Jar Jar Binks

This morning I watched a relatively heated discussion on the fact that the Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks is an example of racism. I'll be honest, when I saw the film I was definately reminded of old black exploitation films from the 1970's and even older ideas about blacks from the 1930's (i.e. Amos and Andy). My question: Is this just a media hysteria or does everyone associate this character with negative portrayals of African Americans?

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"Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true" -Albert Einstein

Well, I've yet to see the movie, but the Chicago Tribune ran a story on it a few days ago with extensive quoting from the guy who voiced JJ. Evidentally, he's black and has no idea what people are whining about. He claimed that he tried to voice JJ as a noble guy trying to learn a new and difficult language and that was about it. He also said that he found it very sad that black people watching the movie could only compare the voice to a mockery of African Americans.

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"I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn't."

I got into a similar discussion with one of my friends about prejudice in Episode I, but it didn't deal with Jar Jar Binks.
The discussion involved Watto, Anakin's slave owner, and apparent Jewish stereotypes. My friend's arguments follow: Watto was concerned with money, had a Jewish American accent, a big nose (?), and wings (?). I still don't see how some of those fit the Jewish stereotype, but I won't bother arguing on an issue in which I am unfamiliar.
Another discussion of racism in the movie revolved around the Trade Federation, and how they represented Asians. I recognized the accent, but I didn't really see a specific stereotype in that instance either.

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"[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged... that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more." -- Joseph Heller's Catch-22

Oddly, I found nothing at all anti-Semetic about Watto. He sounded more French or Italian to me. The Asian accents, DEFINATELY. But, I'm not sure how offensive that is because they weren't portrayed as bumbling idiots like JarJar Binks. If anything, they just sounded like Pat Morita.

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"Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true" -Albert Einstein

I just thought Jar Jar sounded like he was talking baby talk, about like I use to talk to my pets, or to make my stuff animals talk when I play with--nevermind. Anyway, it didn't seem ethnic to me at all, it just sounded like an innocent, naive, child-like, cartoony voice. Kinda like Roger Rabbit. I wonder what race he was? ;)

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"I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it," Jack Handy

Jar Jar didn't seem at all ethnic to me either. He seemed like a bumbling idiot yes, but ethnic, no. I did notice the Trade Federation seemed to be of the Asian persuasion. I also notice Anakin's owner fit the stersotype of a Jewish American. But getting back to the original question, I didn't associate JJ with any of the common African American stereotypes.

Anyone who thinks that Watto sounded even remotely Jewish has not spent one second of their life around an actual Jewish person. If anything, he sounded Italian, like your stereotypical low-level mafioso.

It really bothers me that so many people are so damn sensitive nowadays. No, it's not specific to one race, religion, gender, etc... People just need to lighten up. I'm half-Mexican, yet I tell Mexcican jokes all the time. Why? Because it's no big deal.

I think the similarities (which were very slight) only made the movie a little more believable .Think about how Star Trek shows you a character that is eight feet tall, has three eyes, gills, webbed feet and three noses, but speaks pefect English!

Star Wars depicts characters from other planets and civilizations who are trying to speak English - a foreign language to them. Naturally, they're not going to get it perfect. It's also probably wise to model their speech patterns after real situations where other civilizations have struggled to learn English.

By the way, I thought Jar Jar Binks was a turd of a character anyway. It looked like the whole movie was geared for a pre-school audience.

I hadn't really picked up on the possible racial angle. I thought he talked that way because he was supposed to be laughable.

I've just never met anyone that actually fit into their particular stereotype, and I was raised to ignore them as much as possible anyway. One exception, Dad always used to say the only group you are allowed to make fun of is your own, so I have a big collection of Norwegian Jokes.

I just didn't see the whole Jar Jar Binks as a black stereotype thing. It seems to me that the people who see Jar Jar Binks this way are applying the twisted logic:
"Jar Jar Binks is bufoonish and talks in pigdin English.
A racist 'Stepin Fetchit' character is bufoonish and talks in pigdin English.
Therefore, Jar Jar Binks is a racist 'Stepin Fetchit' character."

Nor did I see Watto as a Jewish, Italian, or any other ethnic stereotype. However, with the five-o-clock shadow (would an alien even have hair?), I thought he was supposed to be the stereotypical blue-collar, unkempt, unshaven junk dealer.

On the other hand, I totally saw the Trade Federation types as stereotypical Japanese business villains, with those fake Japanese accents straight from a 1930s movie -- and, even more egregious, the slanted or slitted eyes!

c-man writes:

I think the similarities (which were very slight) only made the movie a little more believable .Think about how Star Trek shows you a character that is eight feet tall, has three eyes, gills, webbed feet and three noses, but speaks pefect English!

