Assistant Investigator
Symbolism, Media, and the Lifecourse Project
http://www.colorado.edu/journalism/MEDIALYF/
Center for Mass Media Research
University of Colorado-Boulder

Introduction
23-year-old Danny Stanley, delivery man, aspiring film maker, modern day P.T. Barnum, ambles across the weedy ground past tents lined up in a haphazard row. Compact in build, sporting closely cut processed blonde hair, a pair of silver rings in each ear, tongue stud, knee-length baggy shorts, hiking shoes, and a t-shirt, his wrap-around blue reflective sunglasses finish off what might look appropriate in the pages of any skateboard magazine. Occasionally, as he counts heads, he stops to chat with other young people who seem quite willing to talk to him. They are because, at this time and in this place, he is ‘The Man’-the person responsible for setting off this whole local social phenomenon. Four days earlier, at two in the morning, Stanley had pitched his tent in this vacant field behind a large sign that says, “The line starts here.” He will be the first in line when go on sale at the neighboring multi-plex for the long anticipated opening of George Lucas’s latest episode in the “Star Wars” series, “The Phantom Menace.” Danny says it was something he had to do:
Um...I didn’t want to come out here and, like, jump into a line that was already, like, crazy and out of control, and that’s what happens basically. Um, everybody sees that they’re lining up, and everybody wants to see it, I mean, there’s tons of “Star Wars” fans, um, I just didn’t want it to be all crazy, and so we got the idea in our head to, like, set the precedent, basically, and, like, and that’s exactly what we did.

Danny gives a lot of reasons for wanting to control the line. He used to work for the theater owner and wants to help him out; he is going off to film school in a couple of months and he thinks the publicity might help his career; he wants to have fun; be a part of history; and to connect with his own history, “When the first one came out in ‘77,” he recalls, “my parents stood in line and held me. I was a 2-year-old.”
Danny keeps moving, past four shirtless teenaged boys playing hacky-sack in the sun, past a life-size cardboard cutout of Darth Vader standing watch outside a tent, past two more young men mock-dueling with toy light sabers. An odd assortment of grunge, hip-hop, and symphonic themes from “Star Wars” played on various boom boxes battle for our attention. A teenager with short blonde hair and a white t-shirt introduces himself to Danny who tells him to set up after the last tent in the line. The boy says he is not into “Star Wars” as much as other kids he knows, but “I just want to be part of the hype.” As the boy lopes off Danny says he loves getting the opportunity to meet people and seeing everyone having fun. Continuing down the line he advises people of the planned procedure to sell tickets. He also theorizes with them about future episode plots and swaps gossip about production of the latest movie, and the marketing of its myriad spinoff products. He relishes the ambassador’s role and says it is the way anything related to “Star Wars” should be. Director George Lucas, he earnestly explains, is a visionary who has tapped into something special:
...the vibe he sets in the movies, is fun, you get into it, you’re feeling it, it’s awesome, and that’s what it’s all about, we’re here because we want everybody else to feel that vibe. This is “Star Wars” this is not all the time. It’s a world of imagination, it’s like, it’s like, it’s fantasy, and it’s fun. It’s never been about like being like first or the best, I don’t think, I think it’s just about coming out and having a good time and everybody...it’s a common topic where people can talk about it, and everything like that, it’s...and I think it makes for a good atmosphere and everything and that’s why we wanted to be here for “Star Wars”.

