Lucas/Star Wars Racist?

I was reading up on articles on George Lucas and came across on article on his from the site Jewish News that was published on their site in 1999. In case anyone has forgotten it's the summer every knee jerker on Earth was calling Lucas a racist.

It's nice to see people read through the lines and see what is there instead of making up their own subtext.

 

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lucas is not racist; do people really think he had those things in mind while creating a movie?!?

 

Hear this on a FM talk show Friday.
The guys were talking Star Wars on DVD and one of the DJ's went in to this big thing about Star Wars and Lucas being a recist. Sure we know the now famous Chasing Amy parts thanks to Smith but this is why the DJ said it was racist.

He said that Jar Jar Bink was the uncle tom, the black slave of the past that hung out with whites

Said the Jawa's are mexicans, they steal and re-sell items like a moving flea market. He also added that they travel with the family, like mexicans.

He said the black's are Tusken Raiders, they steal stuff off your car aka Landspeeder. Not hoodcaps but other parts. He joked that he bet's Luke's Radio was taken. And he said they shot at the pod racers in TPM.

He said Jabba is a jew, that he owns everythings.

He went on and on about how Lucas has said that the aliens, are based on blacks, jews, etc. He said it was in a book released a few years ago and Lucas admit that during the making of ANH he had a lot of racist issues. He said he put Lando in ESB but then made him a turn on a friend. He said that is how black's are, you can't trust them.

I don't believe this at all. I can't see any of it being true but it was just shocked at all dumb FM DJ's are. He then did the Chasing Amy part about Vader is black but wants to be white. Word for word from Chasing Amy.

Screw FM, going back to my AM talk

If Star Wars is racist at all, it's the fact that Irvin Kershner intentionally portrayed all the English as the Empire (a.k.a. Nazis) in ESB. Despite it being the strongest movie of the lot, I think there should have been protests outside UK cinemas for us being slandered in such a way!

 

I do not see such a problem in portraying common and popular stereotypes such as the Italian gangster, as long as you can differ between those cliches and the real people. It is not a crime to show a very rich Jewish person, if you are perfectly clear about the fact that real Jewish people do not all have this amount of money.
Another point: IMO the radio person is the racist here, because he is the one who, for example, associated the stealing Jawas with Mexicans, not GL. HE merely said "There are guys who deal with stolen parts". The DJ added "They are obviously Mexicans.".

 

I think the Lando thing is just pure ignorance on Georges part and him just not knowing any better at that time. Take the only black actor in the film and make him a traitor. Smart. But Lando was redeemed and became popular character in the STARWARS universe.

See, this has always sort of annoyed me. Lando is an incredibly misunderstood character. Sure, he "betrays" his "friend", who probably would have betrayed him just as soon under certain circumstances. However, let's think about why he did so. At the time of ESB, Lando is no longer the fly-by-night mercenary he once was who didn't give a damn about anyone else. Instead, he's now a responsible leader, administering to the financial success of the Bespin mines and the safety and security of its citizens. If he had done the "right" thing and helped Han and everyone else, the people of Cloud City probably would have suffered fates comparable to those of the people of Alderann, or at the very least Naboo. Before leaving, Lando sees fit to warn the population of the Empire's presence in the city, and his advice to leave immediately. It seems to me there's a bit of a scene in the prison where he might have talked about this that has been cut out, but this always seemed strong to me.

I've always respected Lando. You have to respect somebody who's willing to sacrifice his friends for the greater good. After all, isn't that what Obi-Wan and Yoda always talk about? Why isn't it applicable to Lando?

 

The only racism in Star Wars is that applied by racists themselves. If you can "see" minority insult in a character, then it's likely you're projecting it yourself. How can anyone get something human out of Jar Jar? How in name of the Force do you get Mexican out of Jawas (which reminded me more of tiny, tattered looking monks than anything else)? It's just a load of garbage.