Star Wars depicts characters from other planets and civilizations who are trying to speak English - a foreign language to them. Naturally, they're not going to get it perfect. It's also probably wise to model their speech patterns after real situations where other civilizations have struggled to learn English.

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First of all, I do not think that you have ever seen an alien on Star Trek with 3 eyes and 3 noses. One of Gene Rodenberry's rules was the aliens had to have similar features to humans. However, there have been webbed feet.

The reason everyone speaks perfect English is the Universal Translator. It translates whatever someone who is speaking into your native language. Since we are watching in an English speaking area, ours is set to English. You can debate the possibilities of this, but that is the way it is in Star Trek.

Probably the prime reason for this is so that people will not sit around talking about racial stereotypes that are not present.

I have not seen the new Star Wars movie, but Lucas is not stupid enough to have blatant racial stereotypes in his movie.

Jeffery

How come no one is moaning about Obi-wan and Qui-gon being boring, uptight, manipulative, selfish, slave owners obsessed with using people for their own gain? They were actually WHITE MEN, not bug-eyed aliens.

You know, sometimes I think I am the most unobservant/naive white person on Earth.

I noticed absolutely nothing about Watto, the Trade Federation, or Jar Jar in regards to racist portrayals. I came in knowing Jar Jar had a bit of a Caribbean accent, but only because that is how it was described in the book. In hindsight, I do agree that Watto's accent does resemble Italian, but he</> did not strike me as Italian.

But I'm, again, pretty ignorant to this stuff (and sometimes blissfully so). I had a friend in college named Jaime Zavala, a darker-skinned young man with no accent. I went out with him to a Mexican restaurant, where he excitedly sang along with the Mariachis in perfect Spanish. He laughed when he saw how visibly stunned I was--"You didn't know I was Mexican?" he asked. When I said no, he laughed harder and asked, "What did you think I was?" And my honest (and still flabberghasted) answer was, "I didn't think you were anything."

But, I [i]can discern my very dark skinned friend is African. ;) I'm catching on...

LauraRae

quadell says:
Imagine if Jabba had spoken in psuedo-Yiddish, or if Yoda had a hispanic accent instead of inverted sentance structure.

Didn't Jabba speak French (Jabba du Hut)?

I think it was obvious that Jar Jar's dialect was patterned after Jamaican creole, but it wasn't that which made him offensive. He seemed to serve no useful purpose in the first half of the movie except to get in the way and act like a total idiot. I cannot vouchsafe for the second half of the movie since I left after the pod race.

As far as Watto is concerned, I'm amazed at the people who think he's either Jewish or Italian. I immediately thought of Eli Wallach in either The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly or The Magnificent Seven. Wallach is Jewish, but he did a great job playing Mexican characters. In Ugly, Tuco would initially fit in the stereotype of the crafty, dirty Mexican bandit, but Wallach filled out his portrayal so that you saw a human being. (He should have received a Best Supporting Oscar for that film.) It's too bad Lucas couldn't do the same for Jar Jar. Maybe he plans to do so in Episodes 2 or 3?

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"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way..."
--Jessica Rabbit,Who Framed Roger Rabbit

It seemed obvious to me (and the people I watched the movie with) that Jar-Jar was a Jamaican charicature. His mannerisms and pidgen-accent were both typical of the sterotype. I'm truly surprised no one has mentioned this.
Watto was had an obviously Italian accent, IMHO. Not remotely Jewish, not remotely French, just 100% Italian, with the -a endings on words and everything. And he was a low-level organised crime dealer.
And the Trade Federation accents obviously Chinese stereotypes. Listen to them with your eyes closed, and see if you don't think you're supposed to be seeing one specific race.
(I keep using that word "obviously" because it was to me - I'm not trying to discount you if you didn't hear it that way. Please forgive me if I sound arrogant.)

Also note that the 3 main new sub-human characters in the movie were Jar-Jar, Watto, and the 2 TF aliens. (Darth Maul seemed more super-human - the 3 above were all kind of half-human half-lesser life form). And all were blatant (it seemed to me) racial stereotypes. And guess what else? Jar-Jar was dumb and inept, Watto was dishonest and dirty, and the TF aliens were back-stabbing cowards. Guess what? All 3 play into existing stereotypes.

Note also that Episodes IV, V, and VI didn't have any detectable racial stereotypes in humanoid aliens that I can see. Imagine if Jabba had spoken in psuedo-Yiddish, or if Yoda had a hispanic accent instead of inverted sentance structure. It would have ruined the movies. It feels like Lucas really reached a low point to delve into racial stereotypes for a supposed archetypal story.

