STAR WARS, or, When should I introduce my child to Pure Evil?

I have probably already subjected you to my diatribe. A few years ago on Halloween I noticed the preponderance of Darth Vaders, Darth Molls, etc. against a severe dearth of Obi Wans, Luke Skywalkers, Princess Leahs, and the like. The trick-or-treaters who visit our block number 500 to 600, which must constitute a statistically significant sample size, so I figured this trend indicates something meaningful about our culture and the world as a whole. My question: Where did all the good guys go?

The battle between good guys and bad guys is, of course, as old as time. Cowboys v. Indians, Allies v. Hitler, God v. Devil, Red Sox v. Yankees. Occasionally, in liberal pinko commie crowds, the contest allows for moral ambiguity, and history often inverts the designations. But the essential struggle endures in stories that reflect outwardly our inner conflicts. I want the last cookie; I contemplate my temptation to grab it from weaker hands through the moral lens of European conquest and I am ashamed. I share the cookie. If dressing up as Darth Vader helps my almost-six year old son get in touch with his dark side, I'm down with that. Assuming, of course, he concludes that earning his candy the old-fashioned way is better than terrorizing younger kids on the block into relinquishing theirs.

And herein lies the rub, and my gripe with George Lucas. Jordy and I grew up on the original trilogy - a classic hero's journey wherein Luke Skywalker discovers that he is not who he thought he was, that he has the force within him, that an estranged relationship with his father tempts him to the very anger that turned his father away from the jedi's path, and that he must find the strength to devote himself to the light. It ends with the ultimate father/son reconciliation and a giant Ewok barbecue. Moral order is restored.

But "these kids today" (!) are growing up with a very different part of the story - the fall from grace, the embrace of evil, the surrender without the redemption. Of course they are supposed to go on to watch Episodes IV through VI in order to end where we did, but as my clever film history professor friend points out, the change of film aesthetics from the '70s to now mitigates against that identification. The video games feature exciting races and inter-galactic dog fights in which Anakin Skywalker is the hero. Yesterday when my little round-faced, towed-headed Duncan pushed his Darth mask up for a breath of air, our little neighbor Charlie exclaimed, "He looks just like Anakin!!" It was true. Unnerving for a mother.

I already accept the Wet Blanket Award for Taking Pop Culture Too Seriously, yet I will go a step further. I don't know what makes one person's moral development proceed toward Ghandi-status and another toward Hitler, or of course, like most of us, to the mostly law-abiding vs. law-defying shades of gray in the middle. I imagine a complex interaction of innate, primate, and cultural forces. But on the cultural part - I have to believe that we play a role in teaching our kids something about morality, starting by showing them love and respect, then helping them imagine the inner lives of others. Is it possible to exert your greatest parental effort and end up with a Hitler? Maybe so. This question is way beyond the scope of this wee blog. I don't believe shielding kids from evil characters is the way to go, nor would I advocate banning play-acting the part. (I loved being a pregnant witch last Halloween.)

But what if the moral growth of children happens like the zippering and unzippering of DNA, with moments when the introduction of an idea has the potential to weave itself in -- or bind with a pre-existing template -- in more and less powerful ways? If so, how do we judge the right moment to introduce such stories and characters? (And if this seems like a nerdy line of inquiry, isn't it telling that we don't introduce our kids to real-live monsters like Hitler until "a certain age"?) Duncan knew a boy who began watching Star Wars at a particularly vulnerable moment, it seemed, judging from his bullying behavior on the playground fortified with Star Wars re-enactments. It can't be a matter solely of chronological age. There's something else I'm looking for... Some kind of contextual understanding in the child's life experiences up to that point... An ability to look at the daily opportunities to exercise exploitation vs. fairness -- grab-the-cookie-from-the-weak v. there's-only-one-left-let's-share -- wherein moral and physical power separate... Or a child's dawning recognition, after cooling off, of anger's roots in hurt feelings...

Although his 6th Birthday Party will have a STAR WARS theme, Duncan has not actually ever seen "Star Wars" -- with the exception of a clandestine partial viewing of "The Empire Strikes Back" when he manipulated a babysitter into showing it to him and his then 2-year old brother. (Useful material for moral explorations.) However, he has heard the story the Homeric way, i.e. as an oral epic enacted by his parents during long car rides. This telling allowed us to stop, answer questions, re-tell confusing or exciting parts, and reconcile differences between his parents' versions. At age 4, driving in the dark one night, Duncan already perceived the essential question: Why did Darth Vader turn to the dark side?

In an attempt to answer the unfathomable, I drew from tragedy close to home. At the time Duncan was also just beginning to understand the death of his beloved cousins' father, Gary Lehmann. It is one thing to say a drunk driver hit Gary's car, taking his life. It is another to make sense of the vast chain of substance abuse and suffering behind that driver's behavior. Was it an accident, or was it a crime? What is the difference for the survivors? What do we do with our feelings of anger and sadness? Do we punish? Seek revenge? Or do what we can to mend the chain of brokenness? And if so, what is that? I asked him to look at his Aunt Kristin's example. Does she still love her children? The world? I explained to Duncan the efforts Kristin had made, despite her clear conviction that this was a crime and not an accident, simultaneously to confront the man who killed her husband, form her own impression of his efforts to reform and recover, and ultimately support his parole in the interest of his being a better parent to his own son. It took Aunt Kristin a lot of strength to let her sadness be stronger than her anger, and out of sadness to keep loving the world in spite of how it hurts us. Darth Vader (in my version) did not find this strength. Instead he gives in to the anger of his wife's death and cuts himself off from his heart. Our conversation stuck. Two years later Duncan still refers to how "the Lehmanns chose the light, even though they miss their dad."

Yet and still... This summer Duncan couldn't make up his mind between the myriad of Star Wars Lego kits, mostly destroyers for the Republic, advertised in his Lego magazine. At one point, already in debt to his parents for an earlier impulse buy, Duncan begged for the Death Star Lego kit -- a mere $400 item. Death and destruction, it turns out, is expensive. (Am I hopelessly uncool if I register my opinion that the mechanized space warfare of Star Wars looks and feels too much like our unmanned and, ahem, also expensive drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan?) And what am I to do with my little Darth Vader, whose light-saber swashbuckling knocks over his toddling baby brother and harasses a poor old dog with hip displasia?

Maybe I should take comfort from a variation on the Banality of Evil, otherwise known as the Cuteness of Evil. When we forget to put up the gate to block baby Tucker's ascent of the stairs, our little Darth leaps up to spot him. At Family Swim at the Y, our Darth offered the soft swim cap to brother Reeve unprompted, knowing the plastic one pulls Reeve's hair. And when he leaves for school, little Darth drops his mask and light saber in a heap on the bathroom floor, eager to see what games they will play in gym today. Maybe he is ready for Star Wars after all.