A Field Guide to Awkward Silences

by Alexandra Petri

  This problem never comes up again, ever. Although it does explain why the Princess wears only one outfit for pretty much the duration of the movie.

  He supplies people with facts and statistics that they do not want. He talks and talks and nobody cares, and none of his skills are relevant to his day-to-day life. He is the galactic equivalent of an English major. He speaks Bocce. He is fluent in well over six million forms of communication.

  Here’s a list of things that people have said to C-3PO at one point or another:

  “Would you just shut up and listen to me?”

  “Shut up!”

  “Shut him up or shut him down!”

  “Shut up, sir.”

  “Ichota.” (the RUDEST)

  Return of the Jedi is basically C-3PO’s great shining moment because all he’s ever wanted to do is have attention paid to him and get to tell stories (“I’m not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories” in the first film was clearly just Threepio being coy) and now he finally gets his wish. He tells stories—with hand gestures!—he’s worshipped as a god, and he gets to do some of that language interpreting that he’s claimed to be able to do for the past three movies. “The illustrious Jabba bids you welcome and will gladly pay you the reward of twenty-five thousand!”

  • • •

  My point is: Threepio is great, and I appreciate him more with each passing day. And even more with each passing Jar Jar.

  A moment for Jar Jar.

  How fondly I remember the spring of 1999, before 9/11 and Jar Jar. In many ways 9/11 is the Jar Jar Binks of history.

  This field has been plowed and plowed over again and wept into and plowed a third time.

  But put yourself in my shoes.

  You are young. You have found something you love. And then you have to somehow reconcile the fact that the thing you expected would bring you only joy has turned up on your doorstep with Jar Jar Binks bawling out, “MEESA CALLED JAR JAR BINKS! MEESA YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT!”

  My only weapon was denial. I convinced myself that The Phantom Menace was good the same way I convinced myself, for years, that Santa Claus was real: by very carefully ignoring all the facts anyone presented to me. (This also works for things like evolution.) But that could only get you so far. Inevitably you remembered the existence of someone named Nute Gunray and all your defenses collapsed again.

  • • •

  I attended my first Star Wars convention right after freshman year of college, when the wounds of the prequels were fresh.

  It was a big milestone for me. “Finally,” I told my roommate, Svetlana, “I’ll get to be myself and go among my people.”

  “I don’t understand,” Svetlana said. “Who were you before? Literally the first thing you did on arriving at college was unpack your lightsabers. Do you think you’ve been hiding? If this is you concealing your love of Star Wars, what would it look like if you let it hang out? Would you just dress up as Jabba the Hutt all the time?”

  That wasn’t a bad idea, I thought. Maybe I should.

  • • •

  I had been saving up all semester to buy autographs.

  I’d tried to make money by signing up to do negotiation studies at the business school. This had not been paying off the way I hoped, because I have the business acumen of lettuce.

  Once, I tried to buy a cheap knockoff purse on a street corner. “You should haggle down the price,” my friends said.

  “Sure!” I said. I strode to the corner and picked out a purse. “Pardon me,” I said to the man behind the table. “May I haggle with you?”

  This, I have since learned, is not how haggling works.

  “What?” he said. “No. The price is final.”

  “Okay,” I said, handing him my money. “Forty dollars, wow.”

  So the negotiation studies were a no-go. Money kept slipping through my fingers like Princess Leia said star systems would if Grand Moff Tarkin tightened his grip. Finally I got a job at the library to push me over the edge.

  Nonetheless, I had enough for autographs from all the people I most cherished—the guy who had played Wedge Antilles’ gunner in a few shots of The Empire Strikes Back. The Imperial officer who yelled, “You rebel scum!” in one shot of Return of the Jedi. Several of the rebel pilots exploded during the Battle of Yavin. And Mark Hamill, of course.