I hope this doesn't end up in the pit...
Quadell

Watching the Star Wars, I immediatly identified Jar Jars accent as sounding kind of Jamamacan. I could easily imagine him being long dreadlocks instead of long floppy ears. His posture, lanky features and gesturing reminded me a lot of the comedian Chris Rock (who is black).
I also imediately noticed that Jar Jar is NOT black he is clearly Orangish Green, and clearly alien.
What I completely fail to see is why this could possibly be offensive?
I had always thought that stereotypes are damaging because you make assumption about how someone will ACT based on their RACE. Here you have an computer generated character who race is obviously ALIEN, and people say that he is "ACTING BLACK". Isn't that a little backwards? Shouldn't aliens that look like gungans be the ones whining?


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[Insert Clever Quote Here]

Just the fact that there's so much debate over what accent which character had proves that it's not a racial stereotype. To me and my boyfriend, Watto sounded vaguely Iranian or middle-Eastern. I've read reviews that criticize Lucas for being anti-Semitic because Watto had a Yiddish accent. Quadell states he's "obviouly Italian."

The trade federation guys seemed to have an Oriental accent to me, but I couldn't tell you which Oriental accent. Everybody seems to agree that Jar Jar sounds Jamaican, but it's vaguely Jamaican - many things he says seem unique modes of speech, done with slight Jamaican overtone. I've never heard a Jamaican speak exactly as Jar Jar does.

IMO, given all the differences of opinion, and give the huge array of accents Lucas used, it's very difficult to say that any of the characters are a racial stereotype. It's not degrading to use different accents; in fact, I thought it was kind of neat. All races have stereotypes, and chances are we could come up with negativities about any character having any accent.

I read a movie review that compared JJ's pidgin to Butterfly McQueen's patois in Gone With The Wind ("Ah doan know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies"). I saw the character's dialogue (aside from being incredibly irritating) to be a mixture of Jamaican slang and Stepin Fetchit. JJ's bossman, (forget the name) in addition, was a dead ringer for The Kingfish of the old Amos and Andy TV show. (Yes, there was such a thing). As for the Federation doods, my eight-year-old immdiately identified the accents as Chinese.

I won't pass judgement on the racial stereotyping aspects of the language in the film since they don't offend me, but I can can certainly see how a great many people would be mightily pissed. As far as I'm concerned, it's a simple matter of lack of
creativity, that falling back on tired, shopworn characterizations.

Jar Jar Binks sounds somewhat Jamacian because Ahmad Best, who is black, played the character that way. George Lucas had his people develope a language for the Gungans that was based on how people who just barely speak enough English to get by talk. How Best spoke was how Jar Jar spoke.

The Nemodians (the Trade Federation) were designed to speak English like people wh knew alot, but it was a second language. Also there was spme redubbing of lines to help create a proper lipsync for them. the actors had little to do with them, the restrictions of the mask was the constraining factor.

The person who said Watto had an "obvious Italian accent" never, ever spent much time around Italians, and I have. Dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds of them. And this one really got me thinking. And then I noticed something else. Most everyone here described Watto as "dishonest". How? Sure he tried, not very hard, to back out of part of a bet after losing everything. But only for, by my count, about 5 seconds. Nothing else he did was dishonest. Sure he wouldn't take republic credits, but if someone tried to pay you for something with Polish Zoltys would you take them? I don't think so. But you see Watto and think "he's a small businessman and he speaks with a funny accent, he must be dishonest."

And then I start wondering who's really stereotyping people. Someone commented that there were no steroytipcal characters in episode IV-V-VI and he seems to have forgotten two things. 1)Lando Calrissian did draw a certain amount of critism for beong a black, jive talking, con-man. 2)Everyone else was white (except for James Earl Jones). I notice that no one complained that all the bad guys were British.

It now seems to me that some people will find stereotypes in anything. George Lucas could have saved himself a lot of trouble by hiring all white guys, but then he would have been really racist.

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Jim Petty
A Snappy message should appear here

Jimpy has a pretty good point about Watto. He was a slave owner, a gambler and he was not a very nice guy overall, but he really wasn't dishonest. Actually, Qui-gon took care of the dishonest part trying to manipulate Watto with mind control, then lying to him about the pod race, and cheating with the chance cube. It was mostly just his expressions an body language that makes you think this guy is really shady.

I read a movie review that compared JJ's pidgin to Butterfly McQueen's patois in Gone With The Wind ("Ah doan know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies"). I saw the character's dialogue (aside from being incredibly irritating) to be a mixture of Jamaican slang and Stepin Fetchit.

I challenge you to name one specific phrase spoken by Jar Jar that is characteristic of either of those things. Which words were Jamaican slang, and which ones were Stepin Fetchit?