This paper is based on a series of interviews and observations of people like Danny Stanley participating in a growing line of campers waiting for tickets to the anticipated summer blockbuster, “Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace”. Over the six day life of the line I stopped by to interview and observe the campers four times, with each visit lasting from one to four hours. In all, formal interviews were conducted with seven people (two women and five men--probably a representative gender ratio), along with a number of less formal conversations. While engaging in the act of paying attention to a single group of people may seem non-generalizable, and therefore not worthwhile, I am beginning to realize how this sort of research is generating important, new, emergent claims about human phenomena, helping to fill in our knowledge of human interaction with media. People like Danny Stanley, in more traditional media studies, and in mainstream culture, have historically been assumed to be ‘couch potatoes’-de-legitimatized dupes of dominant mediated discourse. As a result of my analysis, I will falsify that argument, demonstrating the way even these seemingly media suffused individuals are practicing a highly self-conscious and constructive engagement with the “Star Wars” phenomenon. “Star Wars” is a site of attractive symbols and meanings that these fans acquire and use in day-to-day existence. But as they integrate these symbols into their individual and social lives, they are always aware that a main mission of the source of these meanings is to sell products. Despite that, they ground themselves in these meanings and symbols, they use them in community with one another, and they just plain enjoy them. I am documenting a group of people letting themselves be carried away in the energy of a movie embodying the highest achievements of the media age.
A very important question, however, one I admittedly can only begin to answer in this brief paper, asks how we should represent what is happening here? Are these people loyal fans, acting the way enthusiasts of any culturally popular institution would? As we shall see, the line campers say no, that their experience is different than that of other fans. Is it possible then to conclude that their devotion reaches the level of religious significance? Again, the line campers, and almost anybody I have interviewed about their relationship to media, reject that interpretation. As this story is told, we must ask ourselves the question: what is the best way to represent what happened outside that movie theater in Fort Collins, Colorado, and indeed, at theaters like it around the world? And what might that representation suggest about the relationships to media of the people around the world who did not camp out to get the first tickets for “The Phantom Menace”? Before we re-visit the line-campers, we must spend some time making sense of the “Star Wars” machine.
What is the “Star Wars” phenomenon?
The movies
In the weeks, months, and years leading up to the long anticipated release of George Lucas’s ‘prequel’ “The Phantom Menace” (indeed, Janet Maslin of the New York Times described it as “pathologically” anticipated), a great deal of discussion focused on the “Star Wars” phenomenon as production achievement (Maslin, 1999). This would be the movie to set a precedent, wrote Chicago Tribune film critic Roger Ebert, “We are standing at the threshold of a new age of epic cinema, I think, in which digital techniques mean that budgets will no longer limit the scope of scenes; filmmakers will be able to show us just about anything they can imagine” (Ebert, 1999) And “Star Wars” fans were ready. The original “Star Wars” opened in theaters in 1977, followed by “Empire Strikes Back” in 1980, and “Return of the Jedi” in 1983. The 1997 re-release of the re-mastered original trilogy inspired a new generation of followers, pushing box office totals for the three films to more than $1 billion (Hamilton, Gordon, Davis, 1998). In November 1998, hundreds of thousands of fans paid full price for tickets to see “Meet Joe Black,” though most didn’t come to see leading man Brad Pitt. They came for the two-minute trailer teasing “Phantom Menace”. “That was the best nine dollars I've ever spent,” said one satisfied fan (Hamilton, Gordon, Davis, 1998). They wanted a glimpse of the 2,200 special effects shots Ebert was alluding to, the throne-room dress worn by Queen Amidala that took eight weeks to design, and the 8,000 droids and Gungan warriors in the final battle scene (Corliss, 1999). Ninety-five percent of the frames in the film were digitally composed (more than four times the special effects in 1997 mega-hit “Titanic”). The effects were integrated with live-action, and actors performed before special backdrops that enabled Lucas to cut and paste images at will in a way no director had done before. “The result,” Andrew Clark wrote, “is the most fully realized fictional universe ever created on-screen” (1999).
The Business
“There has never, in the annals of entertainment, been a money-making machine with the staying power of this one,” wrote one industry analyst (Podheretz, 1999). Perhaps an equal amount of discussion concentrated on the management of the “Star Wars” effort. When the first “Star Wars” movie was released in 1977, George Lucas had given little thought to making money outside of the box office. That changed in a hurry with experts soon tracking his carefully planned worldwide movie distribution orchestrated to generate the greatest income. Corporations paid for the right to align their products with the film; and an army of spinoff toys crowded store shelves and Internet shopping sites. Estimates prior to the release of “Phantom Menace” had Lucas personally amassing $2 billion on the trilogy, the release of videos, and related licensing deals. By the end of 1999 worldwide gross revenues at the box office had hit $900 million, Star Wars toy sales were expected to hit the $600 million mark in 1999, with $400 million more sold in 2000, and multi-million dollar licencing arrangements with Pepsi, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
The Cultural Metaphor
Thus, the appeal of “Star Wars” is no surprise for most people. Lucas and his team of artists, technicians, and promoters have figured out a way to turn Lucas’s wildest dreams into a reality, at least on the big screen, and to put his movies and merchandise virtually everywhere on the planet. “But,” we were reminded in Arts and Entertainment magazine, “according to most fans, it's the story line that keeps them hooked, as Lucas's pastiche of time-tested mythological motifs strikes a universal chord, especially among adolescents. Watching Luke Skywalker trace a path mythologist Joseph Campbell called ‘the hero's journey’ -- in this case, from bored teen to Jedi Knight -- they see their own aspirations spectacularly realized” (Hamilton, Gordon, and Davis, 1999). A simple commentary that summarizes the numerous academic and mainstream articles reporting on attempts to unlock the secret of this provocative media wonder.
Since the first film, analysts have regularly pointed to the religious themes, especially Judaeo-Christian ideas, prominent throughout the movies. Lucas himself reported drawing from religion. “I put the Force into the movie to try to reawaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people," he said. “I see ‘Star Wars’ as taking all the issues that religion represents, and trying to distill them down into a more modern and easily accessible construct” (quoted in Johnson and Oh, 1999). But he has also said (about his earlier films) it is not about religion. That ambivalence and contradiction is evidenced in the scholarly literature on “Star Wars”. Robert Pielke made it clear that “‘Star Wars’ . . . . is intended by Lucas to be no more than a fun-filled adventure; ultimate questions are deliberately excluded...” (Pielke, 1983, p. 145) He went on to pronounce that, “Science fiction is in no way a new religion; nor is it the vestiges of religion in an increasingly secular world. Religion depends on a transcendent...” And then, quoting Rudolf Otto who wrote in The Idea of the Holy, “There is no religion in which it does not live as the real innermost core, and without it no religion would be worthy of the name.” Thus, Pielke concluded, “It does not live in science fiction” (p. 153). “Star Wars”, Pielke said, like all science fiction, appeals to our human sensibilities. It touches our inherent “awareness of the inevitably of death, the threat of nothingness, and the apparent absurdity of reality” (p. 154). It is a humanist attraction. Martin Miller and Robert Sprich would differ with Pielke. They called any “dismissal of The Force as theologically trivial” a “faulty assumption. . . . The Force can be traced back to concepts in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, all those Eastern religions which view god as a reservoir of energy . . . In a specifically Western religious context, Luke (Skywalker) emerges as a Messiah-figure who takes over the power of the The Force...” (Miller and Sprich, 1981, p. 210-211)
Theories about the appeal of Lucas’s epic do not end with questions about religion. David Wyatt reminded us that the Bible is not the only place with stories of “falling, wandering, and returning.” These are also found in that “epic of tragic fall” the Iliad (Wyatt, 1982). Other scholars point to nostalgia for history in general, such as King Arthur’s court and the Crusades, and cinematic history in particular with discussions of Lucas’s penchant for mimicking movie styles, techniques, pacing, and storytelling back to the early days of the medium (Miller and Sprich, 1981; Wyatt, 1982). Still others point to the way the story assuages a psychological lack that grows steadily in this increasingly meaningless world. Much as fairy tales and art, Lucas’s films are believed to aid us in externalizing our emotions, and aiding in identity formation (Scibaj, 1981). In a related psychoanalytical approach, the protagonists are interpreted to serve the role of archetypal heros, a clear, positive restoration of the Oedipus complex and traditional morality (Miller, and Sprich, 1981; Lev, 1998). Other theories include “Star Wars” as “imperial myth” writ large (Kuiper, 1988); and “Star Wars” as ideology of the white, male dominant West (Taylor, 1988). Finally, J.P. Telotte describes the “polarity” of “Star Wars”, its “dominant structural principle,” where “paired concepts like feeling and thinking, life and death, good and evil are lined up here with disarming simplicity” (1983, p. 220).
All of these attempts to make sense of the “Star Wars” phenomenon are helpful to human understanding. In fact, George Lucas and his ever expanding circles of personnel have created a product that is connected to a seemingly insatiable desire on the part of his audience. Economic analysts can track the amount of money earned by “The Phantom Menace” effort, and attempts to generate more through increased marketing and product tie-ins. And, as we have just seen, Interpreters can come up with theories about what Lucas’s success tells us about broader culture and the psychology of our minds. And they can take note of the throngs of line-campers, as entertainment reporters Hamilton, Gordon, and Davis did for Arts and Entertainment Magazine:
Some people just don't get it. But for a generation of young, mostly male, fans who were introduced to Lucas's original trilogy as impressionable gradeschoolers, the return of the "Star Wars" franchise May 21 ranks right up there with the Second Coming of Christ. The first of three planned "prequels" set prior to "Star Wars," "Episode I" has been dissected and obsessed over like no other piece of unreleased celluloid in history. . . . Sure, hundreds of thousands of the "Star Wars" faithful have chugged along for years without a new movie to gawk at, but now this scattered community is enjoying a glorious moment of solidarity, coalescing on the Internet and preparing to burst forth as one from their far-flung basements and rec rooms. Many are responsible people. They've got jobs. They've got families. They've got a lightsaber in the closet (Hamilton, Gordon, Rogers, 1999).

