Esther Kustanowitz loves Star Wars

Esther Kustanowitz is an LA based writer and journalist who loves most things Star Wars. Join us as we talk about how she found Star Wars, what she loves about it and her special appreciation for Carrie Fisher. She explains what the Machete Order is and recommends some novels that fill in Princess Leia's life story.

 

You can subscribe to Esther's podcast The Bagel Report, follow her on Twitter where she is @EstherK, or follow her TV Gone Jewy Facebook page for the latest in Jewish representation on TV.

 

Related Links

Bloodline by Claudia Gray

Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray

Newcomers podcast with Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus

Bibi's Bakery in LA

Esther's essay on Star Wars and grieving

 

Transcript follows

Esther  0:00  
Hi, I'm Esther Kustanowitz and my favorite thing is Star Wars.

Announcer  0:04  
Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones  0:14  
Hello, good evening. If it's evening where you are, this is Leah Jones and the host of Finding Favorites. This week on the podcast --  today is Sunday, July 26th. And we're going to be diving into a conversation I had on June 30th, with Esther Cusano. Esther is a writer and journalist based in Los Angeles, and we've been friends going back to the earliest days of Jewish blogging, so we probably met online in 2004, 2005; met in-person soon after that, at a blogging event, that I got to organize for One Voice, which was a peace-seeking organization. An Israel, Palestine, two-state solution organization. Back in the day, I got to organize an event for One Voice with Arianna Huffington and Craig Newmark, at a little cool space in Manhattan, and Esther was on the list. And that was the very first time we met in-person. We've been friends ever since. 

Leah Jones  0:23  
We see each other sometimes, when we're traveling on the Jewish conference circuit. And if I'm ever in L.A., and she's ever in Chicago, then we make a point to have a meal or more together. Esther, like I said, she's a writer and journalist. You can catch her at Limud, which is a Jewish Learning Conference. She does a lot of classes called "TV Gone Jew-y," where she explores the increase in Jewish representation in TV and movies and media in the last few years. So, that's a lot of what you can find her talking about at conferences and virtual conferences online, in her podcast called "The Bagel Report." So, when I asked her to join me for this podcast to talk about favorite things -- I've been in her house, I've seen her BB-8 collection, and I had a suspicion "Star Wars" would be the thing that we talked about. 

Leah Jones  2:24  
It's nice to have an excuse to get on the phone with a dear friend and talk to them for an hour or more. This was probably 90 minutes that I cut down to an hour for this podcast. So, know that Esther had a lot more to say. And I'm trying to respect the format of a one hour podcast, so there were really wonderful extra commentary about -- we talked about the hero's journey, origin stories, but there wasn't room for everything in this conversation about Star Wars. I hope that everyone is still able to stay home and stay safe. Keep washing your hands, keep wearing masks, and keep those indoor hobbies going. Have a great week.

Leah Jones  3:19  
Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I'm your host, Leah Jones. This is the podcast where we talk about people's favorite things, and we get recommendations without an algorithm. Today I am joined by my dear friend, Esther Kustanowitz.  Hi Esther. I'm now going to embarrass Esther by reading her bio in front of her, but it's not embarrassing because she's amazing, and she knows it. 

Leah Jones  3:45  
Esther Kustanowitz is a writer, editor and consultant. She is a regular contributor at the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. And at the J, which is the Jewish weekly of Northern California. You can find her on iTunes and Stitcher and all those good podcast apps, where she is a co-host of "The Bagel Report," which is a podcast about Jews and entertainment. And she is a casual scholar of hashtag "TV Gone Jew-y." You can find her at Limud both online and offline around the world. Helping us talk about the best moments and the increase of Jewish content on TV. She was the founding editor of Grok Nation and has written all across the internet. You can find more about her at estherk.com or on Twitter where she is known as EstherK. So hello, Esther. How are ya?

Esther  4:35  
Hi. It's so good to be here with you. This is so long overdue. You're starting a podcast.

Leah Jones  4:40  
It took me a while to land on a topic, but yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to join the world of the podcast hosts.

Esther  4:44  
It is a glamorous world. I hope you're ready.

Leah Jones  4:54  
It is glamorous indeed. How are things out in L.A.? How are you getting through these quarantined times?

Esther  5:03  
This time, it's like nobody's really okay, but among the people who are not okay in the world, I'm one of probably the more okay. Somebody who was a freelance writer and consultant beforehand, I'm not mourning the loss of an office because I never really had one -- it's all virtual office. I'm good at kind of carving out time in my life to do my work,  so the the WFH -- work from home nation, that is all having trouble adjusting -- that really isn't me. I've always been working from home. So, my health is good, thank God, and my family so far, seems to be healthy and safe. At this point, that's the base, the Maslow needs are taken care of. It's shelter, fine. My work has been good, and even increasing during this time as people try to figure out content needs and how they want to communicate. And as a journalist, reporting on things in the world that are happening. I'm not the person who's going to report on the newest medical advances or who's gonna get this vaccine first, but I'm really more of a reporter on human response and reaction and culture, and how those elements respond to crisis. So, to be in that business, and be able to bring those stories to people and various news outlets is a privilege and [garbled].

Leah Jones  6:33  
Is there a story that has that you've reported on that has been the most surprising for you so far?

Esther  6:41  
Well, I'm always impressed when people are managing to pivot in new and exciting ways. That's kind of become the official word of this time is pivot. You know, I have a friend who runs a bakery here. Bibi's Bakery.

Leah Jones  6:54  
Is that the one, I think you maybe posted -- they did cookies, smiley face emoji cookies, wearing masks? 

Esther  7:01  
Yes, exactly. I mean, they've been doing a number of pivots. At the core of it all, they're still just a very small, neighborhood bakery that specializes in Israeli kind of food. Because the owner is very creative and is good with a pivot, he started creating make your own cookie kits at home so that parents have something -- an activity to do with their kids. Similarly, pizza kits. He's got muffins, chocolate chip muffins, double chocolate chip muffins that were apparently a recipe from Camp Ramah so all the camper ma people who are can't go to Camp Ramah, because it's closed, are actually buying the cupcakes, the sorry, the muffins, which are basically cupcakes. I mean, they're the same, right, basically?

