PT The Phantom Menace - Is It Racist?

I don't believe the movies are racist themselves as previously explained, but if someone wants to explore racism 'in-universe' in Star Wars, two racist comments that stand out to me in the saga are:

'Neimoidians are cowards'-Qui-Gon Jinn

'Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way'-Leia Organa

Discuss.

 

Empress Shatterpoint:

you're forgetting "patience my blue friend"

Qui-Gon quite the politically incorrect speaker

 

Neimodians are Asian
Gungans are Africans
Watto is Jewish

Lucas was mining 1930's pulp so it makes sense this type of thing would happen.

 

Yes, I think we shouldn't underestimate those kind of things. Fact is that people of a minority group are sometimes or a lot of times more sensitive to such things than a majority group because they might experience real racism and discrimination on a daily basis. Sometimes a majority group doesn't act "racist" or discriminatory consciously or with "bad intent", but it might still offend a minortiy group quite intimately.

It's just that, I feel, the usual haters (who're 80% not even part of those alleged "stereotype groups") took that sense of justified resentment and kind of "abused" it as a means of ... bashing like .... everything. George Lucas isn't racist and TPM is not more racist than the original Star Wars with an all-white "good" cast and the "black monster" called Darth Vader. They made some insensitive choices and that's unfortunate and can be said, but they weren't intentionally racist or anything close to that.

That's they way I see it, at least.

 

No, he said, "These Federation types are cowards."

Neimoidians is never uttered in the films.

 

I agree with Samnz. Racism doesn't have to be blatantly obvious, or even conscious - even someone with genuinely good intentions can perpetuate harmful stereotypes. I'm sure no one making TPM thought, "well, I don't like [black/Jewish/Asian] people, so we should make aliens with stereotypical traits of those groups to be the bad or comic relief characters!" But that doesn't mean that they didn't use character tropes that have racist origins, and that probably should be avoided.

 

The Phantom Menace? Racist......?

 

No question is stupid they say... this certainly changes it.

Is it racist? No IMO, and how if it were to be? Can someone explain this to me?

 

Actually, he says "These Federation-types are cowards".

 

I hear the KKK use TPM as a recruitment method...

 

They've moved on from "Birth Of A Nation"?

 

No.Such claims just prove how many people try to justify their hate and throw anything at Episodes I-III.
Let's take it further; aren't Episode IV-VI racist AND sexist ?
Discuss...
(I'm joking alright)

 

I don't think the Star Wars series is racist, but we have to agree that George Lucas had inspiration to create races and some chacarters from the real life from a lot of places in the world. Some of them are clearly recognizable:

- The british accent plus the nazi uniforms to create the imperial officers;
- The jedi look like samurais;
- Watto looks and act like an arab merchant;

But once for all, STAR WARS its not racist.

 

Irish accent.Yes he is from northern Ireland,a place where many of the people think they are English, but that dosn't make his Accent English.

 

Eh, Neeson seems to be using an English accent for at least part of the Phantom Menace (it does fade in and out) - at the beginning for example. It was pretty much the 'Jedi' accent for a lot of the prequels. I mean, McGregor is Scottish and most certainly not English and his natural accent proves it, but he uses the same accent in the films. And of course as an Englishman I should point out there is no more such a thing as one real 'English accent' than one true 'American Accent' - if you got people from Newcastle, Dorset and Surrey to say the same words you might well end up thinking they're speaking different languages entirely.

 

One could say that "A New Hope" is racist, which didn't feature any non-white actors or actresses.

 

It even portrayed British man as Evil .
And Episodes IV-VI don't even pass the Bechdel test .

 

Ah but the PT does.

 

I feel the need to say that those who are saying "stop looking for racism" or "anyone who thinks it's racist are the REAL racists" are being a bit nearsighted, and almost borderline condescending.

It never hurts to have a discussion about things like these. Whether you realize it or not, people talking about potential issues like these on a forum doesn't even have much of an impact, sadly. Star Wars will still go on, you'll still enjoy it. TPM will still be considered a bad movie by the majority of reasons besides this. Basically, you have the luxury of being able to ignore it.

It doesn't hurt to actually engage in a discussion to see the other side's argument clearly instead of just writing it off.

