There’s a scene in the last Star Wars movie that requires you to shut your brain off to the level of a piece of fruit in order for you to accept it. It happens like this: The gang is on a planet and some stormtroopers capture Chewbacca. Rey, the main character, stops the ship Chewie is being taken away on with her magic Jedi powers and attempts to bring it back down to the ground. But oh whoops, she can’t control her powers and she blows up the ship instead, seemingly killing Chewbacca. But actually, unbeknownst to Rey and also the audience, there were TWO identical transports and Chewbacca was on the other one that did not blow up and later it is revealed he’s just fine. Whatever. The tagline of this movie is “no one’s ever really gone.”
There are a lot of reasons why Chewbacca didn’t die in the last Star Wars movies. In fact, there are a lot of reasons why no one ever really dies anymore in superhero and franchise films. Most of these reasons have to do with money. You get a profitable character, people love them, and the tendency is to milk it as much as they’re worth. Of course, there was another shuttle and of course it had to look like he was dead in order for there to be a little suspense. But deep down, we know the good guys are going to win, that there won’t be any permanent consequences in these sorts of movies. You don’t need to speculate about whether or not Marvel, for example, would ever kill off a character that brings in a lot of money. You can see this in the recent Deadpool 3 trailer that just dropped where they’re hauling Hugh Jackman back in for another turn as Wolverine after his tearful departure in “Logan.”
You already know that even if you see someone die on screen in a superhero movie, there will be some deus ex machina to bring them back in the end or they’ll just do a prequel, or someone will mention the word MULTIVERSE and then a digitally de-aged Toby Maguire will step through a portal in Spiderman 15. This was why Game of Thrones was able to jar audiences. They were used to major characters winning and staying alive, but instead they died. When we got wise to the trick in later seasons, the deaths hurt less than seeing Ned Stark get his head lopped off for the first time. We knew it was coming.
But more than just money is behind this thing where no franchise can be left alone, no character truly killed off, and no plot resolved. It isn’t just our movies and television that never dies, but it’s a facet of modern living that nothing ever really gets resolved.
A few years ago, I had a huge falling out with a really close friend, and when you have a falling out with someone you’re very close with, you begin a sorting process to get that person out of your life. It’s like, I imagine, a divorce. You throw out things that remind you of them, you divide up the kids (friends), you work out a way of third-party communication so you can avoid them at social events. People choose sides, even if they say they don’t. It’s just how it happens.
But when it comes to trying to fully rid yourself of another person you aren’t just cleansing them from your physical life, but because we all live online now, you also have to cleanse them from your digital life as well. Not soon after the split, I started getting notifications when he would post online. Then there were the Facebook and Instagram memories. Then it was Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it now. So you block. That sort of does the trick. But of course, you still have access to years of communication with this person at your fingertips, it’s on your phone, your laptop, everywhere. And you have public photos. So okay, no problem, delete the chats, turn off the memories feature. There. But oh wait, this person still pops up on your Tik Tok suggested followers. And their alts are still being recommended to you on Instagram. And ah, yeah, Facebook doesn’t really do a graceful job of completely blocking people when they are having daily interactions with your close friends.
And this is fine when you are dealing with a breakup or a falling out of friends, but of course this isn’t just restricted to people who are still out and walking around. I also have, at the ready, a trove of conversations with friends who have died. Some of them from suicide or overdose, some from accidents. And I have, ready to be called up at an instant, transcripts of some of their lowest moments. Moments of them asking me for help, a slow-motion instant replay of how I didn’t recognize how dire the situation was for them. Conversations where I didn’t know it would be the last time we spoke. What do I do with those? When should I revisit those things? Should I even revisit those things? I don’t know the answer to that.
