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J.J. Abrams On "Star Wars" Cast's Racial and Sexual Diversity
Yesterday at Comic-Con, director J.J. Abrams held forth on the racial and sexual diversity of the actors portraying the characters of the Star Wars franchise. From CNET's article:
For Star Wars, it's a complex debate. The franchise has included prominent and strong female characters, like Princess Leia, as well as central characters played by black actors, such as Cloud City administrator Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, and Jedi Mace Windu, played by Samuel L. Jackson. On the other hand, Jar Jar Binks, a computer-generated alien in 1999's "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace," drew fire from some critics, who said he called to mind demeaning black film characters such as those played by Stepin Fetchit in the 1930s.
(Not to mention other cultural stereotypes that pop up in Episodes I, II, and III.)
I have never heard of anyone who thought Jar Jar Binks reminded them of black characterisations. Nor has that ever occurred to me. Seriously how long is the bow they are stretching?
Jar Jar Binks made me sick to the stomach because of how he represented the complete destruction of something I loved with a character that I wanted to die in many many horrible and painful ways.
Watto, pretty clear which group he represents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Just do what many HR departments do - hire all African American Women.
Getting extremely tired of this overanalytical pussification of society. Time for the rude assholes to take charge again and kick these SJWs to the curb.
Unless there's a short-haired lesbian wookie I'm boycotting. We need to stand strong for tolerance.
from Episode I is clearly mocking every horrible child stereotype. It is because of these kinds of caricatures that birth rates have been dropping.
I once was a big Star Wars fan, then I took a these just suck now to the knee.
Let us recall his previous shitty TV shows and movies:
What do these all have in common? Yes... pushing the viewer's buttons, setting up interesting premises, promising to reveal answers to unexplained events, but never delivering on those promises (Lost, ugh) and leaving us viewers hanging. In general, Abrams' material is nothing but a thinly veiled vehicle for pushing advertisements designed to entice people to tune in for the next episode, with a complete absence of any actual substance or meaning.
Fringe was especially horrible. Every time the protagonists got in trouble, Dr. Walter Bishop would pull something out of his "from a project he worked on the 70s" and mumble a lot, and things would sort of just drag on.
So... thanks but no thanks, Mr. Abrams. Please eat a bowl of warm shit, and retire from Hollywood.
would that calm things down? can we just all make fun of white people now?
look how shitty the cast is for GB3, now we should do the same for another Star Wars movie. The entire cast should consist of fat, gay, lesbian women, one lonely gay man left alone with his light sabre, a jjb like white redneck, some people in wheelchairs, a few retarded people, some fat people, and the rest a mix of various races.
oh, and burning of the dukes of hazzard flag, followed by a dozen men of mixed races (but not white) taking turns having sex with a white, female jabba the hut with an elastic anus.
their gender, race, religion, or sexual preference, then you are breaking the law.
http://vignette1.wikia.nocooki...
Neither Calrissian nor Windu are anything more than minor characters. Number of lead characters who are black? Chinese? Indian? Hispanic? Heck, green skin gets better representation than anything else that's not (non-Hispanic) white.
As for women, the franchise made sharp retrograde progress between Leia (some strength, although still very much second fiddle to the men) and Amidala (total doormat).
Hey don't be hating on nigga Binks, you racist.
is that white enough for you?
Let's do this, BET! Let's make an all black Star Wars movie! We'll even use the lens flare to blind the crackers!
Seriously, the treatment of straight white men in media has been horrendous for decades. Incompetent, moronic dad has been the go-to formula for comedy for the family sitcom for as long as I can remember. Domestic violence against men (of any color) in media is as acceptable now as the reverse was in the fifties. If you didn't notice, maybe you're the one with a problem?
what was all that one in a million talk?
The least concerning thing about starwars is the racial diversity. The most concerning thing is them fucking it up again like they did last time.
Would the phantom menace have been better if they were all minorities? Nope.
Does not fucking matter. Further, it is in space and half of the fucking characters are aliens or robots... so... who gives a shit.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Abrams took a historically progressive series and gutted its diversity. Changing khan to a white man and neither film come close to passing the bechdel test. It's sad how horribly he treated the core tenants of Star Trek. What make you think he will do anything different in Star Wars. He make films to sell to the masses.
