Now Episode II is racist??? Give your head a shake people!!!!!

The BBQ Pit
181

I don’t think that’s fair, Dr. Rieux. I think grendel and monstro have been anything but moronic–they’ve both been eminently reasonable and calm. This has been one of the better discussions I’ve had on this topic, frankly. Too bad it’s in the Pit, where people can add drive-bys like that.

And it isn’t like they don’t have legitimate concerns concerning the portrayals of minorities in movies. Like it or not, we all do absorb some of the way we think about other people from popular culture, and Hollywood has for a long time relied on broad characitures and stereotypes, many of them negative. Black people have seen the short end of the stick in the movies for a long time–that’s a fact, and one which I won’t deny. However, I also think that, in this thread at least, there’s been a little bit of data mining and manipulation that doesn’t make the point.

I don’t, however, think that Jar Jar Binks is part of the problem, and here’s why:

  1. The “Jar Jar looks/sounds Jamaican” argument. Here I’m going to have to insist that proponents of this argument put up some solid facts. As far as looks, the only distinguishing physical characteristic that Jar Jar has that could possibly be related to Jamaican-ness is his ears. I’ve never met a Jamaican with a duck bill or eyes on stalks that protrude above their face, and neither has anyone else, so what you commonly hear is that the ears look like dreadlocks. It’s not that I don’t see how someone couldn’t think that they do, but I think it’s really digging. If that’s the only physical point you have, it isn’t much. They’re long, floppy ears with some spines in them–they look somewhat like fish fins, which is fitting given that the character is an amphibian. (The drawing by one of Lucasfilm’s creature designers that inspired the character was a rather rotund, goofy-looking frog with the eyestalks. It can be seen in the “Making of Episode I” book.)

  2. And then there’s the language. The most distinguishing things about Jar Jar’s voice are: the high pitch, the addition of “-sa” to personal pronouns (mesa, yousa, wesa, shesa), the use of “my” in place of “I” or “I’m” (something my nephew used to do when he was 6 and 7), and the use of “tink” in place of “think” and “'tis” in place of “it’s.” Except for the last one, none of those are characteristic of Jamacain patois. Nor is the inflection pattern–there’s a lilt to patois that’s highly reminiscent of Irish, and Jar Jar just doesn’t have it. I wish I knew how to transcribe speech using the phonetic alphabet that linguists use, and I could demonstrate what I mean. But it just isn’t there. I think saying that Jar Jar sounds Jamaican is at least as much laziness on the part of viewers as it is anything else.

  3. Other sources for Jar Jar’s traits can be pointed to that have nothing to do with any black sources, like my mention of his walk cycle. That’s nearly always how animators draw the walk cycle for tall, clumsy characters.

  4. There is significant enough overlap between the general class of “goofy sidekick” characteristics and the specific class of “goofy black sidekick” characteristics (many of them with deep roots in the kinds of offensive stereotypes monstro and grendel refer to) that it’s unfair to pick some from Jar Jar and attribute them to the latter class just because his character is not explicitly “white.” This is the kind of data mining I was referring to, and it’s circular in nature.

(Another piece of data mining I wanted to comment on was Whoopi Goldberg’s role in “Ghost.” I highly doubt that the role was written that way–Whoopi Goldberg is just a frightfully one-note actress. She acts that way all the time–look at her atrociously unentertaining Oscar hosting stints.)

In the general case of “Star Wars” aliens, I think some of it arises from this: for better or worse, Lucas considers the dialogue almost incidental to these films. He’s stated many times in interviews that his real vision for them is almost as silent movies, with just the images and John Williams’ score to deliver the story. So he tends to be lazy about the dialogue, and when it comes to voicing these characters, he gives the voice actors enormous leeway. (And probably doesn’t use a dialect coach.) So he tells actor Andy Secombe, “Watto is a greedy junk dealer, and he’s fat and blue with wing,” and Secombe summons up a generic “greedy store owner” voice. The fact that it displays hints of some human ethnicities – a bunch of them, apparently – is incidental, in my view. After all, should all aliens in the Star Wars universe speak unaccented English?

I guess I don’t have much more to say on the topic–I think I’ve exhausted my arguments. I’ll just have to agree to disagree with people who see it the other way.

182

cough Ewan is Scottish cough

:smiley:

183

Scots? Irish? Ahh, they all look alike, anyway.

184

Bastard… :smiley:

(Well, they are both Celts.)

185

I’m going to back Phil on this. I don’t agree with the specifics of their positions on Watto, the Trade Federation, and Jar-Jar, but I have not seen any reason to dismiss their opinions in this fashion. Neither has engaged in the sort of a priori assumptions regarding stereotypes that were demonstrated in the link found in the OP.
I realize this is the Pit, but this whole hijacked discussion could have been carried out in Cafe without the rancor. I don’t see a need to include the rancor simply because the Forum happens to permit it.

186

I thougt Luke killed the Rancor by crushing with a gate in Return of the Jedi. :smiley:

187

Y’all might find this article interesting.

Uh, right.