There are no rules for these types of issues, because this is uncharted territory. There’s no rulebook that came with Facebook or Instagram that says you should delete pictures of your ex from your profile or when you should block someone or if you should report that “this person is dead and please stop notifying me of their birthday.” And there’s precious little research about how social media affects our ability to move on from things like relationships or death, if we can even measure those things. But even though social media in its current form has been around for decades now, our terminology for these phenomena is quite new. We have inadequate vocabulary to describe what is happening (although terms like orbiting and ghosting have made an attempt).
In the same way our old vocabulary fails to capture the moment, nothing broke down conventional wisdom like the internet. The old adage that time heals all wounds is not actually true when you have an algorithm serving you up a reminder every day of things you’d rather forget. What should be taught is that time is only a necessary condition to heal wounds, but what is really needed is for you to either come to terms with what happened or to forget what getting the wound was like in the first place or some combination of the two.
The reason we forgive and heal as human beings is partially because we have an imperfect ability to recall what happened to us and relive it every hour of every day. The further we get from something, the less it feels like it actually happened to what we think of as “us.” Without constant reminders, we can’t fully relive those things. The past is not a mirror, it’s like looking at something falling down into deep water. The further it goes, the more distorted it gets, until the thing itself is so warped to you that you finally can’t make it out at all. When we look back we don’t find what we left behind, but something transformed, not least of all because we aren’t the same as the person who experienced it.
But this is also why it’s so hard to shake someone when you’re plugged in. We are completely engulfed in each other but also isolated. If this were the 80s and you had someone you wanted to avoid, you might have to endure a few awkward cocktail parties and weddings with them but would seldom be reminded of their existence otherwise. You wouldn’t have to see their job announcements or engagement photos or pictures of their new jetski or wherever the fuck they went on vacation. But now you have to avoid running into them in a digital marketplace designed to keep you in constant communication with everyone. The default is that you’re opted in, not out.
And this isn’t just for exes, but I’ve also started to collect a digital menagerie of online “zombie acquaintances.” They come from all sorts of moments of my life, like a girl I made out with once at a party over ten years ago who I am still Facebook friends with, a guy who I had an in-depth conversation about planes in line for the bathroom that I follow on Instagram, a friend of a friend of a friend who gave me a ride somewhere one time. Some of these people are great and awesome people, but we don’t talk. These are often people who I haven’t spoken to in years, and some people who I’ve never been close to, but they all still bear witness to intimate details of my life, and I to theirs through social media.
And yet at the same time, and I know it’s a cliche, but I feel like I’d be bereft if I didn’t mention this, we also live in a culture where some things truly are being discarded so quickly it can be disorienting. Dating apps have made dropping people without notice commonplace (that is if you don’t match with them again months or years later). Internet trends and news now move so quickly your full attention is demanded lest you fall behind. When Boomers talk about working for the same company for 30 or 40 years and it sounds like they’re talking about a foreign country. This sort of culture encourages quick moving disposability but at the same time is constantly dredging up nostalgia and maintaining memories of our past in high definition to sell back to us. It is the past without closure, it’s the future without promise. You would be forgiven for feeling a slight tug into the past and the future, but anywhere besides the present.
So where does that leave us? Well, for me it sometimes feels like I’m walking a tightrope between holding onto people and things way past their expiration date or dispatching them from my life immediately. It’s clear we need a recalibration. Maybe this requires a type of letting go that I’m not fully comfortable with. Making our own closure and occupying some sort of space where we can say “I love you. You’re no longer in my life.” without feeling any sort of tension within that statement.
What if we told studio executives that it would be okay if Chewbacca died because everyone needs to die eventually, even Wookies (I think? I don’t know?) and that their job is just to see to it that he dies well? Leave the gritty Inspector Gadget reboot starring Timothy Chalamet in its desk drawer, we’re in the arena, trying new things.
- Bill
Here’s what I’m listening to lately:
Goodbye Mr. Blue - Father John Misty
Prosthetic Head - Green Day
Hold On - The Internet
Soak Up The Sun - Sheryl Crow
Blood Meridian on audiobook
Source: It was revealed to me in a dream