Leah Jones  7:45  
I think that once you make it a double chocolate chip muffin, it goes into cupcake territory.

Esther  7:51  
I feel like if you threw any fruit in there, or any whole grain oats, you could call it a muffin. But as soon as it crosses over a sugar and dessert threshold? I don't know.

Leah Jones  8:02  
I bet there's secret zucchini in it.

Esther  8:04  
I know. My mom used to make zucchini bread every once in a while. And people would eat it and love it until they realized that it was made of zucchini. Anyway, this bakery is  doing really well, like you said, they have these massive cookies. And I don't know if they're doing really well, they're thriving in quarantine, it's still really hard to run a business. But I'm always impressed at the enthusiasm behind the mini-pivots that are trying to help get through a time and also by the community response to something that's beloved, you know, and trying to help somebody out. So, I like stories that kind of follow that, where everybody acts with the best of intentions and what is returned to them is love and acceptance. And that's not every story, obviously, but the ones that are I think are really important now, because there's a lot of negativity out there, in the internet, in the streets. And everybody hates everybody for everything. So, when you can find these moments, where it's just about love and support, I think those are really moving stories.

Leah Jones  9:13  
I love it. Yeah, I live down the street from a really popular brunch spot. And they've put up a sign -- they're like, "We are not re-opening indoor seating. We are sticking to carry-out." This is their big pivot; I mean, this was a place with a 45-minute line. I was part of the solo diner crew that was able to get in on the counter. They were able to turn over solo seats on the counter really quick for us. But yeah, their pivot to saying "We're not going to try. We're not going to try and pretend that it's safe. We're just going to stick to carry-out." And other neighborhood spots that are really trying to figure out how do you make it work, and it's been remarkable to see that creativity shine through on, on how local businesses are making it.

Esther  10:07  
This is unlike any other time that I imagined that I'd be living through in my life and I think about my nieces and nephews and what they're experiencing. For the most part, their parents are helping them keep it normal-ish, but how can normal can it be when they're spending their entire school year at home? One of my brother's kids is in Israel, and so in Israel, they had like, "Yay, it's over!" And then they're like, "Oh, no, here it is. It's back again" kind of situation. So, nobody in my family was ill, but a couple of people, my family were quarantined because they were in the same space with other people who were ill, so, I feel like everybody's got to do what they can to stay safe. But I do understand the cabin fever of everything and really wanting to get back out there and get back to normal. Like if we have to cancel Fourth of July. if we have to cancel Rosh Hashanah, I'm not so radical -- but if canceling Rosh Hashanah would make everybody in the world better immediately, I would be like totally cancel Rosh Hashanah!

Leah Jones  11:20  
So, here's the thing -- if we cancel Rosh Hashanah, and it means more people are sealed in the book of life, then we've done our job. That's a questionable theology, I understand, but, we put saving lives ahead of all else. It is wild to me as a president of a synagogue who's helping make these decisions about when do we get to pray in-person and looking at churches and other houses of worship that are so anxious to get back in the building, and I just can't square it with the Jewish belief that saving lives is the most valuable, most important mitzvah. More above everything, it makes it a very easy decision to make. To say, the lives of my congregants and the communities they live in, is more important than in-person prayer at this time.

Leah Jones  12:27  
The concept of this podcast is everybody has a favorite something that has great stories attached to it. So, what is your favorite thing that we're here to talk about today?

Esther  12:45  
When we first started talking about this, I was like, "Well, I could do pop culture, I could do writing," and you're like, "No, be more specific." So, I was like, "Okay, fine." And I started thinking -- I considered the "Wizard of Oz" for a while and "Gone With the Wind," which were two of my favorite movies growing up, which is a strange duo? Also, I was not born in the 1930s and '40s, so why that was true, I'm not really sure. "Wizard of Oz" is a little bit more understandable, I think.

Leah Jones  13:11  
They were both -- you know what they were both Wizard of Oz was on TV every year -- it was an annual event in my family, at least. The Wizard of Oz being on TV was  appointment television when appointment television was a daily thing. So Wizard of Oz I think makes 100% sense, and also I don't think anyone went to a grade school without a Wizard of Oz play that they could have been a part of at least once, if not five times growing up, right? Gone With the Wind was, at one point, I think, the only movie that Turner Classic Movies owned. So, when we were growing up, Gone With the Wind was on TV a lot, because Turner didn't have many movies yet. It was "Gone With the Wind" and "Arsenic and Old Lace." I think they were on a rotation.

Esther  14:12  
I feel like "Rear Window" got added at some point.

Esther  14:17  
You talked about the Wizard of Oz being appointment television. And quite honestly, it's very interesting that when I was growing up, same time as you were growing up, I couldn't make that appointment, because almost always, it was on either on a Friday night or during one of the days of Passover. So, I was very upset every year that we had to miss it. And I don't know how I got to watch it, otherwise .There must have been some video or maybe it was a VHS, I don't know. But I did get to see it a couple of times. And then when it was on TV, subsequently, I kept missing it. So, I ended up writing a letter when I was younger to Turner to ask them to pick a different date. They did not, but now we all have streaming and can see everything you never really want. So, you can thank me later. I'm sure that was all because of my letter that I wrote when I was eight years old.

Leah Jones  15:06  
I'm sure it was. So, if we're not here to talk about pop culture, Gone With the Wind, or the Wizard of Oz ...

Esther  15:16  
I mean, I think anyone who knows me, is going to know that Star Wars that we're here to talk about.

Leah Jones  15:22  
I have heard of Star Wars.

Esther  15:24  
Have you seen a Star War?

Leah Jones  15:26  
I have seen a Star War. Just today, listened to the final episode of Lauren Lapkus and Nicole Byers podcast about Star Wars. 

