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Star Wars Phantom Menace 1.1 Editor Speaks
guinnessy writes "Studio 360 interviews the person who carried out Phantom Edit 1.1. You can listen to the interview here if you have Real Audio. It's quite interesting and explains why he hated Jar Jar Binks so much and what he did."
Me tinks (sorry) that the Ewaks where pretty cool but thats as far as my love for stupid starwarsy animals go. I think Jar Jar should be ground into pod racer fuel in the next episode.... either that or he should be made a Jedi, that'll annoy them! :)
The racist assumption being made with respect to Jar Jar, is that people who speak a creole language aren't intelligent enough to learn the "proper" version. That's not true in reality, and it's not true in Star Wars, either.
The racist assumption stems from the fact that he speaks with a Jamaican accent and he just so happens to be a bumbling buffoon who sports many negative idiosyncracies attributed to black people by racist, bearded Hollywood types. Coincidence?
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
I realized the Phantom Menace was a piece of crap before someone pointed out Lucas' racist undertones. The white guys are beautiful and heroic. The slavetraders talk like aye-rabs. The evil trade federation talk like asians. The comic relief is provided by a neeeeeeeeeeeeegro. And beautiful Princess Amadalia Panda is Israli Army Pin-up Girl Natalie Portman. But Lucas pretends in the TIME interview he's exploring the line between dictatorship and democracy? Right, georgy porgey puddingly pie, 8 million pepsi cips didn't sell and he couldn't work out why.
I'll say it again: What if all the "white" aliens stole everything they had from other races and had tiny penises? What if 99% of movie or television appearances by white people were characterized as such. Might be funny for a while, but how about after 5 or 6 decades?
This is where the difference lies. What if every Scottish character was a re-hash of Groundskeeper Willy? Such that the vast majority of non-Scottish people you met thought that every Scottish person talked/thought/acted the same way? What if you spent your whole life hearing people put you down and laughing at you based on that image of Scottish people? You might be a little "over-sensitive" about it too.
There are many and varied White characters played in movies. Thus, for every villian there is bound to be a hero. For every drunk Irish character, there is a proud tough as nails Irish character. For every primping, cowardly French character, there is a suave, ladies-man French character, and so on for most White ethnic groups and nationalities. And between these extremes are a myriad other representations. This is not so true with black characters. For every dope-slinging gangbanger, for every back alley mugger, for every Steppin Fetchit you do not see a positive Black character. And as you go back in history, the ratio of bad to good grows even worse.
It's no coincidence that among people who are not exposed to Black people on a regular basis there is a very narrow idea of how they act. These people get this idea from the one place that they do see Black people, the media. The reason is that the media presents a vary narrow (and negative) representation of Black people.
Of course, this argument is moot if you think that all Black people are either buffons or thugs, and that Hollywood is merely representing reality.
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
Jar Jar Binks does not sound liek ANY Caribbean accent! Trust me! I KNOW what a caribbean accent sounds like. I HAVE ONE!
That is what makes it all the more an insult. It is a streotype of a Jamaican accent applied to a stereotype of Black person. YOU may no better, but when 99% of the world hears Jar Jar, they think Jamaican.
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
Last I checked they were moderate with a vaguely right wing tilt on fiscal/business/foreign policy issues and a vaguely left wing tilt on social issues.
That's called moderate libertarianism, and it's pretty much the only philosophy that makes sense.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Well, Hitler was a socialist.