  I landed in Los Angeles and took a cab over. Walking into the convention center, I felt the way I imagine dogs feel when they visit a dog park for the first time. You’ve spent months surrounded by hairless beasts who sympathize with but do not understand you. Then suddenly, a hairy stranger has taken your ball and is trying to mate with your leg. No, I’m sorry. What I meant to say was, “Then suddenly, you see that you are not alone of your kind! There are others! All kinds of others! And they wish to frolic with you in an open field.” Part of it was just being able to walk into a room and be surrounded with Star Wars things—action figures, artwork, tattoo artists doing tattoos while you waited. Part of it was seeing all the people who shared my feelings. I understood the jokes on everyone’s T-shirts. Everyone’s. That was rare.

  With that recognition came relief: I was not alone. This was my tribe.

  • • •

  This was my first time, and it was instant magic. I sat riveted in the hotel bar, chatting with a family of fans. “You built a Millennium Falcon in your basement? I DREAM of someday building a Millennium Falcon in my basement, sir! Tell me all you know!”

  There was a dance party and all the people accustomed to lurking on the edge of the dance floor and shouting over the music about Boba Fett actually got to get up and showcase our moves, waving lightsabers in the air to the dulcet strains of the “Cha Cha Slide.” I had no idea life could be like this. There was even a cute guy in a homemade C-3PO suit who vaguely resembled Edward Norton and wanted to dance.

  • • •

  My second convention, I signed up for speed-dating. Midway to the airport, I realized I’d left my Jabba the Hutt suit at home.

  Leaving your Jabba the Hutt suit at home on the morning of the Star Wars convention is like realizing, the day of prom, that you forgot to buy a dress. “Now I have to fall back on my personality!” you think, as you frantically search through your carry-on one more time. “It can’t sustain this!”

  My own dating life had not been Star Wars dependent. My first kiss was with someone who turned out to be a Trekkie. Not just a Trekkie; an ardent Trekkie who had carefully filmed an entire “new episode” in which he painstakingly reconstructed the setting and vibe of the original series, making all his own effects in Microsoft Paint. Since then, my taste had run more to fans of Woody Allen than George Lucas. Of course, Star Wars reared its head now and then, like a space slug emerging from a crater in an asteroid. When a boyfriend suggested we watch Annie Hall—“I think it would shed light on our relationship,” he argued—I adamantly refused. “That movie stole Best Picture from Star Wars,” I shot back. “I try not to watch it on principle.”

  • • •

  But I was newly single and primed to participate in speed-dating. The odds seemed good, even if the goods were bound to be a bit odd.

  I arrived at the hotel and felt immediately at home, dodging R2 units and Darth Mauls, grinning at the pairs of Chewbaccas and Han Solos trying to avoid other pairs, like girls wearing the same dress at prom.

  We weren’t the only ones in town for love. “I met Ron Paul,” a guy told me at the hotel bar. “I touched him. Do you understand? It CHANGED my life.” (What did I tell you? Everyone’s weird about something.)

  In another room was the International Yo-Yo Championship. It was impressive. A kid was showcasing his extreme moves in one glove, Michael Jackson–style.

  Jedi milled about the lobby. Clearly this was the place to be.

  I felt naked without my Jabba suit
and, chagrined, wound up buying another one. This, I rationalized, was a long-term investment.

  The suit consisted of two parts: an inflatable body and a giant headpiece that fell lightly on my shoulders. You could see out through the nostrils, which were made of mesh. It looked like something the Elephant Man would sport on a fun, casual afternoon out.

  Seeing through it was not the easiest thing in the world, but it was worth it. People kept coming up and asking to take pictures with me, even though it deflated slowly until it hung loosely on my frame, as though Jabba had just had horribly botched liposuction. My Jabba Suit was to Actual Jabba as Drew Carey Now is to The Drew Carey We Remember and Love.

  Since we were in Orlando, I joined dozens of other fans in the line for the “Star Tours” ride at Disney World and waited dutifully for my turn flying down the Death Star trench and over the Endor jungle. It was dark inside my suit and hard to see, but I bumbled along, panting into the one hundred percent nylon, grunting disapprovingly when people stepped on my tail. The atmosphere was close and sweaty and smelled like a beer I had spilled on the suit earlier.