It absolutely amazes me that people will go on and on about how various character represent various racial cliches, then quietly forget to mention that the most heinous villains of the series (Palpatine, Vaderkin, Dooku, Imperial officers, etc.) are all Caucasian or that the (second, to Yoda) greatest master of the old Jedi Order was black.

 

What Serenity said.

Yes, ANH had a lily-white cast (save for James Earl Jones playing the voice of Vader), but how many movies released around the same time did as well? A lot, I'm sure. Odd how SW was singled out.

People went to complaining about the lack of representation for minorities (boy do I hate that term) in ANH to complaining about every bit of representation that minorities got in the subsequent movies.

I just don't get it. SW is a series where a black actor can play a dignified, powerful Jedi master, a guy who starts out a shady wheeler-and-dealer but goes on to destroy the second Death Star, the voice of a fearsome villain, or the voice of a clumsy but good-hearted amphibiod (not to mention, the cast of the prequels is very racially diverse), yet it still gets charged with racism.

It reminds me of how "The Lion King" was charged with racism because the cowardly hyenas are voiced by a black actress (Whoopi Goldberg) and a Hispanic actor (Cheech Marin). When it was pointed out that a black actor (SW's very own James Earl Jones) voiced the noble, wise Mufasa, the people crying racism dismissed it by saying: "He doesn't sound black."

Wait a minute...so black actors only "sound black" if they play dumb, cowardly, shady, or clumsy characters?

Just who is the racist here?

 

People are seeing what they want to see. Pop culture is rife with people wanting to take something we've loved for years and then giving it a negative or racist spin. The colors are more symbolic than anything else. Vader is black because black has always been associated with evil. Even then, "black" and "white" for skin colors are a bit of a misnomer as most everyone can see that they're closer to brown and reddish-pink than simply "black" or "white", so the comparison to Vader is a very loose association at best.


I do remember some people being upset about the snowtroopers in that they claimed the hoods they wore closely resembled the hoods worn by the Ku Klux Klan, but I believe that uprorar died pretty quickly.

 

Yeah, probably when people realized the Snowtroopers were the bad guys , just like all the other Imperial troops and officers who all dress up like the trendiest set of the Third Reich.

Also, is it just me or did all the Imperial Officers have vaguely German sounding names?

 

Motti, Veers, Ozzel, Needa, Piett - don't sound very German to me. More like ... don't know... Dutch or maybe Danish, Swedish. And now all the Dutch, Danish and Swedish people will come in, saying how they sound English, Spanish or the Force knows what.
I guess it has a lot to do with perception.

actually, especially Motti sounds pretty silly.
Ozzel could almost be a Turkish name (Özel)


and I think perception is more often the source of racist undertones than intention. And not just in Star Wars.

 

Nothing is racist unless you want it to be. And if you want something to be racist, that proves that you are the one who is actually a racist.

 

How can JarJar be a racist creation? People cant even conclude what racist offense the character embodies. Jaimacan, Cajan, RogerRabbit, African american. If there was ANYTHING to the racist implications wouldnt peoples view be a little more solidified to ONE thing. That there are many is proof that people pick out what they want and call it racist. You can do this with ANYTHING.

Stupid, yes. Racist, no. JarJar is just annoying and nothing more.

If all the officers talk one way, its racist. Give everyone different accents, thats racist too. If anything Lucas has shown diversity with the STAR WARS universe. Hes not a racist.

 

Yes, ANH had a lily-white cast...

I guess you could say that the stormtroopers were lily-white...

...and Vader was black as the ace of spades.

*wonders if he's offended any florists or professional card players*

 

The black Vader was controlling all those white troops. Oh wait, that doesnt work. Um, the Jedi are racist to Samurai. The ugnaughts and Gamorian gards are racist toward pigs. And twileks are racist toward, well, people with head worms wrapped around their necks....

 

Well, first off, Lucas/StarWars TO ME is not racist. But, as I am sure we all have learned, no one can make all the people happy ALL the time. That is just how some people are, looking for fault in everything.

