Posted on 01/11/2020 8:05:36 AM PST by EdnaMode
All fantasy worlds draw from reality, and the Star Wars universe is no exception. As fans flock to theaters to see “The Rise of Skywalker” this holiday week, most of their minds will be on the grand visuals, enduring characters and exciting storytelling, and not on how the films reflect our culture — including its prejudices. But if we take a moment to think about it, George Lucas’s galaxy is, and has always been, far, far away from being an original or an inclusive creation.
Star Wars is shot with “Orientalizing” stereotypes — patronizing tropes that represent an imagined East, or the Orient, as inferior to the rational, heroic West. Think, for example, of the uniformed conformity of the evil Empire vs. the scrappy (American) individualism of the rebel heroes, the vague Eastern mysticism of the Force and its Shaolin-cum-Samurai practitioners, and the uncomfortable racial stereotypes embodied in the hookah-smoking Jabba and the miserly Watto.
Even those who have noted these prejudices could be excused for not noticing the presence of such tropes in another key element of every Star Wars film: John Williams’s iconic musical score. Williams’s music associates the “good guys” with the grand orchestral style of the European Romantics (think of the beautifully hummable melodies for Luke, Leia and Rey), while the themes for the “bad guys” are expressed in the vocabulary of Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern music. AD
This may seem incidental or unimportant. But this music reinforces, even at an unconscious level, the primacy of Western culture against an imagined “other” that reproduces harmful prejudices in pop culture that, given the power of mass media, has larger political consequences.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
[eyeroll] What a dumbass. Talk about straining out the gnat while gulping down the camel. The actual problem with the series is that it used to be fun, and it’s become pedantic and preoccupied with checking all the diversity and pc boxes Hollywood is now slave to.
In that same mode...looking for racism in every possible way:
Black Britons Know Why Meghan Markle Wants Out
[You got it]
It’s the racism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/opinion/meghan-markle-prince-harry.html
For once, I agree with the WaPoo. Star Wars is a very racist franchise.
Lesbian? That’s so 2000s. Make him trans.
Wait trans might be so 2010s...
Forget it, I can’t keep up.
(to the article author) “our”??? ...speak for yourself, coward
How stupid can you get?
That’s funny, I thought it was just the opposite. The whole gnostic “Force” thing is VERY eastern. Yoda is like an eastern sensei. Besides all that, one should consider the possibility that, overall, classical western culture/philosophy IS superior. It shouldn’t be beyond the pale to discuss, provided that two “western” assumptions are granted. One, A cannot equal B and NOT B at the same time. Two, there is such a thing as “best”.
Some people have way too much time on their hands.
What malcontents, always looking for an offense.
Better headline
“How liberals ruin absolutely everything they touch, for everyone else”
He’s got more chins than Chinatown.
The stupid is strong with this one!!
It’s a game, called “Woker Than Thou.” No matter how progressive and woke you are, someone is out there trying to find a way to establish that they are woker than you are. It’s the Woke Olympics! Wokapalooza!
They brought back Hamill so he could be a sad old man drinking milk from a tit, then proceeded to show how a SJW Mary Sue is way better than him.
Star Wars is over....
If I had known this is how it would have turned out, I would have rooted for the Empire.
That’s much better. :D
The story line of “The Empire Strikes Back” was that a Black man would sell out his buddy for a chance at the buddy’s white woman.
The ending of the original movie was cribbed from “Triumph of the Will”
“And can you believe it? They paid me a ball of cash _this big_ to write it!”
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