Esther  15:35  
Oh, I don't even know about that. 

Leah Jones  15:36  
Oh, my gosh, it is called -- it is phenomenal, because they had never, *neither* of them had ever seen it. So, they're going through -- it's called "Newcomers." So, season one is Star Wars. The two of them had -- maybe each of them had seen one movie, they had picked up all these pop culture references. Because you can't go through life and go through UCB [Upright Citizens Brigade] without hearing "Luke, I am your father," or about Jar Jar Binks or --

Esther  16:10  
-- "The force with be with you."

Leah Jones  16:11  
"The force with be with you." But neither of 'em had ever watched it, so they watched all the movies in release order. So, starting with "A New Hope." So, they watch them in year order, not in movie order. And then they watched "Clone Wars" and "Mandalorian," and today, the final episode was "Spaceballs."  So, my most recent Star Wars intake has been comedians who have never seen it, talking about it. And me not watching the movies to follow with their podcast. But this podcast isn't actually a review of a podcast of two comics who never saw it. It's a conversation with you about Star Wars as your favorite thing, right.

Esther  17:05  
But a podcast within podcast is  a continuation of the Shakespearean tradition of a play within a play, so,  I think we're okay. We're very literary, in fact. So yeah, I think Star Wars is one of those things that -- it's a track throughout my life, and I didn't really expect it would be. I would say that I was probably more of a superfan of The Wizard of Oz when I was younger. But when I did see Star Wars in the movie theaters, I don't remember what year, but it was also something that we watched on HBO a bunch of times. We taped it from TV when it was on, on VHS. And I have two younger brothers, both of whom were super into it, also. So, we watched it a lot together. And the three of us -- I'mthree and six years older than my brothers, so if the three of us could agree on something to watch together in a world where there was one TV per household, it was it was a good thing. 

Leah Jones  18:12  
And is your love of Star Wars expansive, like the whole canon and now what Disney calls "legends?"  Is it the three movies from the '70s and '80s? Is it the nine? When you say, now I've been to your house, and I have seen that you have a number of BB-8s. So, I suspect you also like modern Star Wars. But when you say I love Star Wars, tell me what's your catchment area? What does that include?

Esther  18:48  
It's an excellent question. I would say that I am not an orthodox. I am more conservative or you know, less, not reform Star Wars fan, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Leah Jones  19:03  
So you're maybe Conservadox?

Esther  19:05  
Maybe. I mean, if orthodox is people who like dress up and go to Comic-Con every single year and wait outside for panels and things like that, if that's Orthodox, I'm not that. I would say I am a solid fan. And sometimes a fangirl, but not always. I think that my catchment areas, as you so nicely put it, is the original three movies and the new movies, the last three. The prequels I watched --

Leah Jones  19:42  
-- you skip over the mess of the '90s 

Esther  19:44  
 -- they were definitely a mess. Doesn't mean I didn't watch them, and it doesn't mean that I haven't seen them more than once. But there are parts of those movies that are super painful. Any of the romance is I feel like the Fred Savage character in the "Princess Bride" where he's like, "Is this a kissing book?" So, the chemistry doesn't seem to work. I just want the story -- just the prequels are supposed to be, how does a good guy turn bad, right? That's something that's very interesting to watch. I mean, it's "Breaking Bad". It's "Better Call Saul," it's things not set in that universe. 

Esther  20:25  
But, everybody wants to know how it's an origin story, a hero origin story, or a villain origin story. They're interesting, because how does somebody who's on one path, end up choosing another? And often, the answer is love or loss, and that's a very human area to explore. So, I appreciated that part of it. But there are parts of it, that just seemed like too much. If you also look at just in terms of the chronology of those movies, that the first set of movies, started in 1977, came out in 1977, 1988, 1983. And then, I don't even remember sometime in the '90s, when the prequels came out.

Leah Jones  21:10  
It was a solid 10. It was at least 10 years between -- is "Empire" [Strikes Back] the third, or is the "Return of the Jedi?" 

Esther  21:20  
"Return of the Jedi." 

Leah Jones  21:21  
And the first prequel is at least a decade, if not more.

Esther  21:28  
It's so funny to think about a decade, because I feelas I get older, a decade means less and less. And also, now time has no meaning. So, I don't know how that's gonna shake out.

Leah Jones  21:37  
There's -- I have no concept of -- we've been home since March, and it is June 30th. Time has -- there's today, tomorrow, and the past. That's all I can handle right now. So, let's go back to --

Esther  21:54  
-- It's all part of the way we live and think now. We're very easily distracted by by our predicament. But, back to the prequels. So, when those when those movies came out, everybody was super excited. But one of the things that didn't match, was now Lucas had all of these technical things he could play with to increase the quality of the graphics. So, it looks like it was shot -- it was more intricate and more busy in the background. And there was a lot more space creatures. And because everything was done digitally, which they didn't have the opportunity to do with the first trilogy. So, that also was kind of a tonal mismatch. Now he had the toys, he wanted to play with them, which I get.

Leah Jones  22:42  
Because the prequels were shot 10 to 15 to 20 years after the original movies. But they are *set* 20 years before? 

Esther  22:55  
Yeah, well, that's 20 years before. So, it doesn't make sense. It's like saying, you know, I guess now from 2000, year 2000 to 10. Now, right. So that's the spot, the span of time and technology in that time is probably less stark in terms of the changes then from 1980 to 2000. So I don't know, I don't know. I mean, my analysis was very non-scientific, but it's just in terms of how it made me feel and how my observation of it was that it was a tonal mismatch.

Leah Jones  23:28  
Right, because there were things -- so in today's finale of "Newcomers," Nicole and Lauren had on the actor who played Jar Jar Binks. 

Esther  23:40  
Ahmed Best. 

