My partner and I have had a joke for the past year about "wanting to watch that Star Wars show with the cute little Yoda." We didn't know the plot or theme of the show...we didn't even know the name of the show. We'd seen "the little Yoda" character in memes online and hoped that he'd be featured in some amount in the show.
A few months ago we got a step closer when a friend gave us her Disney+ login details. We opted to watch the Pixar film Inside Out, about childhood emotional health and resilience, first. We highly recommend it! (Fun fact: this film was made in partnership with psychology consultant Dacher Keltner, founder of The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, from whom we love re-posting articles, especially on raising resilient children.) We forgot about the show with "the little Yoda" until a couple of weeks ago when we read an article in The New York Times announcing Emmy nominated shows. "Ahh, 'the little Yoda' show is called The Mandalorian!" we discovered, coming one step closer to realizing our dream, "And it's apparently good enough to potentially win an Emmy!"
**The following contains spoilers for The Mandalorian**
We were delighted to discover, upon watching the first few episodes of Season 1 of The Mandalorian, that "the little Yoda," or The Child, as he's called in the show, was a central part of the plot. A warrior, The Mandalorian, finds The Child, and is called to make some critical moral choices. The little Yoda is so incredibly, unbelievably cute, and the show is so visually enchanting, that we binged both seasons in about 3 weeks. I'm now experiencing post-show-binge grief.
Given my work here at PACEs Connection, I, of course, viewed the series through a trauma-informed and PACEs science-based lens. Some themes:
Abandoning vs caring for The Child
We learn in the first few episodes that The Mandalorian is a bounty hunter and a highly skilled fighter. We see him retrieve wanted supposed criminals and receive money in return. By Episode 3 his work takes him to retrieve a small, helpless creature, the "cute little Yoda," who is 50 years of age but still has the mannerisms and abilities of a toddler, and who is unable to speak except for some very cute babbling. Upon delivering The Child to those who hired him, The Mandalorian feels some unease about this ethical dilemma: he's just doing his job as a bounty hunter. He retrieved the bounty and got paid. But he didn't like who took the child. His intuition sensed child abuse. Now he has to decide—should he leave the situation as is, or should he return and fight for The Child?
In the child abuse prevention world that we live in, we are often outraged at all the systems that fail children. "Why didn't someone intervene?!" we find ourselves shouting in our minds, incredulously. In the case of the adopted kids who were killed by their adopted moms in 2019, we find ourselves wondering why so many agencies failed to protect these children, even though agencies were called several times. We wonder why the kids were taken from their families at all.
In Star Wars, there aren't systems but chaos. In The Mandalorian, which chronologically occurs directly after episodes 4, 5, and 6 that are the classic episodes from the 1970s, the evil Imperial government has been destroyed by the Jedis. In the time after, a new ruling government hasn't been totally established yet and it's an "every person for themselves" society with a lot of violence, despots, kidnappings, cowboy style shootouts, and the like. It's up to the individual to save the day and thus The Mandalorian has to decide if he personally will shoot all the guards and get the baby back. Social services ain't lookin' out for anyone. There's no child welfare agency to call.
It's comforting to watch this individual choose to do the right thing and protect The Child, and we can gain inner strength upon which to call in moments when we must be called, but still, in the very real society that we live in, what should we do when we suspect a child may be being abused or neglected?
The "evil" characters are the ones who objectify The Child
The show very clearly defines the evilest characters as those who seek to use The Child, who has magical Jedi powers, as an object to gain power. Parallels in the show to the Nazi's experimentation on human subjects are made.
In real life, we know that child abuse is the root of all evil and yet we often fall short in our society to create systems that protect. In the United States, policies have been favoring wealth creation and hoarding for an elite few at the top for the past 50 years, rather than protecting families and children. The result is a society with high rates of mental illness, substance misuse, and deaths of despair—the kinds of intractable problems we're trying to solve here at PACEs Connection. The Mandalorian series is showing us that what our society is doing by choosing wealth over families isn't benign—it's pure evil.
