Philosophy – Page 2 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Back to Basics – How?

This is the second half of our Back to Basics miniseries, a primer on the whats, hows, and whys of living history in the Galaxy Far, Far Away setting.
Like cosplay, reenacting is fairly straightforward; it generally does not go beyond ‘looking good’ through the creation of an ‘outer persona’. Since contemporary life is noticeably lacking in FTL spacecraft, energy weapons, antigravity vehicles, etc., true Star Wars reenacting is well out of reach.
On the other hand, living history—while requiring more diligent research—is actually much more achievable for the galactic setting. Because it usually involves educational interactions with the pubic, you should try to build your persona as accurately as possible, and whether you’re pursuing First-, Second-, or Third-Person interpretation, you’ll want to have at least a decent understanding of life in the Galaxy, as well as being familiar with your specific subject, trade, or activity.

So today, I want you to ask yourself two questions:
What am I good at? and What can I use those Skills to interpret or teach others?

17 ideas for in-universe interpretation after the jump!

Back to Basics-What and Why?

While I started this blog back in 2017, I spent the first few weeks detailing the basic ideas behind the ‘Advanced Costumed Arts’ of reenacting and living history. Over the intervening three+ years this blog has been plugging away merrily, and those early posts—while still collected at the ^FIRST STEPS page^—are effectively buried for those who might find their way here and don’t want to endlessly scroll or use the search bar or Categories >>. Therefore, I wanted to put together a miniseries to lay out the underlying foundations for what it is we aspire to do here, why we do living history specifically, and how You can do it too!

WHAT are reenacting and living history?
(For a short but very complete general introduction to these activities, I recommend downloading F.L. Watkins’ The Reenactor’s Encyclopedia, from which I’ll be quoting here and there.) At their most basic, both reenacting and living history are activities in which participants seek to learn about and experience life in a non-contemporary time period. These activities usually involve the participant assembling a ‘kit’ (what you’ll often see referred to here as ‘the outer persona’) of “possessions…that might have been owned by his impression”; this should start with clothing, and then might extend to include tools, food, camp gear, sundries, and weapons.

what do reenacting and living history look like?

On the subject of bounty hunting ‘trophies’

As I’ve talked about a few times before, when reenacting any setting (historic or fictional) one of the best ways to add depth to an impression is by including small details or items of ‘pocket trash’! One of the ideas I frequently see discussed in online Star Wars cosplay circles is the idea of ‘hunting trophies’, and a recent thread made me realize I definitely have some thoughts on the subject!

Whether it’s bones and claws from critters, crystals from Jedi lightsabers, battle droid fingers, or actual lightsabers, the notion that a bounty hunter or mercenary character should have a collection of tchotchkes taken from past kills dangling from their belt, blaster, or backpack is one of those trends that the costuming community has really latched onto. However, I submit that this type of decoration is A) actually an impediment to such work, and B) a fan reenactorism not seen in either primary or secondary sources. Be sure to stick around til the end for some ideas on how to more authentically portray these kinds of character in true ‘living history’ style!

In defense of ‘close enough’

Let’s talk about fish-lady sweaters for a second.
When a Mon Calamari showed up in The Mandalorian Chapter 11 wearing an off-the-rack fisherman’s sweater, the community lost no time in memeifying it before hopping on Amazon to snatch up one or two for themselves. I find it encouraging that people are interested in costuming a common civilian for once (instead of the rare-in-universe but over-represented-in-cosplay Jedi/Sith/Mando/bounty hunter ‘player classes’)…but if I was looking to put together a GFFA dockworker impression, I definitely wouldn’t go out and buy the exact onscreen sweater—and not just because they’re probably now very scarce! Here’s why.