Leah Jones  23:41  
Yes. And he's the first person to ever do motion capture for a movie. And he talked about being on stage, or on set, with Frank Oz who was playing Yoda with a puppet. But if I understand correctly, George Lucas swapped out puppet Yoda who was beloved, with a CGI Yoda. So, even though Frank Oz was on set, and it was puppet Yoda, or I'm sorry, Muppet Yoda, which feels so real, he swapped them out for a CGI Yoda because the toys were there. So, it really loses that practical magic of the first three movies. Cause so much more was practical.

Esther  24:27  
Yeah, I mean, they're -- Yoda does have a moment that kind of makes you forget about that a little bit. You get used to it -- in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Yoda is an old man, an old puppet. He's old, whatever his species is. In "The Mandalorian," they refer to "baby Yoda" as The Child. We don't call him baby Yoda because Yoda is the name, it's not the species. We don't know what the species is called. 

Leah Jones  24:55  
It seems like a weird thing to hold out on after 40 years, 43 years -- how have we still not named this species? And aren't there still only like three of his species that have ever been seen? Child, there's Yoda, and then I think there's a lady Yoda in maybe the Christmas Special?

Esther  25:17  
Well, at some point, there was a lady Yoda if you know what I mean. I'm not want to speculate about the romantic life of a Jedi elder. But you know, assuming there is a way are we still talking about how Yoda is procreate? Is that where I landed?

Leah Jones  25:38  
That's where we landed. Gender identification and sexuality and reproductive lives of the species of Yoda. Okay, our catchment area, your world of Star Wars are the original three, and the modern three, right? Are there any books, comic books, TV shows, animated TV shows in the mix for you, in addition to those six movies?

Esther  26:19  
Thank you so much for asking. Yes, there were, but not until later. I think that one of the things that as the franchise started to kind of tilt toward the finale of the Skywalker saga with the final three movies -- there have been cartoons, there's been "Rebels" and the "Clone Wars," which continued this story of that world, of that universe, this Skywalker-centered universe. And I didn't really get into those so much, I saw a couple of them on a plane. And one of them was really, really good. It was having a deep story and emotional pathos and real character dilemmas. 

Esther  27:06  
And the other one was just kind of droids being idiots. And, I spoke to a friend of mine, who's an expert on both of those series, "The Rebels" and "Clone Wars," and she says that there is a mix of those episodes. So, if you just watch a couple of disembodied ones, you could end up with droids falling on their faces, and then people laughing at them, or you could end up with somebody who has to save the galaxy and doesn't know if he's worthy. And a Jedi has to betray her master, and doesn't know if she can do it, but she knows she has to,and that there are more women characters. 

Esther  27:43  
So, it's a question; I haven't really delved into that, because I don't know, maybe it's the format. Maybe if it was live-action, I would have gone through it quicker than a cartoon,  animation or whatever. But a friend of mine also turned me on to the novels, and I haven't -- it's not like I know them all, by any means. But there were two that I read, which are kind of Leia-focused. She's always been kind of a touchstone for me in this series, because, she was a brunette princess who didn't take any crap from anybody. She was a senator, also. So, it's not like she was just a princess who had her hair up in, you know --

Leah Jones  28:30  
-- the buns.

Esther  28:31  
-- I mean, she's got two buns, we know that very well, but, and she did occasionally have princess hair, but it was more in the way, it was less part of who she wanted to be, and more of who she had to be by position of a rank. So, I always wanted more Leia, you know, she literally rescues everybody in the movie, all the time.

Leah Jones  28:51  
Yeah, she's like the Hermione Granger of Star Wars or who was Inspector Gadget's niece -- Penny, I think. The smart brunette, the smart girl who saves other people, and then the guys get the glory. I mean, it's a fantasy, where that happens; that's not real life at all. Did that register a sarcasm? I hope it did  -- I hope it registered as dripping in sarcasm. 

Esther  29:23  
It was dripping.

Leah Jones  29:25  
 Okay, just checking. 

Esther  29:26  
Totally. And I think that part of that is the character, but part of it is also Carrie Fisher and who Carrie Fisher became after the movies. The sharp, snarky, independent writer who kind of told Hollywood to go eff itself at various points, obviously she had a lot of drug problems, also. But she was a brilliant, brilliant writer. 

Leah Jones  29:53  
Yeah, wasn't she the person who saved scripts? Wasn't she the person you hired to say save a script. 

Esther  30:00  
Yes, exactly. I don't know the whole list of the ones that she did, because she's not credited on a lot of them. But certainly, "Postcards from the Edge" was about her and her relationship with her mother, and she did some work on that, became friends with Meryl Streep. And then Meryl Streep, when she was at the Oscars, the year that Carrie Fisher died, quoted her as one of the things she likes to say is "Take your broken heart and make it into art." So, that was just always a beautiful phrase that I've held on to ever since Carrie died. Also, Carrie Fisher was in another one of my favorite movies, "When Harry Met Sally." She's just so good in it, iconic, really. To have those two roles, even though they're not the same at all, but to be such an icon in the time that she had on Earth.

Leah Jones  30:57  
Truly phenomenal -- her role in "When Harry Met Sally" is one of the best B-plot roles of any rom-com.

Esther  31:09  
You're right, I know you're right. 

Leah Jones  31:13  
"What? I've never quoted anyone to anyone before and now I've quoted you to you."

Esther  31:18  
"Isn't that crazy? Don't you think that's crazy? Oh, look, I was looking for a red pump."

Leah Jones  31:24  
Such a phenomenal actress. Even to her last parts she was in -- is it "Catastrophe?"

Esther  31:32  
 Oh, so good. 

Leah Jones  31:34  
Beautiful. And how they wrote her death into the series and gave her thepublic funeral that she deserved, was phenomenal.

Esther  31:45  
Yeah. I was really heartbroken by the loss of Carrie Fisher. I think that there are people in my family who were like, "What? It's just a celebrity," and I was just like, "You don't understand, she meant a lot to me, and I can't explain why." Although, I think I am actually explaining why. 

Leah Jones  32:04  
Did you ever get to see her? I mean, cause you're in L.A., did you ever get to see her on a panel?

