Popular Culture
With the premiere of Return of the Jedi and the prequel films and the accompanying merchandising campaign, Palpatine became an icon in American popular culture. Kenner/Hasbro produced and marketed a series of action figures of the character from 1983 to 2005. According to John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett, "These action figures allow children ('4 & up') to handle the symbols of the Force."
Academics have debated the relationship of Palpatine to modern culture. Religion scholars Ross Shepard Kraemer, William Cassidy, and Susan Schwartz compare Palpatine and Star Wars heroes to the theological concept of dualism. They insist, "One can certainly picture the evil emperor in Star Wars as Satan, complete with his infernal powers, leading his faceless minions such as his red-robed Imperial Guards." Lawrence and Jewett argue that the killing of Palpatine in Return of the Jedi represented "the permanent subduing of evil".
Palpatine's role in popular culture extends beyond the Star Wars universe. Since the release of Return of the Jedi, Palpatine has become synonymous in American mass media with evil, deception, manipulation, and power. The character is used as a literary device — either as a simile or metaphor — to emphasize these traits. In film and television, Palpatine's likeness is similarly used as a parody. Several animated television series such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, Robot Chicken, and American Dad!, have employed Palpatine's image to satirize characters and public figures.
Since Return of the Jedi and the prequel films, Palpatine's name has been invoked as a caricature in politics. The liberal website BuzzFlash remarked in 2004, "When we saw ... Zell Miller giving his invective at the RNC, we knew it reminded us of someone. We just couldn't place it until we realized it was the hate in Zell's eyes, his skin and the way it looks like that hate is eating his soul. Then we remembered: he reminded us of the evil Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. (We didn't know the Emperor had a name until this morning.)" A Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial noted that anti-pork bloggers were caricaturing West Virginia senator Robert Byrd as "the Emperor Palpatine of pork" with Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska having "clear aspirations to be his Darth Vader." The charge followed a report that linked a secret hold on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 to the two senators. Politicians have made comparisons as well. In 2005, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey compared Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee to Palpatine in a speech on the Senate floor, complete with a visual aid.
A Fox News editorial stated "no cultural icon can exist without someone trying to stuff it into a political ideology. The Star Wars saga, the greatest pop culture icon of the last three decades, is no exception... Palpatine's dissolution of the Senate in favor of imperial rule has been compared to Julius Caesar's marginalization of the Roman Senate, Hitler's power-grab as chancellor, and FDR's court-packing scheme and creation of the imperial presidency."
Read more about this topic: Darth Sidious
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The very nursery tales of this generation were the nursery tales of primeval races. They migrate from east to west, and again from west to east; now expanded into the “tale divine” of bards, now shrunk into a popular rhyme.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When women finally get liberated, they’ll do the same that men do—dog eat dog— that’s what our culture is.... Not cooperation but assassination. Women will cooperate until they attain certain goals. Then one will begin to destroy the other.”
—Alice Neel (1900–1984)