Boba Fett is a Rapist

Last night I dreamed that I was molested by Boba Fett. Yes, the character in the Star Wars movies who rose from a non-speaking bit player to a major character, largely based on the coolness of his costume – that Boba Fett. Somewhere in the middle of a longer drama, I encountered Mr. Fett sitting calmly and with rather lumpen posture on a cheap eighties sofa. In this dream, I was not just myself, but a comely lass with some sort of superpowers - that is, I was stacked and very strong. I remember looking at the movie character with a wisp of a smirk about my lips – this is the real Boba Fett, the one that is so popular and mysterious? He didn’t look like much, slumping with his knees spread wide, his hands folded in his lap and his futuristic costume carelessly rumpled.

Boba, however, had some idea that we were set up on a date, or that I liked him, because he immediately got up, clumsily put his arms around me and began to try to make out with me as best he could – an activity greatly hampered by the fact that he was wearing a large helmet. (In actuality, the helmet in my dream was more like the one Princess Leia wore when she pretended to be a bounty hunter to rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt, but I knew this was Boba Fett, nonetheless.) Initially amused, I tried to slow him down, first verbally and then with pushes, but he only got more insistent and pushed me to the ground, landing on top of me. I began to get worried – was I really about to be violated by Boba Fett? After some struggle, I worked my arms loose and warned him that if he didn’t desist I’d be forced to remove his helmet – for some reason, a terrible threat in his case. When he persisted, I used my super-human strength (apparently, those helmets are locked down with bolts and things) to rip off the helmet.

What did I see underneath? Not some brawny and photogenic clone of a Maori actor, as suggested in the execrable Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, but rather a schlumpy, 30-something not-so-hipster loser nerd. With pale skin, dark receding close-shorn hair and several days’ worth of facial hair growth, topped with red-rimmed, dark-circled eyes, he looked like nothing so much as the engineered spawn of Adam “MCA” Yauch and John Turturro. Upon seeing this dweebling revealed from underneath the much-worshipped armor, I began to giggle uncontrollably – I couldn’t help myself. Soon I, and apparently some other folks who’d wandered in, were full-out laughing, and Boba got up, picked up his helmet and slunk off in humiliation.

Afterwards, however, nobody would seem to take the threat he posed me seriously. They wanted to focus more on how “mean” I’d been in exposing his goofy interior and laughing at him. Despite my protests that I had been the victim – he had been trying to rape me! – I was met with much sad head-shaking and disdain. Nobody likes to see their heroes fall.

Conclusions?
1. Clearly a meditation upon the perceptions of cool and likability via fame, this probably related somewhat to my earlier conversation with an acquaintance about the offer to appear on a reality show I recently rejected due to my assessment that it would make me and my profession look silly, and how people who achieve notoriety through movies or television are folks just like the rest of us who have to deal with weird problems (like the celebrity psychic my acquaintance knows who’s been stalked by violent religious fundamentalists). Issues addressed included actual strength/power vs. perceived strength/power, the power of shame, violence, attractiveness, rejection and dismissal.

2. I am a geek.

3. I shouldn’t have played that lousy Star Wars NES game so late last night. It totally sucked.

Other interpretations…? Feel free to comment.