JJ's bossman, (forget the name) in addition, was a dead ringer for The Kingfish of the old Amos and Andy TV show.

Why, because he had a deep voice? Kingfish was depicted as lazy, shiftless, always trying to avoid work and make a quick (usually dishonest) buck. Boss Nass is depicted as tough, prideful, in charge of a huge Army, and ready to step up to a challenge which could mean death for his race. I think you may very possibly be insane for making such a comparison.

In any case, Lucas left the characterization of Jar Jar's voice almost completely up to Ahmed Best, so if you want to blame anyone, blame best. Who, as mentioned, is black, so was obviously out to perpetrate a cruel trick on people of his skin color.

Have any of you people ever actually heard an actual Jamaican person speak, or instead heard only comedic sterotypes of such?

Also note that the 3 main new sub-human characters in the movie were Jar-Jar, Watto, and the 2 TF aliens.

Sub-human? Uh, don't you mean "non-human"? Nice value judgement there. Perhaps you, like most people, are projecting your own racism onto the screen.

And all were blatant (it seemed to me) racial stereotypes.

Hmm. Did you notice the two actual black-skinned humans in positions of power and importance? Meanwhile, none of the characters you mentioned were human, and certainly none were black.

And guess what else? Jar-Jar was dumb and inept,

Inept? Perhaps. Clumsy? Yep. Dumb? Doubtful.

Watto was dishonest and dirty,

Except for attempting to renege in the agreement to free Anakin, please explain at specifically what points Watto acts dishonestly.

and the TF aliens were back-stabbing cowards.

Otherwise known as "villains."

Pldennison said
"Perhaps you, like most people, are projecting your own racism onto the screen."

Now now, pl, let's not let it come to this just yet. Discussion about race often degenerates into one camp accusing the other of racism, but I'd like to put that off as long as possible.

I think Jimpy raised a lot of important points. I'll concede that so far as the human characters go, I have no complaints. Some may say Lando was a racial stereotype, but I'm not convinced. It only starts to concern me when there seems to be a pattern, where there is a consistent connection between sub-human characters and non-white races, or between lazy, dishonest, or inept characters, and certain racial profiles.

By sub-human, I mean having some characteristics of humans, and some characteristics of lesser life forms. Jabba was a big humanoid slug, the Neimodians were tall humanoid frogs, etc. It's subjective. I don't know what Watto is. He kinda looks like a fat, shaved Gonzo with wings. Sorta.

Anyway, the question is, is there a consistent pattern in Star Wars I between stereotypes of racial accents, and either sub-human forms, or personality flaws present in the same racial stereotypes?
I thought there was, but other people didn't think so.

What Jimpy said about Watto really got me thinking. Watto wasn't really dishonest. It was Qui-gon who cheated in the die roll, and who tried to use mind control to bolster his negotiating power. But the audience was obviously supposed to root for Qui-gon, not Watto. Why? Yes, Watto was a slave-owner. But Qui-gon wasn't an emancipator, by his own admision. And Qui-Gon even lied to Anakin about why he collected his blood sample.

Similarly, what made Darth Maul evil? He attacked Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, but besides that, what did he do? In IV, V, and VI, Darth Vader killed his own men, blew up a planet, and ruled through fear. You knew he was evil.

I submit the theory that in IV, V, and VI, the good guys were basically virtuous, and they acted virtuously, and their flaws were shown as flaws to be overcome. And the bad-guys were evil, and they did evil things constantly. But in I, the good guys were just labeled "good", and the bad guys were labeled "bad", and we were expected to accept that with few convincing "good things" done by good guys, or "bad things" done by bad guys. And that's why I feel Lucas relied on stereotypes to label his characters. He wasn't using sensical character development anymore.

Please excuse the spelling throughout.
Not yet in the pit,
Quadell

Quadell, I can at least see the reasoning behind your last paragraph, even if I don't fully agree. (Dragging up the philosophical question of whether it is OK to lie/cheat/etc. to serve a greater good.)

I still think there is too much value judgement implied in the use of "sub-human," which is why I think "non-human" is more sensible; and to that degree, I still maintain that SW has never used "representational" alien forms that are intended to stand for human skin colors.

Ah, Phil. I can always depend on you to pull out the flamethrower in sensitive topics.

All of this talk about how different Star Wars I is from IV, V, and VI has got me thinking. How involved was Spielberg in this movie anyway? You don't see this type of discussion about any other Spielberg movies that I can think of. Are we all sure that ol' Steve actually exerted much creative control over this movie? As evidence (admittedly very weak), various cartoons with Spielberg's name attached, like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs, have made jokes to the effect that S.S. does very little nowadays except attach his name to things. Any thoughts?

