Is Mar­garet Thatch­er respon­si­ble for Star Wars Day?

Ask old­er Star Wars fans about ​‘Star Wars Day’ and they’ll prob­a­bly tell you it ought to be cel­e­brat­ed on 25 May – the date when George Lucas’ swash­buck­ling space opera opened in US the­atres back in 1977.

But the ori­gins of Star Wars Day as we know it, cel­e­brat­ed on 4 May across the inter­net and in var­i­ous offline capac­i­ties, can be traced back, sur­pris­ing­ly enough, to the 1979 UK gen­er­al elec­tion. Mar­garet Thatcher’s oust­ing of the incum­bent Labour Prime Min­is­ter James Callaghan was com­mem­o­rat­ed by her par­ty tak­ing out a half-page ad in the Lon­don Evening News that read: ​“May the Fourth Be With You, Mag­gie. Con­grat­u­la­tions.” That the Con­ser­v­a­tives saw fit to repur­pose the now icon­ic phrase for this momen­tous polit­i­cal vic­to­ry shows just how far reach­ing Star Wars’ cul­tur­al impact was at the time.

Star Wars Day is a time for fans to show their appre­ci­a­tion of the series, either by attend­ing local events, host­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in film screen­ings, or more sim­ply shar­ing memes to mark the occa­sion. The unique­ness of this par­tic­u­lar phe­nom­e­non stems from the fact it was devised by fans and not the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, Lucas­film. In recent years, Star Wars Day has become a point of inter­est for a mul­ti­tude of cor­po­ra­tions to cash in on, by incor­po­rat­ing cer­tain char­ac­ters or quotes into their brand­ing, in many cas­es through inge­nious methods.

The first notable real-world Star Wars Day event occurred on 4 May, 2011, in my home city of Toron­to, Ontario, at the now defunct Toron­to Under­ground Cin­e­ma. It fea­tured a pletho­ra of fan films, mashups and par­o­dies pro­ject­ed on the big screen, not to men­tion 35mm trail­ers of films from the orig­i­nal tril­o­gy. Atten­dees were also able to par­tic­i­pate in a cos­tume con­test judged by local celebri­ties, win prizes in a triv­ia game show and take pho­tos with mem­bers of the 501^st Legion of Stormtroop­ers, the fan organ­i­sa­tion who dress up like armoured forces of the Galac­tic Empire.

Not hav­ing per­mis­sion to show the films them­selves from the rights hold­er, the event instead came to rep­re­sent a cel­e­bra­tion of the fan­dom itself and the var­i­ous for­mats of expres­sion through which it could be pre­sent­ed. Soon oth­er Star Wars Day events began spring­ing up in cities around the world, and in 2012 anoth­er pun-cen­tric unof­fi­cial hol­i­day, ​‘Revenge of the Fifth’, was launched on 5 May, styled after the third film in the pre­quel trilogy.

Fol­low­ing Lucasfilm’s acqui­si­tion by the Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny in 2012, many feared that such fan-cen­tric events would be sup­pressed, but the exact oppo­site hap­pened, with the stu­dio util­is­ing the vast resources at its dis­pos­al to cap­i­talise on the grow­ing phe­nom­e­non. Star Wars Day is now a top pri­or­i­ty for Lucas­film. The first offi­cial cel­e­bra­tion post acqui­si­tion took place in 2013 at var­i­ous Dis­ney theme parks, where cos­tumed char­ac­ters min­gled with fans and fire­works dis­plays were set to John Williams’ clas­sic themes.

Over the last five years Star Wars Day has under­gone a sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tion. More than any­thing, Dis­ney is care­ful to ensure the focus of the event remains on the fans and doesn’t exert too much influ­ence, as their inter­fer­ence with the rela­tion­ship many share with the prop­er­ty risks over­sat­u­ra­tion. At a time when audi­ences are accus­tomed to see­ing a new Star Wars film every year, main­tain­ing this bal­ance is of para­mount importance.

Yet the man­ner in which Dis­ney has seem­ing­ly co-opt­ed Star Wars Day is a point of con­tention for many. The num­ber of attempts by oth­er com­pet­ing stu­dios and their mar­ket­ing arms to repli­cate Star Wars Day’s suc­cess, name­ly 20^th Cen­tu­ry Fox with ​‘Alien Day’ on 26 April, shows how will­ing stu­dios have become to exploit fan cul­ture for their own com­mer­cial gain. Con­verse­ly, the impact of social media, which affords fans and cor­po­ra­tions alike instant access to an audi­ence of mil­lions, has also become a key fac­tor in the devel­op­ment of Star Wars Day.

The event gained trac­tion on online com­mu­ni­ties and forums dur­ing the mid-2000s, with the pop­u­lar­i­ty of ​‘Luke Sky­walk­er Day’ paving the way for fan events that would take place just a few years lat­er. Present­ly, the most com­mon form of online par­tic­i­pa­tion is the use of hash­tags and images to project aware­ness and sup­port of the annu­al cel­e­bra­tion. On Twit­ter, cus­tom emo­jis of a car­toon Stormtroop­er accom­pa­ny #Star­Wars­Day and #MayThe4thBeWithYou – a sim­ple but incred­i­bly pow­er­ful ges­ture that effec­tive­ly gen­er­ates free adver­tis­ing while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly allow­ing peo­ple to express their fandom.

Since the fran­chise was re-launched with The Force Awak­ens, Rogue One and The Last Jedi, Star Wars Day has become inte­gral to sus­tain­ing the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the brand in between releas­es. The cor­po­rate influ­ence of Dis­ney that now per­me­ates the cel­e­bra­tion can­not be ignored or denied, and there’s no doubt that this year’s event will be focused on the upcom­ing Solo: A Star Wars Sto­ry, the mar­ket­ing of which has been under­whelm­ing to say the least.

Still, there is some­thing to be said for the mul­ti­tude of ways one can embrace the series, just as fans did in the ear­ly days of the event. This year, it’s worth remem­ber­ing that while it may be seem ludi­crous to cham­pi­on such a ubiq­ui­tous fran­chise, Star Wars Day is a glob­al cel­e­bra­tion with hum­ble beginnings.