I cried in class today. I wasn’t sobbing outright, but I was caught off guard by my emotions and couldn’t stop my eyes from welling up with tears. I had opened up the New York Times homepage on my computer and I was projecting it on screen to show students what was in the news today. The top stories were about the U.S. Presidential race, but when I scrolled down I saw the headline that James Earl Jones had passed away at age 93. An involuntary reaction took hold of my body and I released an auditory gasp. This particular class was one that I co-teach, and my co-teaching partner looked over at me and asked, “really?” with a face that indicated he wasn’t asking about the veracity of the headline; he was expressing his surprise at my visible devastation. I don’t blame him, even I was surprised by the extreme reaction I was having. I’ve never cried from a celebrity death before.
I was introduced to Star Wars from a very young age; so young I actually don’t remember the introduction. In fact, I have no memories at all of life without Star Wars in it. Star Wars has just always been part of the natural backdrop of my world, in the same way that grass and trees are the backdrop of a squirrel’s world—it couldn’t imagine a world without them.
I was born in 1985—after Return of the Jedi had already been out for nearly two years—and by the time I was old enough to have any substantial understanding of the world, not only had Star Wars already become a cultural juggernaut, but my older brother had all the coolest toys: weird aliens, cool heroes with lightsabers, big starships. They were there, all around me in the house since before I can remember.
Many people have vivid memories of the first time they saw Star Wars. They recall watching it with their parents or their friends in the theater, or renting it on video. I have no such memory at all. We had a copy of the trilogy on VHS, and I must have watched them so many times in my early years that I just completely internalized the stories. It’s like they’ve always been known to me. Star Wars, to me, feels the same as one of Aesop’s fables. Luke Skywalker is on the level of Goldilocks or Little Red Riding Hood. It’s just a normal part of the mythology that makes up the culture around me.
Quickly, though, it became far more than just the background for me. My brother, being 9 years my elder, didn’t always easily relate to me or have time to play with me. By the time I was in kindergarten, he was already a teenager. And he had graduated and moved away for college before I even made it out of elementary school. But while we were living together, he was the absolute coolest guy in my life. I was always trying to glean whatever tips I could get about how to be cool like him when I got to be his age. I watched him with endless fascination. I snuck into his room when he was out and looked at his CD collection or his fashion. I adored him (and of course I still do), and I wanted to be like him. So, if he liked Star Wars, I had to learn everything I could about Star Wars.
Gradually, Star Wars became much more meaningful to me than simply, “this thing that my brother likes that therefore I like also.” Over the course of many viewings of our VHS tapes, and listening to the Star Wars Radio Dramas on repeat for years (I could write a whole essay just about that, too; maybe another time), and collecting Star Wars cards, and hungrily consuming Star Wars books, I became—dare I say—a much bigger fan than my brother ever was. (I’ve never actually brought this up with him, though. I wonder if he would push back against that statement.)
Star Wars became a pillar of my identity. My fandom felt (and still feels) like an important part of the many facets that shaped my personality and made me into who I am. The lore of it, the visuals, the music, and of course, the characters themselves all feel like things that are adjacent to the core of me.
Losing an actor that was a major part of something that you hold so dearly in your heart is not an easy thing, and Star Wars has already had its share of losses: Sir Alec Guinness, Kenny Baker, Carrie Fisher, and Peter Mayhew, to name a few. But although I was certainly saddened by the losses of Carrie Fisher and Peter Mayhew in particular, they didn’t make me cry the way I did today. I didn’t have that same involuntary gasp, the bottom of my stomach dropping out, or the tears coming before I could blink, the way I did today when I saw the news that James Earl Jones had passed. I took some time alone to process it today, and to think about why this one hit me harder than the rest, and I think I came to a realization: James Earl Jones was my pop culture daddy.
James Earl Jones was my pop culture daddy.
Star Wars was my introduction to James Earl Jones, in which he iconically voiced Darth Vader, (spoiler alert!) the father of the protagonist, Luke. However, Star Wars was not the only VHS tape we had in our household. My parents were also Eddie Murphy fans, and we had a couple of his movies, including Coming To America, in which James Earl Jones played King Jaffe Joffer, the father of the protagonist, Akeem. I was almost certainly too young to watch that movie, and I definitely didn’t understand all the more adult jokes, but I loved it nonetheless. And since our VHS collection wasn’t all that large, I ended up watching it countless times.