Esther  32:09  
No, not really. She would go to Comic-Con when she had to, but there's a whole -- she has a very mixed -- I've speak of her in the present tense, because her writing was after her to tell us exactly what she thinks. But, she had very mixed feelings towards Star Wars. She had a whole show where she talked about it. "Wishful Drinking" was the name of the show. It was an HBO one-woman show. She talked about all of the sex dolls and Slave Leia outfits, and all of that stuff with her likeness. And, obviously, she doesn't, she didn't look like that. She would look like that when she was 18 and 19 and 20; she didn't look like that anymore. If you can imagine what the internet would have done with that, it would have been rough. And she said, even when she was hired back for the final three movies, when she went out and started going on talk shows with her dog, Gary, Gary Fisher. 

Esther  33:20  
When she started going to talk shows with Gary, she started talking about how "It's great that they want to hire me, but they only want to hire three quarters of me." That then, she would have to go on a massive reduction diet in order to lose enough to play the character that she already was. But she always kind of gave a big F.U. to Hollywood, which is just always very brave when somebody can do that. So, when you asked me before about what is my is in my area of influences, two books that have come up that that I didn't know existed until I had my interest in Carrie Fisher in in Star Wars renewed in advance of the the new set of three, it was a book called "Princess of Alderaan," which was a prequel to Star Wars. 

Esther  34:18  
That explains when when Leia was 16 and growing up on Alderaan, and expected to be the Princess, and her relationship with her parents, which, as we know from watching the movies, they're not actually her birth parents, but, she has love for her father and then that kind of imbues the whole explosion of Alderaan scene in Star Wars in "A New Hope" as actually more meaningful because we had never heard of Alderaan until that moment, we just know it's her home planet. So, this builds a whole life and society on Alderaan that she is responsible for taking care of as a princess, but also as a senator, and she does a lot of diplomatic missions. You got a little bit more of -- it was still core Leia --  like not dissolving into a puddle when she likes a guy. It was still strongly Leia, like she felt something, but it didn't paralyze her or render her unable to fulfill her mission. So, I really, really think that was remarkable. 

Esther  35:28  
And then there's a book called "Bloodlines," both of them are by the same author, Claudia Gray. And "Bloodlines" talks about her not as Slave Leia, the one who was imprisoned by Jabba the Hutt, but as Hutt Slayer. That's how she's known in the universe, because she killed the Jabba the Hutt. So, instead of being known for a bikini, she's known for an act of resistance and killing the bad guy. I love that they kind of re-cast that. And I think that what I was always missing  -- I felt like there was a lot of independence and training and knowledge and intellectual capacity that we saw a little bit of from Leia, but couldn't really focus on because there was too much action going on. So, this kind of retconning is something that I -- I really appreciate it.

Leah Jones  36:23  
And in your sequence of watching them, did you find out about the -- the final trilogy gets announced? But isn't it the final trilogy plus one Weren't there? Like, were there five modern Star Wars movie? Doesn't matter.

Esther  36:44  
So, there were two additional set-up ones. There was the one with, there was "Rogue One," which was kind of the five minutes or so before A New Hope starts. I mean, because  all the story, it's based on like one line. And this is kind of where I can make it Jew-y again.

Leah Jones  37:05  
I didn't invite you to this podcast to make it Protestant.

Esther  37:10  
I know. I'm glad I'm living up to expectations. So, there is this one line, and in the original Star Wars and A New Hope, where they talk about how thousands of people died to get these plans to the Valient, to the Resistance. And Rogue One is the entire story of all of those people who died and not all of them, but the core team that got the plans and delivered the plans

Leah Jones  37:37  
So, the Mishnah? 

Esther  37:39  
It's a Midrash. So, that's what it is. It's like, "Who were these people? And what did they do? And how did they get the plans to where they are?" Where they are at the beginning of A New Hope. So, that was interesting, I really liked it. They did use a CGI Princess Leia at the end, which I wasn't a fan of. It was like the uncanny valley; it didn't look real. But , she's still a character who I'm happy to see, especially when I wasn't expecting it. So, that packed an emotional punch. But it also made me feel weird, a little bit queasy. But, at that point, Carrie Fisher died a couple of months before that. And so, it was good to see her again. I know that's weird, but I feel very connected to her, apparently. 

Leah Jones  38:31  
So, what I meant to ask before  -- I fact-checked how many modern movies there were --. so, you have these two novels, you've got "Princess of Alderaan" and "Bloodlines," and the modern trilogy. What was your order of encountering the books and the new movies? Did you read these books, get a new understanding for Leia, and then go into the modern trilogy? Or maybe they came out and overlapped.

Esther  38:59  
They overlapped. They were supposed to provide you with some kind of background and in advance of the "Force Awakens." That's kind of when the first new movie -- that's kind of when I -- Bloodlines, I think had been around for a while. But, The Princess of Alderaan I think ended up setting up some things that happen --  not some things that happened, but some characters. So, the Laura Dern character in "The Force Awakens."

Leah Jones  39:34  
Yeah, she's she's got purple hair, and she is the one who saves the ship and gets everybody else off the ship, right? She tells --

Esther  39:41  
-- right.

Esther  39:44  
-- Your plan was dumb. I told you your plan was dumb. And now I have to save you by dying.

Esther  39:50  
I think it's The Last Jedi, actually. I think it's the middle movie. But yeah, so holdo appears as one of Leia's friends from growing up. So to understand that they have a deep connection to each other, that they've known each other for a very long time, that actually adds to your understanding of their scene where they're connecting and communicating with one another, without actually saying much. So, there's a backstory, and knowing that backstory kind of imbues the moment with more emotion. So, things like that, I really appreciated. If I didn't have them, I would be fine with the narrative. But,  having those extra shadings of nuance are important. The more you know somebody, the more you can feel for them.

