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Rage: The Book of Boba Fett
Authored by Clementine Bordeaux
I’m an avid Star Wars fan. Star Wars continues to be a connecting point for my nerdiness and science fiction and fantasy stories. But I have been disappointed with the lazy narrative building of the recent Book of Boba Fett. I grew up cheering on Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. I can vividly remember my father trying to turn sentences into similar rhetoric to match Yoda’s speech, which in hindsight is similar to Lakota’s linguistic construction, such as “Huge fan of Star Wars, I am.” Like most Star Wars kids, I can remember breathing into box fans trying to sound like Darth Vader. Although I was not alive when the first Star Wars movies premiered in theaters, my parents took my eldest sister as a baby. The Star Wars universe has been a large part of my science-fiction, fantasy, and film life.
This essay will address the failed attempt to include Indigienty in the Star Wars series The Book of Boba Fett (2021). I acknowledge the long history of film and media portrayal of Indigenous communities. First, I give a brief overview of the most recent expansion of the Star Wars franchise, then address the engagement of an Indigenous Star Wars audience, and finally, discuss the deep rage I experienced as a Star Wars fan watching The Book of Boba Fett. A large part of Boba Fett's succession is because the Tusken tribe that cared for him dies violently. There are many approaches I could take to critique The Book of Boba Fett; instead, I focus on the stereotypes employed to construct an Indigenous character and narrative on screen, the legacy of the American western film troupe, and the creators’ missed opportunities in imaging Indigenity across a futuristic sci-fi landscape.
Beginning in the early 2000s with the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the Star Wars audience has been given various streaming series and new stories that quench our thirst for the force, our allies, and where the rebels are residing. Be aware of spoilers ahead. There have been micro-animated series, videos games, and feature-length films to fill out the expansive Star Wars universe. We have been introduced to new characters new plotlines and have enjoyed seeing the backstories of our favorite characters from the original feature-length films. The Star Wars audience found ways to engage across multiple platforms and media forms. But this essay is not an overview of the vast and widespread breadth of the franchise.
The Star Wars franchise was incredibly successful before the Disney company acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. The expansion of the Star Wars universe is in large part due to the $4 billion-plus cash-and-stock purchase. An analysis of the capitalist ventures of a media corporation like Disney is beyond the scope of this essay. However, I want to acknowledge the shift in leadership and creative support that Star Wars experienced over the past decade. The move to Disney brought in new writers, new directors, and the opportunity to engage with new audiences.
Shortly after The Mandolorian started streaming on Disney+, the Indigenous audience quickly claimed “Baby Yoda” as our own. The Indigenous viewership of the Mandolorian was not limited to just the film Star Wars fans. I witnessed memes, beadwork, and artistic renderings of Grogu that reflected an Indigenous engagement that was both endearing and exciting (https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/baby-yoda-is-now-one-of-us). Additionally, Maori filmmaker Taika Waititi voiced a character in the series by directing the finale of season one. In season two of The Mandalorian, we introduced Boba Fett in a surprising turn of events. And it was with other Indigenous Star Wars nerds that I was able to express excitement and wonder about the storyline of Boba.
The Book of Boba Fett premiered on the Disney+ streaming platform in December of 2021. Categorized as a “space western,” the seven-episode series follows Boba Fett, a failed bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe, attempting to take over a crime syndicate on planet Tattoine. What some fans might not realize is that Star Wars audiences were first introduced to Boba Fett in 1978 in an animated Holiday segment (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-12-29/star-wars-book-of-boba-fett-disney-plus-bounty-hunter-history#:~:text=Fett's%20public%20debut%20came%20a,17%2C%201978). But his character became more well known as the bounty hunter that finds Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Star Wars audiences think he dies in the belly of the Sarlacc in Star Wars: Episode VI, The Return of the Jedi (1983). The series picks up as Boba escapes the Sarlacc and engages in flashbacks of his survival and uncertain relationship with Tusken raiders.
In The Book of Boba Fett, the Tuksens are portrayed as the Indigenous people of Tatooine. I had little information about the Tuskens before The Book of Boba Fett. The Tuskens are displayed as an aggressive and unforgiving terror on the planet's dunes. The audience was introduced to Tuskens as “raiders” in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (1977), where they are seen firing weapons and attacking Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Later, after the re-boot of the franchise, in Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace (1999), Qui-Gon Jin says that there is “some indigenous tribe” on Tatooine but gives no reference to whom. Then, in Star Wars Episode II, Attack of the Clones (2002), Anakin Skywalker kills an entire camp of Tuskens for holding his mother hostage, which leads to her untimely death. When describing his mother’s death, Anakin describes the Tuskens as such: “They’re like animals, and I slaughtered them like animals.” Even before The Book of Boba Fett was set into motion, the Star Wars audience was given a specific background narrative of the Tuskens as savage and violent.
