Books Star Wars Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy

So this bad boy comes out next week.

Anyone gotten their hands on a copy yet? (despite you Jello )

 

The German SW new site Jedi Bibliothek has some spiffy previews today:

https://jedi-bibliothek.de/blog/2016/10/11-kunstwerke-aus-star-wars-propaganda/

For example, I don't know what's going on here:

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"Strength and Unity: We're in this together"

...k. Must be a Republic thing against the Seps?

 

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I enjoy that Poe Dameron is quite literally the poster-boy of the Resistance.

 

so thats what it said

 

Are all the posters in that link for the book? I remember seeing that "Loose Lips Bring Down Star Ships" one years ago (and apparently its even a t-shirt ). Though I suppose not all the art has to be newly created for the book, maybe they tracked down that artist and paid them to use their work?

 

I hope there's a Sep one too. I can only take so much of this cutesy Republic nonsense before they force my hand to draw some Gunray fanart abomination masterpiece.

 

Probably, like they did with Fractalsponge.

 

Apparently, that "Loose Lips" poster was also put on the set of Episode VII.
BTW, the artist is Cliff Chiang. Here's another piece by him (this one is for AdmiralNick22)

 

I love how that one's all the Rebel heroes we know, and then there's one plain, regular dude on the side. "Hey. Hey, I-I'm here. I'm in the picture too."

 

He won the raffle to be in the poster with all the big names. What a proud moment for him.

 

Anyone know if Cliff Chiang is related to Doug Chiang? Just curious - I saw the latter give a very good talk at CE this year. (Worth digging up if it's on Youtube).

 

GrandAdmiralJello I heard that Governor Adelhard is in the book. Is that true?

 

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This seems like evidence that the canon Empire isn't anti-alien.

 

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Because anything on a propaganda post must be true?

 

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My argument was that an anti-alien regime using that propaganda poster would be like Nazi propaganda depicting the Star of David in a positive light.

 

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Looks like a late Republic roundel, not an Imperial crest.

 

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Yeah, that's why I said it should have a Sep counter poster.

Only them looking opposite direction, and down. Muhahaha....

 

Super excited to get mine tomorrow (along with Ahsoka).

I love that Ackbar poster, I've always said he is the shining star of the Rebellion. I like to imagine IU that he hated being used on recruiting posters, as I'm a fan of the old EU idea that Ackbar was a bit cranky at time.

--Adm. Nick

 

Eh, I have to disagree there. The Nazis were hardly the only racist group in history, and discrimination isn't a binary between full equality and genocide. Plus, despite all the nazi trappings of the empire, their treatment of aliens reminds me more of imperialists than nazis - that is to say they exploit aliens as second class citizens, rather than treating the genocide of aliens as their primary goal over all self-interest.

So less "Nazis portraying the Star of David well" and more, say, British propaganda in India about a shared "Aryan" heritage, or the Soviet Union's propaganda about the equality and unity of its various ethnicities while trying to eliminate local cultural practices and assimilate everyone to a communist standard, or the Chinese Republic's five colored flag which represented the unity of its ethnicities despite the Republic having born in violent Han nationalism and said unity being used as excuse to take control of the resources of minority territories, or Confederate Loss Cause mythology exaggerating the role of black soldiers in the CSA to deny how racist the CSA was, or Americans portraying Native Americans well in media while still keeping them on crappy reservations, or Communist China doing the same things as the Soviet Union and Communist China, or Trump saying racist things then saying he is well respected by minority communities so on and etc.

In short, using propaganda of unity to pave over and ignore discrimination is hardly unprecedented. In Legends at least, aliens technically had the same legal rights as humans in the Empire, it was just that practice was overwhelmingly in human's favor, and I wouldn't be surprised if that carries over. In any case, we have already seen enough anti-alien discrimination in canon to claim that the Empire isn't anti-alien.

PS - yes, I did read that the poster is really a Republic one, but still I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least some imperial propaganda that tried to cover up anti-alien discrimination with images of mutli-species harmony and unity.

 

Having just seen Elstree 1976, I'm now going to assume that that's Derek Lyons' guard character.

 

That would be pretty great, though the Death Star was a secret project for a long time then it got blown up and was an embarrassment so I can't see it featuring much in propaganda.

Unless they already had a lot of Death Star propaganda and merchandise ready for the grand unveiling and they started releasing it before hearing what happened and going "What the frell are we going to do with all this crap?"

 

I don't think this is exactly true. Non-humans were barred from the University of Coruscant, for example.