I think that this is the root of the problem. A generic “ethnic” accent? You realize that everybody has an ethnicity, and there is no such thing as unaccented human speech, right? Even artificial “Regionless” accents, like those taught in broadcasting schools, have accents. When listening to a radio broadcast of someone using these artificial accents, you can’t tell what “race” the speaker is, but you can sure tell the difference between American broadcasters, English broadcasters, Canadian broadcasters, etc. Even still, if someone used a “regionless” accent in regular conversation, you’d look at them like they were freaks.

The thing is, it’s impossible to create an “alien” accent, without some people hearing it as the closest thing that’s familiar to them. Take the artificial languages, like Huttese, in Star Wars. If you are not an english speaker, they sound to your ear just like english, because they conform to a set of rarely expressed meta-rules about what phonemes can be used, and in what order, within the limitations of english.

Consciousness, for better or for worse, is a largely a one-trick pony – it strives to find order and pattern, and if it finds none, it imposes it, which is why Rorscharch ink-blot tests can be useful. It’s important to learn how to discern between objective, subjective, and projective perception.

If you can’t articulate the objective analogy between two things, than you shouldn’t make declarative statements like “Jar-Jar is a Jamaican stereotype.” At best, you can say “Jar-Jar reminds me of Jamaicans.” This is accurate because you are the subject of the sentence, and you are commenting on your perception.

Certainly, there are offensive stereotypes that continue to be used in films- and when they are really there, there’s no debating it- it’s obvious.

188

Ya know…after reading and re-reading this thread, I agree with tomndebb.

I may not agree with monstro and grendel72 on their points, but civility was always there.

With that, my statements implying or accusing monstro and grendel72 of being racist for their observations is a bit (a lot) harsh. I may not agree with their arguments, but I do now understand them.

With that, I would like to personally retract any such implications and/or remarks.

(Just don’t bring up “Fat Bastard”, or you’ll start a war. :D)

189

What’s the big deal here? The plain truth of the matter is that Lucas couldn’t write a good line of dialog to save his life. He relys on these kinds of stereotypes to convey his idea of a diverse universe (bad pun, sorry). It’s all poorly excecuted and both new installments have sucked to high heaven. Perhaps when, I mean if, Lucas can make a movie that dosen’t suck so much we can talk about the relevance of it’s apparent stereotypes.
If you can’t see the stereotypes in Phantom then you are either fooling yourselves or deaf. I was going to say blind but it’s all in the accents and crappy dialog, or you could be as sheltered as Lucas and not really know what people with heavy accents sound like.

190

Alternatively, if you cannot produce some actual dialogue and point out the specific factors that lead you to conclude that a stereotype is being used, then perhaps your antipathy towards Lucas has interfered with your judgement.

Those of us who have held the “con” position on specific stereotypes have indicated the reasons why we do not believe that certain specific stereotypes were used. “If you can’t see” is not much in the way of evidence for your position.

Note: I am not making a plea for anyone to enjoy or admire Lucas; I am not claiming that no stereotypes have been used (I have pointed out two specific stereotypes or near-stereotypical displays, myself).

Before I will accept a generic Prego™ categorization, I would still like to see the evidence.

191

Here’s another ridiculous claim of Lucas’ racism, sexism, and general bigotry, this time talking about the original movies. Apparently the Mos Eisley cantina is a gay bar and Lucas hates gay people, since the cantina is a wretched hive of scum and villany. :rolleyes: Gimme a fucking break.

192

From the paper found by sturmhauke’s:

The author is describing the ceremony at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope…

Discriminating against the Wookie! Ignoring the robots! Fascist selectivity! Hahahahahaha!

I reckon grendel72 and monstro can join us in laughing at this lunacy! :smiley:

193

Umm… no offense, but I can see the point made by the paper. I know I’m gonna be laughed out of this thread now, but I see what I see.

The ceremony is a little reminiscent of the old “bring 'em back alive” Frank Buck style glory-hogging. Did the droids not risk their “lives”? How about Chewie, was he somehow less of a hero than Han Solo?

I am sure y’all will think I’m being silly, and I don’t think it’s anything worth getting worked up over, but I can see the point.

194

On the issue of shuffling, pldennison mentions the walk cycle of animation. That is a very good point, but there are tall, lanky cartoon characters who don’t shuffle.

Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop is tall and lanky but doesn’t shuffle. That one could be argued to be a cultural difference since the show is Japanese.

The Harlem Globetrotters had a cartoon in the 70’s, as a matter of fact they appeared on Scooby Doo. The exact same animators who made Shaggy shuffle because he is tall and lanky made Meadowlark Lemmon walk upright like Fred. For those keeping track, Meadowlark is taller than Shaggy.

195

uh, grendel, IIRC, according to the novelization of the original Star Wars (which last time I checked bore Lucas’s name, but supposedly the thing was ghost written for him) the reason Lea didn’t hang a metal on Chewie was because he was too tall. Of course, one could then claim that Lucas was descriminating against the “vertically enhanced.”

196

I apologize for my remarks about grendel and monstro–I shoudn’t post to the Pit when I’m tired.
What I should have said is that this whole controversy is moronic.
Can we just let this stupid topic and this thread die their long overdue deaths now? Please?