The stereotypes employed to construct an Indigenous character and narrative on screen include overt mysticism, hypersexualization, or lack of intelligence. Jacquelyn Kilpatrick expertly demonstrates how Indigenous representation has been established through these stereotypes due to film legacies like Stagecoach (1939), Broken Arrow (1950), and The Searchers (1956). In the Book of Boba Fett, the Tuskens are first portrayed as savage, often a marker of a lack of intelligence or civility in mainstream American film. As the series progressed, the Tusken then had a deep relationship with the desert planet, which used to be an ocean. This relationship is demonstrated by what a mainstream audience might understand as a spiritual or sacred connection. The entire Tusken and Boba Fett plotline was riddled with
My first indication of how the American western movie trope was being utilized as the communication styles between the Tusken and Boba Fett. In Episode two: The Tribes of Tatooine, Boba Fett uses sign language to communicate with the Tuskens. The Tuskens do not speak English. They communicate through squeals and grunts. Like many creature characters in the franchise, modes of communication are regulated to beeps and boops from droids, aggressive growls from Wookies, or foreign languages from other non-humanoid aliens. In American westerns, the “other” is often marked by their lack of English.
In many western films, the plucky hero that is saved by a tribal group, is often depicted as savage or uncivilized, and then, the hero becomes enamored by tribal customs. In the past, these heroes have been portrayed by the likes of Jimmy Stewart (Broken Arrow 1950), Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves 1990), and Armie Hammer (Lone Ranger and Tonto 2013). However, instead of the typical, phenotypical white settler, Maori actor Temuera Morrison reprised his role as Boba Fett for the series. As an Indigenous audience, I was incredibly frustrated to witness a well-known Maori actor playing settler and savior. (There has been mention that Morrison backed the portrayal: https://www.indiewire.com/2022/01/book-of-boba-fett-tusken-raider-controversy-1234690926/). The chance to support an Indigenous actor portraying a prominent Star Wars character in a spin-off series is paramount to any experience of an Indigenous Star Wars fan. I felt an old and deep-seated rage the other Boba Fett’s character engaged in a stereotypical trope of being rescued by the Natives.
Instead of addressing the issue of settler incursion on Tusken's livelihood, the plotline dives deeper into situational fixes. We discover that the Tuskens have been “raiding” interlopers on their land because outsiders and off-planet criminals utilize technologies like fast speeding hover trains to disrupt Tusken life. Boba Fett decides that stopping the train will empower the Tuskens. The Tuskens typical walk or ride banthas (local animals) and have not yet incorporated outsiders technologies. Boba Fett steals transportation to teach the Tuskens how to ride land speeders (single rider hover crafts). Boba Fett's entire sequence mimics how to ride the speeders while the Tuskens make mistakes, and the audience has a good laugh about the whole ordeal is reminiscent of scenes from films like Dances with Wolves sugar and a monocular is introduced to the tribe. The interaction highlights the lack of Tusken's intellectual engagement with the outside world. The whole time Boba Fett uses hand gestures while the audience assumes the Tuskens have little idea of what he is trying to communicate. Eventually, the Tusken prove capable, and they develop a plan to stop the train.
To thank Boba Fett the Tuskens decide to introduce him to their ritualistic practices. Boba Fett is given a small lizard which the Tuskens tell him will guide him. He awkwardly thanks them as the lizard makes a leap for his face and burrows into his nose. The lizard gives Boba Fett access to the Tuskens’ ancestral plane henceforth engaging with another stereotyping of overt mysticism. We do not see this type of mysticism outside of the Force and although exciting to see on screen, still left me frustrated that this experience is only for the benefit of an outsider. Boba Fett witnesses Tatooine as the oceanic planet it was a thousand years ago. When he awakes from the dream he has a branch from their ancestral tree and is made a weapon from the wood. From this experience, Boba Fett becomes their champion, but like all western tropes, the only one that ultimately benefits is the outsider and not the tribe.