Staying true to the aesthetic

(I had originally scheduled this to post a few weeks from now, but since writing it the pitfalls described below keep popping up on my feed, so I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer.) After seeing more than my fair share of Star Wars costumers and their outfits online, I’ve noticed a particular trend in the last year or two across various social media platforms, mainly in the case of the Galaxy’s Edge-inspired/Batuu-bounding or OC crowd:

The desire to slap a Rebel Alliance starbird, Jedi crest, Sith symbol, Mickey Mouse, or Aurebesh letters on bloody everything seems very strong with this segment of the fandom, and the big driver of this, I think, is of course the consumer market. As a quick test, let’s do a image search for ‘Star Wars backpack’.

Finding Your Place in the Galaxy

I was recently sent this video of the ‘Mando march’ parade held at Star Wars Celebration ’17. Since social gatherings are now few and far between in these days of COVID, I wanted to share it with you here, not only as a visual aid for my points in this essay, but also just for a vicarious dose (albeit virtual) of the con experience for which many are currently in withdrawal.
After watching, I had two (okay, three) reactions:

1) Man, the Mando costuming community is bloody Inclusive. There are folks of ALL ages, abilities, body types, and (I’m guessing, since they’re all helmeted) races, genders, and sexual orientations on display in that parade, all with their love of all things Klingon Mandalorian proudly on display. Good on them! With that said, though… Continue reading “Finding Your Place in the Galaxy”

The issue of Original Characters

It’s been a while since I’ve done a ‘back to basics’ post, so we’re taking a break from the usual projects-and-research content and taking a turn for the nitty-gritty. The vexing issue this week is that of the ‘OC’, or ‘Original Character’ (differentiated from a recognizable ‘Face Character’). Stick around at the end for a list of character ideas to take your OC to the next level!

After hanging around a popular SW cosplay facebook group for the last few years, I have noticed a pattern that my historical-authenticity-focused mind finds quite aggravating: Continue reading “The issue of Original Characters”

Boba Fett’s survival knife: Accuracy vs. Authenticity

bobaknifeSWVD
I’ve been thinking about this item a lot recently, as a possible easy project to bang out with the drill press and benchgrinder some weekend. We don’t have many references to non-vibro knives in the Star Wars galaxy, and its identification as a “survival” knife lends itself easily to my purposes of wilderness adventure and interpretation. With a beefy 5 or 6 mm spine, I can easily see it being perfect for batoning firewood and other tasks around camp (in GFFA style, of course).
The problem is, there are two versions of Boba Fett’s ‘survival knife’ out there – so which one is ‘right’? Continue reading “Boba Fett’s survival knife: Accuracy vs. Authenticity”

The ethical dilemma of rationalizing DisneyCanon with the EU

As always, apologies for the recent delay in posting…real life takes priority from time to time. I try to post a decent variety of content—see the CATEGORIES menu over there >>>>> —and when it comes to ‘Artifact ID’ series, I’m afraid I’ve hit a bit of a bottleneck. You see, I have several identified artifacts queued up and ready to share, but there’s a problem – they’re all from Rogue One Colon A Star Wars Story…and as you may have noticed if you’ve been following along, I’m not really a consumer of post-Disney Star Wars content.
With that in mind, I’d like to take a break from our regularly scheduled content to share my thought process and try and get to the bottom of this recent quandary.
Continue reading “The ethical dilemma of rationalizing DisneyCanon with the EU”

In Good Company

At the same time as I was struggling with my Naboo-rebranding dilemma, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of copies of the 20^th Anniversary Editions of James Gurney’s Dinotopia books. (Yes, I know these editions came out like, six or seven years ago…suffice to say that I’m thrifty, a laggard in more than just technology, and always wary of reissues with extra features…I tend to wait until I’m sure that the new edition will be worth it, find the best possible (usually secondhand) price, and then gift the old edition to a niece or nephew).
It was a particularly ironic bit of serendipity, since, as I touched on earlier, Naboo’s capitol Theed was maybe/maybe not influenced by Dinotopia’s Waterfall City.

Theed_youth_freedom — Source: *Star Wars* Art: Visions (2010)

Imagine my surprise then, when I began reading the added Foreword to the second volume, The World Beneath, and came across the following passage:
Continue reading “In Good Company”