...given his track record of helping build a diverse cast as director of the "Star Trek" reboot films
Uh, was Abrams really going to have white people play Sulu and Uhura? And the only other major female character I remember were the green chick in her underwear and the blond chick in her underwear, so Abrams didn't exactly help along the fairer sex in his films. I think the writer had no clue about the history of Star Trek.
Am I the only one who noticed a similarity between the Ferengi and the stereotypical portrayal of Jews, from the middle ages on? Apparently, the answer is no. All you need to do is google "Jews Ferengi" and it's pretty clear that I'm not alone in noticing this.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
With a hangman's noose made out of his tongue?
When people compare Jar Jar to Black peeps they are not really being serious.. it is all a faux argument intended to stoke controversy and whore attention for fame and profit. No matter how repetitive and stupid it becomes people still fall for it over and over again. I am outraged by *** please give me another 15 minutes.
Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even in a galaxy far, far away. Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!
Ewoks: Latino. short and talk fast. JJ Binks: Island Man. choose island. female: all alike which doesn't matter. old white man: EVIL. c'mon and try.
The cast's "Racial and Sexual Diversity" is more important than having a plot, hiring good actors, making a good movie.
The funny thing is that people that bitch about such things aren't even the target audience for this kind of media. They aren't going to go see the movie anyhow, they are just going to post to tumblr and youtube about how "fair or unfair" it is and ignore it's content.
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Is Slashdot reloading the page on a timer? I kept a page open, and suddenly, it scrolls back to the top. Is the page reloading? If so, I'm getting more and more disenchanted with Slashdot.
Quite to the contrary, Chewbacca is first mate and copilot, he's technically adept and loyal. Your "stupid" claim is demonstrably false; your "annoying" claim reflects badly on you, not the character.
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I couldn't give a rat's rear end about how diverse the cast is. I predict it will inevitably fail to capture the charm of the first 2 or 3 films from 30+ years ago because the whole genre has been done to death and no longer excites the imagination. Abrams has shown an ability to rehash Lucas at his worst, and the result is a CGI-laden soap opera with a succession of pop sci-fi conventions and magical plot devices. No, I don't care too much about how the original cast has been pulled out of retirement to sit on their big wrinkled asses and deliver a few exposition lines while their hot young counterparts advance the thin or nonsensically convoluted plot. But most of all in this identity politics obsessed present, I couldn't care less about how diverse the cast is. Generations of people seem to be so PC-addled now that they don't know what diversity is until some publicist who hasn't seen the film yet makes a pronouncement yea or nay.. It's another $12 ticket of bullshit and years of merchandizing ever after. Whoop.
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Maybe in the made up universe in which Star Wars exists, there isn't a great deal of racial and sexual diversity.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
For me, one of the most interesting (yet seemingly ignored) cultural component is the droids.
...and don't me started on restraining bolts.
In the Star Wars universe, Droids like Artoo and Threepio and, presumably, millions of others, are self-aware and intelligent. They appear to feel physical pain and have emotions like happiness, fear and sadness.
Yet as near as I can see in the canon, droids have no rights whatsoever. They can be bought and sold, ordered to their death, kidnapped by Jawas, melted, sent to the spice mine of Kessel or smashed into who knows what.
Slashdot - stop publishing nonsense like this. It's irrelevant to anything.
this movie came out in 1999 (the first clinton era) and people were talking about jar-jar then. it's pretty blatant and outrageous.
At least he THOUGHT he could crush people's throats with his mind.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Considering there hasn't been a good Star Wars Movie since Empire; I'm not overly optimistic, nor am I enthused about it.
But Lucas not being involved is definitely a plus. Also throwing out the Expanded universe was also a plus. When they moved away from this:
The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
And introduced the Ysalamiri, yeah fuck them and the bantha they rode in on.
But Lucas was not to be out done, oh no. He introduced the midichlorians and made things even worse.
Then again, I shouldn't be annoyed about Kenbi being full of shit about the nature of the force since he was full of shit about everything else.
