Andor Neoliberals

Of course you should watch Season 2 of Andor. I'm not even going to waste text trying to convince you. There are none so blind as those that refuse to see.

Tuesday night's set of three episodes - 2.7 thru 2.9 - were bonus amazing and in many ways the climax of what this season and all of Andor had been moving towards. They have ignited a huge explosion of praise online, especially from the sort of left-wing popular-culture obsessives we know so well. 

I find that... confusing, or maybe willfully blind. Spoilers below the cut.

Online leftists are praising the show for a unafraid view of politics, foreign affairs, and Gaza specifically. There is a no-holds-barred, episode long portrayal of a cynical massacre on a colonized planet. And later a Senator stands up in the Senate calling it genocide.

Now, aside from the fact that "neoliberal" is a word for a type of economics that tries to use market forces to achieve progressive aims, I can bow to linguistic reality and to most it means "a squishy liberalism that as often blames the left as the right for societal problems," and so here means "firmly sides with Gazans." Fine. And I believe that most political on-line people vastly overestimate the importance of being willing to say a specific shibboleth, but I can hardly fault that in cultural discussion of a TV show. What else are you gonna talk about if not what people say.

It just seems a drastic misinterpretation.

Yes, Andor firmly places blame on the colonizers for violence that happens under their rule, and moral voices in that show also place that blame.

But the show, even a show about rebel terrorists, doesn't side with the terrorists in this case, if you really want to map this to Israel/Palestine.

The show has spent four episodes, in depth, explaining that the idealistic, unprepared terrorists are just pawns of their enemy. They have no hope to defeat their oppressor militarily, so they're just trying to get galactic attention. But they are easily provoked into violence that the Empire wants to justify further aggression to them. The Empire is feeding them tactical information just to get them to launch pointless attacks.

And the galactic supporters of the rebels are hardly any better. Cassian, central hero of the show, refuses to help the local rebels because it will just get them killed. But Luthen the cynical manipulator, wants that because it will draw galactic attention to his cause. If everyone involved dies, that just gets him more galactic sympathy.

Both the Empire and Rebellion are acting as if galactic sympathy matters, and are sacrificing native lives to get it. There is, unfortunately, probably no way the colonized people can emerge victorious or be saved. But violence is what the Empire wants.

All of this is a pretty """neoliberal""" way of looking at the Israel/Gaza situation. The side with overwhelming force is bad, but the oppressed side should sit down and be as peaceful as possible, because terrorist violence won't do anything to help. (And all the outsiders interfering, do not care about the actual well-being of the people involves, as much as they do about a global advertising campaign for their principles.) This is an extremely understandable view for a typical Hollywood director to hold of course. Because most Hollywood machines *are* what online puglists call "neoliberal."

You can agree with that perspective or not. But it's hardly a firm declaration on one and only one side of this fight.