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

All of this talk about how different Star Wars I is from IV, V, and VI has got me thinking. How involved was Spielberg in this movie anyway? You don't see this type of discussion about any other Spielberg movies that I can think of. Are we all sure that ol' Steve actually exerted much creative control over this movie? As evidence (admittedly very weak), various cartoons with Spielberg's name attached, like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs, have made jokes to the effect that S.S. does very little nowadays except attach his name to things. Any thoughts?

Why would you imagine Steven Spielberg had anything to do with George Lucas' Star Wars series?

I had no idea this topic would recieve so many responses!!! I'm not sure if George Lucas intended any racism in his characters, but I do think he was sloppy in what he allowed. JarJar Binks had a definate Jamaican/African American way of speech, the king of JarJar's people was like a characature of an African tribesman, and the Trade Federation guys were done like offensive Asian stereotypes. Make any excuse you like, George Lucas messed up.

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"Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true" -Albert Einstein

Why is it no one has a problem with the racial stereotype of all the Imperial officers being British?

After all, I can't think of one of them that didn't speak with a British accent.

I notice that no one complained that all the bad guys were British.

Well, Obi-wan was British and so was Qui-gon, so your statement is weak IMHO.
The person who suggested that Watto was a Jewish American was Jewish himself, so I also disagree with the comment that "anyone who thinks Watto is Jewish obviously hasn't been around a lot of Jews."
My own feelings on the issue is that Lucas never intended to make racial stereotypes: people just recognized the accents and tried to find patterns between the accents and the characters. As the dragon in John Gardner's Grendel explained to the eponymous hero, "They'd map out roads through Hell with their crackpot theories!"


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"[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged... that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more." -- Joseph Heller's Catch-22

To completely avoid the minefield of racial stereotypes, the thing that really got my knickers in a twist about JarJar is that his dialogue was clearly written for a human 5-year-old who has been lobotomized. No complication in the character at all, no clearly consistent alien-culture thing (for instance, the Gungan leader does that big shake-my-cheeks-and-make-a-raspberry-noise gesture twice, for two totally separate reasons. The first time, I could sorta take it, it might have been an anger-response in his species. THen he does it at the end, for no reason but to up the slapstick-count!) I feel that there were many CGI characters with far more depth, complexity, and realness-feeling to them (as in, they felt like PEOPLE and not like comic relief) than either Jar Jar or Boss ness. The Gungan with the tendrils by his mouth was one of them. He felt real, evne though he had few lines. He acted like a person (not a human person, but a consistent personality nonetheless). The trade feds were another. So was Watto. Even the slimy other podracer (... starts with an S, has five hands?) felt more like a real somebody than Jar Jar did. So I felt it a copout. Of course, 90% of why I watch/read SF is because I like consistent, real, *alien* aliens :-> I'm an anthropology geek, and a rather critical one.

To sum up, I don't care what accent an alien has, as long as it's not obviously made a congenital idiot simply for comic relief. Jar Jar could have had the exact same influence on the plot if they'd actually given him an IQ-equivalent of 80 or higher.

(admittedly, I have a VERY LOW slapstick tolerance)

I submit the theory that in IV, V, and VI, the good guys were basically virtuous, and they acted
virtuously, and their flaws were shown as flaws to be overcome. And the bad-guys were evil, and
they did evil things constantly. But in I, the good guys were just labeled "good", and the bad guys
were labeled "bad", and we were expected to accept that with few convincing "good things" done
by good guys, or "bad things" done by bad guys. And that's why I feel Lucas relied on stereotypes
to label his characters. He wasn't using sensical character development anymore.

This assumes that the Jedi and the Old Republic are the "good guys". It seems that neither side is flowing with virtue. We all know that the Old Republic is overthrown and replaced by the Empire. I doubt that this would happin without some support from local populations. Who will say that Obi-Wan was not fighting with anger in is heart at the end...doesn't that path lead to the dark side? Soon there won't be many Jedi left will there? It seems that the only characters that had any virtue were Queen Amidala, Jar Jar Binks, and Anikin Skywalker (who we all know becomes Darth Vader)

You know, just because everyone sees a phallus in a Rorschack (sp?) inkblot doesn't mean it's really there.

It seems like this movie was a collaboration by a lot of people, each with their own contributions - especially the nonhumans, one guy is voice, one guy designs the body, another guy does any computer animation. I see three possibilities:

1)The characters fell together in the form of stereotypical charicatures (why can't I spell today?) because the people who created them were all from the same culture and had similar mental templates of what features "go together". So any tall, goofy, comic-relief character with bad grammar comes out looking like a Stepin Fetchit "type". (My own take was that he was a rip-off of Disney's Goofy). He was, at any rate an annoying character aimed too squarely at the kids; much like the Ewoks, who were equally annoying and obviously a stereotype of the short-statured Picts, right down to the blue paint ;) When they sat down to create Watto, they said "Now what is Watto?" Watto is a disreputable small merchant in the armpit of the galaxy, who can't be out-haggled even by a Jedi using the Force. So naturally he came out having Middle-Eastern, Semitic features (which to an American, means Jewish, usually. I would have placed him in a Cairo bazaar, myself). I'm not saying this is right or wrong (yet), just that it is what may have happened.