But when all the commentary has been read, what are we left with? A series of educated guesses, a quote here and there, some passing observations perhaps. Until we spend time with the people who are actually using “Star Wars”, we can never say we have a helpful representation of the phenomenon. Filling that gap is possible with the right theory and methodology.
Symbolism, Media, and the Lifecourse
As an assistant investigator on the Symbolism, Media, and the Lifecourse Project under the direction of Dr. Stewart Hoover in the University of Colorado’s Center for Mass Media Research, I share the assumption of my colleagues that we are embedded in a swirl of mediated, social meanings (Gergen, 1991). But out of that we are seeking and questing, assembling worldviews, meaning systems, and identities (Giddens, 1991; Roof, 1993) in a process of “unlimited semiosis” (Jensen, 1995, p. 13). Our qualitative methods (depth interviews and observations) afford a sense of Dilthey and Weber’s notion of Verstehen (Dilthey, 1900; Weber, 1978). Utilizing the information-rich potential of cultural anthropological ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973), the ‘intersubjective’ sensitivity of symbolic interactionism (Denzin, 1992; Prus, 1996), and notions of ‘object’ handling (Csikszentmihalyi and Rocheberg-Halton, 1981), we are beginning to model the complexity of meaning-making phenomena that in the past has “traditionally been ignored or explained away” (Hoover, 1996, p. 4).
For this analysis, I will utilize one of the Lifecourse Project’s models-a discourse categorization system we call “three levels of engagement” with media. The first level, called ‘experiences in’ the media are our informant’s expressions that tell us they understand a media presentation in agreement with the way it was more or less ascribed by its producer. In other words, they ‘get’ it. We often relate ‘experiences in’ to competence and pleasure. ‘Interactions about’ the media relates to how individuals engage in discourse with others outside the context of media use that is related to previous, or anticipated usages. “These discourses,” Hoover wrote, “are the concrete mechanism whereby media objects become social currencies of exchange in social networks, but they also can have more manifestly instrumental functions, as when people talk about news or current events” (p. 17). ‘Accounts of’ media are the ways people locate media in relation to their greater meanings and value systems. Their expressions say something about their identity positions vis-a-vis media as well as greater cultural discourses. For example, our respondents will often suggest that media ‘should’ provide certain content, or ‘should not’ present other types of material. By staking their claim in this way in relation to these discourses, they continually re-ground themselves in time, space, and society. While they may seem complex in abstract form, in actual application, as we shall see, it is easy to grasp the meaning of these terms, and their significance for understanding audience-media relations.
‘Experiences In’ “Star Wars”
It is interesting that in the first stage of this analysis, the identification and description of ‘experiences in’ media, one can find examples of almost all of the categories discussed in the first part of this paper. Don, a 21-year-old college senior said the unprecedented technical aspects of “The Phantom Menace” was a big draw, “I mean, the highest movie so far was, I think ten or fifteen percent digital,” he said, “and this one’s supposed to be, like, close to 95. So, I mean, the special effects are supposed to be really awesome.” Nearly all of those interviewed mentioned Lucas’s vast marketing network as well. Danny summed up his feelings:
I think what he’s doing is pretty cool because look at him making all those people happy. You know? How...that’s what I call a “good doer.” And like, I haven’t seen him do anything bad, or, demoralizing or anything like that. He’s an idol.