Not to mention that Chewbacca is portrayed in a positive light most times. Right down to his strength. You don't "let the Wookie win" because otherwise he'll throw a fit, trip over his legs, and end up on the floor. Pit Chewbacca against a few Stormtroopers and Chewy will come out ahead. Put Chewbacca on the problem and he'll work out how to fix it.
Contrast this with Jar-Jar whose main attributes seem to be "gets in the way", "gets into trouble that others need to get him out of", and "is generally helpless unless his clumsiness inadvertently results in his enemy's defeat." About the only way Jar-Jar would take out a group of Stormtroopers would be by repeatedly tripping into them until they were all knocked out. His only purpose to the plot seems to be to get in the way of and annoy the other characters.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
. . . as in the South Park usage of the term.
There are no blacks or whites or even males or females in Star Wars...they're ALIENS. Those categories are completely irrelevant to a FICTIONAL universe populated with FICTIONAL aliens who have ZERO in common with any race or gender from Earth. Period. Anything else is not sci-fi, it's just leftist politics.
Spoiler Alert: That crashed Star Destroyer from the Star Wars trailer? It crashed on top of Jar-Jar. Many Imperials died to save us from the menace of Binks.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I'm tired of seeing Star Wars being made into futuristic Kung Fu movie. Why can't they just let people fight naturally like how a real skilled swordsman would use a light saber. None of this acrobatic martial arts shit.
If you look at the released video from Comic Con in SD, the video makes far more of a point about respect for realism of the sets, which IS one of the more concerning things about the prequels.
Don't know what Slashdot chose to cover a minor side point, expect to draw in trolls.
From all of the material I've seen, it looks like JJA has more respect for fans and source material than Lucas did in the prequels.
I have better than average hopes for the new movie...
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I really wish all this racism and sexism debates would just stop. These days it's almost impossible to find any review of any movie that doesn't only deal with these topics, and only very few actually concentrate on whether the movie was any good from an artistic point of view. Most of the time I don't care if directors add or remove or change certain characters to fit the crowds newfound interest in recist and sexist topics, but only to the point where it still keeps the point of the movie and reflects the intentions of the writers. I find all these idiotically overcompensated angry and pointless rants and quarrels about gender and race bias issues (which, most of the time, seem simply made up) a real turnoff, driving me not to even try to read movie reviews for almost a year now. It seems that nowadays we've reached a point, where whatever the movie's topic and whaveter the cast, however good or bad it is, the only thing you can read about is whether there have been enough female and/or minority and/or etc characters in it. Well, I don't give a flying f*, until the movie is good, and I give the same amount of f* to all the idiotic opinion pieces about feminism, masculism, chauvinism, racism, sexism, whateverism.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Get a grip. It's a movie. It's fantasy. It's not reality.
Sheesh.
The FUD spewed by the "discrimination" crowd is just mind-boggling sometimes.
WTF would it take to satisfy you all? Vader cross-dressing in his apartment?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
And a lot of kids of that epoch, which might have been somewhat younger than you, have bitten the ewoks train of toy hook and sinker alike.
The franchise has included prominent and strong female characters, like Princess Leia
And...? You make it sound like that's just the start of a long list, so let's hear the rest of it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Quite frankly he's totally fucking up everything he touches that isn't television. Don't get me wrong: The TV shows he's responsible for are pretty damned good. But his movies make me want to stab him in the eye with a very large knife. I don't consider his 'Star Trek' movies to be legit, they're 'Star Trek themed movies' at best (at least that's the only way I could even begin to stand them), and quite frankly I'm not going to pay a single penny to see any of his 'Star Wars themed movies', and I don't recommend anyone else does, either.
Posted as Anonymous Coward because I'm certain there are enough JJA fanbois out there that will flame me to the point of being subatomic particles, regardless of being flat-out wrong, and I just don't need to put up with that sort of bullshit.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
And humans are reproducing with anything having the opposite genitalia, regardless of skin pigmentation, creed, or species.
Totally unrealistic that a white guy would have a Sikh name, amirite?
It would've been amusing to see a brown-skinned, Turban'd actor playing Khan and blowing shit up though. I mean, the ensuing Social Justice Crusade would've been amusing. And cringe-worthy, but still amusing in its own fashion.