Posiibility #
2) The rest of us are matching our own psychic templates to what we see on the screen. I saw the movie before I heard anything about ostensible racial stereotypes, and I must admit I didn't see anything at the time - I wasn't LOOKING for it. But a lot of people are forced to deal with these stereotypes a lot more prominently in their lives than I am, and so they saw something they are on the lookout for. This possibility seems to be summed up best in the notion expressed by some that Lucas shouldn't have "allowed" the stereotypical characters to happen, as opposed to those who decry that he went and "made" them that way. There is certainly something to this view.

Posibility#
3) A combination of both processes is at work.

Number three gets my vote.

Incidentally, I'm under the impression that a lot of this movie's production came out of England. Am I wrong? That may help explain why so many human actors have British accents.

Phil: Oops. Momentary lapse of reason. I blame the fact that I was just playing Sam & Max Hit the Road.

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

Lord help us. It really wouldn't matter one way or the other in what perceived accent any of the characters spoke, someone would undoubtedly cry foul. They are aliens, for crying out loud. Jar Jar is Jamaican? I've been to Jamaica. He's no Jamaican. Watto is Jewish or Italian? He's fucking blue and he has wings. What was E.T., Irish? He was short and drank beer, right? Perhaps Mr. Lucas should simply have aliens intonate blaring trumpets and provide subtitles. Oh, wait. Then the blind would be upset.

Keep in mind also, folks, that the character of Jar Jar was designed long before any voice was assigned for him. Assuming for a moment that the designers put even a modicum of thought into it (as designers usually do, observing animal anatomy and motion when creating creatures):

Jar Jar has a long, thick, muscular neck, and what appears to be a rather heavy head. Being amphibious, he also has knees which are very close to his hips, and long lower legs with thick feet for swimming. This results in a loping sort of walk with a low center of gravity, with the head bobbing back and forth. Result? A bunch of people with their own racial hangups scream "Pimp walk!"

Now, actor Ahmed Best was hired to provide a body reference while rehearsing takes. It was still Lucas' intention to have someone else dub the voice. When they heard the voice Best used, they thought it was great and kept it. Result? People with their own racial hangups scream "Butterfly McQueen!"

I agree with ABP: To a lot of people, Jar Jar doesn't act silly and talk funny because he's "black"; he's "black" because he acts silly and talks funny, which is a product of people's own internal characterizations.

Dice: I love Sam & Max Hit the Road! Great game!

Again, most of the people making these comments say nothing about the black human characters, which strikes me as odd.

Well, because the black human characters were treated with the same respect as the white human characters. There's nothing to really argue about.

Okay, I've looked over all the posts, and I saw the movie again. And as a whole, okay, I don't really think Jar-Jar's based on a racist stereotype. Or Watto, for that matter. It's fun to make theories on socio-psychological meanings in pop culture, (see the beginning of "Chasing Amy" for one of the better ones), but most of them are just exercises in the creativity of the critic.

But it's still a bad movie with no character development, and Jar-Jar was still the dumbest character in the saga, and the Neimodians (sp?) are still 100% Asian. Just tall and green. :)

-Quadell

I think there have been some really valid points raised on this thread. The characters in TPM reinforce some current racial stereotypes, intentional or not who knows. I think the important point is why it is offensive. It is because he is attributing these stereotypical characteristics to alien characters. Somehow I think a movie where the trade federation guys were greedy Asian businessmen speaking heavily dialected English would be less offensive than the current version. This is because the Aliens, because we have problems identifying them as individuals, come to symbolise the entire race we associate them with. Dont know if this makes sense. Imagine a short film with three characters a beige cube a pink cube and a brown cube. The beige cube sounds like the average american white male. The pink cube sounds and acts like the stereotypical dumb blond woman. The brown cube talks like a african american male street punk. Here's the plot the beige cube and pink cube wake up and have breakfast and the beige cube goes off to work the pink cube cleans the house. Meanwhile the brown cube is in an alley smoking crack. The pink cube goes to the grocery store and her car breaks down. She cries hysterically, The brown cube sees her pulls her into the alley and rapes and kills her. Have I not just created the most offensive short film ever. Why its about three characters, but apparently its about much more. Sorry this is so long. Sorry if I offended everyone.