But 29-year-old Amy, a doctoral student, and 24-year-old Fau, a junior in college (who were interviewed along with Don) made it clear that what they consider the superficial aspects of “Star Wars”are not what ultimately attracts them. “Really, the publicity, the media-hype, and all that stuff, doesn’t have much to do with it, because if you’re a fan, you’re gonna be a fan no matter, you know, what ever stuff goes on,” Amy said. And they are fans because of what the story provides for them. Fau reminds us of the “epic of tragic fall” (discussed above) when he called Lucas’s tale “a perfect story, the perfect story.” Fau, Amy, and Don specifically connected “Star Wars” to historical themes:
Fau: On a sub level as well, you know, um, there’s a lot to be said about the chivalrous nature, the nobility involved, the idea of loyalty and, you know, having a good character. Because, I mean, if you think about the Jedi, they’re based on people like knights from the Crusade period...
Amy: Saving the maidens.
Fau: Or Samurai protecting their emperor...
Amy: And keeping goodness in the world and making sure that right is right...
Don: That’s always been a good story.

In the discussion above I noted how fairy tales and art are believed to benefit the psyche by externalizing our emotions. Amy and Fau discussed the connection:
Amy: ...it’s a fairytale and everybody wants a fairytale in their life, you know, like the real life and the real world is not always very nice and not always very kind to everyone and stuff like that, and so, the “Star Wars” thing is like a fairytale, I mean, you have the good guy, the bad guy and the princess and the sidekicks and the, you know, the pirate guy and you know you have all these people and it’s just like, it’s just a great story just like any other bedtime story.
Fau: You know...if you stop to think about the true purpose of any movie, any book, anything that has to do with telling a story, this is the classic example of the perfect story. I mean, for two yours you’re going to stop, you’re going to suspend your disbelief for a second, you’re gonna...
Amy: It lets you use your imagination.
Fau: ...yeah, you’re gonna...
Amy: It lets you go someplace where you don’t...where you’ve never been or you’ve never encountered, or, you know, will never ever encounter like that, but you can use your imagination to imagine what it would be like.