  By the time I made it onto the ride, I had had enough. I was hot. It was hard to see what was going on. I untied the chin strap and took off the head.

  “Whoa,” said a voice behind me. “Way to RUIN the illusion.” I glanced back. A gray-haired man was glowering at me.

  “You know what,” I wanted to whisper, “there is also NO SANTA.” But I refrained.

  I should have realized.

  In most walks of life, when you pulled off the giant face-obscuring sack to reveal that you were not a large slug but a young woman, it was a net positive. Here, it was a disgrace. This weekend, we were living inside out.

  • • •

  The next day we filed into the speed-dating lounge. The event was hosted by a fat Anakin Skywalker who went by Giganakin. There was also an Obi-Wan Kenobi look-alike DJ and someone called the Scout Trooper of Love who was supposed to facilitate everyone’s interactions. He spent most of his time handing out pens.

  Someone created a minor disturbance by showing up in a Star Trek uniform. “One of the guys asked me to kick him out,” Giganakin admitted. To be fair, someone showing up at a Star Wars convention dressed as Captain Kirk is like someone showing up at a Marine barbecue dressed as Osama bin Laden’s Vengeful Ghost, except that there are international laws that restrain the Marines in such cases.

  The dates lasted three minutes each. We were to share no names, no locations. No personally identifying information. We talked Star Wars—favorites of the movies, objections to the prequels—complimented each other on our costumes, admitted we’d never been speed-dating before. We compared numbers of conventions. Then the bell rang. We shook hands meaningfully and the men moved on.

  The first guy was scruffy-looking, wearing a T-shirt whose meaning I could not immediately discern. Since we were all identified only by number, to me, he will forever remain thirty-four. He seemed squinty. He had several prior conventions to his credit. He was followed in rapid succession by someone labeled forty-two (“You should explain that you’re the answer to everything!” I suggested. “You know, forty-two! Hitchhiker’s Guide?”), a plump guy with a tattoo that permanently affiliated him with Boba Fett’s clan, and a fairly normal-seeming fellow in a humorous T-shirt. I thought that we’d hit it off. Just outside the speed-dating room I heard him exclaiming to some friends, “That was awful.”

  Only one guy was flat-out off-putting. He wasn’t bad-looking in an Aryan sort of way, but things quickly became so awkward that I wondered whether he might be doing it on purpose, responding to all my questions in monosyllables and bedewing me with spittle.

  Darth Vader appeared briefly and declined to participate, although he did volunteer to stay as “eye candy.” In any other context, a man standing in the back of a speed-dating event and breathing heavily would have been politely asked to leave. But we were elated. “I want to speed date Darth!” someone shouted. “His last love did not fare so well,” DJ Mad Kid Jedi reminded us, sounding crisp and Obi-Wan-like. “I want to date the DJ!” someone else yelled.

  The women were attractive. Most were in their twenties, like me, although the participants ranged in age from eighteen to fifty-four. About the men, I can say only that no more than two were openly carrying lightsabers, and that in general they looked less like Wampa ice monsters than I had initially expected.

  It turns out that my lack of short-term memory and speed-dating did not combine particularly well. All the numbers began blurring together. Was forty-four the one who said that his favorite parts of Star Wars were “the aliens and the explosions” and refused to say anything else? Or was that sixteen?

  I got messages from two of the guys I’d put myself down for. One suggested we meet up later in the evening. The other simply provided his contact information.

  I ran into a third on the floor of the convention shopping area. He was wearing an ensemble that made him look like a Rastafarian Jedi—a character I assumed I’d missed because I blinked during the eight seconds he was on-screen. He had seemed kind, but sad. He’d said he was going on the speed-dating adventure because his seven-year-old son appeared to think it was time.

  When we ran into each other we didn’t really have anything to say. “You do look different with the hair,” I managed.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  It wasn’t quite “I love you—I know” territory.

