Driving the race car...d
by Sunny Kalsi on 06 Jun 2005
Star wars is racist. I know I said this of the howard government, and various political parties, but just because it's also true of fictional works shouldn't dilute my point. To re-iterate: I don't go around saying everything is racist, only some things. Star wars is one of them.
In most movies, you'll find that aliens are either somehow superior, or smarter than us. In others, you'll find they're wacky or funny. In serious movies, they'll represent a creature that's... well... alien. Something so different that we cannot compare them to us, like blobby things or things with tentacles, etc. Occasionally, however, they'll fit into broad racial stereotypes. Men in Black did this to great comedic effect.
Men in Black used aliens that fit into broad stereotypes, in order to get across the "feel" that aliens are everywhere. That is, that aliens aren't imitating racial stereotypes, rather racial stereotypes are caused by aliens. In any case, the purpose is not to be racist, rather to have a bit of fun, and celebrate diversity at the same time. Indeed, Will Smith quickly becomes adjusted to the vast array of aliens, and in the same way, the audience adjusts too. If they can understand and get along with something like an alien, then dealing with a foreigner is easy, right? So we see that MiB teaches racial diversity.
Star Wars, on the other hand, teaches racial intolerance. Unlike the variety of aliens found in most movies (even MiB, which is actually trying to map aliens to races), Star wars has a relatively limited subset of alien species. Most, if not all, are bi-pedal, Most speak english with bad accents (the same one as the race they imitate), and most, if not all, conform to some racial stereotype. Jabba the Hutt seems to be the only exception, and not much of one.
How does this teach racial intolerance? Because none of these characters are even remotely pivotal in the story, save for Yoda and Shaft. In fact, Yoda (shaolin monk, get it, because he's short and talks funny) and Shaft (who is black, therefore conforming to the negro stereotype) appear to be the "good guy" duals of the evil asian (asians in general) dudes and the annoying guy (native africans) in ep 1. This basically says "If you're white, then whatever do is important, if you're not and you work hard all your life, then you may be good enough to be a side character".
All the aliens are ugly, stupid, or both. The exception here are the jedi with the flesh hair, who aren't ugly, and presumably not stupid, but exist only to die (remember: aliens don't matter). You'll end up with the ugly aliens with that are smart, but not trustworthy or somehow otherwise lacking virtuosity. Otherwise, you'll have ugly aliens that are stupid (most of em), or decent looking aliens that are stupid (like the tall aliens in episode 2). Conclusion: everyone is dumb except for the main characters, who are all white.
In complete traditional monarchistic fashion, one family determines the fate of a galaxy, perhaps the universe. As much as it waxes lyrical about democracy, the entire story revolves around the skywalkers. Further to that, Luke kisses his sister in a later movie, which only further cements the monarchistic ideals of the movie. Everyone knows that the monarchy goes hand in hand with the church, and the church does not accept religious diversity.
Finally, if you watch the scene in Ep 2 where Anakin is talking about how dictatorship is great and Padme is saying "Dictatorship is bad" (not a direct quote, but the same idea, nonetheless), the subtext is clearly: "Have sex with me, with your big dick-tater-ship". Despite her pleasant appearance and apparent love of democracy, she clearly wants to be ruled, by a dictator, or a king. When natural selection plays it's part, we see that the democratic process is perverted, and the entire system turns into a pseudo-monarchy.