Then, when I was 9 years old (in 1994), the Disney hype train rolled out their most epically ambitious movie to date, featuring James Earl Jones as the voice of one of the most legendary father figures in recent cinematic history: Mufasa. The release of The Lion King made huge waves in the zeitgeist, and I was at the perfect age to be maximally impacted by it. I was old enough then, also, to understand that the voice I was hearing was the same as Luke Skywalker’s father’s, and that was enough to permanently cement him in my psyche as pop culture dad.
So what is a pop culture daddy and why is it so important? I don’t have a complete and definitive answer to that question—this is something I’ve only come to realize today—but I can begin to philosophize on it. We all have a father, who when we were growing up was a part of our lives to varying degrees. No matter to what degree your father was a part of your life, they are only human, and inevitably they have their shortcomings. It is at that point when a child (and probably in particular a boy) looks to the wider world around them in search of father figures that can fill those gaps.
I am incredibly lucky to have had a wonderful father (and I have written before about just one of the myriad ways that I am grateful he shaped me into the man I am today), but perfect is impossible, and there were times when I looked elsewhere to learn from a different kind of father figure. And where else would a young boy turn to but the pop culture he knows and loves?
Darth Vader, Jaffe Joffer, and Mufasa represent 3 starkly different types of father figures, but because they share the same voice, I believe I unconsciously brought them together in my mind. I think that there are qualities to admire and lessons to be learned from all 3 that have meant a lot to me in my life.
Darth Vader was obviously terrifying, yet intriguing. His character design and the intense voice made him irresistible. But ultimately, he taught me that no matter how far someone goes down a dark path, there is always a chance for redemption. And it’s never too late to become a hero.
Jaffe Joffer was a stern and distant father. The distance was sometimes literal: there is a scene at the beginning of the movie of a family dinner in which the King and Queen are sitting at one end of a ridiculously long dining table with the Prince at the other end. They are so far apart they have to communicate by intercom even though they are eating dinner together in the same room. However, by the end of the movie, we see his tender side, and how he was always wielding his power—for better or for worse—with the intention to make sure his son was happy.
Mufasa, of course, was the ultimate father. He was actually perfect in every way, it seems. Perhaps his only flaw was misplacing his trust in his brother, Scar, but Mufasa was caring, benevolent, and attentive. Stern when necessary, but also tender and doting. It is because he has such a lack of flaws that his loss feels all the more tragic and despairing. No wonder Simba loses his will to grow up and be a man. Mufasa shows just how incredibly powerful a father’s shadow can be, both in casting darkness, but also in leading you towards the light.
There are so many more lessons that can be taken from each of these characters. But the lessons aren’t even the point, really. Here’s what it really comes down to: when I was young and I thought about fathers, the first person I thought about was my Dad; the second person I thought about was James Earl Jones.
To be totally honest, I know so little about the man in real life. I have heard he was a joyful man, and a good father, and I hope that all of that is true. I know he was a stutterer when he was younger, and he went on to become an EGOT winner, but none of that really makes much of a difference to me in the end. I know what place he holds in my heart, as my pop culture dad, and it feels like the most significant celebrity loss I have experienced so far.
“Remember who you are. You are my son, and the one true king.” -Mufasa
“I'm more than the exalted ruler of this land and the master of all I survey. I'm also a concerned dad.” -Jaffe Joffer
“I am your father.” -Darth Vader
Thank you, James Earl Jones, for creating such iconic characters. Your voice will live on, but may you rest in peace.
Well written, brother. (Especially the part about how cool I was...)
I would never push back about your Star Wars fanaticism, Loren. I suppose somehow, amazingly, the zeal for this iconic fantasy actually grows with the generations, as yours most certainly outpaced mine, and my son's has now has easily surpassed both of ours.
And since we're celebrating this man, you can't forget the "people will come, Ray" speech from 'Field of Dreams'... https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/1992743/2020/08/14/one-constant-through-all-the-years-the-field-of-dreams-speech-meets-2020/