Collective Effervescence and Star Wars: The Force Awakens

(Warning some spoilers ahead)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens had the most advance ticket sales of any movie ever in America and it has done so across the world, including the United Kingdom and Russia.


There is even a rise in the number of people practicing the religion of Jedism. While I personally prefer Star Trek over Star Wars, I have to admit Star Wars is better able to bring people together into what Emile Durkheim calls collective effervescence, when a community comes together and simultaneously communicates the same thought and participate in the same action. 


Thanks to good friends I was able to see The Force Awakens on opening weekend. The theater was packed.

Ritual:

Like religious rituals people prepared for the movie with great care. There were costumes, light sabers, and a collective recap of the movies.


We waited for the advent of the new movie. Much the same way some Christians wait for the advent of Christ: "Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait." (From a famous Advent devotional by Bonhoeffer).


We respect Star Wars. Granted some amount of commercialism has caused our lack of satiation and satisfaction with the completeness of the story. At least in the sense that now we know there will be more, we won't be satisfied until we see the story unfold. 

Previously, I wrote a review of Film as Religion and complained that it neglected Durkheim's insights into ritual via collective effervescence. It neglected to think deeply about these insights both to understand certain tropes in movies/television and to understand the movie experience itself.

Movies shouldn't typically be compared to religious experiences, rituals, or myths. But some movies lend themselves to this comparison more readily. My top three picks this type of comparison are: 1) Rocky Horror Picture Show 2) Harry Potter and 3) Star Wars.  


So what was happening that could be considered ritualistic at this movie that doesn't happen at most movies?


Prior to the movie itself, I along with a few friends watched the first six movies in anticipation of the new movie. Similar to how some Christians read and contemplate advent devotionals weeks before Christmas. 



The day we were seeing the movie, some of us thought specifically about our attire. One wore a Chewbacca onesie and I wore a shirt that said "Come to the nerd side we have pi."



On the car ride to the movie, we listened to scores from the first six movies and "Yoda" by Weird Al. Some of us also sang "The Saga Begins" as we waited in line. 



The content of Star Wars: The Force Awakens lent itself to a communal experience as well. The reveal of Millenium Falcon, Han Solo and Chewbacca, Leia, C3PO, R2D2, and lastly Luke Skywalker were greeted by communal applause.


In these moments specifically everyone in the movie theater was participating in the same activity having the same thoughts. We collectively effervesced. 

Myth:

(Spoilers immediately ahead)

Myth is often about repetition. And Star Wars is a modern myth and it was designed to be so. Levi-Strauss, a scholar of myth in the 20th century proposed that myths always reference previous myths.  

"The layered structure of myth...allows us to look upon myth as a matrix of meanings which are arranged in lines or columns, but in which each level always refers to some other level, which ever way the myth is read." -- Levi-Strauss Raw and the Cooked, pg. 340 

George Lucas studied Joseph Campbell's monomyth extensively, but in some ways it makes more sense to look at Star Wars in terms of Levi-Strauss's structuralism because The Force Awakens mirrors Star Wars: A New Hope.

In both movies Rey, the protagonist and a force user, is found on a remote planet, comes into possession of a droid(s) that the villains of the movie are searching for, planets are blown up by a large weapon stationed in space, this in turn gets blown up by the good guys, and the force user is told to go to a master for further training. 



There were also interesting twists. Kylo Ren, a dark force user, was struggling to keep with the dark side, Rey the force user in this film starts to discover her powers on her own, and new Sith powers were revealed. 



Levi-Strauss proposed that each myth works in terms of binaries (light side v. dark side). Also in each myth there will be mediating figures who mediate or resolve these oppositions. They are in between. Kylo Ren is a mediating figure because it is revealed that he trained with Luke and was having trouble living up to his idol/grandfather Darth Vader.  

Bottom Line:

Immediately after the movie we jumped up and down, talked about the movie, and discussed future possibilities for the next. 



I asked a friend if he had a religious experience. He enthusiastically said yes, that he felt like the whole universe was laid out in front of him. 


If you are sympathetic with the idea of collective effervescence, the reliance of religion on myth, or even sympathetic to a personal experiential theory of religion, then its hard to deny that under certain conditions a movie, such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, can bring about a religious experience.