Ultimately, The Book of Boba Fett is a western. The season finale is an old fashion gunfight in the small town of Mos Espa.
I focus on the legacy of the American western film troupe because we still face stereotypes on screen after almost a century of Indigenous representation in American film. Numerous academic books have written about John Wayne, John Ford, and other western films portraying the “vanishing Indians” and the heroic cowboy on the silver screen. Not to mention the academy award-winning Dance with Wolves (1990) that set a precedent for linguistic engagement in the film industry by including the Lakota language but still made the film about a white savior.
The creators missed plenty of opportunities in imaging Indigenity across a futuristic sci-fi landscape. Although, my opinion might be limited. Star Wars Pop Culture writer Jordan Maison sings high praises for The Book of Boba Fett Tusken episodes. He provides similar historiographies of the legacy of the “savage” trope in American western films and demonstrates the homogenization of tribal influences as important to the Star Wars Universe (https://gizmodo.com/how-the-book-of-boba-fett-evolved-star-wars-view-of-the-1848361263). But I agree to disagree.
The continued homogeneity of the tribal stereotype continues to regulate an Indigenous experience to a historical narrative. As we face a crisis of identity in Indigenous communities across North America, I urge critical engagement with popular culture (https://theconversation.com/we-are-facing-a-settler-colonial-crisis-not-an-indigenous-identity-crisis-175136?fbclid=IwAR34rrLwzd4deBYiPMdABpcrdh3s6my2HLESwyq5p7c64Hp2OTCUcbnWTeA). Although Star Wars is a fantasy story, the deep connection the universe has to Indigenous communities is important. We see ourselves reflected in a story about rebellion, choosing good and evil, and the fight for our relationships to place, each out, and something greater than ourselves. I cannot put my entire faith in a series created by a capitalist economy, but in the moment of reprieve, I seek entertainment I rely on seeing myself reflected in the livelihood and not in the death of a tribe.
To humanize Boba Fett for the audience, the construction of the Indigenous world of the Tusken community relied heavily on stereotypes that demonstrate settler colonialism incursion. Settler colonialism is the extraction of Indigenous resources, removal, and erasure of Indigenous populations, and the enslavement of other oppressed populations to extract resources. At points, the audience is reminded that Boba Fett is an anti-hero or rather the villain of the story and like any empirical menace, the extraction of Tusken's knowledge and care for his own success is typical. The audience is meant to believe the Tuskens willingly give mystical knowledge but only after Boba Fett engaged in violent acts again, demonstrating that being a part of the tribe promotes savagery.
Other Indigenous populations in the Star Wars universe are typically depicted in support of the rebellion or in joyous celebration of their culture. In the original three feature films (Episodes IV, V, VI), the most recognizable Indigenous population the narratives reveal are the Ewoks. The Ewoks are small, furry-like creatures that help a small crew of rebels fights Empire troops on the moon of Endor where the last battle of the empire takes place before The Book of Boba Fett is set. Unlike the Ewoks, who are Indigenous to the moon of Endor, the Tuskens are shown as aggressive and violent. In the most recent feature film, Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, the rebels land on another desert planet Pasaana. There, they encounter the “Aki-Aki Festival of the Ancestors” in which there is a celebration of life that occurs every forty-two years. The deep dive into Tusken indigenity does not allow for celebration but only death.
My struggle with Boba Fett’s bond with the Tusken tribe is that it relies on the death of an Indigenous community for the (anti)hero to succeed. Achille Mbembe draws on a Foucauldian analysis to demonstrate the link between biopower and necropolitics. For example, concerning settler colonial incursion, who has the right to live; the settler, who has the right to kill; men in power, and who is exposed to death; Indigenous people. Without the death of the Tuskens that cared for Boba, he would not be motivated to fight for the safety of Tatooine. Yet, it was still at the expense of Tusken's livelihood.
In conclusion, we need an alternative to the western film model. I get it. We love to see the hero save the small town from the bad guys. But for the hero to show empathy should not rely on the death of Indigenous communities. We see our communities sacrificed regularly with the widespread epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and people (MMIW) and the active stance against tribal communities fighting for their land and water (#NoDAPL, Stop Line 3, Bayou Bridge, etc.). Indigenous peoples do not need outside heroes, we need the opportunities to demonstrate our deep relationship and connection to each other and the places we call home.
Posted to the R+R Blog on April 1, 2022.
