Welcome to the Yellow Side, Assholes!
I had this argument a while back with some crazy white Star Wars fan ex-pats in Japan, but I figured I'd reprise it for this latest installment. I think the racial casting in the series is bullshit. Sure, a couple of the non-Muppet movies were great cinema and the casting is no more bullshit than most of Hollywood, but that's hardly an excuse.
I mean think about it--Darth Vader is easily the most charismatic character in the whole series (the third most popular villain in the history of American cinema behind Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates), and is played brillantly by a remarkable black actor. However, he must be dressed in an all black suit that doesn't allow anyone to see his face and then when he's good, he takes off his mask and suddenly, magically, HE'S WHITE!
I breached this subject with the white folks in Japan, "I can't wait until Episode Seven when Darth Vader comes back!"
"What?"
"You know, since he tricked that stupid white guy into his suit and got away at the end of the last one!"
"What are you talking about?"
"That guy was white and Darth Vader is black!"
"Are you stupid?"
"Whose voice do you hear when Darth Vader is talking?"
"James Earl Jones."
"Right. And he's black right? But then you don't hear his voice anymore and suddenly there this white guy there! What did he just turn white all of a sudden?"
They got madder and madder and actually said, "Yeah, but Luke is white, so he's his father so he had to be white! (I love the way people always whip out the 'Darth Vader is Luke's father' spoiler like it's some arcane secret that LESS THAN 99% of the known world is aware of')"
Yeah, nice try Grand Wizard, I'm totally sure that George Lucas cast the entire fucking series around Mark Hamill--our generation's great actor. Let me put it this way: Of the two, one of them has done almost as much soft-porn than actual cinematic work. It's ain't James Earl Jones, unless he was wearing a Mark Hamill suit while he was doing it. If they needed to, I'm sure they could have just hired some young black actor to whine a lot. It's not like he could somehow fuck up that role anymore than Hamill did. A nine-year old Gary Coleman probably would have been an improvement. On the flipside, no James Earl Jones=no Star Wars. No James Earl Jones=Harrison Ford isn't playing the Fugitive and Super President in about seventeen bad Tom Clancy novel adaptations. No James Earl Jones=Carrie Fisher is just some druggie and not the number one on the hit list of average looking actresses that 35 year-old virgins feed the parrot to (number two is Sarah Michelle Gellar). No James Earl Jones=the only way I could pass two hours of Star Wars is if it's just rewatching the C-3PO gets his ass blasted into 88 pieces scene over and over again.
And he's pretty much the only person of color in the whole saga. There might be like one more, but if there was, I bet he played some shitty role like being the only black guy leading a city in the history of film and he probably sellout out the main character to the bad guys--no wait, how about ALL OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS. Then probably they have him flip and actually help the good guys just to show that us colored folk aren't all bad. But hey, I don't really remember, and I figure that of the 88 quindradeleventytrillion Star Wars fans who decide to lynch my ass after reading this blog, at least one of them can remind me.
And hey, that's just the GOOD movies in the saga. What about the one with the evil Japanese trade empire where every talks with a racially specific accent? Is that really worth the few HUNDRED minutes that you get to watch some whiny brat driving around in circles? I don't know. I just read the spoilers for this installment and saved two hours of my life and ten bucks. I think I'll go spend it on some library overdue fees or something.
Peace.
I mean think about it--Darth Vader is easily the most charismatic character in the whole series (the third most popular villain in the history of American cinema behind Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates), and is played brillantly by a remarkable black actor. However, he must be dressed in an all black suit that doesn't allow anyone to see his face and then when he's good, he takes off his mask and suddenly, magically, HE'S WHITE!
I breached this subject with the white folks in Japan, "I can't wait until Episode Seven when Darth Vader comes back!"
"What?"
"You know, since he tricked that stupid white guy into his suit and got away at the end of the last one!"
"What are you talking about?"
"That guy was white and Darth Vader is black!"
"Are you stupid?"
"Whose voice do you hear when Darth Vader is talking?"
"James Earl Jones."
"Right. And he's black right? But then you don't hear his voice anymore and suddenly there this white guy there! What did he just turn white all of a sudden?"
They got madder and madder and actually said, "Yeah, but Luke is white, so he's his father so he had to be white! (I love the way people always whip out the 'Darth Vader is Luke's father' spoiler like it's some arcane secret that LESS THAN 99% of the known world is aware of')"
Yeah, nice try Grand Wizard, I'm totally sure that George Lucas cast the entire fucking series around Mark Hamill--our generation's great actor. Let me put it this way: Of the two, one of them has done almost as much soft-porn than actual cinematic work. It's ain't James Earl Jones, unless he was wearing a Mark Hamill suit while he was doing it. If they needed to, I'm sure they could have just hired some young black actor to whine a lot. It's not like he could somehow fuck up that role anymore than Hamill did. A nine-year old Gary Coleman probably would have been an improvement. On the flipside, no James Earl Jones=no Star Wars. No James Earl Jones=Harrison Ford isn't playing the Fugitive and Super President in about seventeen bad Tom Clancy novel adaptations. No James Earl Jones=Carrie Fisher is just some druggie and not the number one on the hit list of average looking actresses that 35 year-old virgins feed the parrot to (number two is Sarah Michelle Gellar). No James Earl Jones=the only way I could pass two hours of Star Wars is if it's just rewatching the C-3PO gets his ass blasted into 88 pieces scene over and over again.
And he's pretty much the only person of color in the whole saga. There might be like one more, but if there was, I bet he played some shitty role like being the only black guy leading a city in the history of film and he probably sellout out the main character to the bad guys--no wait, how about ALL OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS. Then probably they have him flip and actually help the good guys just to show that us colored folk aren't all bad. But hey, I don't really remember, and I figure that of the 88 quindradeleventytrillion Star Wars fans who decide to lynch my ass after reading this blog, at least one of them can remind me.
And hey, that's just the GOOD movies in the saga. What about the one with the evil Japanese trade empire where every talks with a racially specific accent? Is that really worth the few HUNDRED minutes that you get to watch some whiny brat driving around in circles? I don't know. I just read the spoilers for this installment and saved two hours of my life and ten bucks. I think I'll go spend it on some library overdue fees or something.
Peace.
posted by Xian Franzinger Barrett at 8:24 PM
3 Comments:
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH TRIBALISM BLAH BLAH BLAH RACISM IS EVERYWHERE BLAH BLAH BLAH BEANEBAG STEROIDS BLAH BLAH BLAH NIEPRONT IMMORAL BLAH BLAH BLAH TRIBLISTIC MILITARISM
What's Triblistic Militarism?
It's what I've been accused of on Primer, which I assume is reverse racism.
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