Healthy attachment through earned trust and provided safety
Later in Season 2, The Mandalorian is able to find another Jedi to help him figure out how to care for The Child, who we learn is named Grogu and is the same species as Yoda from the 70s films. She notices that Grogu has a strong attachment to The Mandalorian. The Mandalorian has dedicated his life to protecting Grogu from threats and attempting kidnappings. Grogu feels this protection and gives love and trust to his caregiver as a result.
For children, protection is love. There's a moment in Season 1 before The Mandalorian goes back to save The Child from the evil ones, where he calls The Child his enemy, because he had been paid to collect The Child. In a dysfunctional family with a high number of adverse childhood experiences and high levels of stress, parents often treat their children like "the enemy". In the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, where they discuss how the secure or insecure attachment we learned from our primary caregivers in childhood creates the type of attachment we're able to have with a significant other in adulthood, they discuss a concept called "enemy vs royalty". If we grow up feeling as though we're a burden to our parents—they resent us or feel exasperated by our presence, then we tend to treat our partners and lovers as enemies. We perceive that they are out to harm us and we need to protect ourselves. If, however, our parents basked in the glow of their task as caregivers, showing us with loving nurturance, warm coos, and gratitude, we will tend to treat our partners as royalty—we trust them, and therefore feel safe enough to shower them with loving affection.
Thus it was interesting to hear The Mandalorian first refer to this helpless child as an enemy and was perhaps a reflection of his warrior upbringing. The Mandalorian tribe in the Star Wars series are considered "neutral warriors," but as moral philosophers tell us, neutrality is often siding with evil. "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor," South African social justice activist and spiritual leader Desmond Tutu said. The Mandalorian character chooses love over fear, thus breaking his neutrality, and perhaps redeeming his entire tribe, as we may see in the forthcoming Season 3.
The Child seeking approval and permission from their primary attachment figure before venturing out
At the end, when The Child must decide whether to stay with The Mandalorian, or go with the Jedi for training, he looks first to The Mandalorian to see if it's safe.
We know from our work in the field of positive child attachment that children first look to their caregivers to know whether to trust people and places. Without a safe home life and safe caregivers, children may end up trusting the wrong people and grow up into adults who continually find themselves in abusive relationships.
The importance of authentically connecting with children
One of the most powerful scenes is in Season 2 when The Mandalorian finds a Jedi to help. She's not able to connect with Grogu's force the way The Mandalorian is, as Grogu's primary caretaker. She tells The Mandalorian, who doesn't have the same mystical powers to move objects with his mind, as the Jedi's do, to play with Grogu to test his powers. Grogu can't do it at first and the Jedi woman tells The Mandalorian that he has to authentically connect with Grogu. The Mandalorian turns inward, tapping into his heart center. He gets present. We can feel his love for The Child in this moment. Grogu feels it too and then is able to move the ball with The Force.
Children need their caregivers' full presence and attention. They are more powerful and more receptive to learning and playing when they feel that their caregiver loves them and cares about them. This love has to feel strong—it can't just be said out loud. When The Mandalorian gives Grogu his full attention and presence, that's when Grogu has more power. A beautiful lesson for parents and caregivers.
Dads as protective warriors
I love the portrayal of The Mandalorian as the protective Dad warrior. In Western society, the male archetype is too often one that is unfeeling and uncaring—more concerned with earning a living than with caring for others. The Mandalorian does carry many of these traits and often struggles to be warm to The Child. But by the end, he realizes the importance of a soft, nurturing love, as is symbolized by removing his protective helmet, which he has sworn, as a warrior, never to remove. Removing the helmet makes him vulnerable and human. We see Grogu reach out and touch his bare face in a moment of tear-inducing love.
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Fellow Star Wars nerds! Thoughts? Comments? What did I miss? What do you disagree with? Please comment below so we can discuss!
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