  “I think Star Wars is a love story as much as anything,” I said to Gigankin after the event was over. From a certain point of view, the series is all about how people are motivated and changed and sometimes twisted by the things they love. For better or for worse. There’s Han and Leia. C-3PO and R2-D2. Anakin and Padme. There’s familial love—Darth Vader for his kids. Love leads you to the dark side and brings you right back again.

  Gigankin seemed to agree. He’d been telling me about how two couples had already made commitments at the Star Wars Commitment Chapel downstairs. Somehow this depressed me. I had been down there earlier; another Obi-Wan impersonator stood under a white awning festooned with lights, cramming as many Star Wars references as he possibly could into these “commitment” vows. It was like the Elvis chapel, but without the legally binding effect or pelvic thrusting. (“Remember, in relationships, size matters not,” Obi-Wan had said. “Fear not, I sense much love in you.”)

  I had no such luck. But these weren’t the droids I was looking for, anyway.

  • • •

  As it turned out, I’d have gotten more action if I’d stayed inside Jabba.

  I learned this for a fact in 2012.

  The Star Wars Celebration fell right before the Republican National Convention, which I was hoping to cover anyway, so I figured I’d hit Florida a weekend early and get in some good wholesome time with the bounty hunters, assassins, and menacing cloaked figures before wading into the sea of bow ties.

  I remembered my Jabba suit this time.

  I went to hear Carrie Fisher speak and then wandered into the dance party. The lighting was bad, by which I mean that it was so bright you could actually see the people you were talking to.

  I found myself on the outskirts of the dance talking to “Hank” and “Gregor,” who had met in the line for Carrie Fisher. They seemed pleasant enough. Hank was bearded and looked nervous. Gregor was young and earnest, if a little on the squinty, spitty side.

  “There’s going to be an afterparty,” he said.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Gregor nodded. “I’ve got a VIP ticket.”

  “A VIP ticket to the Sith afterparty with Jake Lloyd?” I asked. This was an exciting prospect. Jake Lloyd had portrayed Young Anakin in the first prequel. In interviews he complained that Star Wars had ruined his life. The idea of an afterparty with him was intriguing. It seemed like it would be a horrible experience.


  “Whoa,” Hank said.

  “You should come with me!” Gregor said. “I can get us all in.”

  As we walked from the convention center to the hotel where the afterparty was, we learned more about Gregor. He was, he said, a pundit. His uncle was coming to pick him up at eleven, before he turned back into a pumpkin.

  He stopped conversing when his phone rang.

  “Hey,” Gregor drawled into the phone. “Yeah, I made these cool friends, Hank and Alex. I’m going to stay with one of them. You don’t need to pick me up.”

  “Excuse me?” Hank said.

  “What?” I said.

  “No, buddy,” Hank said. “You need to, um, you need to call him back and say that’s not the case, you didn’t actually ask us, like, it really would definitely not be cool for you to stay with us.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “me neither. My roommates are pretty big sticklers about that.” My roommates consisted of my suitcase, a change of clothes, and several hardcover books by P. G. Wodehouse, but that seemed like unnecessary information to volunteer.

  “Oh,” Gregor said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” we said.

  “But,” Gregor said.

  This exchange went on for much longer than this kind of exchange usually goes on when people pick up on social cues.

  We reached the line outside the afterparty. Inside, beats throbbed and dancers dressed like Twi’leks* twirled around poles. The line curled around the block in the muggy Florida air. We were behind several Sexy Dark Jedi and Regular Dark Jedi and Sexy People Who Lacked a Jedi Affiliation. I climbed into my Jabba suit.

  The closer we got to the front of the line, the shakier Gregor’s story became.

  “I can’t believe you have a ticket to this thing,” Hank said.

  Gregor pulled out a stiff, laminated red postcard and brandished it proudly.

  “That’s a ticket?” I asked. It didn’t look like a ticket. It looked like a red postcard advertising the event.