Re: Star Wars Racist?
James J Rovira (jrovira@juno.com)
Sat, 31 Jul 1999 22:12:40 -0400 (EDT)
On Sat, 31 Jul 1999 16:26:52 -0400 erespess@inil.com writes:
>>Nah...
>>JaJa Binx wasn't American black, he was more Jamaican or Haitian.
>How
>>could you possibly mistake that? But his whole society spoke that
>way --
>>including the Leader figure.
>
>jarjar binx (and the rest of his race) appeared to me to be a
>combination
>of a few different stereotypes. his accent was modeled after a
>carribean
>patois, his mannerisms and character bore an unmistakable resemblance
>to an
>early american media portrayal of black male slaves. the idea of the
>"happy negro": a shuffling, very strong yet unintelligent, almost
>childlike persona, who is satisfied being second-class and is
>comfortable
>in a slave society because their nature predisposes them to it
>(reflecting
>white america's self-delusion as a means of justification)
Here's where your reasoning fails. I guess this is, in part, a response
to Jedi's (marisa's) post as well. You slipped from "jarjar and his
whole society" to a description applicable to jarjar alone. His wasn't a
member of a society of "shuffling happy negroes wanting to please their
white masters." He was singled out as being a particularly inept figure
**even within the context of his own society.** In other words, other
members of his society (with the same Carribbean patois) thought Jarjar
was pretty stupid too. And that, to me, is the point. If his whole
society was indeed shuffling and stupid, then I think you would have had
a point.
Now, my question is, what is the difference between stereotypes and
archetypes? For that matter, what is the difference between stereotypes,
archetypes, and stock characters? In effect, there is none. These words
carry essentially the same meaning, only two employ negative connotations
and one positive. We say "archetype" when the character we have seen
before in a hundred other works is seen in a work we like. We say
"stereotype" or "stock character" when the character is in a work we do
not like for some reason. Or when the depiction of the characters
themselves are unpleasant to us.
What we need to ask if we really want to see if we're dealing with racist
paradigms are:
1. Does the film portray the single character as representative of his or
her race/species?
2. Does the film imply that the character has such characteristics
because they are members of a particular race or species? In other
words, even if the character is the only member of a particular race
depicted in a film, are we allowed to believe (or led to believe) that
the character has specific negative characteristics because of their
race?
I would say the answer to both questions are "no" in the case of Star
Wars.
How well we're going to be able to honestly dicuss this pretty well
depends on you -- are dissenting opinions going to be seen as racist
themselves? Or is honest discussion genuinely possible?
First person to call someone names loses :)
But I think you already understand that...at least in one sense...
Jim
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