Remember everyone, this guy is a DJ. And what does a DJ want? RATINGS!!! Now, all DJ's aren't bad, but a few will do ANYTHING to make their show popular. And one of the main ways to do that is to talk about something CONTROVERSIAL. From FirstStarWars account of the DJ, it sounded like the guy probably has never seen 5 minutes of ANY of the movies, so that shows you right there he doesn't know what he is talking about. It sounded like he based his conversation on articles he had read, especially the negative ones. So it seems as though his "view" of a racist Star Wars is shallow at best.

 

I don?t think that Lucas was intentionally using racial stereotypes. Even if he was, so what? There is such a thing as free speech.

What about movies like Bootie Call, Pootie Tang, Soul Plane, Fat Albert, etc? These movies contain ridiculous racial stereotypes. If I were black, I would be extremely insulted. This is one of the many double standards that drive me crazy!

By the way, that DJ is wrong about Jabba. If anything, Jabba is an Italian crime boss not Jewish. Jabba?s accountants & bookkeepers were likely Jewish.

 

Said the Jawa's are mexicans, they steal and re-sell items like a moving flea market. He also added that they travel with the family, like mexicans.

He said the black's are Tusken Raiders, they steal stuff off your car aka Landspeeder. Not hoodcaps but other parts. He joked that he bet's Luke's Radio was taken. And he said they shot at the pod racers in TPM.

He said Jabba is a jew, that he owns everythings.

It sounds more like this DJ is a racist. He's the one equating racial groups to the behavior of certain alien species.

 

1. Star Wars is not racist. Or sexist.
2. The same for Lord of the Rings.
3. The radio guy probably had too much to drink.

 

Why would they be racist?

 

That's exactly my point...I think it's just people getting bored and making stuff up. I don't see Mexicans when I look at jawas, and I don't see blacks when I look at gungans. Where do people come up with this stuff?

 

" If Star Wars is racist at all, it's the fact that Irvin Kershner intentionally portrayed all the English as the Empire (a.k.a. Nazis) in ESB. Despite it being the strongest movie of the lot, I think there should have been protests outside UK cinemas for us being slandered in such a way! "


That's xenophobia, not racism.

A lot of the best villains are played by Britsh actors.

And these movie 'rules' are parodied in Monkey Dust where in 'The Diary of Anne Frank' the Nazis are English, it's set in Berlin, England and all the Jews are Irish with the obligatory American soldier pretty boy who saves everyone.

 

Jabba?s accountants & bookkeepers were likely Jewish

what do you mean by that ?

g

 

If Star Wars is racist at all, it's the fact that Irvin Kershner intentionally portrayed all the English as the Empire (a.k.a. Nazis) in ESB.

Well, that's just Kerschner's thing. I always found that a bit stupid.

 

Star Wars is absolutley not racist. I think the person that stated this was probably trying to anger people or get people to listen to what they were saying. Lando is shown as a leader, and even though he betrays Han in ESB, he ends up becoming a respected member of the Rebel Alliance. He is never treated as if he is inferior to Han or anyone else. As for the jawas, if a person wants to say that Mexicans are greedy salespeople that travel in packs through the desert, I think they are the ones with racist views. The same for someone who thinks that a typical Jew is greedy and owns everything. Star Trek has racial/ethnic and religious comments, Star Wars is mostly about good vs. evil. I think Yoda would be very displeased to hear this DJ.

 

Nothing is racist unless you want it to be. And if you want something to be racist, that proves that you are the one who is actually a racist.

Have you seen Triumph of the Will? How about Birth of a Nation?

If Star Wars is racist at all, it's the fact that Irvin Kershner intentionally portrayed all the English as the Empire (a.k.a. Nazis) in ESB. Despite it being the strongest movie of the lot, I think there should have been protests outside UK cinemas for us being slandered in such a way!

I agree. The notion of associating England with an Empire is absolutely ridiculous. [sarcasm]