Leah Jones  40:40  
So, we've gotten a little -- we've talked about Midrash, we've already gotten a little Jew-y. Does your love of Star Wars impact either? You watch a lot of TV and pop culture for work, so there's a lot of things you're consuming, because that is what you do for a living. But do you see Star Wars impacting other pop culture choices you get to make on your own? Or if you write fiction, or you're writing stories? Do you see Star Wars impacting other work that you do?

Esther  41:15  
Absolutely. I mean, I wrote a piece for modernloss.com. about loss, basically talking about  your friends on the podcast, I know that they're not your friends, but I know your podcast friends are your friends. I've read the piece you wrote. So, they talk about what's the right order to watch things in. And there's something called "the machete order," which is named after a blog called "The Machete" blog. But it also happens to carve up the order so that you watch it in the basic -- it kind of cuts the story up and rearranges it so you would watch Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back Up until the "Luke, I am your father" moment, and then people are going, "What? He's the father? How did that happen?"  Then, you go back to the prequels to show you how that happens. And then skip back to Return to the Jedi to finish out that thing, and then head to the new movies that then close out the nine movie loop. Does that makes sense?

Leah Jones  42:22  
The whole arc,  yeah.

Esther  42:23  
So, I use that as a jumping off point for talk about loss and how loss can be nonlinear. How if you're in the middle of something that's traumatic, that your brain can send you shooting back to the past, and then back to the future. And then back to the past again. Basically, just about the nonlinear nature of grief. And I think that a lot of people were like, some people read it, and were like, "This is exactly it." Other people are like, "I don't know Star Wars enough to understand what you're talking about." Which happens to me quite a bit. But, I thought it was a really interesting metaphor. 

Esther  43:06  
The idea also that the Force, as Obi Wan Kenobi, aka Ben, says, in the first movie, he says that the Force is something that runs through us and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together. So, you talk about collective responsibility, and that we're all in this universe together. I live in L.A. now, where everybody talks about the universe and manifesting and all of that stuff all the time. But the idea that we're all kind of connected through some cosmic energy is something that I don't disagree with, in terms of how we should view our responsibility, which is like very much of this moment. Wearing masks and just being considerate of our neighbors like we have to.

Leah Jones  43:50  
It's very, it's true, it's that under -- the forest as a collective energy of a collective, of people working together to harness something for good or for evil. Absolutely, is this time we're in. On both aspects -- both the COVID and I think COVID, wearing a mask, taking care of your neighbors, even though they're strangers. And also on Black Lives Matter, of looking at the world and the system we'e in and how can we change that system? I think the Force -- it's not a cotton candy metaphor. It's a very useful metaphor for the time we live in.

Esther  44:39  
I agree. There's the moment where before the planet of Alderaan gets blown up -- I'm sorry if this is a spoiler, but the movie came out in 1977. So, if you haven't seen it by now, it's okay. So, when Alderaan explodes, and then I don't even know how far away, on the Millennium Falcon, Obi Wan Kenobi is visibly shaken and he needs to sit down. And they ask him, "What's wrong?" And he says, "I feel like millions of souls just cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced." And I've thought of that over and over again, as I remember, when I was in New York, I was living in New York, and it's 9/11. And watching those towers fall, that's what I felt. And even when there was a shooting in Las Vegas, a couple of years ago, if you remember that, when we used to have mass shootings, and that was our big problem. So, I remember watching the footage and the number of dead just elevate, just keep going up. 

Esther  45:46  
Whenever there's any kind of mass incident, I feel that kind of deep pain and dread. So, I kind of I relate to that. And I feel like, in some ways, it's the Jedi -- the Jedi and the Sith, the good guys, and the bad guys are connected in terms of the kinds of powers that they have. But the Jedi are more empathic, and the Sith lean more toward anger, revenge, selfishness, and greed. Whereas the Jedi are more about humanity. I mean, everybody's still soldiers, it's complicated. but But the Jedi are really supposed to be about preserving the Force and making sure we all stay connected to each other. The feeling of interconnectedness builds empathy, which is more the realm of the Jedi than it is for the Sith, who would use knowledge of other people's emotions to exploit and to tempt, as opposed to connect and heal.

Leah Jones  46:59  
It's really, you know, a battle of narcissism, which is a manipulative way of living in the world, of looking at people, identifying their weaknesses, and turning that on them. That being bad, flip the order. And the Force as recognizing people's weaknesses and trying to hold space for them. And allow that weakness to get stronger. Or help people educate themselves, or give them the food or the housing or whatever it is they need to build on that weakness, and not manipulate it, and crush the person. 

Esther  47:42  
Right. And for each -- for the Sith, and the Jedi -- see the strength of the other as their weakness. So, I think it's the Emperor says to Luke, Luke says to the Emperor, when he's battling him, from 1983, so, you should have seen this already. But I think the line is something like "Your overconfidence is your weakness". And the Emperor says, "Your belief and your friends is yours." You know, in some ways, friends can be a distraction, people that you love are a distraction. Luke leaves his training with Yoda, because his friends are in trouble. And he wasn't ready to face Darth Vader, but he did. And I think that there's all of these things that you could talk about, whether empathy is something that makes you weaker or stronger. Because, depending on where you fall on on that issue, you might be a Jedi or you might be a Sith. Sorry to tell you.

Leah Jones  48:40  
I wonder how many Harvard Business Review articles are about that? 

Esther  48:47  
Sith versus Jedi?

Leah Jones  48:52  
Rmpathy is like a gajillion, probably, but it's such a hot topic, right now, the idea of empathy and I think there's so much to learn from the idea that are your friends a distraction? Or are they your strength?  I think with or without Luke Skywalker, friends are your strength.

Esther  49:21  
One of the things that I really love about this universe -- and really is in a galaxy far, far away -- but it's a whole universe of of characters and situations, etc., is that I love the creativity it inspires in its fans.

Leah Jones  49:38  
Absolutely.

