Art is always an exploration of a side of ourselves, our society, and our politics. Doubly so for science fiction and dystopian works, which examine our closest concerns by placing them at a fictional remove — space, for example, or a dystopian future. So it is unsurprising that, in recent weeks, audiences have been viewing two major TV series — Andor on Disney+ and HBO’s The Last of Us — through the lens of the the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The second season of Andor, a chapter of Star Wars created by Tony Gilroy, mainly revolves around the lead-up to and the fallout from the Ghorman Massacre. The highly militarised Empire deploys its Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) to take control of the planet of Ghorman so it can acquire its minerals to build its latest weapon. Local insurgents and anti-Imperial protestors are fired upon by the Empire’s troops, resulting in the massacre of thousands. An ISB-backed propaganda push paints the Ghor as terrorists.