In another interview, 19-year-old Tony, who planned to attend film school with Danny Stanley, evoked the idea of identity formation and connecting with archetypal heroes:
What Luke Skywalker is trying to do in all of those, or, in some of the movies is trying to do for the good of mankind and overpower the bad...the dark side, you know, and I think that we do that every day...in life. I’m always trying to overpower the dark side of, like, depression bringing me down and everything, and, it’s...it’s something to relate to at least, you know, like I said, it’s a metaphorical statement for life.

The attraction of the white, male dominant ethos in the West comes to mind in a passage of the interviews in which Amy applauds Lucas for his creation of diverse races in his movies. Fau, who was born in Vietnam and emigrated to the United States as a young boy, gently reminded her that the principal characters in the first “Star Wars” movie were white. Further, he wondered whether the addition of Billy Dee Williams, an African American, in the second movie was a token gesture. Despite that, he said it has never tarnished the “Star Wars” experience for him, and he joked, “...if you think about it to, you know, Chewbaca is not exactly a white person either!”
Finally, the simplistic “polarity” of the story, highlighted by J.P. Telotte, is evident when Amy said, “it’s just like the whole thing of good versus evil.” Fau basically used the same words. Don did too. So did Tony (above). It is evident, then, that the line campers ‘experiences in’ “Star Wars” is consonant with many of the interpretations of the analysts discussed above. They ‘get’ it...with one exception. The campers I talked to for the most part squarely refused to associate their experience in any way with the concept of a religion, such as when I asked Fau and Amy if “Star Wars” would be considered a deep meaning system, or religion, to them:
Fau: Ahhh, I don’t know if I’d go that far!” (Laughs)
Amy: Yeah, I don’t know if I’d go that far. Because it, I mean...you can’t take it out of context of what it is. I mean, or what it was designed to be. It was designed for entertainment, it was designed for, you know, a movie, and a story, and, like, George Lucas had this story going on in his head and he wanted to share that with, you know, everyone else, which is why he decided to make these movies, and so you can’t take it out of context like that. He’s not trying to create a religion, or, create a faith or anything like that, so I wouldn’t take it further than what it was meant to be.
Fau: It’s a story, albeit, it’s a perfect story, the perfect story, it’s the quintessential story, but it is a story...

None of the line-campers I interviewed is active in any sort of institutional religious practice, though Don considered himself Lutheran and said he has been looking around for the right church, while Fau’s father is a Baptist preacher. Most of the respondents seemed especially turned off by the notion of Judaeo-Christian belief. For example, Carson, a 21-year-old facility attendant at a senior center who interviewed in the group with Danny, Lia, and Tony, underscored his point by telling the story of his girlfriend’s cousin. The young man grew up in a religious household and was a gospel singer, he said, but when he told his mother, who is also religious, that he was gay, the mother rejected him and will not talk to him to this day. “It was religion that made that barrier,” Carson concluded, “that created it for her not to love her own child.” For Carson, the Bible is a just a “novel.” People who follow the Bible, he explained, are “basing their life on a book,” which doe not make sense to him. It was interesting that Danny was in full agreement, characterizing himself as “strictly non-religious” and saying religion can “cloud” people’s opinion:
Danny: I believe that the...like, religion is a place where you can...that your opinion, that the holes in your opinions be filled in for you. I really believe that, and um...and I honestly feel that, like, it’s hard...it’s hard to explain without, like, putting my foot in my mouth, I mean, it’s not that I don’t believe religions. It’s just that, like, I know what religions are, religions are folklore told over years and centuries, and it’s been kept up and like, it’s off...it’s originated from truth, this is all...religion is all from truth, but it’s folklore...
Carson: Yeah.
Danny: ...it’s a story, and then people believe in that folklore and that story.

But Carson and Danny do not condemn people for searching for meaning in their lives, to fill those holes. Carson said that especially now, entering the new millennium, many feel as if they need something. Danny added that “people feel alone,” the world is too “vast . . . there’s not people around you to help.” Danny gets his help on his own:
Danny: I bring everything from the things I have in my life. And I bring, I like, I interpret, like, the images I see and everything that I watch on TV, watch in the movie theaters, um, it’s somebody speaking in their way, and then I hear it how I want to interpret that and use it, and then when all those thoughts and those feelings and opinions come in, then how I act is what’s coming out. So I’m just bringing it in, soaking it all up, sorting it all out, and then...taking what I can from it kind of like a...I don’t know, it’s almost like a diet. (Laughs)
Interviewer: And Lucas’s work here...he’s a pretty good source.
Danny: Major factor. Major factor.
Interviewer: It’s good stuff to bring in.
Danny: I have no fear saying his influence in my life is a major factor in the person I am today, because of what he did.