-fraggle

To go totally off topic...

"Darth Vader killed his own men"

Admittedly, "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" aren't fresh in my mind. But I saw "Star Wars" (the first movie, now called Episode IV), and Vader tried to kill only one of his own people in that movie. In an early scene, Vader and various Imperial officers were in a meeting on the Death Star, and one officer made a rather snide comment about Vader's belief in the Force being obsolete. That's when Vader did a "mind strangle" on him, until some general or admiral told him to stop.

You can certainly understand someone being, um, somewhat miffed (understatement!) when he's in a meeting and someone makes an uncalled-for sarcastic comment about his religion. (^:

Empire Strikes Back. Admiral Ozzle came out of light-speed too close to the system. He was as clumsy as he was stupid.

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

Why, because he had a deep voice? Kingfish was depicted as lazy, shiftless, Of course because he had a deep voice, accent, and a manner of speech not vaguely similar, but practically identical to the Kingfish. What part of that statement was unclear to you? I was not commenting on the content of Boss Nass' dialogue or his actions. Your assessment of my sanity may well be unerring, but not for the reason you stated.

I challenge you to name one specific phrase spoken by Jar Jar that is characteristic of either of those things. which words were Jamaican slang, and which ones were Stepin Fetchit? Well, you have me there, my friend. I don't have a soundtrack handy, nor did I take notes and compare them to my Stepin Fetchit dictionary. I do, however, have cognitive capabilities and a reasonable ear for accents and phraseology. If you disagree with my overall impression, why not just say so?
[BLOCKQUOTE]Have any of you people ever actually heard an actual Jamaican person speak, or instead heard only comedic sterotypes of such?[/quote] A. Yes. B. JJ Binks is a very good example of the latter, imho, thank you.

I'll say it again. I was not offended, but I certainly see why some people are. Is that really so difficult to understand? It's the very reason you can't pick up Little Black Sambo at the library anymore, and TVland did not immediately make a bid for those Amos and Andy episodes. Get with the program, folks.


[Note: This message has been edited by Nickrz]


[Note: This message has been edited by Nickrz]

Sorry for the formatting mistakes. Sheesh.

Film makers should not have to go to extraordinary lengths to appease political correctness.

Spielberg was dealing with actual human characters, so there are actually people of the race of his characters to offend.

I doubt Lucas could have predicted that alien creatures are subject to racism accusation, or that he'd have to somehow think up accents that don't sound like ANY accent on Earth. I certainly never would have predicted it.

If I see a character in a movie that is clearly not Jewish, and this character is shown to be cheap, and I say "Hey! That character is cheap like a Jew!", who is associating cheapness with Jews, me or the film?

Jar-Jar is not a black human. If a person sees negative behaviour in a non black character, and accuses the character of being a black stereotype, then THAT PERSON is the one associating that negative behaviour with blacks, not the film.

I'm not trying to call these people racist, I think they are the opposite; they are protesting racism, or think they are. But they are going too far on this. By complaining about Jar-Jar, they are actually the ones implying blacks have this stereotypical behaviour, not the film. With good intentions, they are actually perpetuating the racism.

I've already fought this battle in another thread, so I'll only add this one thought:

What kind of filmmaker (especially one caterring to a mass audience) releases a movie without first considering how it might be interpreted (or misinterpreted) by its viewers?

These perceived steretypes (more than one, remember) make George Lucas look like a very sloppy producer next to someone like Spielberg who went to extraordinary lengths with "The Prince of Eqypt" to avoid such controversy.

Alright, I've finally seen the movie and am ready to comment. All in all, The Phantom Menace was a pretty good movie, but it's nowhere near the first three films. About the supposed stereotypes, IMO:

I don't see Jar Jar as especially stereotypical. When describing Jar Jar, the words that come first to my mind are "cartoon-ish" and "silly", not "evil racist stereotype". He is obviously meant to appeal to the little kids. But apparently, the PC-police only want blacks (and alleged "symbolic" blacks) to be shown in positions of leadership, or not at all. I bet that's real inspirational to all of those young Af/Am's who can't count on being the leader of an army, or becoming a Jedi Master ;).

The Trade Federation aliens are asians, Only green. They act like the steroetype of the sinister Oriental businessman and talk like characters in a Godzilla film.

Watto has no accent that I can identify. I know what Italians, Arabs, and Jews sound like (I've known members of all three groups), and I failed to ID Watto's speech as any one of those. IMO, Watto is just a generic sleasy character.

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

Dice, brace yourself, but you and I agree almost completely. I still maintain that if Jerry Lewis had voiced Jar Jar Binks, a lot of uptight people would have nothing to complain about.