197

I don’t think that this topic is stupid - just because it’s about something as frivolous as Star Wars doesn’t mean that it’s trivial. On the contrary: It’s interesting to scrutinize the mechanics of prejudice and subjective perception. When two groups of people regard the same thing and see significantly different things, it behooves us to try to determine why that is, and particularly to try and decide which of the two perceptions, if either, is a more accurate or useful model.

It seems to me that what’s at the core of this is the very root of human prejudice, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor. It’s fascinating, in a horrifying kind of way, to explore how people’s preconceptions alter their subjective experience of the world.

If you’ve spent any amount of time trying to talk people out of their bigoted views, you’ll know how convinced they are that what they perceive is a simple truth. A commonly held idea here in Vancouver is that asian people are bad drivers. Why this is so, and how this belief propagated in the first place, is a mystery to me-- I’ve heard people who, while seemingly reasonably intelligent in all other regards, swear that asian people “have limited peripheral vision” because of the shape of their eyes, etc. They’ll adamantly refuse to belief that they are projecting their bigoted perceptions onto the situation, and say that if you don’t see it, it’s because you’re willfully not looking, and that it’s obvious.

Similarly, a racist and xenophobic people typically are convinced that “the others” have a foul odour. I’ve worked with a guy that used to gag and hold his breath when serving east indian customers. He was genuinely distressed, even though the alleged “stench” he spoke of obviously seemed to me to be a phantom of his mind. Why do people choose perceptions that make the world a hostile and alienating place? What’s in it for them?

Personally, I think a similar mechanism is at work with regards to the sorts of people who see Jar-Jar as a racist stereotype. Until I see some empirical evidence, or points of similarity between any ethnic group (or caricature of one,) I’ll give these claims some credence.

On the other hand, there are people who are unaware of, and insensitive to, things that are genuinely appallingly racist, sexist, ideologically indefensible, etc. Whole nations of people have been demonstrably blind to the worst sort of horrors and injustice. The view that there was something fundamentally wrong with institutionalized slavery was once held by a minority, and the abolishenists were the “lunatic fringe.”

If there is, in fact, an enculturated racist overtone in the Star Wars films, and my percept-system is at fault for not detecting it, I would be most grateful to have my view corrected. Learning experiences are always appreciated.

So, you’re saying that Jar-Jar’s gait must be intended to refer to a black stereotype because he walks more like a humourous, awkward cartoon character (who is white) than a character which the same animators’ modelled after a real person (who is black.) Is that right?

198

If the “mechanism” is simple prejudice (as in, believing Asians can’t drive, Indians stink, etc.), then I don’t think so. This kind of thinking throughout the thread has been what has irritated me the most.

It’s as simple as comparing a questionable character (like Jar-Jar) with one that isn’t questionable (like Stepin Fetchitt) and then weighing the similarities and the differences between them. You might see Jar-Jar leaning towards one end; I might see him leaning towards the other. But believing another person to be prejudiced or racist just based on the results of this exercise is insane.

There is no “right” or “wrong” here, no matter how hard either side argues. It’s all a matter of interpretation.

BTW, I have no hard feelings about being called a stereotypical moron. I know it’s not true.

199

Actually, I am saying that Jar-Jar’s shuffling gate, which has been defended as a traditional way of animating tall people walking, is not always the preferred gait of tall, lanky animated characters. I may be wrong, I could only think of two examples off the top of my head, and one of those is not from american animation.

200

I’m thinking more of meme theory.

A person under the influence of the “asian people are bad drivers” meme appear to have a subjective experience which reinforces their belief, and they trust their own impressions to a degree that no amount of evidence to the contrary will convince them otherwise, and people under the influence of the “east-indian’s and their food smells disgusting” meme seem to be genuinely repulsed by smells that are objectively unremarkable or even savoury. Ideas can spread even if they are contrary to reason- whether they be political, religious, aesthetic, practical, or even totally random. The meme that the number 23 tends to turn up more frequently that is natural, particularly around disasters, etc, has been spread by folks like William S. Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson, etc, for a few decades now. People who pick up on this meme will swear that it is so.

Thomas Hobbes made an astute observation about imagination in his Leviathan:

That is to say, even when we are “awake”, our perceptions are a mixture of sense and imagination.

Hardly a new idea - Plato gave us one of the most poetic analogies of our condition in his Republic:

No, it’s not-- Tall people don’t always walk that way. But a lot of tall cartoon characters do- The Pink Panther, Goofy, Jack Skellington, and Jughead come to readily to mind as characters with similar walk-cycles. The idea that he is a racist image is based on the premises that [ol][li]He has a jamaican, african, or “slave” accent. (He does not.)[]His antics are based on minstrel shows. (They are not.)[]His walk is stereotypically black. (His walk is similar to many other racially neutral or at least non-“black” animated characters.)[/ol]Allegations of other characters’ racist portrayals hold up about equally well under scrutiny, as it seems to me. [/li]
I find this a very compelling and interesting discussion.