Which is the more annoying one-shot character: Dobby the House Elf from the Harry Potter series, or JarJar Binks from Star Wars?
Myself, I’m split. But I think Dobby might have the edge with his whole simpering yet creepy self-harm thing. God, I wish he’d iron his face instead of his hands. I seriously find myself inspired to punt the overgrown hairless cat anthropomorph.
What say you?
Any alien that talks like Bob Marley on even MORE drugs gets my vote every time.
Dobby is more annoying because he’s such a blatant ripoff of Gollum; JarJar is more annoying because of his jawdroppingly obvious racist overtones. Tie.
Dobby is certainly an annoying character, but who makes sense in the world of the story. JarJar may be slightly less in-your-face annoying,* but he and his race certainly made zero sense in the story’s world.
As such, JarJar for teh win!
Jar-Jar is the more annoying because he’s such an idiotic character.
Dobby is annoying, but Harry Potter’s dealings with him are moreso. Harry spent too much time on his poor pitiful me act, when all he’d have to have done to avoid some of Dobby’s tricks is lie to him.
Jar-Jar because he isn’t really essential for plot purposes. House elves doing druge work fills out a plot hole in the Harry Potter series.
Dobby made me really uncomfortable. REALLY.
Jar Jar was annoying but served his purpose.
Dobby was just a psychotic masochist.
Dobby was annoying, but he served a purpose within the story. Jar-Jar, OTOH, was utterly extraneous. He could have been deleted completely and hardly a thing would need to be changed.
I vote for Jar-Jar.
I’ve never understood this racist Jar Jar thing. What race is offended by Jar Jar?
Dobby’s more annoying, because he’s unfortunately not a one-shot character, but has a recurring role in the last three or four books. Jar-Jar only appeared (with a speaking role, AFAIR) in one movie, then Lucas and crew learned their lesson and never brought him back. Dobby just keeps showing up… :mad:
Jar Jar had a line or two in each of the later movies, I think, but not much. I vote for him as more annoying, at least when he’s speaking.
I’m going for Dobby, but then, I got the impression that Dobby was <i>supposed</i> to be annoying.
Most of the flak that Jar Jar got, I never understood. I still can’t figure out which race should be offended by Jar Jar, with the possible exception of the Gungans, who were displeased enough with him to send him into exile in the first place.
I’m not enough of a Star Wars fan to remember exactly, but I think people were upset because JarJar spoke with what could be interpreted as a heavy, very stereotyped black (African-American? Jamaican? I can’t even remember now) accent, and said things like “Massah.”
That and his walking gait, which was interpreted by many as being a racial caricature too.
Interestingly, it has been alleged that Dobby was deliberately visualised as a caricature of Vladimir Putin. :eek:
Lets get one thing straight: as far as screenplay is concerned, both characters, Dobby and Jar Jar, were written to be annoying. That they are annoying is therefore, in some way, a measure of success.
However, IMO, Dobby works into the story quite well, whereas Jar Jar stands out like a sore thumb. On a purely technical/aesthetic level, I find the CGI of the Dobby character way more natural and believable than Jar Jar.
Every single thing that people have claimed is “racist” about Jar-Jar is nonsense. There are a bunch of ridiculous assertions that fail to hold up to even the most casual scrutiny.
No one has ever been able to say exactly which qualities his made up accent shares with any particular stereotype.
It has been said that his ears are meant to evoke dreadlocks. Uh, okay. Scaly, pink, flat dreadlocks with bones in them, I guess.
It’s been said that his name supposed to make fun of Rastas, because if you squint your ears, it sounds like “Jah-jah.” Right.
The same people who say he’s a Jamaican stereotype go on to say he calls people “Massah,” in spite of that being the wrong dialect from a totally different country, and the he comes to uttering that is when he’s speaking in the first person. The nonsense syllable “-sa” is added to all pronouns, so “me” becomes “meesa.” Getting worked up over how that sounds without any context is a bit stupid, since “Meesa name is Jar-jar” is a long way from “Yes, massah.”
The argument continues that Jar-jar’s slapstick antics reference minstrel shows, and are no less offensive, since the infantile pink reptile involved is clearly meant to represent an African-American (yet west Indian) caricature. This conveniently ignores that American minstrel shows didn’t feature anything remotely like Jar-jar’s physical comedy, which almost exclusively references to the films of this guy. Oh, wait, that picture might give people the wrong idea. This guy, then.
Anyway, despite his utter lack of racist overtones, Jar-jar is easily the most annoying. Too obviously intended to appeal to five- and six-year-olds.
Jar-Jar is much more annoying than Dobby.
Whether or not he was designed to be a pestersome character is (to me) irrelevant. He was designed to not stop moving, or so it seems. Twitch a head, and the ears flap to rest. He moves like a Slinky mating with a bowl of Jello, and he never freakin’ sits still.
George Lucas has no excuse as a director for permitting that continuous extraneous motion on screen. It’s incredibly distracting.
Dobby at least had the good taste to remain relative still by comparison. Gollum was best of all at this kind of real-life subtlety.
So I’m not the only one who watched Harry Potter last night?
No question about it. Jar Jar Binks is not only more annoying than Dobby, he may be the most annoying character on film ever. (No wait. I take that back. There probably are worse.) It’s difficult to put my finger on why, but I think it comes down to a combination of action, mannerisms, general behaviour, and lack of importance to the plot. Dobby at least serves a purpose and I think he improves as the series moves along.
CJ
Well, FWIW, I saw the movie before I’d heard any of the “controversy,” so I had no preconceptions. And my jaw just dropped at how blatant it was.
None of the points you mention would be enough, on their own, to support a charge of racial stereotype. But all of them together, and there’s not much room for doubt.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Lucas is a KKK, lynchmob racist. I think he probably thought it would be a good thing to invest this creature with some sense of PC cultural diversity. But the results came off as just cringingly patronizing, “ain’t pickaninnies cute” kinda thing.
Jar Jar doesn’t necessarily portray any recognisable racial trait of any specific real-world ethnicity, but I could believe that he echoes historical racially-stereotyped characters; it’s not that his slinky walk, his popping eyes, his huge lips, his subservient attitude or his pidgin English necessarily resemble anything other than certain styles that have been used in the past in cartoons and movies that were overtly racially stereotyped.
In short, Jar Jar reminds people of things that were banned, not the reasons why they were banned.
I felt a twinge of joy when Dobby received his sock.
I don’t want anything good to EVER happen to Jar-Jar. Every second he’s on the screen, I root for horrible tortures to be visited upon him.
