renewing the fandom and keeping SW relevant. To think that these kids watching CW now are going to discover there's more to Anakin and Obi-Wan's story in the PT, and that there is yet more to discover in the first set of SW films. Isn't that cool?
As I wrote in my old zine Blue Harvest on the same topic 10 years ago, "SW lives only so long as it keeps attracting new fans; if it's stuck as part of only one generation's identity, it ages and dies along with that generation…so a tip of the lightsaber to all of the young Jedi Knights out there--you guys are the future of fandom, the ones to carry on the torch while we're being spoonfed in the old folks' home."
