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When is a movie not just a movie?

© Michael Martinez

[Note: This column was written before LucasFilm Ltd. published an official response to the Variety story I indirectly made reference to. See the bottom of this article for a link to the official response -- I've elected to leave the original article intact since so much of its theme depends on the initial report. However, let it suffice to say that LucasFilm Ltd. is denying the story.] I don't really know anything about race issues in New Zealand. Peter Jackson is a Kiwi. A New Zealander. I have read that the Maoris were not always on the best of terms with the Europeans who colonized New Zealand, so I guess there is some history of strife and tension between people of European descent and people of Polynesian descent in the Pacfic Ocean. So, why should I care if there are racial tensions in New Zealand? Because George Lucas has apparently given in to the concerns of people who perceived unflattering racial stereotypes in the portrayals of three "alien" races in "Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace". The Neimoidians (the guys who made up the evil Trade Federation) had hard-to-discern accents (some people think they are Asian accents, some people think they are eastern European accents). The news media seems to have favored the "Neimoidians portray all Asians as evil" perception. Jar Jar Binks, the amphibian who befriends the Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, speaks in a "Jamaican patois" and because of his "subservience" to the knights is perceived as a stereotype of black slaves (except he doesn't actually "serve" anyone until he is promoted to commanding general of the army that takes on the evil Eastern European--er, Asians' robotic army). And then there is Watto, the Middle Eastern arms merchant--um, the junk dealer on Tattooine. Some people say he's a stereotypical Jewish merchant, others say he sounds like an Arab (and the beard supposedly reminds people of Yasser Arafat). Obviously these keen-eyed observers of unflattering racial stereotypes have never spent time talking to the owners of small, independent gas stations in the southern United States (where I grew up, all the old guys talked like Watto, and shot the breeze much more than he did even if all you wanted was directions to the next town). He sounds a little Cajun to me, or maybe south Georgian.... So, Lucas has announced that to avoid offending people with trite racial stereoptypes he will be adding two new ethnic groups to the Star War universe (stay with me -- this all ends up in Peter Jackson's lap, I promise you): a "Native American...[with a] forceful, spiritual nature" and an "Asian...possibly trained in martial arts".

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