Esther  49:40  
There's a series called "Looking for Leia," that was all about women in the Star Wars fandom, which was really mindblowing, and really so special. Because there weren't that many women in the Star Wars universe when the first movie came out, and then as the properties have expanded, there have been many, many more women, both Jedi and Sith. So, that's really important to to show the balance on both sides and pay equity at the Death Star  [laughter] But, I love the way people take on characters and dress up to Comic-Con. I love the parodies, everything from early --  there was a parody called "Hardware Wars," which I don't know if you ever saw -- 

Leah Jones  50:33  
--no, tell me! 

Esther  50:34  
I think it's a short film, it was like a pre-film on one of the video cassettes that we got, I remember. It was basically all of the space things from Star Wars replaced with household objects, like frying pans, and irons. It was so weird, but it was just funny.

Leah Jones  50:54  
And then, that suddenly sounds very familiar.

Esther  50:58  
I'm sure you saw it. I'm a couple years ahead of you, but I think it was probably something that you saw, and maybe it didn't register. Then there's also "Spaceballs." And, there was even a short film that I met the guy who created it, out here randomly. I happened to be a party at his house, and I looked on the wall, and there was a poster of this. And I'm like, "I love that movie." He goes, "I made that movie." It's called "Lucas in Love," which was an imagining of how George Lucas got the inspiration for Star Wars. And it's like, George Lucas at college. He meets a girl who has headphones on like I have on, and she takes it off, and they're kind of like the buns for Princess Leia. And so it's all of these threads that if you know the series, you'll see. But it was modeled kind of on "Shakespeare in Love." So, that was a dual concept that really resonated with me.

Leah Jones  52:02  
I love it. Yeah. It does seem like George Lucas has a good sense of humor.

Esther  52:15  
Well, funny, you should mention that because he did, until he made those prequels. And then I think he lost his, possibly mind. Also, possibly sense of humor, which there have been so many documentaries about Star Wars things. But the one that I'm thinking of now is called "The People vs. George Lucas," which is about how the fans turned on him after those prequels. And it's really interesting to watch, because they have these superfans who were like, "I was super excited. And I went to the movie theater. And at the end, I was like, Ah, that was bad, right?" And then they were like, "I don't know, I must have missed it. Like, I'm gonna go see it again." And they're like, "No, that was not good. I did not enjoy that." And then, I think people even tried to sue him.

Esther  53:08  
 Like, it was just on the smaller level of it, it's not important, right? But it was also super important to specific people. So, you asked me before, what kind of Star Wars fan I am. And, I said that I wasn't orthodox. But I did manage to go to Comic-Con and see that kind of level of devotion, but felt a little bit like I shouldn't be there. Like I wasn't a real fan compared to these other people. But, I also have always had these very emotional reactions to Star Wars. The John Williams score, it just gets me every time I start, almost immediately. It's like somebody did one of those, "Clear!" and then restarted my heart. It's a crazy, physical sensation.

Leah Jones  53:59  
So, you have a Pavlovian response to a John Williams score. 

Esther  54:04  
Absolutely. Also, I was able to go to the Lucasfilm campus in San Francisco. And I was basically crying every five minutes. I was so unprofessional. There's this fountain outside with Yoda in it,  and I saw it, I started crying. I saw the movie artifacts and the costumes, and I started crying more. And then, I got it together. Then, I was there with Mayim Bialik, who I was working for at the time at Grok Nation. And she was taping an episode of "The Star Wars Show," which is a web series that is based at Lucasfilm, and we all jammed into this little room that was packed to the gills with Star Wars action figures of all kinds. And I'm literally in the corner, looking at them, and weeping. At some point, it was kind of almost audible while they were recording, and I was just like, "I gotta get it together. I'm not the best." I knew it was just an office that people went to every day. But for me, it was  a once in a lifetime thing. It was like a holy pilgrimage.

Leah Jones  55:08  
And it was pre-Disney, right?

Esther  55:10  
I think it was post, it was just a couple of years ago.

Leah Jones  55:12  
I think I don't have a sense of when Disney happened. I just know that Disney reorganized a lot of the things that had been made and said, "This is now canon, this is now legend." But I guess they would need more than two years to build the theme park part of Star Wars. So, it would have to be more than two years for sure.

Esther  55:32  
Right. And I actually ended up at Disneyland -- it was my first visit ever -- when my nieces were in town in December. But, I did go-- they had a Star Wars ride open when I was there, called Smuggler's Run. Which was one of those hydraulic, you sit and then it swerved right and left, and up and down. And the screen in front of you makes you think you're going over a cliff. And, I've never really enjoyed those because I have kind of a delicate balance to my system. And I was like, "I can't not go. I can't not smuggle things in the Millennium Falcon since I'm here." So, I did it, and I'm glad I did it. And I would probably even do it again, quite honestly. But, I wouldn't say I enjoyed it. This is just confirming for me that I'm not built for space travel. I like to believe I would be able to smuggle things with Han Solo on a smuggling mission, but I probably could not. 

Leah Jones  56:35  
I think if you were on the real Millennium Falcon, you would be able to tell yourself -- like you've been in turbulent airplanes before ...?

Esther  56:50  
I have not enjoyed it, by the way. But, I noticed on the ground, I knew this was not dangerous. It's helpful, it wasn't comfortable. But it wasn't dangerous. I'd like to think I'm Leia, but I'm probably a Threepio. I feel like I'm a protocol droid. I'm skilled at communication but anxious about and terrified about everything.

Leah Jones  57:19  
I mean, it's a realistic self-portrait, I guess. Whoever it is in Star Wars who are the people that stay home, they probably blow up on Alderaan? I don't know who I would be in Star Wars -- I can I do well in emergencies, but I'm not  -- I would trip and fall very early and then limp and be slow. So, I don't think you actually want me in battle. I think you want me behind the battle. So, how often do you throw a Star Wars movie on for comfort food?

