Racism in ROTS

It wasn't Anakin who had a problem with mace, it was completly the other way around, he was and ******* to Anakin, staring him down trying to intimadate him, saying i don't trust him.

 

Good point Zam!

 

Anakin wasn't trustworthy. He was willing to betray the Jedi, if it suited his purposes. Mace was trying to keep him in line. This is why he tells him to stay behind. He had his best interests at heart.

 

Besides, lets pretend for one insanely giddy, hedonistic moment of unbridled abandon that all these things are evident in the film.

Let's pretend Anakin does have an issue with Mace because of the colour of his skin.
That Anakin does overlook Mace to seek Yoda's counsel based purely on Windu's pigmentation.
Pretend that Lucas has intentionally and premeditatively chosen to give the leading coloured Jedi human a bum deal in the saga.

Even then, how is the message of the movies a racist one?
Surely, then, the clear message would be that these things are just plain wrong, and that by thinking and acting in this way, Anakin is making a pact with the agents of evil and is becoming an evil person himself.
It still isn't a "racist" message, is it.
Schindler's List openly portrayed nazis and ethnic cleansing - did that film have a racist agenda? Did it promote racism?
No.

But I digress, it just isn't an issue in SW either way... unless you choose to make it one...
It is coveting power and showing a fundamental, and perhaps naive in Anakin's case to a degree, disregard for all humanity that is the crime here.
Anakin would gladly kill black men, white men, Neimoidians, Aqualish, women, children, his peers, his closest friend - he even ends up lashing out at his own wife - to gain the power he has become utterly enthralled by.
Good Lord, racism doesn't even cover it - it is painted in far broader strokes than that.
The films are about the weakness that potentially lurks in all men's hearts, not just one social prejudice alone.
All prejudice is a terrible thing but, with all due respect, it is kind of eclipsed by the terrible attrocities Anakin finds himself committing.
He ends up screwing a whole galaxy full of sentient beings for his selfish whims - not just one demographic exclusively...

 

edit: Baiting is not allowed and will get you banned.

 

lol I hope your joking, I really do.

So the only way ROTS could be "ethnicaly sensitive" is to have Mace Windu walk off into the sunset?

Gee how about the other races/species in the movie? I guess they're not as important as the African American characters...

If someone wants to tell me to "calm down" and "don't flame," please explain to me how that isn't an ignorant statement.

 

No, your right on the money lorn_zahl. That's not flaming, though I bet, unless woodlebert's IQ is less than fifteen, he is baiting.

 

About Mace, who really expected him to survive? If you "watch" the Original Trilogy, you will notice that Mace is not in it. So if you put 1+1=racist, you need to recalculate.

 

dudes...it was a *joke*

honestly. did you really think that was my opinion?

 

How are we supposed to know?

 

People don't get in trouble for their opinions, they do get in trouble when they intentionally bait other users, or in the case of this thread write a "joke" post when we've warned people several times not to do so in here.

 

Yeah, sarcasm doesn't read well over the net. Try an emoticon!

 

Yeah that, and, I have a friend that's still waiting on the "Hah-Hahh-Hahhh" button to appear on the next generation of keyboards...

 

of course ROTS is Racist. only one Black guy, and he is killed. no Mexican, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, French, New Zealend, IceLand, Brazilian, Etc.. Jedi out there. i was Decieved!

 

Oh yes... we must put George through a "sensitivity indoctrination" immediately.

(They actually exist at universities across the US)

 

Here's my take on it. Is STAR WARS racist? Not really. Is George Lucas a racist? Hell no. But, unfortunately the movie serials he watched as a child - that still inspire him today - were quite racist. I'm not going to do the research for you, most educated adults know that television and film from the first half of the 20th century was littered with racist stereotypes. Thank goodness many of those stereotypes have faded away, so much so in fact, that people often do not recognize them when they appear. My personal belief is that in emulating the sci-fi movie serials that he watched as a child, George Lucas has inadvertently carried over some of the uglier aspects of these films as well as their more fantastic and innocent elements.

In answer to an article posted earlier in this thread, it is true that one would have to be racist to see Neimodians as a representation of Asians, or Gungans a representation of Afro-carribian Americans. Neimodians are nothing like any Asians I know, but they are exactly like the racist stereotypes found in WWII-era propaganda comics. As a person of color, I have never uttered a phrase such as "Messa bein happy to seein yousa", nor have any of my friends or family but, that is very close to the dialect used by actors in minstrel shows - http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/jackson/minstrel/minstrel.html (btw, I don't agree with the last paragraph in that link, but the rest is quite informative).

