"Star Wars stereotypes: Not a force for good"

Perception is reality.  If most people think it's racist, then it has the effect of being racists even if it isn't.  The Zeitgeist is a harsh mistress.

JayArgonaut said:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/12/star-wars-stereotypes-not-force-201412172145780714.html

Can't quite work out what to make of this article. It's irritating alone for repeating the wildly inaccurate claim that the Jar Jar Binks character is offensive to Caribbean people. My parents and extended family are from the Caribbean and none of them sound even remotely close to Ahmed Best providing the voice talent for an alien species...  

Your family belong to the set of Caribbean people but they are not the set of Caribbean people so it's probable that Caribbean people were and still are offended by Jar-Jar regardless of what you family think.

My skin is a pastey olive colour but I found George's attempt to revive discredited ethnic stereotypes of Stepin Fetchit/Mr Yunioshi/Sir Alec's Fagin varieties under the cover of CGI aliens offensive.

Ahmed Best is more channeling Stepin Fetchet than anyone of Caribbean origin I know but that doesn't rule out anyone from finding offense there.

It's no secret that CHOAM is meant to be OPEC.

I think in a Star Wars context Tatooine is meant to be a merge of the Biblical deserts (from Bible epics) and the American deserts (from Westerns).

Ben in robes is clearly meant to evoke some Old Testament dude and the Cantina is meant to evoke the old saloon (though most Jidaigeki movies have an analogue which made Westerns based on them so easy to translate).

While that may be true I defy anyone to watch TPM and not see those ethnic stereotypes.

I think George in his eagerness to evoke all things Buster Crabbe thought he could use them if he transfered them away from the original human model and onto an alien.

Jabba was the sort of fat sultan that Frank Thring used to play, Yoda was the oriental sage and martial arts trainer, the Ewoks were any generic African tribe from a Tarzan movie so George thought he could give us Stepin Fetchit, some shifty trade grabbing Japs and a Semitic child slaver in much the same way.

The world had moved on (even from the 1980s). Sir Alec got into trouble for browning up in A Passage to India where nobody really cared in Lawrence of Arabia.  Episodes of Doctor Who are routinely branded racist for using yellow face (ignoring the limited number of oriental actors available to the BBC at the time).

So come 1999 one would hope George would have realised there are some things you just cant get away with anymore. It doesn't stop the depiction of women and ethnic Sikhs in Star Trek Into Darkness as being equally behind the times.  

Hey, TPM might have been racist, but at least it's not The Brass Teapot level of racist.

I call him Cumberkahn.

SilverWook said:

Bingowings said:

While that may be true I defy anyone to watch TPM and not see those ethnic stereotypes.

I think George in his eagerness to evoke all things Buster Crabbe thought he could use them if he transfered them away from the original human model and onto an alien.

Jabba was the sort of fat sultan that Frank Thring used to play, Yoda was the oriental sage and martial arts trainer, the Ewoks were any generic African tribe from a Tarzan movie so George thought he could give us Stepin Fetchit, some shifty trade grabbing Japs and a Semitic child slaver in much the same way.

The world had moved on (even from the 1980s). Sir Alec got into trouble for browning up in A Passage to India where nobody really cared in Lawrence of Arabia.  Episodes of Doctor Who are routinely branded racist for using yellow face (ignoring the limited number of oriental actors available to the BBC at the time).

So come 1999 one would hope George would have realised there are some things you just cant get away with anymore. It doesn't stop the depiction of women and ethnic Sikhs in Star Trek Into Darkness as being equally behind the times.  

 Cumberbatch Khan was supposed to be Sikh?

 The character of Khan is, and due to all the fun timeline things, he is still technically the same Khan from Wrath of Khan, who was Sikh.

Wazzles said:

SilverWook said:

Bingowings said:

While that may be true I defy anyone to watch TPM and not see those ethnic stereotypes.

I think George in his eagerness to evoke all things Buster Crabbe thought he could use them if he transfered them away from the original human model and onto an alien.

Jabba was the sort of fat sultan that Frank Thring used to play, Yoda was the oriental sage and martial arts trainer, the Ewoks were any generic African tribe from a Tarzan movie so George thought he could give us Stepin Fetchit, some shifty trade grabbing Japs and a Semitic child slaver in much the same way.

The world had moved on (even from the 1980s). Sir Alec got into trouble for browning up in A Passage to India where nobody really cared in Lawrence of Arabia.  Episodes of Doctor Who are routinely branded racist for using yellow face (ignoring the limited number of oriental actors available to the BBC at the time).

So come 1999 one would hope George would have realised there are some things you just cant get away with anymore. It doesn't stop the depiction of women and ethnic Sikhs in Star Trek Into Darkness as being equally behind the times.  

 Cumberbatch Khan was supposed to be Sikh?

 The character of Khan is, and due to all the fun timeline things, he is still technically the same Khan from Wrath of Khan, who was Sikh.

 *puts on glasses/cue nerd voice*

Well, actually, the same Khan from "Space Seed", since the Khan from "Wrath of Khan" had it out for Kirk, while STID Khan didn't even know who he was.

Handman said:

Wazzles said:

SilverWook said:

Bingowings said:

While that may be true I defy anyone to watch TPM and not see those ethnic stereotypes.

I think George in his eagerness to evoke all things Buster Crabbe thought he could use them if he transfered them away from the original human model and onto an alien.

Jabba was the sort of fat sultan that Frank Thring used to play, Yoda was the oriental sage and martial arts trainer, the Ewoks were any generic African tribe from a Tarzan movie so George thought he could give us Stepin Fetchit, some shifty trade grabbing Japs and a Semitic child slaver in much the same way.

The world had moved on (even from the 1980s). Sir Alec got into trouble for browning up in A Passage to India where nobody really cared in Lawrence of Arabia.  Episodes of Doctor Who are routinely branded racist for using yellow face (ignoring the limited number of oriental actors available to the BBC at the time).

So come 1999 one would hope George would have realised there are some things you just cant get away with anymore. It doesn't stop the depiction of women and ethnic Sikhs in Star Trek Into Darkness as being equally behind the times.  

 Cumberbatch Khan was supposed to be Sikh?

 The character of Khan is, and due to all the fun timeline things, he is still technically the same Khan from Wrath of Khan, who was Sikh.

 *puts on glasses/cue nerd voice*

Well, actually, the same Khan from "Space Seed", since the Khan from "Wrath of Khan" had it out for Kirk, while STID Khan didn't even know who he was.

 Well, EVERYONE knows that, duh! :D I just figured it would be easier to say Wrath of Khan, even though they only mention his ethnicity in Space Seed and not the movie.

Thank you all for reminding me yet again why I'll never ever watch anything from the Abramstrek Universe.