Fan theories about racist caricatures in phantom menace do not hold water
Fan theories about racist caricatures in phantom menace do not hold water
I'm listening to blank check and they are harping on the racist aspects of the voice acting of nute gunray, watto and jarjar, but I unknowingly happened upon a long interview with the voice actor for jar jar a couple years ago, including the lead up to him getting the part and the character and voice development, and now it just seems ridiculous when I hear people complain that he, a black man, is being racist against black people specifically.
The idea that he used black face minstrel shows to come up with this voice is so readily accepted and repeated by everybody talking about jarjar,1 but does not make any sense on its face, and makes less sense when you listen to the actor talk about his development and understanding of the character.
I watched shorter videos by the voice actors for watto and nute who also go into how they developed the voices and their characters and how they talk about the development of their characters makes it obvious to me that fans and content creators are making a bigger deal out of these voices than the voices warrant.
Ahmed understood jarjar as a goofy orange frog, so gave him a bouncy, goofy voice. Secomb thought watto seemed like a shady Italian mobster living in filth which gave him lung problems, so you have watto. And silas Carson says the voice is nasal because nemoydians literally have no nose and he thought of slimy, conniving Peter Laurie characters and used Laurie's stilted, conniving mannerisms.
Lazy editing and production choices could be argued. But racist "caricatures" or accusing the actors of using racist stereotypes, implying that any perceptible slight latched onto and cultivated by fans was intentional, makes no sense except as an ignorant, bullying dogpile.
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You are completely discounting accidental racism. Every person at every level involved could have had no bad intentions and still have the sum total be so.
All that said, you didn't mention the actual problem with the movie that led to the commentary... total shitty dumpster fire levels of writing.
George Lucas has always been clear that a major influence on Star Wars was old serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. You know what was extremely common in those old serials? Racist stereotypes for villains and racist stereotypes for side kicks, also often cartoonish buffoons.
Again, not saying he was intentionally racist, but with the lack of quality writing skills, it's clear he fell back to tropes from his favourite stories from his childhood. Those tropes usually horribly racist. A better writer could have done better with those tropes.
Discounting is the perfect word , as "accidental racism" lacks credibility as an argument to legitimize an attack on the characters and voice actors. None of the "racist" complaints have anything to do with race, but if you want them to be racist and you have the believies, you can make them so.
Importantly, you are ignoring that none of the fan complaints are about "accidental racism", they are outraged by ostensibly conscious choices. They are assuming and acting upon the assumption these choices were made in bad faith. You're changing the goalposts to "all racism is bad", full stop. Which, yea, but nobody argued racism wasn't "bad".
Your arguments gel precisely with fan consensus: we don't have much to say about a bland movie, so let's complain about something we know everyone can get behind, regardless of its merit. At least we have a mob.
Way to deliberately misrepresent what I said.
My post was about even though there may have been lazy production and editing(accidental racism), this is not an excuse to blame the voice actors for being intentionally racist(intentional racism), as fans constantly repeat without knowing anything about the production or voice actors.
You said I discounted accidental racism(which is in my post).
I agreed that I discounted accidental racism since it's a poor excuse to accuse someone of intentional racism.