‘Interactions About’ “Star Wars”
As we move to an investigation of ‘interactions about’, we realize how the analysts discussed above cannot be very effective in describing how people are using the symbols and meanings available to them via a media presentation like “Star Wars”. They are working in a partial vacuum. Those who did talk with audience members for “The Phantom Menace”, the mainstream press who saw it as a good story, more often than not focused on frenzied loyalists from around the world, thus marginalizing and exoticizing the practice of being a fan. One story featured: the man who stole the “Phantom Menace” trailer and offered it on a Web site; people who spent not six days, but an entire month outside San Francisco’s Coronet theater waiting for tickets; and a Dutch priest who spent 18 months gathering information from the Internet to put together an illustrated rundown of the show’s plot for his own Web site. The priest was impressed with Lucas’s ability to promote values through story telling, “Jesus often did the same thing,” he said, “though his teaching didn't earn him the millions of dollars that Lucas is making” (Hamilton, Gordon, Rogers, 1999). Yes, as Gergen made clear, we are embedded in the symbols and meanings of the media age (1991). But applying Csikszentmihalyi’s notion of object handling to media (1981), and paying attention to the way this practice happens in people’s lived experience (Silverstone, 1981; 1992; 1993), we can begin to understand the way these symbols and meanings are used and traded in social interaction (Denzin 1992; Prus 1996). In that way, depending on who is handling it, the symbols and meanings change over time, and place. By being isolated from those who use “Star Wars”, the scholars who try to grasp its symbols and meanings are greatly limited.
A prominent ‘interaction about’ “Star Wars” for the line campers repeatedly surfaced in their stories about contact with the movies and merchandise as children. Danny recalled the many hours he spent with neighborhood friends playing together with toys, acting out scenes from the movies. The toys also often had a strong connection to family. Carson fondly remembered his great grandmother having a collection of “Star Wars” toys for him to play with when he visited. Lia and her brother played with the toys. The movies were also a natural site of interaction within families. Danny stood in line with his father for not just the first movie, but all of them. Amy told the story of waiting with her parents at the age of seven back in ‘77, and Fau remembered seeing “Empire Strikes Back” at the drive-in with his parents. He was five-years-old.
As I interviewed Carson, Tony, and Lia outside their tent (Danny had not arrived yet), other nearby line-campers are heard on the tape playing with toy light sabers, laughing, and having fun. It gave Tony and Carson the chance to reflect:
Tony: See this is just...
Carson: And this is what it’s about...
Tony: It’s about having fun.
Carson: Yep.
Tony: That’s all we want to do.

The exchange underscored the fact that perhaps the most representative and revealing ‘interaction about’ “Star Wars” was the line itself. “Our agenda,” Tony explained, “was to get here first and to set the precedent for the rest of the line.” Tony said it was very important to be organized, and orderly, to keep things peaceful, to provide a safe, fun experience for everyone, including families with children. Tony and his friends had already picked up trash in the field to “leave it better than when we came here, you know, and that’s the way it should be in life, you know? . . . Wherever you go you’d better leave something better...” I asked if “Star Wars” was a source of the values they are expressing in their approach to the line:
Tony: (emphatically) Of course! I mean that’s what the whole...The Force is trying to do, they’re trying to overcome the Dark Side, they’re trying to keep humanity to its origins, like, they have...if you notice the Force is always on a nice planet and it’s always nice and green and plush, and the Dark Side is always all...
Carson: Yeah.
Tony: ...technology, and whatever, you know.

