New World, Old Habits: Patriarchal Ideology in Star Wars: A New Hope (Film as Text)

'Although 'Star Wars' depicts a new world, it is one permeated with the ideology of an old one. If films are the 'unconscious instruments of the ideology which produces them', Lucas portrayed a world not dissimiliar in its ideaology to the world he grew up in. Therefore, the values we associate with white middle-class California of the 1950s, which include sexism, racism and the promotion of a patriarchal, capitalist culture, are prevalent in 'Star Wars'. Indeed, Lucas admits his desire to return to the values of the 1950s. 'I wanted to make a kids' film that would...introduce a kind of basic morality.'