Then you wouldn't have to constantly be harrassed by bitter, angry, resentful non-whites, who CHOSE to force themselves into your living space. After all, Africans still have all of Africa to live in, but they don't want to live there, around their own kind. Ditto for Indians, Chinese, and all the other third worlders who live in white countries, and are slowly genociding white people out of existence.
It was an analogy and the only important parts were "kids who know nothing about" and "incredibly offensive but not meant to be".
There is no point going off on a tangent.
If you randomly trow the dice to a black man and it comes 1 and the white one gets 6, Its Not Racism.
Jar jar was created to be a lesser caracter. Many steriotypes show ppl as lesser.
The steriotypes are the problem, not jar jar.
Starwars has 1000 examples against racism. You guna let 1 in favor to win?
If yes then yiu are the racist
So, a character not having a firm grasp of English, because he's, you know, an alien, automatically means racism against blacks?
Since when?
This obsession with having culture reflect "diversity" comes from the idea that humans are blank slates and that our behavior and opinions are all determined by culture. Alter the map, and the territory will change too. Thats the idea.
All this pandering to feminists and sjws achieves is weaker stories. The imitation game being the prime example
Well, knowing whether the person in the wookie suit is male, female, trans, L or G may be a good point of fan interest or arguments,
but not really a government or EEO issue. Doesn't matter.
Discrimination? Against JAr-Jar? GOOD!
Bias against the Sith? GREAT!
Wanting a wookie rug in front of the fireplace? OK, but you have to kill your own....
PC and TOO DAMN MANY LAWYERS, SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS and IDJITS into everyones' business!
Get a grip - Or one will be supplied.
I thought Vader took care of that for us.
Time to offend someone
He never really intended it to be the cornerstone of someones entire political world-view.
Stop trying to destroy movies with your stupid racial/gender political agenda! Articles like this make me sick, having to tailor the cast to what politicians want.
Hooper: Always some white boy gotta invoke the holy trilogy. Bust this: Those movies are about how the white man keeps the brother man down, even in a galaxy far, far away. Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!
Banky Edwards: What's a Nubian?
Hooper: Shut the fuck up! Now... Vader, he's a spiritual brother, y'know, down with the force and all that good shit. Then this cracker, Skywalker, gets his hands on a light saber and the boy decides he's gonna run the fuckin' universe; gets a whole clan of whites together. And they go and bust up Vader's hood, the Death Star. Now what the fuck do you call that?
Banky Edwards: Intergalactic civil war?
Hooper: Gentrification! They gon' drive out the black element to make the galaxy quote, unquote, safe for white folks. And Jedi's the most insulting installment! Because Vader's beautiful black visage is sullied when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty, old white man! They tryin' to tell us that deep inside we all wants to be white!
Banky Edwards: Well, isn't that true?
[Hooper pulls out his gun, shoots Banky]
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Mild mannered public servant on Coruscant by day, greatest evil come to the known galaxy by night - plaguing the galaxy with bastard half-gungan spawn and doing much more damage than the Empire could have ever hoped to achieve!
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
J.J. Abrams On "Star Wars" Cast's Racial and Sexual Diversity
Rolls eyes. I'm sure that's just my privilege talking.
If we showed LGBT in the right percentage, they would never appear on the screen.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I don't think anyone seriously believes Lucas is a racist. He was strangled by his own hubris and surrounded by yes men that should have said "hey, maybe this reads as a little offensive?" I saw a bit of a documentary and even Lucas seems to question the fact that he gets no push back from anyone. That is how we ended up with these turds (I-II-III). To that end the prequels are equal opportunity offenders and I think we can all agree there is something in there for everyone to DIS-like, we don't have to focus on racism/stereotyping alone.
Hmmm...modded to Troll -1. I suggested lynching a Gungan, and all the Gungan rights activists pounced on me.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
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There is absolutely no need to touch on the topic of cultural/gender diversity in a film made for fun, unless you're going to go the Kevin Smith route (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) and satirize the hell out of it.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Perhaps, but Mr. Maple's comments are still closer to +5 that most AC remarks ;-)
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Just cast the movie with all black, lesbian, handicapable, midgets, in wheelchairs.
It's reparations, and a lot of people would gleefully wait days in line to see it.