In this long interview passage, the expressed experience of Amy, Fau, and Don, who did not know each other prior to being in line, provides us with us evidence of Danny, Tony, Carson, and Lia’s good intentions:
Amy: That’s why I’m here for opening night, because I wanted to be a part of something that...I can look back at later on and say, “Yeah, I camped out and waited in line and...learned to throw a football. (Laughs)
Fau: Oh totally.
Don: Yeah.
Fau: Yeah, it’s definitely something that you go back and tell your kids about. And like, it’s amazing how many things that we’ve learned. Like, I learned how to play Gin today.
(All laugh)
Fau: Met new people, you know? It’s more of an experience rather than just standing in line.
Don: I got fried.
Amy: Yeah!
Don: Sunburned to a crisp.
Interviewer: What is it about “Star Wars”?
Amy: (an incredulous laugh bubbles up out of Amy)
Interviewer: Is there something about “Star Wars” that would...
Amy: (can’t wait, jumping in) It’s the whole thing of, like, like...
Don: Classic good and evil.
Amy: ...yeah, cowboys and Indians...
Fau: It’s the fantasy.
Amy: ...you know, same type of thing, um, good guy wears white, bad guy wears black, you know, it’s that type of thing where good versus evil. You know, it’s just the whole...
Fau: I think, me personally, I think it’s the epic nature of the style, I mean the fantasy involved where, you know, what you’re basing your life on is the idealism of good and evil, the great nature of, like, happiness winning over everything, like the good guys win in the end...
Don: Plus sci-fi.
Amy: Oh...
Fau: (excitedly) And that’s what’s so crazy about this next week, because you know it’s gonna end bad. Because it’s the pre-quel...
Amy: Yeah.
Fau: You know it’s gonna end, you know Darth Vader, I mean Anakin Skywalker is going to turn into a bad guy.
Amy: It ends with the bad guys on top because that’s the whole thing with “Star Wars-The New Hope”, you know, that they come back and, you know, the rebellion and stuff, so...you kind of got that underlying thing going (laughs)...but, as far as “Star Wars” goes, it’s just like the whole thing of good versus evil, it’s the mythology thing where it’s universal it’s not pigeon-holed into any type of religion or any type of race or any type of, you know, country or language or anything, it’s universal.
Fau: (as if Amy has just said something profound) Completely.
Don: Yeah, that’s so cool.
The pleasure of community (learning football, playing gin), the functionality of comparing notes to remain current (theory about a future plot), and the opportunity to further ground oneself in the symbols and meanings of “Star Wars” (“good versus evil”)-each is manifest in the passage. While they may have been less likely to express the good/evil characterization without the stranger-researcher present, it is likely it is still a factor in their interactions about “Star Wars”. Danny, for instance, explained that “Star Wars” fans do not walk around reciting its values like scripture, “No, not really, you kind of know it, it’s just kind of...(laughing) it’s just “Star Wars”.
At the end of his camping experience, just minutes before taking the first seat in the theater, Danny told me his experience in line solidified his feeling for “Star Wars”:
Being in line 16 years ago and remembering “Empire Strikes Back” and remembering “Jedi”, that just, I remember me being in line, but I really like, I don’t remember the feeling and, you know, the attitude that was around then, see, now I see everybody comes together and everybody’s having fun, it’s kind of like a cool campout scenario. Yeah, it’s...it’s awesome. I love the feeling that this brought up. I think it’s great.

‘Accounts Of’ “Star Wars”
Media scholar Lynn Clark has noted how young people find it especially difficult to verbalize a normative role for media. Presenting a list of ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ of media, especially a list that focuses on one’s favorite media product, such as the “Star Wars” phenomenon, may seem counter-intuitive to the pleasurable nature of the experience for these line-campers. For that reason, I will briefly stray from my own stated preference for relying on the interpretations of my respondents and offer my own interpretations of what their ‘accounts of’ “Star Wars” might be. Though no one said it this way, the fans seem to believe that “Star Wars” ‘should’ provide them with symbols and meanings that they can use. As we saw in the interaction between Amy, Fau, and Don (above), those symbols and meanings provide them with pleasure, information, and grounding values. These can be used individually, or-as I have tried to detail in the discussion of the ticket line- in community. George Lucas, Danny said again and again, has masterfully combined the three to make people happy. “I think what he’s doing is pretty cool,” Danny said, “because look at him making all those people happy. You know? How...that’s what I call a ‘good doer.’ And like, I haven’t seen him do anything bad, or, demoralizing or anything like that. He’s an idol.”
Conclusion
I was sitting inside a tent interviewing Danny and his friends Lia, and Carson when a carload of people drove by and loudly yelled, “Losers!” The people in the tent looked a little deflated by the experience and I asked what they thought of reactions like that. Without hesitating Lia said:
Lia: They don’t know.
Danny: Yeah, they’re just a...
Lia: They’re ignorant.