I both agree and disagree about the Trade Federation. Agree, because the sound designers did say they based their speech on tapes of non-Americans learning to speak English; disagree, because they were originally going to make those characters CGI, and decided just before shooting to make them animatronic masks, so the lip-sync was way off. (As a result of the last-second decision, actor Silas Carson plays three roles in the move: the co-pilot of the ambassadors' ship at the very beginning, the Viceroy, and the Jedi who sits on the other side of Yoda and has a speaking role.)

Nickrz, I still disagree with you about the Boss Nass/Kingfish thing. I've heard enough old Amos & Andy tapes to formulate an opinion. You may as well pick any other large, deep-voiced person with whom to make a comparison.

{{Watching the Star Wars, I immediatly identified Jar Jars accent as sounding kind of Jamamacan. I could easily imagine him being long dreadlocks instead of long floppy ears. His posture, lanky features and gesturing reminded me a lot of the comedian Chris Rock (who is black). I also imediately noticed that Jar Jar is NOT black he is clearly Orangish Green, and clearly alien. What I completely fail to see is why this could possibly be offensive?}}

Yes! I got jumped on in another forum for saying that I thought Jar Jar sounded Jamaican by people saying that I was just looking for something to be offended by. WHEN DID I SAY I WAS OFFENDED?? I think the accent was largely based on a Jamaican accent, but the only reason it bothered me was that it was distracting. I guess I felt that either they shouldn't make accents an issue, or they should make NEW accents that weren't related to earth, otherwise it was distracting, and made the back of your head go "now why would the trade federation guys sound Chinese?" and so on. I agree with whoever said it was a lack of creativity. I didn't see anything offensive or racist in any of it.

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Okay, this is on rec.humor. It deals with the alleged stereotypes, and in many other ways pokes fun at the move.

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Jun/menace.html

I laughed, anyway.

Here's a characterization of Jar Jar that would work against the idea that he is a Jamaican stereotype of some kind.
Okay, now Jar Jar has a Jamaican accent, but his personality seems to be ripped off from the series Gilligan's Island. Like Gilligan, Jar Jar gets in the way and is extremely annoying. Looking at Jar Jar from this angle, one realizes that he is not a racial stereotype, just a really annoying character that no one wants to see in either Episodes II or III.

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"[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged... that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more." -- Joseph Heller's Catch-22

No C & P

About the Asian sounding Trade Federation: Go back and wtch the original Trilogy. Now, listen to the imperial chracters. Most of them sound British, so why isn't(didn't?) anyone complian then?

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Chaos
When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
Albert Einstein

Well, Obi-wan sounds British, too.
So does Qui-Gon in the new trilogy.


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"[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged... that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more." -- Joseph Heller's Catch-22

I guess none of you took the time to notice that Lucas sends an Irishman (Liam Neeson) and a Scotsman (Ewan McGregor) to save teh universe. Considering the stereotypes for these, I think Lucas did a pretty good job of overlooking stereotypes!

I didn't see the flick, and may never see it, but a good friend of mine, an extremely intelligent person who is no uber-sensitive alarmist, told me he was a bit uncomfortable with the JarJar bit as having connotations of a black slave. Of course, there was no shame, per se, in being a black slave (dem foakes habbin no choss in de matta).

Just thought about something, you guys said that all the bad guys in the first movies were British. I hate to break it to you, but almost everyone was British except Hamill, Fisher, and Ford. The movies were made in England.

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"So, he wears makeup and has a girl's name; isn't that original!" - Alice Cooper, about Marilyn Manson

but almost everyone was British

That includes 3PO, a character considered to be a stereotypical homosexual.

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"[He] beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so
further enraged... that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and
hurt his hand some more." -- Joseph Heller's Catch-22

That includes 3PO, a character considered to be a stereotypical homosexual.
What?!
Excuse me for a moment while I try to imagine C-3PO having sexual relations of any kind...

.........................................

...Sorry, the image is just not forming. Have I missed a moment where he glares lustfully at R2? Who, exacxtly, is doing the considering here? Elton John? Ellen DeGeneris (sp)?

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"I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms." -The Secret of Monkey Island

Sly said:

Lord help us. It really wouldn't matter one way or the other in what perceived accent any of the characters spoke, someone would undoubtedly cry foul. They are aliens, for crying out loud. Jar Jar is Jamaican? I've been to Jamaica. He's no Jamaican. Watto is Jewish or Italian? He's fucking blue and he has wings. What was E.T., Irish? He was short and drank beer, right? Perhaps Mr. Lucas should simply have aliens intonate blaring trumpets and provide subtitles. Oh, wait. Then the blind would be upset.

--Absolutley

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It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt. --Mark Twain