Anyway, speaking for myself as a minority... I actually did not find the Gungan/Nemoidian characters that bad .... simply because it was done in a minor, and quite frankly "intentional" fashion that I couldn't even take it seriously enough to even be offended. They used certain caricaturist accents, but didn't really do much else with them, so it wasn't really that bad.

But I can at least see why some would be upset by it. I mean given how some people can experience racism in their lives, whether through bullying or other means - you don't think it makes sense for someone to be sensitive to that kind of stuff?

I mean, if someone decided to literally not watch Star Wars after TPM solely because of its suspect accents, then I would think of it as being an overreaction. But you can't blame someone for at least acknowledging it.

And for those who think people are racist for thinking anything in the media can be racist, I don't know what to say or do, other than simply state how the Nemodian accents are very much similar to caricaturist Asian-mocking accents, and the Gungan accents are often similar to stereo-typical Jamaican accents. Say what you want about them being offensive or not, but this is just some insight. Some people have seen stereotypes or caricatures like this before Star Wars, and some have even witnessed it first hand, so seeing it in a motion picture like that was troubling for them. That's all.

I don't know, I'm just disappointed in this thread.

 

OK, I see your point. It's very offensive to say, 'quit being a whiny bitch and seeing racism when there is none' and leaving it as that. Maybe the films aren't overtly racist/bigoted, but someone who had to endure that their whole lives will naturally feel very sensitive about that subject. They will spot it a hell of a lot easier than someone who never had to go through that experience, so their opinions are worth taking in for consideration. Telling them to clam up and sit down is to tell them that their life experience is meaningless to everyone else and that's hurtful.

I mean, yeah, OK, there are people who whine for the sake of whining, but not everyone. Some actually do have a legit point to make. It's perfectly valid to ask why Lucas decided to have the Nemodians speak with a stereotypical Asian accent, or to have Jar-Jar talk in a stereotypical Jamaican accent. His actor might not give two whiffs about it, but others do.

 

Exactly.

Thanks for understanding.

 

I think a part of the problem is that, by asking are the films racist it might be seen to be asking 'is George Lucas racist?'..and probably the two questions are conterminious. Perhaps we should compress the question a little, and understand the difference between being a racist and recognising racial undertones....or to put it another way, to see a distinction between a racist agenda and the notion of racial stereotyping.

Racial stereotyping is, unfortunately, an aspect of our societies and to varying degrees appears in our media. It is a very, very old phenomenon - one might like to believe that ALL 'Scythians' or 'Germans' were, at the time of the classical Greeks and Romans tall, blonde hair and blue-eyed (as they describe them ALL as being) but evidence suggests otherwise. We tend to define 'out groups' by what is different about them, and the very idea of nation-hood is based upon a very old passage of Herodotus defining what makes Hellenes Hellenes "We are of one blood and one language" - hence Nationalism and racism being so intertwined in a political sense.

If we look at the references Lucas is using..Flash Gordon, for example. Who is Flash Gordon's nemesis? Emperor Ming......Emperor MIng for crying out loud. It is clearly intended as a nod toward, those older referents....but that those older references are themselves laced with racial stereotyping which seem far more out of place to a modern audience/

I think using alien species is replete with this danger anyway...in as much as, as with much of the 'fantasy' genre, there is an aspect of 'this group of beings/peoples are like this', a sort of typology of species so that all members of the species/race become a particular sort of character ("These Trade Federation types are cowards..")

Are there aspects of racial stereotyping in Star Wars? I think it would be ridiculous to argue otherwise.

 

The Planet of Hats problem, and its various spin-offs:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlanetOfHats

 

The part specifically about Flash Gordon is good point, and why I wasn't upset about the films even though I noticed caricatures were present.

TPM used stereotypes/caricatures in an "innocent" manner; they weren't trying to use them to specifically make fun of other ethnic groups, and proof of that is shown by how the stereotypes were used out of their regular contexts (that is, caricaturist accents were the only things used; nothing else stereotypical was used for the characters, so it wasn't really bringing everything "whole" enough for it be a genuinely hateful or racist thing).

So yeah, I didn't find it bad or anything, but I still understand why some could be a little bit uncomfortable.

 

Being Jewish I do not find Watto Offensive at all. But he is a flying anteater/pig thing who lives on a desert planet, I also actually love the way Toydarian culture is fleshed out in the Clone Wars series, King Kattunka was a cool character.