Warning: This blog post contains spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2 of Andor (Disney+).
I’m not much of a Star Wars fan, but I have absolutely devoured the Star Wars show Andor, which recently released its second (and final) season on Disney+. The show features impeccable acting, strong storytelling, an abundance of strong female leads, and speeches that are so prescient to the present political moment that it feels like they were written yesterday.
One of the many threads that I found intriguing in this series is the plotline that follows the relationship between Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) and her daughter, Leida (Bronte Carmichael). Mon is a progressive Senator, who publicly uses her position to fight injustice while also secretly working for the rebellion against the Empire. It is clear that her young teenage daughter, Leida, does not share these progressive values. In fact, Leida and her friends have engaged an Elder to catechize them in “the old ways” of their home planet Chandrila. When Mon’s cousin Vel (Faye Marsay), also a secret agent for the rebel cause, sees Leida and her friends learning the old chants, Vel is horrified. “Seriously? Is that really happening?” she asks Mon. “I thought this was over.” “It’s back,” Mon replies. “It’s weird. It’s stronger here than it is back home.” Mon explains that neither she nor her husband arranged for Leida’s meetings with the Elder, but rather Leida herself. Still shocked, Vel says to Mon, “Don’t tell me you’re taking proposals” (S1.E10), indicating that this catechesis is closely linked with marriage customs.
But Mon does entertain a marriage proposal, from a wealthy “thug” (S1.E9) who can help to cover up her financial indiscretions (large donations to the rebel cause). Despite the rightness of the cause to which Mon has devoted herself, we can’t help but see this move as a moral failing on Mon’s part, the sacrifice of her daughter’s wellbeing on the altar of the cause. Just before the wedding ceremony, Mon tries to undo what she has done, urging Leida that it is not too late to walk away from the marriage agreement (S2.E3). Leida spurns the offer.
The bride is young, too young (just 14 years old); the wedding rituals are too old. While Mon’s husband enters enthusiastically into the archaic customs, expressing how delighted he is to “see these two young people sharing our greatest tradition” (S2.E2), Mon tries to pass it off as an aesthetic fad—“Everything old is new again” (S2.E2). But Vel’s horrified response to the wedding helps tip off the viewer that the ancient rituals are weighted with more sinister overtones. Vel is a queer character, and although it is not explicitly stated, it can be inferred that the Chandrila wedding rituals are rigidly heteronormative.
The Star Wars universe isn’t the only place where young people are turning to conservatism. Recent polling indicates that young Gen Z in the US are more politically conservative than their older Gen Z counterparts, and you don’t have to look far to see parallel movements in religious spaces. Every once in a while, my Instagram algorithm feeds me a “trad cath” (traditional Catholic) reel, and I watch with a kind of horrified fascination as a pretty young white woman tells me about her practice of veiling for mass, or about the success of her early marriage. The practice of wearing a veil, or mantilla, during mass has been taken up by significant numbers of young Catholic women in the West in recent years. While the participation of young people in conservative religious practices is nothing new, this trend is somewhat different in that these women are taking up a practice that was largely left behind after Vatican II. It may seem like an innocuous spiritual practice that is meaningful for some people. Yet the tradition comes heavily freighted with doctrinal and cultural baggage. A perusal through trad cath social media reveals that there are strong overlaps between veiling, “femininity,” modesty, purity culture, heteronormativity, patriarchy, early marriage, and a strong commitment to the Traditional Latin Mass. And yes, at least on social media, there is a strong aesthetic current undergirding it all, as the aesthetic of veiling bleeds seamlessly into the wedding aesthetic.
Traditions, including faith traditions and the rituals that support life passage events—birth, marriage, death—are an important part of the fabric of any society. But these traditions and rituals do more than just connect us with the past in sometimes obscure ways. They also solidify and carry forward systems of values and beliefs. They are created by fallible human beings and are often crusted over with racism and rigid heteronormative patriarchy.
There’s a reason Mon Mothma tries at the last moment to call the wedding off, and it isn’t just because of her guilt at placing her financial situation ahead of concern for her daughter. It’s clear that she is afraid for Leida, that she believes this marriage may harm her. “Everything old is new again”—but this isn’t just a fad. This isn’t just a Chandrila core aesthetic. Deep down, Mon knows that the ancient marriage rituals may carry some blessings, but they carry horrors, too.
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