Race riot

Cool. Accusations of racism continue to surface regarding the Star Wars saga, including about the latest installment.

Jango Fett, the evil bounty hunter?

“He looked totally Latino,” says Martina Guzman, a Detroiter who’s managing a State House election campaign.
“And his kid,” says Wayne State history professor Jose Cuello, referring to the young Boba Fett, “looked even more Latino.”

They bring up that breeding a clone army that marches in lockstep off to conquer the galaxy is just playing to Anglo fears of hordes of undocumented workers flooding into the US. They point to the clone breeding planet, Kamino, as proof (since “camino,” in Spanish, means “road”).

But wait! Fett isn’t a Latino stereotype! It’s a far more subtle matter than that!

If the planet name “Kamino” caught some Latinos’ attention, three Arab-Americans on The News’ panel seized on the fact that Jango’s son calls him “Baba.”
“I frankly think the bounty hunter is Arab,” says college counselor Imad Nouri of Royal Oak.
“He’s basically a terrorist,” explains Nouri, “and ‘baba’ is Arabic for ‘father.’ ”

For the record, of course, Temuera Morrison, who plays Jango Fett, is from New Zealand, and is of Maori descent.

And, of course, the clone breeders on Kamino are not only aliens, but extremely white aliens.

No word on how those two elements fit into the mythology being produced.

Accusations of racism have abounded since the original Star Wars debuted with a white cast — except for Darth Vader, who was clothed in black and had a black actor providing his voice.

Never mind, of course, that the evil Imperial Stormtroopers wore white armor. Or that the evil Imperial Officers on the Death Star were all Anglo (both figuratively and literally), too. (Never mind, as well, that Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker turns out to be white as well.)

In retrospect, of course, Lucas might have cast more folks of other races into his original film. That was a “problem” he tried to fix later on.

To no avail, of course. Lots of people lambasted him for Jar-Jar Binks, claiming that the doofus critter was clearly a “Steppin-Fetchit”/Rastafarian/black stereotype through and through. Never mind that the equally dim-witted Gungan leader Boss Nass was voiced by Brian Blessed, a white British actor. Or, from the other side of things, that Mace Windu, one of the top leaders of the Jedi, was played by black actor Samuel L. Jackson. Or that Queen Amidala’s head of security was black …

And Attack of the Clones? Mace gets at least as much screen time as Yoda. Amidala’s security chief is a Samoan actor. Bayle Organa is played by Jimmie Smits, a poster boy for Hispanic actors — and if he has few lines this time out, the character is certainly a critical one for Episode III.

And then there’s that Maori guy, of course.

And, when you get down to it, there isn’t much more room for anyone else, since most of the other characters are aliens.

Just to show how it’s a damned-if-you-do/don’t thing, imagine the accusations that would fly if Jango Fett were black. Imagine the other accusations that would fly if he were white.

The problem is that, once race becomes an issue in the casting, it’s subject to wild over-analysis. A white character? Well, why wasn’t s/he a minority?! A minority character? Well, why does s/he act so stupid/arrogant/evil/ineffectual/token?

Episode I also came under fire when it first came out when it featured, as bad guys, some representatives of the Trade Federation that some folks thought sounded like bad Japanese actors. I think they sound more like Dexter from Dexter’s Lab, but, not surprisingly, there have been criticisms that they appear, unchanged, in Episode II. (Of course, to have changed their voices would have been to admit wrongdoing, and drawn more attention to the question.)

The best case I’ve heard for a stupid stereotype isn’t even touched on in this article. It’s that Watto, the Tyderian Junk Dealer, who struck me at first viewing in Episode I as, well, something of a stereotype of an extremely sharp and, ah, rather Semitic trader. In Episode II, he’s picked up a beard and brimmed hat that makes him look, well, a bit Hassidic.

Of course, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.