Happy Star Wars Day! I wrote an article all about May the Fourth last year (5/4/19) for an article writing class I was taking. It was quite a different experience from my usual blogging: I interviewed people, researched, and wrote not one single thing about me me me! I felt pretty proud of it, but when we discussed it in class, my teacher went off on me. I wasn’t surprised that she criticized me for trying too hard to be funny, that felt constructive, but I was surprised when she accused me of being a poseur Star Wars expert… uh I would never claim such a thing! I’m so the opposite of an expert I need an official Star Wars consultant (my boyfriend) to make up for my ignorance! Yes, I truly need a Star Wars consultant because I’m not great at remembering movies… but I love participating in theatrical events like this:
Tonight we’re live-streaming Our Shakespearean Star Wars: A Hope Renew’d. Complete with drinking games, ridiculous home-made costumes, and epic Zoom lightsaber battles. ‘Twill be a blast, and it’s free! You’ll find the link for the stream on the Drunk Texts Facebook page HERE, hope to see you at 9:30pm tonight! May the Fourth be with you!
Now here’s my Star Wars Day article, read for yourself if I’m a poseur (my sensitivity to this word correctly indicates teenaged-me fancied herself a punk rocker).
May the Fourth Be With You: You’ll Need It to Understand Everything About “Star Wars Day”
The clientele at Slattery’s Midtown Pub at 5pm on May 4th, 2019 was starkly divided. In the windowless back of the bar, regulars sipped beers, eyes affixed to the Yankee game on sizable flat screens. In contrast, the front of the venue was flooded with light and chatter. People of all ages perched on stools in excited anticipation after a day spent running around New York City collecting photos, videos, and trivia facts in celebration of their favorite movie franchise. Now the seven teams of the 3rd annual Amazing Star Wars Scavenger Hunt, created by Pogo Events, gathered to hear the results.
The calendar states today is May 4th, but no one in this group would ever refer to this date in such a conventional way. Today, on this most geek-centric occasion, it’s “May the Fourth”…be with you. Happy Star Wars Day.
According to the origin story shared on StarWars.com, 1979 is the first documentation of “May the fourth be with you” a pun on the iconic movie quote, “May the Force be with you”. The source of this word play was unexpected: British politics. On May 4th 1979, just shy of two years after the original film’s release, Margaret Thatcher was elected Prime Minister of the U.K. Her conservative party, the Tories, took out a newspaper ad to celebrate their victory, “May The Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations.” Today’s May the Fourth revelers might never guess they owe a debt to British conservatives.
The time span between first mention and actual celebration Star Wars Day is up for debate. For a franchise that is familiar with fan theories and controversy, this is as normal as Princess Leia’s snatched hairstyles. It came up during the tally of the scavenger hunt at Slattery’s. While the answer sheet gave the original Star Wars Day date May 4th, 2011, the winning team “Porkin’s Revenge” made so strong a case for a 2001 origin that both answers were accepted. Though the exact timeline of fan celebration may always be contested, Disney jumped on board in promoting May 4th as Star Wars Day in 2013. The move caused the day to blow up bigger than any Death Star explosion.
How exactly does one celebrate May the fourth, Star Wars Day? “We drink coffee out of Star Wars mugs, we dress in our finest Star Wars t-shirts, and we watch Star Wars movies with commercial breaks on cable when we already have the Blu-ray, DVD, and VHS tapes! It’s a big deal!” says Frank Cardillo, co-host of the podcast Theme Park Thursday, which covers all things Disney. Greg Mendez, the host of The Amazing Star Wars Scavenger Hunt echoes this sentiment, “We just want to celebrate everything geek and Star Wars. It’s fun!”
A look at AM New York’s coverage of all the Star Wars themed events in New York City for the first weekend of May 2019 would have made an outsider wonder if George Lucas suddenly ousted Bill de Blasio as mayor. The Big Apple celebrated Lucas’ legacy with everything from scavenger hunts and bar crawls to burlesque and improv shows.
May the 4th 2019 came just five days after a notable loss to the Star Wars universe. Peter Mayhew, the actor who played the lovable Wookiee Chewbacca, died on April 30th 2019. The timing of his passing with Star Wars Day celebrations allowed for the opportunity to pay tribute to the actor’s work and honor his memory.
Actor and puppeteer Christopher Gebauer took on the role of Chewbacca in the comedy show The Empire Striketh Back, a Shakespeare/Star Wars mash-up performed on May 3rd 2019 by The Drunk Texts. “It was a little strange going into the show with Peter Mayhew’s passing,” said Gebauer, “I have to credit Gabe Templin, our master of ceremonies. He asked if it would be alright to pause and acknowledge Peter’s death when I first came on [as Chewbacca]. Not only was it a kind gesture, but it gave me and the audience permission to laugh and enjoy our version of Chewie while making the show and the laughter of the evening a tribute to his memory. If we hadn’t had that moment of recollection, I think it would have been more than a bit strange. Instead, it was a joyous tribute.”
Not all Star Wars fans are fans of “May the Fourth”. Some find the occasion more obnoxious than the franchise’s notoriously polarizing character, Jar Jar Binks. “Star Wars is a product. I do not need a day to celebrate a product,” wrote Mason Johnson as part of his 2016 Opinion Rant for CBS Local, “Holidays are supposed to be about honoring someone other than yourself. A group of fans indulging in a brand maintained by a giant corporation? That’s just selfish.”
Like it or not, Star Wars Day is officially here to stay, at least for those living in California. The Associate Press reported that on Thursday May 2, 2019 California Legislature formally voted and now declare May the 4th as officially “Star Wars Day”.
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