Subject:
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Re: Where Brooklyn at? (Was: racial politics, black pack, etc.)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.starwars
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Date:
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Wed, 9 Aug 2000 00:03:39 GMT
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Viewed:
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1114 times
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In lugnet.starwars, Eric Joslin writes:
> > P.S. I forgot to adress the issue of whether or not Lucas made conscious
> > decisions about his black actors and the roles that they play. In the case
> > of Mace Windu, lucas had to have made a conscious decision to have a black
> > Jedi. c'mon, man, Lucas is prophetic. he had to have seen the importance of
> > casting a black man as a Jedi in general, but appointing an older one to the
> > Jedi council was even more indicative of lucas's attempt to big up the black
> > race within his films.
>
> Actually, the story that I had heard is that Mace Windu was planned before
> there was an actor chosen to play him- but that he was not necessarily always
> a black man. Then Samuel L. Jackson indicated an interest in being in the
> films, and Lucas decided to make him Mace Windu. In other words, Windu's
> casting was completely devoid of any racial overtones, and based solely on
> Lucas' thoughts about Jackson as an actor. There are actually costume
> designs that show Mace as a white Jedi before Jackson was cast in the role.
As far as I can tell human "race" is as meaningless in the SW universe as it
is in Legoland. There are plenty of references to the differences between
alien species and humans, and even some references to different human
cultures, but there's no indication that anyone notices or cares whether a
human is pink, tan or brown.
The real issue that I see is the SW metaphor for race/culture, ie alien
species. In each of the two heroic bands there's been a token alien, Chewie &
Jar-Jar. Chewbacca showed life-long loyalty to his best friend Han. He had a
warm snuggly coat of fur, sharp teeth, growled when he was happy, growled when
he was sad and played with the children. The impression I get is not a major
character with a broad range of emotions, the impression I get is a crossbow-
toting, ambidextrous, 8 foot tall dog.
The less said about JarJar the better. Just that it seems unfortunate that the
only hero who talks in pidgin-Basic, steps in doo-doo and narrowly avoids
getting in all sorts of hilarious if potentially deadly trouble, is also the
only hero who isn't a human.
Just to head off one point. I'm not saying that alien species in Episode I
represent human racial stereotypes (although I happen to believe that that's
to some extent true). What I am saying is that the less heroic a character is,
the less likely it is to be human.
--Dave
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