A Galaxy of Things explores the ways in which all puppets, masks,
and makeup-prosthetic figures are "material characters," and uses
Star Wars creatures, droids, and helmeted-characters to illustrate
what makes the good ones not only compelling, but meaningful. The
book begins with author Colette Searls' Star Wars thing aesthetic,
described through a release-order overview of what creatures,
droids and masked characters have brought to 45+ years of
live-action Star Wars. Building on theories from the burgeoning
field of puppetry and material performance, it sees these "material
characters" as a group and describes three specific powers that
they share - distance, distillation, and duality - using the
ubiquitously recognizable Star Wars characters to illustrate them.
The book describes Distance, Distillation, and Duality as material
character powers, using characters like C-3PO and Jabba the Hutt to
illustrate how all three work to generate meaning. An in-depth
exploration of the original Empire Strikes Back Yoda and "Baby"
Yoda (Grogu) reveals how these two puppets use those powers to
transform their human companions: Luke Skywalker, and then Din
Djarin. Searls provides an in-depth analysis of Darth Vader's mask
trajectory across three trilogies (1977 - 2019), revealing its
contribution as a "performing thing." Finally, the book presents
problematic uses of material character powers by critiquing droids
in service, and the historical use of racial stereotypes in
characters like Jar Jar Binks, before offering a hopeful analysis
of how early 2020s live-action Star Wars began centering the non-,
semi-, and concealed human in redemptive ways. This is an
accessible exploration for students and scholars of theatre, film,
media studies and popular culture who want to better understand
puppets, masks, and makeup-prosthetic characters. Its terms and
concepts will be useful to scholarly explorations of non-, semi-,
and concealed human portrayals for a range of other fields,
including posthumanism, object-oriented ontology, ethnic studies,
and material culture.
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