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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.)
Watch again, he's obviously a (bad) Jamaican stereotype. That said, that's not the reason I disliked him either.
from Episode I is clearly mocking every horrible child stereotype. It is because of these kinds of caricatures that birth rates have been dropping.
Jar Jar's speech sounds a lot like Jamaican patois to me. Whether that is racist or not is another story, but Jar Jar's general behavior; stupid, lazy, and addled, do conjure up the way blacks were portrayed in literature and films for a rather long time. I don't think Lucas is a racist, and I've long given him the benefit of the doubt that Jar Jar was yet another iteration of the whole Ewok concept, cute funny talking things that can be made into toys that say things like "E-chooda!", because in Lucas's mind, the kids love them.
The problem with Lucas's theory is that, at least the kids of my generation (what I'd call the Star Wars generation, who were 5-10 years old when the first film came out), we had no interest in any silly characters. The most desirable action figures were Darth Vader (because he was bad ass and could crush peoples' throats with his mind), Chewbacca, Han Solo and Obiwan, because they were the fighters who kicked ass.
I was eleven or twelve years old when Return of the Jedi came out, and I found the Ewok scenes to range from fucking insipid to, in the final battle scenes, be utterly improbable.
But I don't think Jar Jar was any more intentionally racist than the Ewoks (who, so far as I can tell, were heavily modeled on African bush people). It's just that Lucas has so little capability to portray nuance that you end up with broad caricatures that you have to forgive some for confusing with rather well known racist imagery.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Agreed, Jar Jar was awful, but anyone trying to make this into any kind of race issue should be tied and quartered. Really, nothing better to think about? Fuck them.
Can Jar Jar please be transsexual?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
You're intentionally missing the point. there's a cultural history found in movies, tv and books that portray black people as subservient and uneducated stereotypes. This portrayal reinfoced class and racial structures of the day that served to keep black people "in their place". Long tradition of this. summary mentions stepin fetchet. uncle remus. blackface comedy. jar jar is a direct decendent of this line of humor. either you're being purposefully obtuse, or maybe you're from iceland or something and completely unexposed to american culture and history.
You would have been 14 or 15 when Episode I came out. Of course you don't remember what us slightly older people meant when we said it sucked. You were busy watching the podracing scene.
One of the major criticisms of Jar-Jar back then was they thought he was speaking with a Jamaican accent. It's so universal that everybody my age or older (and I'm only 34) knows precisely what the phrase "Jar-Jar racist" means. The flying dude with the nose was also widely considered to be a reference to either Jews or Arabs. And I believe there was at least one other group of aliens Lucas put in there that had everyone going "What the fuck George Lucas?"
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.