Now, if you want to say that I'm looking for racism where none exists, that I hate Lucas, or I have some agenda, so be it. The truth is, I have loved STAR WARS since I was a child and George Lucas and his films are the reason I choose to study film now. However, I have to accept the blatant realities presented to me (actually I don't, I was 14 years old when TPM was released and vehemently argued against any accusations of racism against the film, without actually looking into said accusations), these terrible stereotypes are historical fact and a matter of public record. Do a quick google search and you can find out more about it than you probably wanted to know. If you do, you may find that you don't have to look very hard to see the comparison. But I'll state again, STAR WARS featuring racial stereotyped does not make Lucas a racist. Lucas is simply ignorant to many of the connotations implicit in his inspirations, perhaps because he is not racist. In fact, anyone can inadvertently allow racist stereotypes to enter into their work because we are often exposed to them culturally without being aware of it. That can even include the minorities being lampooned. Watch THE BOONDOCKS for an excellent satire of African Americans who continually reinforce black stereotypes for personal gain. *cough*Bob Johnson*cough*

 

You wont beleive this.....

I got this dvd player right....play it backwards...and listen to the audio. My God!! it is a racist film. The whole thing is just subliminal propaganda for whitey. Damn GL...and we all fell for it. It was not this whole idea to make a movie to entertain the masses and make money at the same time and get to be around Natalie Portman.....NO..those were all part of the plot. Anakin = white male...turns bad to Vader = Completely black! Come on! Look at the Wookies....the furriest creatures in the series...are slaves. Just the wookies hmm...I believe that GL is racist towards people/beings with more hair than him...at least thats what it sounded like when i played the dvd backwards. He tries to eminate Wookies by wearing a lot of flannel....thick, soft, fiberous...JUST LIKE WOOKIE FUR...its a love/hate thing i believe he said. Wouldn't you believe it but Jar Jar speaks in perfect Shakespearian English when you listen to him backwards...

 

Good post, but I thought this was the original poster's point; that Lucas was portraying Anakin as racist to show that racism is wrong. I personally did not read Anakin as racist in ROTS, thankfully, I didn't find any of the elements in that film to be racist. However, it's still an interesting topic for discussion.

Speaking of discussion, I have been looking over the posts in this thread and noticed that many users here a furious at even the suggestion that there may be racism in STAR WARS. Why is this so? If you believe such accusations to be untrue, disproving them shouldn't be difficult. More importantly, considering how much of a serious problem racism is in America and abroad, shouldn't any accusations of such be discussed in detail? If a beloved work of fiction was racist, wouldn't you want to know? Why not debate the issue to make certain that STAR WARS is or isn't racist instead of balking at the very suggestion. I am not criticizing anyone's view or comments. I am simply questioning them.

 

I'm glad to see that some people's sense of humor is still intact. I feel compulsed to point out however, that making light of a situation often detracts from discussion and analysis of the core issues. Feel free to do so, but don't assume that you can knock the wind out of an argument by making a few witty remarks. I am also going to assume that this jibe isn't aimed at me as I repeatedly wrote that I do not believe that George Lucas is a racist, or has intentionally done anything underhanded in terms of race.

 

All kidding aside...thanks a lot killjoy....but the reason I mock the subject "Racism in ROTS" is because that idea is as ignorant and melodramatic as I can fathom. In order to be racist this movie would have to target a specific race(s) and discriminate people of that race based solely on their race. There was none of that in the movie I saw, and no amount of rationalization and emotion based thinking can change that fact of truth. Just because GL's movie cast a predominantly biped creatures, does not mean he descriminates of quadrapeds...it just means that the focus is on bipeds. The same analogy is true of different races/species of bipeds. Because there is no large congregation of the species/race that Mace is a part of does not mean that racism is present, it mearly means that the movie is not about Mace and his race(hey that rhymed). IF Anakin were to say...(Oh I hate Master Windu because he is from Haruun Kal and people from Haruun Kal are just worhless and beneath me)....that there is racism. People need to think and realize and at least read understand the word Racist / Racism...One must actively target and discrimiante one for what they are...not who they are. If you can find that in ROTS...call the ACLU.

 

I actually agree with most of this. As I said, I don't Anakin is characterized in ROTS as a racist. His quarrels with Mace Windu are clearly professsional (being denied a key promotion). However, Anakin is quite racist against the sand people in AOTC. He refers to them as animals that he slaughtered indescriminantly. But how is this a bad thing? As Get in Gear stated, Lucas is using Anakin's racist ideology to show that racism is bad, i.e. Lucas doesn't like racism. Why then, are people so irritated that the thread starter might view Anakin as a racist, if that only reinforces Lucas' anti-discriminatory stance? Meditate on this, I will.

And btw, I know I'm a killjoy

 

Wow, this thread sunk like a rock.

 

Anakin is NOT a racist.
He hates the Sand People because of what they did to his mother, not because of their race. Wouldn't you call people "animals" who beat and tortured your mother?? No matter who they are or what they looked like??
He wiped out that PARTICULAR Tusken camp because they killed his mother. If he was racist he would have made it his mission to kill ALL Sand people.
In one of TPM novelizations Anakin actually rescues a young Tusken and brings him back to his family.

 

Hmmm you should start takeing pills if you think this was racism, ITS A MOVIE AND THEY MADE ANIKAN AND MACE LIKE THIS TO MAKE IT INTERESTING