After having spent time with the line campers, one starts to feel the same way about the technical, economic, and scholarly commentators who have analyzed “Star Wars”. If one is seeking to represent something about the those who live in relation to this media phenomenon, they should give audience members the opportunity to talk about it based on the assumption that they can competently express their own ‘experiences in’, ‘interactions about,’ and ‘accounts of’ the practice. Otherwise, we can only conclude that, like the people who heckled the line-campers, “the don’t know.”
But if, as I have argued, the Lifecourse approach positions us to be more representative of social phenomena, what can we say after this analysis. We ask, line-camping for “Star Wars”: super fandom or religious devotion? As we saw, the line-campers reject the notion of ‘religion’, but perhaps it is because they associate the term with Western Judaeo-Christian institutional-based belief. Perhaps, as Martin Miller and Robert Sprich argued above, “Star Wars” fans might more comfortably agree with the “god as reservoir of energy” model found in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism (1981). Those religious philosophies are becoming increasingly popular in our modern, therapeutic culture. Perhaps it strikes a chord with the people who follow “Star Wars.”
While we must leave that question to further contemplation, I think I have demonstrated that the success of “Star Wars” might lie in its ability to provide symbols and meanings its audience finds attractive. Even the most loyal fans, people who are willing to sleep for five nights in a weedy field next to a movie theater, are aware that it is all just a movie, and they have their separate lives. “Star Wars” is a meaningful, fun story they are free to take or leave, just as “Star Wars” toys are merchandise they can buy or pass up. What is interesting is not the way the “Star Wars” phenomenon determines them, but the way they willfully integrate it into their lifeworlds. I would suggest that the same thing happens, albeit on a less grand scale, in homes around the world as we live in relation to media, using what works with our existence-rejecting or ignoring what does not. As Danny said, “I’m just bringing it in, soaking it all up, sorting it all out . . . it’s almost like a diet.”

Bibliography

Clark, A. (1999). A space oddity: The Phantom Menace is a curious mix of kiddie pop and cool. Maclean’s. May 24, 1999

Corliss, R. (1999). Ready, set, glow. Time. April 26, 1999.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. and E. Rochberg-Halton. (1981). The meaning of things: Domestic symbols and the self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Denzin, N. K., (1992) Symbolic interactionism and cultural studies: The politics of interpretation. Cambridge, Mass.:Blackwell Publishers.

Dilthey, W. (1900). The rise of hermeneutics. (Trans. F. Jameson). In New Literary History. 3 (1972): 229-244.

Ebert, R. (1999). Review. Chicago Tribune. (Internet posting, undated).

Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

Gergen, K. (1991). The saturated self, dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. BasicBooks.

Giddens, Anthony (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late-modern age. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Hamilton, K. and D. Gordon, and A. Davis. (1999). Waiting Star Wars. Arts and Entertainment. Feb. 1, 1999.

Hamilton, K. and D. Gordon, and A. Davis. (1998). The second coming. Arts and Entertainment. Nov. 30, 1998.

Hoover, S. M. (1999). Toward a fourth (and fifth?) paradigm for religion in the media age. Unpublished paper delivered to the Conference on the Religious Functions of Television: Perspectives from Media Research, Cultural and Religious Studies. Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. 19 February, 1999

Johnson, B. D. and S. Oh. (1999). The second coming: As the newest Star Wars film illustrates, pop culture has become a new religion. Maclean’s. May 24, 1999.

Kuiper, K. (1988). ‘Star Wars’: An imperial myth. Journal of Popular Culture. Vol 21. Iss 4. pp 77-86.

Lev, P. (1998). Whose future? ‘Star Wars’, ‘Alien’, and ‘Blade Runner’. Literature-Film Quarterly. Vol 26. Iss 1. pp 30-37.

Maslin, J. (1999). ‘The Phantom Menace’: In the beginning, the future. New York Times. May 19.

Miller, M. and R. Sprich. (1981). The appeal of ‘Star Wars’: An archetypal psychoanalytic view. American Imago. Vol 38. Iss 2, pp 203-220.

Pielke, R. (1983). Star Wars vs. 2001: A question of identity. Extrapolation. Vox 24. Iss 2. pp. 143-155.

Podhoretz, J. (1999). Star Wars and its critics: The Phantom Menace makes it to the screen. The Weekly Standard. May 24, 1999.

Prus, R. (1996). Symbolic interaction and ethnographic research: Intersubjectivity and the study of human lived experience. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Scigaj, L.M. (1981). Bettelheim, Casteneda and Zen: The powers behind the force in ‘Star Wars’. Extrapolation. Vol 22. Iss 3. pp. 213-230.

Silverstone, Roger. 1981. The message of television: Myth and narrative in contemporary culture. London: Heinemann.

________. 1993. Television in Everyday Life. London: Routledge.

Silverstone, Roger and Eric Hirsch, eds. 1992. Consuming technologies: Media and information in domestic spaces. London: Routledge.

Taylor, C. (1988). The master text and Jedi doctrine. Screen. Vol. 29. Iss 4. pp. 96-104.

Telotte J.P. (1983). The dark side of the force: ‘Star Wars’ and the science-fiction tradition. Extrapolation. Vol 24. Iss 3. pp 216-226.

Weber, M. (1978).

Wyatt, D. (1982). ‘Star Wars’ and productions of time: The epic of return. Virginia Quarterly Review. Vol 58. Iss 4. Pp 600-615.