Esther  58:00  
I don't really throw it on. But if it is on, I may watch it. I knew I wanted to see "Rise of Skywalker again," which was the last movie; I only saw it once in theaters. And I read a whole bunch of commentary that made me want to look at it again. So, I did that. That's a process I enjoy -- like reading Midrash and then going back to the original. So, that's Midrash being Jewish legend, if we didn't define that before. But, the idea that there's more to something than just the text is is interesting to me. And, people talking about a person who appeared and hugged another person, and that was a nod to the other thing. And I was just like, "I did not see any of that." And part of that is because that last movie was just jam-packed full of too much on the screen to watch at any one time. So, what comes out in the second viewing is really important. 

Esther  58:53  
And, to make that journey again, let's just talk about how every Simchat Torah, we go back and read the Torah again, because we are different from the last time we read it, even though the text stays the same. So I think, all pieces of art that are resonant to you are worth revisiting to see how you respond to them as you develop and mature as a human. So, that's something that I've really enjoyed doing. And still reading evermore Jew things into into the content is also been something that I've been doing, I have done these a couple of panels with my Muslim and Christian friends who also are Star Wars fans, and we talk about the spirituality in it and what it meant for us. Personally, from our own spiritual framework, to be in this universe and absorbing these things, and that's been fascinating. I think that there's so many opportunities through culture to build bridges, and I'm just always happy to do that through narrative and story.

Leah Jones  1:00:01  
Love it. Is there anything I haven't asked you about Star Wars that I would be remiss in saying "thank you" without you sharing?

Esther  1:00:09  
Yeah, so there's a couple of things. One of the things is that my brother had all the action figures growing up and so some of those characters don't have actual names --  they're not named on screen, but they're named for the purposes of sales. So, you could see Hammerhead had a head like a hammerhead. 

Leah Jones  1:00:32  
Oh, I remember Hammerhead. That is for sure one that either my brother or Josh Bell had, who was our neighbor with all the toys. 

Esther  1:00:40  
Yeah, there's always one of them. I think it was my brother for the neighborhood, though. And you know, Gredo, ge's green, and he's greedy, so, I get that. There's a character named Reeyees, and he has three eyes. And if you do the anagramming, you can see three Es, and three eyes in there. I also took a vocabulary test once, and I knew the word rancor, because it's the name of the super nasty beast that lives under the floor in Jabba's palace in Return to the Jedi. So, those kinds of things; you could say it's educational. Butm I liked the way they played with the language;  liked the way they had symbolic names for some people. And that's even before I start adding a Jew-y layer of interpretation.

Leah Jones  1:01:31  
Absolutely -- like a Lucas, a Leia. Well, I guess George Lucas, Luke, that's pretty obvious.

Esther  1:01:37  
Yes. He's Luke Skywalker. Lucas. Luke S. 

Leah Jones  1:01:43  
Gosh, I am today years old when I realized that. 

Esther  1:01:48  
Well, even in the previous version of his script, he had talked about Luke Starkiller was the his original name, but still Luke S.

Leah Jones  1:01:56  
And yeah, Skywalker is a much better name than Starkiller.

Esther  1:02:01  
Right? And if they're not going to give me a reason why somebody got their name, I'm going to certainly infer it. Like the name Yoda is very close in Hebrew to the verb for knowledge, which is Yodea. And, eah, da, and meh da  -- information, knowledge. Yoda, your day, Yoda knows. Ben Kenobi. You know you can say what you want about Benjamin, but Obi Wan does is certainly a nod to the Kurosawa films that I believe George Lucas was a big fan of, but Kenobi, it sounds like Kenavi be like -- as a prophet. And, I don't think that George Lucas meant that, but the way I read it -- it's like when somebody paints a picture, does a painting, and it's in a museum, and they could call it like, "Unknown Number Three," or they could call it "Repose." 

Esther  1:03:08  
And you can just look at it and you might have one clue -- "repose," but then you would look at it and say, "Well, that's not how it's resonating with me, it almost looks like unrest or looks like turmoil, or for me, it seems to be somebody's wants to do something and somebody else doesn't want them to." So, interpreting those kinds of tensions into a work of art, I think is a is a remarkable opportunity for deeper understanding and analysis and cultural exploration. And I'm just so happy to have these films and the things that are being produced today -- there's just so much content period, even some of it great. And, just kind of exploring stories of how people get to be who they are. It's fascinating.

Leah Jones  1:04:03  
Great. Well, Esther, thank you so much for joining me. This evening in Chicago, and afternoon in Los Angeles.

Esther  1:04:12  
A pleasure. Yeah, well, it's almost evening, now. But I'm always happy to come back another time -- I could develop another favorite thing if you'd like.

Leah Jones  1:04:20  
Well, we covered  two favorite things -- could have been Season Two.  I mean, I hope there's not a season two of the quarantine, but I'm having a lot of fun doing these interviews, and I think it's an idea that I can stick with for a couple years. 

Esther  1:04:40  
Excellent, I look forward to listening. 

Leah Jones  1:04:42  
Thank you. So, where can people find you online? How should people follow up with you?

Esther  1:04:50  
My sometimes, not updated. website is Esther k.com. And you can always find me on Twitter at Esther K on Instagram at Esther Kustanowitz and I am on the Facebook. But I believe my friend roster is full, so I'm considering creating a author page or something like that. But anyway, you can always Google me and find all my stuff.

Leah Jones  1:05:13  
Yeah. And people can follow "TV Gone Jew-y" on Facebook. If they can't friend you, they can follow that project, for sure. And they can subscribe to your podcast.

Esther  1:05:25  
Yes, "The Bagel Report." 

Leah Jones  1:05:26  
"The Bagel Report." 

Esther  1:05:29  
It's fun. We took a couple of weeks off right after the Black Lives Matter protests started, because we felt like we needed to step back and let their voices be heard. But we're hopefully coming back to you real soon.

Leah Jones  1:05:42  
Fantastic. Well, thank you for this and have a good evening. And may the Force be with ya.

Esther  1:05:51  
Thank you.

Announcer  1:05:52  
Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now go out, and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai