Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Vol. 15, No.

1, 2001

Readings of Racism: interpretation,

stereotyping and The Phantom Menace

WILL BROOKER, Richmond (the American International University in London)

Chicago in early March can be a cold city. I was in town for the Society of Cinema
Studies conference, and on Saturday 11 March I was walking outside in the cold rather
than attending the next panel inside the Congress Plaza Hotel. My paper, on the whole,
had not gone down well. The reaction had not been uniformly negative: several delegates
who had argued with me during the panel shook my hand afterwards and told me they
had enjoyed the debate. Yet more than one member of the audience had responded with
open hostility, while others merely shook their heads in dismay and recommended that
I thoroughly rethink my beliefs.
I had run what I felt was an uncontroversial argument: that a popular text had been
subject to a ‘dominant’ interpretation, and that other readings were nevertheless possible.
Many cultural studies theorists currently hold to this principle. If the debate had been
merely concerned with interpretation in the abstract, I doubt that my paper would have
incited such an emotive reaction, and I doubt that I would have been affected in the same
way by the criticism. My paper, however, was concerned with interpretations of race,
and those who contested my argument clearly saw me as defending racist stereotypes.
So I did not return to the conference that day; instead, I walked around the Loop. I
rewrote the paper mentally, apologetically. Back at the hotel I loaded the document onto
my laptop and ripped the spine out of it, virtually destroying my original argument in
the construction of a safer account which I was sure could cause no offence.
This is not that second version, and it is not the conference paper. It is an attempt to
Ž nd a way between the two, to critically interrogate both my Ž rst argument and the
reaction to it. It is above all an attempt to ask whether, if an audience group identiŽ es
a popular text as ‘racist’, we can legitimately regard their interpretation as one possible
reading among many, rather than accepting it as the unquestionable truth.
My study concerns three Ž ctional species in the 1999 Ž lm Star Wars: The Phantom
Menace. Jar Jar Binks, the Gungan, was widely described in the on-line and North
American press as an offensive caricature of Caribbean, Jamaican or African-American
culture. Watto, the Toydarian, was identiŽ ed by some commentators as an anti-Semitic
stereotype, whether of Jewish or Arabic culture. Finally, the Neimoidian race were
accused of exhibiting stereotypically ‘Japanese’ accents and behaviour.
My structure here is quite basic: I want to treat these contentious issues in as
straightforward a manner as possible. I shall Ž rst examine the reasons why the characters
were interpreted as racist, analysing the journalistic discourse around the movie during
May and June 1999 and exploring the historical framework which was frequently
employed by commentators in order to position the characters as racially offensive.
I shall then ask whether the interpretation of the characters’ creators—director, artists,
designers and actors, all of whom unsurprisingly deny racist intent—can be considered
ISSN 1030-4312 print/ISSN 1469-3666 online/01/010015-18 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/10304310120034251
16 W. Brooker

relevant to the Ž lm’s reception, and subsequently explore the argument of those
commentators who claim that the characters are not racist. Finally, I shall discuss the
results of a small-scale audience research project which I conducted myself at an
international university. This study demonstrates that young viewers, aged 18–21 and
apparently unaware of historical stereotyping, were initially liable to read the characters
in quite different ways depending on their cultural background, although their views
altered once they were shown critical reviews and accounts of historical representation.
My own case may provide a concrete illustration of the issues involved here. When
I Ž rst saw The Phantom Menace, in June 1999, I was aware from American reviews and
on-line discussion of the argument that Jar Jar Binks had been considered racially
offensive, and I accepted this reading as valid although I might not have viewed the
character in this way had I come to the text ‘cold’. As a white English viewer, I am
perhaps not as familiar with stereotypes of Caribbean or African-American culture as are
viewers in the United States. It might also be borne in mind that as a lifelong fan of the
Star Wars Ž lms, my primary reaction to Jar Jar Binks was one of disappointment at the
infantile humour he brought to the series. The notion that Jar Jar constituted a racial
stereotype shaped my dislike of the character, although I had needed to be ‘educated’
into this reading.
I had read no adverse criticism of the Neimoidian characters, and yet was immediately
shocked by what I saw as their caricatured Japanese accents, which in my experience
tallied closely with racial stereotypes from American Ž lm serials of World War II. That
these characters were potentially offensive to Japanese culture was ‘obvious’ to me, and
was only enforced by the criticism along these lines which I subsequently encountered.
However, Watto’s accent seemed to me at the time to represent an Italian stereotype.
Having read the reviews which identiŽ ed the character as stereotypically ‘Jewish’, I was
able to accept this argument as potentially valid while not identifying with it as
automatically as I had with the ‘Japanese’ caricature. When I watched the Ž lm again, the
character’s diction and pronunciation still struck me most strongly as ‘Italian’. Again, for
whatever reason, this latter stereotype is more familiar to me than the stereotype of the
Jewish accent. I could see the visual cues upon which the ‘Jewish’ reading was hung,
but on a personal level it was not the most ‘obvious’.
Was I wrong to view this reading as one possible way of seeing, an alternative to my
own immediate reaction, rather than as automatically and unquestioningly accepting it as
the single legitimate interpretation? To some of my fellow delegates in Chicago, it was
‘painfully obvious’ that Watto caricatured Jewish identity, and it clearly troubled them
that I was unable wholeheartedly to embrace this reading. On the other hand, I know that
I would react in the same way myself should another viewer argue that my reading of
the Neimoidians as offensive to Japanese culture was purely arbitrary. I would retort that
there exists a historical precedent for this stereotype, and that to use a certain type of
accent in a popular text is inevitably to evoke the racist depiction of ‘Orientals’.
Would I be right to say that we cannot escape or deny the shared cultural framework
which deŽ nes racial stereotype, and that to take another interpretation in this case is at
best perverse, at worst racist? Or would the fact that this viewer failed to see those
accents as ‘Japanese’ indicate that the framework is not universally shared, that such
frameworks may be culturally speciŽ c—dependent on age, religion and gender, perhaps,
as well as national and ethnic background—and that what seems ‘obviously’ racist to
one person may seem entirely innocent to another? I am not sure if I can hope to provide
answers in conclusion; after many drafts and two incompatible versions of my argument,
neither of my previous stances sits comfortably with me. It is surely wiser and more
 Readings of Racism 17

honest at this stage, rather than choosing one position and seeing it through to the end,
to admit that this subject still troubles me as much as it did that Saturday in March, and
that I have come no closer to Ž nding a solution. I shall at least, I hope, have raised some
important questions.

The Prosecution
Jar Jar Binks, of course, does not exist. According to one reviewer, he is nothing more
than a ‘soulless string of computer code from the planet Naboo’.1 Within the diegesis of
The Phantom Menace, Jar Jar Binks is ‘an amphibious Gungan’,2 accident prone but well
meaning, who follows the two Jedi characters on their mission to protect Queen Amidala
and contributes to their eventual triumph through luck rather than skill. In narrative
terms, Jar Jar plays a supporting role, similar to Chewbacca in the Ž rst trilogy: in a
Proppian sense, he is the Helper assisting the heroes on their quest.3
On the level of production, Jar Jar was billed as the ‘the most expressive, complex
computer-generated character ever created’,4 although his voice and movements are
based on the live action performance of Ahmed Best, who provided a reference during
Ž lming and was digitally removed from the footage during post-production. Jar Jar is a
cypher—a technological achievement but a peripheral character, a real actor who was
edited out of the Ž nal cut, a fantastical creature who only exists in the databanks of
Industrial Light and Magic.
Following The Phantom Menace’s US release in May 1999, it quickly became the
norm, rather than the exception, for journalists to express concern about the implications
of Jar Jar’s accent and dialect. Many reviewers went on to accuse the character of being
a racist stereotype along the lines of Stepin Fetchit.5 Similarly, the characters of Watto
and the Neimoidian Trade Federation were singled out by many reviewers as racial
stereotypes of Jewish and Japanese identity, respectively, with critics identifying the
signiŽ ers of historical caricature in, respectively, another CGI character and a crew of
actors in sculpted rubber masks.
Within the sphere of on-line journalism, the reading of Jar Jar as racist swiftly became
the dominant interpretation. Possibly because of the medium’s unique nature—its
capacity for immediate linking, quoting and cross-referencing—the argument that Jar Jar
Binks represented a stereotypical caricature of vaguely Caribbean culture was rapidly
disseminated across Internet criticism until it informed the majority of commentaries on
The Phantom Menace.
I studied twenty reviews of The Phantom Menace from the on-line press6 of May and
June 1999. Of these, fourteen identiŽ ed Jar Jar Binks as a potentially offensive
stereotype of black culture. It is striking how many of these reviews employ the same
terms and phrases, as if each reviewer, consciously or otherwise, referred back to the
existing body of opinion on the character and added to it with their own remarks.
Whether Jar Jar was offensive or not became one of the key issues which reviewers
clearly felt obliged to address in their account of the movie. For instance, David Brin’s
report on Salon.com, which makes a point of announcing ‘it may surprise you to learn
that I’m not going to waste any time disparaging poor Jar Jar, or dwelling on hints at
“Yes, Bwana” racism’,7 nevertheless perpetuates and builds on the ‘Jar Jar as racist’
framework even as it purports to opt out of the discussion.
Those who do see offence in Jar Jar describe him as, variously, ‘a  oppy-eared, Roger
Rabbity Ž sh creature who speaks, for some unknown but insulting reason, in an
indecipherable Caribbean accent’;8 as a bumbling idiot who ‘sounds like a drowning
18 W. Brooker

Jamaican’;9 as a ‘ oppy-eared amphibian … who speaks in a thick, Caribbean-style

patois’;10 as a ‘ oppy-eared ham … who speaks in an almost unintelligible Caribbean
patois’;11 as ‘a clumsy, silly character, voiced by a black actor, who talks in convoluted
pidgin English’;12 as a ‘black man in frog face’ whose speech is ‘a weird pidgin mush
of West African, Caribbean and African-American linguistic styles’;13 as an ‘annoying,
computer-generated amphibian’ whose voice is ‘a sort of slurred, pidgin Caribbean
English’;14 and Ž nally as a ‘latter-day Stepin Fetchit’ speaking a ‘mangled Caribbean-ac-
cented English’.15 As noted, there is a consistency to these comments which I Ž nd
signiŽ cant; not only do all these reviewers source Jar Jar’s supposedly invented accent
to the same real-world referent, but they fall back on a very similar sentence structure,
almost as if the established interpretive template had been absorbed by each reviewer
and was being reproduced with minor changes each time.
When I made this suggestion at the Chicago conference, some delegates responded
that I seemed to be identifying a ‘politically correct conspiracy’ of journalists intent on
sullying Lucas’ reputation. This was not my intention. What I mean to point out is that
the speciŽ c reading of Jar Jar as racist was made swiftly visible and reproduced itself
into a majority discourse, and that this process could have happened differently. For
instance, Tim Burton’s Batman Ž lms yielded readings that the Joker represented an
African-American in ‘blackface’ and that the Penguin was an anti-Semitic caricature.
Both these readings attained a public platform, in Screen and The Guardian, respect-
ively. Both drew on textual signiŽ ers and historical evidence to make the connection
between the Ž lm characters and the racial archetype. However, neither reading attained
the prominence or cultural dominance of the Jar Jar as Caribbean interpretation: not,
surely, because they were less ‘true’ or less well supported, but for largely contingent
reasons which may have much to do with changes in media technology and the
transformations wrought by Internet journalism.
It is worth noting, too, that far fewer writers commented on the potential racism
inherent in Watto and the Neimoidians than those who targeted Jar Jar Binks: again,
surely not because of a lack of evidence or a more dubious claim to truth. Alexandra
DuPont’s article in DVD Review made use of the on-line capacity for immediate reader
response, and a dialogue emerged about the Asian stereotypes in The Phantom Menace.
Again, while some of these writers draw on the relatively familiar discourse around Jar
Jar to support their case, none of them identify any potential offence in Watto. The Ž rst
comment here is from DuPont herself, the following three from the journal’s readers:
Their lines [I swear I’m not making this up] appear to have been spoken by
Vietnamese people who knew barely a lick of English and pronounced the
words phonetically. The overall effect is not unlike watching those imported
Jackie Chan movies where Chan dubs his own voice. Scenes where these
aliens are supposed to be nervous or fearful fall shockingly, thuddingly  at.
Wouldn’t it have been more chilling if the Trade Federation guys didn’t speak
English? Not only would this have solved the problem of the bad speaking
effects, but it would’ve made them seem even more foreign and diabolical
instead of bumbling Charlie Chan-like villains.
Matt
Jar Jar and the Japanese sounding Federation guys with poorly designed heads
are the worst token tributes to acknowledging ethnic diversity that Lucas could
try to run the bases of his target marketing and political kudo-gathering with.
Andy McIntire
 Readings of Racism 19

Gungans were offensive African-American ‘Stephen Fetchit‘/‘ Sambo’ stereo-

types, the Trade Federation stooges offensive to Asians.
Glen16
Only one article, to my knowledge, dedicated itself entirely to the racial connotations of
the Neimoidians. Vincent Law’s on-line ‘Asian-American Culture’ page at About.com
recounted his misgivings at the ‘affected Chinese in the Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu
vein’ which seemed to form the basis of the Neimoidians’ accent.
The media often portrays businessmen in Asian countries as corrupt and
conniving. In the 1980s, the Japanese were the subject of our xenophobia as
Americans feared the dominance of Japanese automakers and manufacturers.
Films like Black Rain and Rising Sun fed these fears. In the 1990s, we moved
on to the Chinese, portraying a business landscape Ž lled with nepotism,
guanxi, and, more recently, illegal campaign contributions. Thus, the choice of
Chinese-sounding accents for merchant characters caught in the middle of a
nefarious plot of corrupt bargains and political intrigue is a dangerous one. 17

Watto takes third place in most discussions of the movie’s racial stereotyping. C.
Antonio Romero notes that he ‘needs little comment … ’
he is mostly characterized by his greed (which the Jedi use to easily dupe him),
his enormous hooked nose (bordering on a trunk), and what some have
identiŽ ed as a warped derivative of a Yiddish accent (or which may be a
middle Eastern accent—but just what kind of Jewish stereotype he is seems
like a hair hardly worth splitting).18
Patricia J. Williams agrees with Romero that Watto’s portrayal is ‘comprehensively
anti-Semitic—both anti-Arab and anti-Jew’, and provides support for her argument by
comparing the image of Watto in LucasŽ lm’s ofŽ cial Visual Dictionary with a caricature
of a Jewish banker from the early twentieth century.

the cartoon shows a large-nosed, round-bellied man with spindly arms, bandy
little legs and  at feet. An enormous fat chain, perhaps a giant watch fob,
hangs across his waist. Wings sprout from his shoulders, and in his left hand
he carries a scroll that says ‘anything for money.’
Watto has a similar set of wings. He has an almost identically distended
belly (the dictionary says it is ‘mostly composed of gas’). Watto’s arms are
spindly, his legs are bandy, and his feet are large and webbed. He has a pocket
welder with a long, spiraling power cord that loops across his belly with almost
the same degree of conspicuousness. And in the dictionary portrait, Watto’s
left hand grasps a data pad in which he is ‘careful to maintain accounting
records.’ 19

The Evidence
As we have seen, the critics who read Jar Jar as offensive invoke a body of evidence to
position him, and the other alien characters, within a tradition of racist stereotypes. Some
of these stereotypes were comparatively unfamiliar to me, and I chose to research them
in more detail, following the references given in reviews. The following passage, for
instance, is a description of Stepin Fetchit, described by black Ž lm historian Donald
20 W. Brooker

Bogle as the ‘arch-coon’ of 1930s Hollywood. It was clear enough to me from this
account why many reviewers made reference to Fetchit in their critique of Jar Jar Binks:
… lanky, slow-witted, simple-minded, obtuse, synthetic, confused … He
popularised the dim-witted, tongue-tied stammer and the phenomenal slow-
lazyman shuf e. […] He was tall and skinny and always had his head shaved
completely bald. He invariably wore clothes that were too large for him and
that looked as if they had been passed down from his white master. His grin
was always very wide, his teeth very widened, his feet very large, his walk
very slow, his dialect very broken. 20
Bogle provides an illustration of Stepin Fetchit placidly accepting the criticism of a
white co-star: it sits uncomfortably next to stills of Jar Jar and his master Qui-Gon, and
may remind us of their exchange early in The Phantom Menace:
Qui-Gon: Are you brainless?
Jar Jar: I spake.
Qui-Gon: The ability to speak does not make you intelligent.21
Similarly, Sander Gilman’s monograph The Jew’s Body, which reproduces the anti-
Semitic cartoon mentioned by Patricia J. Williams above, provides ample support for the
arguments against Watto. Images of the ‘Eternal Jew’, sneering and scowling with a
hook nose and snaggle-tooth, are undeniably reminiscent of Watto’s Visual Dictionary
portrait,22 while documents cited by Gilman serve as evidence of the link between this
visual caricature and the supposedly Jewish traits of swindling and money-grubbing.
According to a quasi-scientiŽ c volume of 1848, the ‘Jewish’ nose ‘is thin and sharp …
it indicates considerable Shrewdness in worldly matters … and facility of turning that
insight to proŽ table account’.23 Watto is described in the ofŽ cial dictionary as ‘shrewd
and possessive’, with a ‘sharp eye for a bargain’ and a ‘passion for gambling … not
above using loaded chance cubes to give him an edge in his bargaining’.24 Viennese
Jews were described in the 1780s as having no occupation but ‘to counterfeit, salvage,
trade in coins, and cheat … ’25 Once more, it is not difŽ cult to see an overlap between
this real historical stereotype and the Ž ctional creation of George Lucas.
Finally, the ofŽ cial background on the Neimoidians in the LucasŽ lm authorized
dictionary explains that the Neimoidians are ‘raised as grubs until the age of seven …
kept in communal hives’ and evolve into ‘a labyrinthine organization of bureaucrats and
trade ofŽ cials from many worlds that has insinuated itself throughout the galaxy’.26 If we
turn to John W. Dower’s comprehensive study of 1940s propaganda, we may well Ž nd
the parallels alarming. Like the ‘Eternal Jew’, the Japanese were analysed in pseudo-aca-
demic terms; American sociologists described the culture as ‘a bustling hive of bees all
servicing the queen’, and ‘a closely-disciplined and conformist people—a veritable
human bee-hive or ant-hill’.27 A poster from 1945 depicts the Japanese as a vile insect,
the ‘Louseous Japanicas’ who deserved extermination.28 The Japanese soldier was
‘treacherous and cunning’ with a ‘genius for guile, hatred, torture, inscrutability’.29As
Dower shows in his Ž nal chapter, this discourse was revived in the 1980s when the
United States attributed Japanese economic success to ‘deviousness’, untrustworthiness
and a lack of ethics: ‘the language of war … applied to the battleŽ elds of commerce’.30
The expansionist military threat had been replaced by an expansionist trade threat, but
the attributed characteristics were virtually identical—and identical to the characteristics
of the Neimoidians, according to the Dictionary. ‘Cowardly’, ‘arrogant’, ‘deceitful and
willing to kill for … commercial aims’, the Neimoidian Trade Federation is ‘cautious by
 Readings of Racism 21

nature’ but ‘careful to hide its acts of extortion and manipulation behind lies and protests
of good faith’. The picture captions emphasize that Neimoidians use a ‘wheedling
expression’ or an ‘underhanded gesture’ to persuade others of their false sincerity.31
There are clear correspondences in terms of visual signiŽ ers and personality traits, let
alone accents, between these historical stereotypes and the characters of The Phantom
Menace. But should that make the reading of Watto as Jewish, for instance, obvious and
inevitable to all viewers? If a cinemagoer is unaware of the historical stereotyping of
Jewish identity on his Ž rst viewing of the Ž lm, yet encounters several critical reviews
which highlight this interpretation and, on his second viewing, agrees that the nose,
accent and gambling are offensively ‘Jewish’, has he been educated into seeing the
undeniable truth or has he fallen into accord, for better or worse, with the dominant
interpretation? What if he fails to see the connection yet pretends to do so for fear of
censure, secretly resenting the fact that he feels obliged to adopt the majority opinion?
If, conversely, he agrees that those characteristics tally with stereotypes of the ‘Jew’
yet argues that these merely constitute a few signiŽ ers in a fantasy character, noting that
Watto’s blue skin and wings have no relation to any ethnic group, is our viewer naõ¨ve,
perverse, or a borderline racist? Finally, what if he accepts that the reading of Watto as
‘Jewish’ is entirely valid and potentially offensive yet states that in his own experience,
Watto corresponds more closely to the stereotype of French Algerians? Should his
reading be judged as equally valid, as misguided and ignorant, or as wilfully incorrect?
These issues will be explored further, if not resolved, in my discussion of audience
response below.
Firstly, however, I think it worth examining the collective authorial intention behind
the three characters. It was this section of my original paper, I think, which swung my
audience against me. I was repeatedly asked why I felt it was relevant to even consider
the LucasŽ lm interpretation—after all, Lucas would never admit he was a racist, and I
seemed to be using the ofŽ cial account of the characters’ creation solely to defend them
against accusations of stereotyping.
In theoretical terms, I hold to the belief that the authorial intention is one interpretation
among many, no more or less valid per se than that of the audience, and so I do think
it worthwhile to examine this alternative reading. In this case, I agree that we could only
realistically expect Lucas to claim his hurt 32 and innocence, to describe the characters as
‘archetypes’ and to swiftly announce that Episode Two would involve positive represen-
tations of diverse ethnic groups. 33 It would be entirely understandable, albeit slightly
cynical, to see this as the damage-limitation exercise of a corporation which sees its
franchise in potential danger.
Is it naõ¨ve, though, to draw a distinction between historical stereotypes—explicitly and
unapologetically intended, in many cases, to poison the attitudes of those who encoun-
tered them against a speciŽ c cultural Other—and science Ž ction characters which were,
according to their creators, not intended as offensive stereotypes, however widely they
were received as such? True, we may not be able to separate The Phantom Menace from
Stepin Fetchit’s Ž lms on this ground; the latter, too, were undoubtedly defended as
innocent fun. However, I think we can make a case for a distinction between the
deliberate caricaturing of Japanese and Jewish people on 1940s propaganda posters and
the design of Watto and the Neimoidians.

The Accused
The ofŽ cial guide to The Phantom Menace, published prior to the Ž lm’s US release in
May 1999, was obviously written and produced before any accusations of racial
22 W. Brooker

prejudice were made; it cannot be argued that it attempts to rewrite the production
process in order to counter those accusations. This behind-the-scenes account reveals that
the creation of the three characters in question was a collaborative effort, under Lucas’
guidance, which began in the mid–1990s and was shaped by considerations of budget
and technological limitation as well as by theories of evolution and aesthetics.
The storyboarding and art direction on The Phantom Menace were handled jointly by
Doug Chiang, Iain McCaig and Terryl Whitlatch.34 Whitlatch, with a background in
anatomy and zoology, took on the design of the alien creatures, and describes the
creation of Watto as the result of an experimental sketch. ‘I had done a portrait of an
ugly, cherub-type thing with tiny wings … George saw it, suggested we give it duck feet,
and Watto was born.’ 35 Jar Jar, by contrast, became a far more dedicated project for
Whitlatch and her department:
We worked on his design for a year and a half. In some of the earlier concepts,
he looked a bit like a duck. At another point, we tried to make him look
friendly and appealing, but he wound up looking too much like a droopy dog.
His body shape and gangly long legs were pretty much in place from the start,
but his face and neck went through many changes.36
Pre-production drawings of Jar Jar include cut-aways of his skeleton and muscle
structure, attesting to Whitlatch’s background; his orange skin coloration was a last-min-
ute choice ‘when research revealed that few underwater creatures were green’.37 Finally,
the Neimoidians were shaped by practical and Ž nancial considerations; originally
intended ‘as organic versions of the mechanical droids that make up the Neimoidian
army’, their ‘complex, fantastical design was ultimately simpliŽ ed when the decision
was made to portray the characters wearing animatronic masks, rather than through
computer animation’.38
From Whitlatch’s description, Watto was a dashed-off sketch picked from many
possibilities of hybrid creatures, and Jar Jar a painstakingly devised amphibian based as
much as possible on a scientiŽ c rationale. From this account, we might Ž nd it difŽ cult
to attribute the characters’ design to racist intent, although Doug Chiang’s 1995 original
paintings of the Neimoidians could be conceived as exhibiting stereotypical features,
with slit eyes and ‘inscrutable’ expressions.
The division of labour within Ž lm production means that a whole host of creative
individuals could potentially be charged with contributing to racist stereotyping within
The Phantom Menace; but with the comparatively restricted creative input of these crew
members comes also a diminished responsibility. The motives of Gary Pollard, the
sculptor who rushed out the Neimoidians’ latex masks twelve weeks before shooting
began, and Geoff Campbell, who programmed the CGI model of Jar Jar Binks, hardly
need to be interrogated, as both were working from designs which had been established
and authorized earlier in the process.
Ben Burtt, the sound designer who based the Neimoidians’ accents on ‘foreign-born
people speaking English’, seems disingenuous, or at best naõ¨ve, in his claim that ‘we
tried to Ž nd dialects that were … not strongly associated with a speciŽ c culture’.39 The
decision to model the alien speech on ‘foreigners’, however, appears to have come from
Lucas. ‘To me’, the director remarked, ‘it always seems phony when characters in
science Ž ction movies speak English perfectly, with no accent. That’s not the way the
world is.’40 In this regard, Lucas does seem guilty of ethnocentrism and thoughtless
prejudice although, as I shall suggest below, it is possible to construct a counter-argu-
ment about the cultural ‘world’ of The Phantom Menace.
 Readings of Racism 23

Jar Jar’s voice, rather than being heavily modiŽ ed in Burtt’s studio, barely needed to
be altered from the original recording of Ahmed Best’s vocal performance. ‘Best was so
close to what Lucas wanted … the actor’s audio remained pretty much intact for the Ž nal
Ž lm.’41 Indeed, Ahmed Best played a key role in every aspect of Jar Jar’s creation. ‘The
Ž rst and foremost reference for the character’s personality and behavior’, according to
the ofŽ cial Phantom Menace volume, ‘was Ahmed Best’s performance.’
If we were to pick out potential examples of intentional racial stereotyping from this
account, then, we would probably choose the Neimoidians’ ‘foreign’ voices, Doug
Chiang’s original Neimoidian design and Ahmed Best’s improvisation of Jar Jar’s
distinctive walk and accent. Yet Doug Chiang is Asian-American and Ahmed Best
African-American. Does their ethnic background problematize accusations of racial
stereotyping?
We can go no further in questioning the motives of the artist and the actor, but I would
submit that the cultural identity of these two creators must complicate matters. Unless
we argue that Lucas was ultimately responsible for the Ž nal decisions on character and
so holds sole responsibility for their associations, just as he seemed to with the
Neimoidian voices, we have to consider the implications of the fact that Jar Jar was
created by a man who is presumably fully aware of the way African-Americans have
been racially stereotyped throughout history, and who presumably would have no
intention of adding to or perpetuating that body of stereotypes. Indeed, Best responded
to the accusations of racism with incredulity: ‘I can’t even begin to explain the
ridiculousness of this … my family comes from the Caribbean—Barbados and St.
Thomas—and I don’t know anybody from the Caribbean who talks like that.’42
Could we see his performance in another way, as the evocation of a folk ‘archetype’—
the Fool—which has been common to diverse cultures for centuries, and certainly
pre-dates the racist depiction of Africans by whites? Could we see Chiang’s design for
the Neimoidians as a stylized adaptation of or even tribute to Japanese art and myth, just
as his designs for Queen Amidala recall and rework traditional Japanese costume and
make-up? Could we then in turn take at face value Ian McCaig’s assertion that ‘we tried
to think in terms of mythical archetypes’,43 and accept that the creation of Watto as an
ugly cherub sprang from the same impulse which produced the underwater city Otoh
Gunga as an art nouveau cluster of bubbles, and Theed as a blend of Venice and
Morocco?
The Star Wars saga is built around pastiche, and The Phantom Menace is no less a
postmodern ‘nostalgia Ž lm’ than its predecessors. Of course, it could therefore be held
up as a prime example of postmodernism’s wilful indifference to history, political
struggle, and social injustice—a case of style taking precedence over meaning to the
point where racial stereotypes can be shrugged off as bricolage. Yet perhaps the Ž lm’s
representations and recyclings are more complex than some critical reviews allow. If it
is permissible to write The Phantom Menace off as simply ‘a racist Ž lm’, as did one of
my fellow delegates, and to accuse Lucas of bigotry on the evidence of Watto, Jar Jar
and the Neimoidians, it must also be legitimate to highlight other aspects of the Phantom
Menace text in order to suggest an alternative reading of the authorial intention.
As noted, the Japanese in uences in the Ž lm extend beyond the Neimoidian villains
to inform the costume and styling of the heroine. Jar Jar evokes the racist clowning of
Stepin Fetchit, but the Queen’s second-in-command, Captain Panaka, is an African-
American who acts with courage and dignity throughout. Boss Nass, the foolish leader
of the Gungans, wears a vaguely African robe, but the Queen’s gorgeous silver craft is
called a Nubian. The Sand People and Jawas of the planet Tatooine are potential
24 W. Brooker

caricatures of Arabic culture; Anakin Skywalker’s best friend Kitster is Indian. Watto
recalls Jewish stereotypes; Anakin’s mother Shmi has been read as a reworking of the
Virgin Mary. In short, the Ž lm offers countless instances where Lucas draws on diverse
cultural in uences and loads them with either ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ connotations, with
no obvious bias against any single nation, faith or ethnicity. If we are to judge the
director’s political beliefs based on the evidence of the text, we should perhaps look at
the whole text, rather than at aspects in isolation.
Some critics would surely hold that whatever the authorial intention—and whoever the
author—the reception of the text is the most important site of meaning-production. In
simple terms, if an audience Ž nds a character racially offensive, it makes no difference
whether that character was intended as innocent pastiche. Yet we should note that some
viewers did receive the text exactly as it was apparently intended, as a melange of
diverse, evocative yet fantastical signiŽ ers which recall no single real-world referent
more than any other.

The Defence
Despite the critical marshalling of historical evidence against The Phantom Menace,
some commentators remained unconvinced. Note that the arguments which follow, taken
from About.com, are built on a knowledge of the text and its conventions—the syntax
of the opening scroll-up, the offhand reference to ‘Palpatine’—which implies a fan
investment in the saga rather than merely an objection on principle to what these writers
clearly see as ‘liberal’ complaints. It is worth asking whether, as indicated by my
audience research below, those who defended the movie were sometimes motivated by
a desperate loyalty to Lucas which transcended cultural background and political belief:
I have a few suggestions for future releases that might help make the Star Wars
universe a little more politically correct:
1. Mr. Lucas, for Episode 2, don’t include any cultural references that could
be construed as casting a negative light on any group present in the world
today. I suggest that Watto and Jar Jar undergo complete makeovers and
that their voices be provided by genteel white folks, like Hugh Downs or
Peter Jennings, who speak English that is devoid of any hint of an
accent …
2. You could address a lot of this in the Episode 2 scroll at the Ž lm’s
beginning:
It is a period of political correctness. After Palpatine’s election, great sensi-
tivity to potential racism has swept the Republic. All races have agreed to
abandon customs, dialects, clothing and all bodily characteristics that could be
construed as having offensive overtones to any minority. Therefore, all aliens
now speak proper English and have assumed the appearance of straightlaced
white guys, thereby, once and for all, bringing order and respect to the
galaxy …
Hey, it may be a little boring, but at least no one would get their feelings
hurt. 44
In keeping with the wounded exaggeration of this polemic, Jason Bayne argues against
the accusations of racism at a level which many would view as pedantically literal. ‘I’ve
 Readings of Racism 25

never seen an Arab or Jew with wings’, Bayne pointedly observes, ‘but I guess if you
look hard enough you could Ž nd offense in just about any small character.’

In most cases, these characters are amalgams of different cultural references,

and to point to one element of a character is really digging for something that
is not there. Personally, I think most if not all of these criticisms are just a bit
ridiculous. The voices may be similar to the collective preconceived notions of
how a certain group of people may speak, but that does not automatically make
it harmful or insulting. If one particular dialect is insulting, which one would
not be insulting? Should everybody in the Ž lm sound exactly the same? Of
course not. Star Wars is built on a foundation of cultural references. These
references are usually very small, and may carry a little meaning, or none at
all. References range from clothing to architecture to voices—it is all inspired
by elements of our own world. The use of these elements is not a slight to any
one group, but a celebration of the variety that our world provides. 45

We might Ž nd Bayne’s tone facetious, even offensive, just as we might object to Carroll
Roge’s complaint that Watto’s nose ‘looks more like a trunk than the nose of any Jewish
person I’ve ever seen. If anyone should be upset, it’s the Elephant Defamation League.’46
Yet Bayne is essentially taking the view, apparently supported by Lucas and his team,
that Star Wars texts offer a pastiche of diverse cultural references; he never mentions the
word ‘postmodern’, but the notion seems to lie at the basis of his argument.
These commentators are Ž ghting from a corner; they probably feel that the majority
discourse was constructed by critics ‘outside’ the text and the fan community, and that
it is built on a misunderstanding of what Star Wars ‘means’. In his anger, Roge makes
attacks on ‘political correctness’, such as his remark about Watto’s nose, which I initially
saw as rash and foolish. However, if we regarded this simply as a question about
interpretation, I would have agreed in principle with his argument. I would have agreed
that it was wrong to read a text in only one way, and that it was valid to suggest
alternative ways of seeing the character, even if I personally disagreed with them. Again,
I think many cultural studies theorists would take this democratic approach to readings
in the abstract; and again, I think that when the issues of interpretation become bound
up with concrete examples of race, we tend to adopt a different pattern of response out
of respect for others’ views or fear of condemnation. The same questions, though, surely
apply, and it is worth asking them.
As a fantastical character, Watto does carry a multitude of signiŽ ers, many of which
evoke real-world referents. I have noted above that a number of these characteristics—
gambling, swindling, large nose—can be related to racist stereotyping of Jewishness. Yet
several alien characters in Star Wars—Greedo, for instance, in the Ž rst Ž lm—have large
noses. Is it then the case that a fantasy character must carry several signiŽ ers which
relate to stereotype in order for this interpretation to be carried? If so, how many? What
of those signiŽ ers—wings, blue skin, webbed feet, pot belly—which do not seem to link
directly to the Jewish stereotype? Is it legitimate to simply disregard them as irrelevant
when we decide that these visual cues do not Ž t our interpretive template?
Finally, to return to an earlier example, what if a viewer argued that there exists a
racist stereotype of French Algerians as having large noses, of gambling and cheating,
and of stealing white children? Would this interpretation of Watto, who keeps Anakin
Skywalker as a slave, have more weight than the ‘Jewish’ reading, and would those who
26 W. Brooker

had seen this latter reading as ‘painfully obvious’ then be obliged to shift from their
original perspective? If the ‘Algerian’ reading had been taken up by the on-line press and
had become the majority, or dominant interpretation of Watto, would those who
immediately saw the character as Jewish be forced into a position of resistance and
opposition to what they saw as a hegemonic discourse?
I perceive Bayne’s tone as defensive to the point of denial, and disagree with his
refusal to see the accusations of racism as anything but ‘ridiculous’. Yet it is interesting
to see how a commentator reacts when he feels oppressed by the weight of the majority
interpretation, and argues from a position of resentment. Bayne’s comment on the
‘Jewish’ parallel that ‘this comparison never even crossed my mind until it was crammed
in there by the media’ also raises signiŽ cant questions about the role of the historical
discourse which was invoked by the critical reviews, and its power either to shape a
reading or to enforce the opposite interpretation. These issues form the primary focus of
my audience research.
If a young viewer with little awareness of historical stereotyping comes to the text
‘cold’, what cultural factors in uence their view of the characters in question? Once
made aware of the existence of this historical discourse, will they accept the majority
reading as truth, or react like Bayne, with resentment and resistance?

The Jury
I carried out my research with twenty-three undergraduate students from the Communi-
cations department at Richmond, the American International University in London. The
student body at Richmond is composed of young people from one hundred different
countries, and the group which took part in my research re ected this cultural diversity.
I began by showing three clips from The Phantom Menace on video: an early scene
with the Neimoidians, the introduction of Jar Jar Binks and the Ž rst appearance of Watto.
I then gave out the Ž rst of three questionnaire packs. This handout contained scanned
images of the three characters from the Visual Dictionary, with descriptions taken from
the same source. The questionnaire asked students to describe their cultural background
and religious beliefs as they perceived them, and then to consider the three characters in
turn. Did they Ž nd the character racially stereotypical in any way? If so, why?
The next handout comprised three critical reviews from the on-line press of May–June
1999, identifying the three characters in question as racial stereotypes. Students an-
swered the same questions as before, on a second questionnaire. Thirdly, they were
asked to look at a handout which described the historical stereotyping of Jewish,
Japanese and African-American people. In addition to scanned images of Stepin Fetchit,
the ‘Eternal Jew’ and an anti-Japanese poster from the 1940s, students were given short
transcriptions from John Dower, Donald Bogle, Sander Gilman and Anthony Rhodes
which described the historical stereotypes I discussed in the ‘Evidence’ section above.
They then answered the same set of questions.
Finally, the group members were invited to spend an hour discussing their response
to the questionnaires and to the research as a whole, using the university’s First Class
intranet system. Each individual could post his or her comments on-line where they were
read and responded to by other students in the group, using a ‘thread’ structure much like
an internet bulletin board or newsgroup discussion. I studied this intranet discussion
along with the collected questionnaires.
Overall, the written comments on the questionnaires demonstrated a clear shift from
diversity—a range of possible meanings—to agreement, as each subject fell into accord
 Readings of Racism 27

with the ‘majority’ interpretation given by the reviews. I was intrigued to see the range
of individual meaning which students were able to read into the characters before they
were made aware of the critical reviews. In responses to the Ž rst questionnaire, Watto
was described by a Pakistani student as being ‘like a modern day drug dealer’47 and by
an Arabic woman as ‘an Italian maŽ a member … even the way his appearance is, short
and chubby, all link in to the “mobster” stereotype’.48 Even more signiŽ cantly, the
Neimoidian character reminded a Tunisian woman of ‘Saddam Hussein, or any other
dictator’,49 while another, from the United States, suggested that ‘Daultay DoŽ ne
represents the evil Trade Federation, which invades peaceful civilisations … is this
representative of America?’50
These diverse responses suggest that some students were unaware of the widespread
discourse surrounding the characters, and furthermore that they were unfamiliar with the
historical stereotypes which those reviews invoked. It is signiŽ cant that students aged
between 18 and 20 years old apparently lacked the interpretive framework to identify the
Neimoidian accents as reminiscent of anti-Asian ‘Fu Manchu’ Ž lms, or Watto’s trunk as
paralleling the racist depiction of Jewish features; we might argue over whether this
unfamiliarity with racist texts constitutes an ignorance of cultural history or an encour-
aging absence of prejudice. It is possible that these stereotypes are not as culturally
embedded as they were, or as universally familiar as some critics assumed: I myself was
only familiar with the ‘Fu Manchu’ accent from my own research into 1940s American
Ž lm serials.
We might also want to ask whether the subsequent movement from this diverse range
of interpretation towards more uniŽ ed response constitutes an education into a shared
body of knowledge on stereotyping, or a triumph for hegemony. Certainly, the general
shift in the second and third questionnaire was towards an awareness or a reinforcement
of the dominant reading, and in most cases towards an acceptance of this interpretation:
… after reading this it shows they are purposely making implications of the
stereotypical Jew …51
… after reading this text the stereotypes became clearer and after being
exposed to the data I would rate the movie as extremely racist …52
… from the readings it seems like he portrays a Middle Eastern background
…53
… I didn’t see it before, but after reading this I can see it more.54
… as they mentioned the accent, the way Watto looked, I began to realise that
all of them are being stereotyped.55
… all this just struck me, when I saw the movie I didn’t think of all this at
all.56
There was some perceptible correlation between the responses and the subjects’ cultural
background, which they deŽ ned themselves at the head of the Ž rst questionnaire. Kate
Sherman, who identiŽ ed as ‘white-American Jewish’, consistently identiŽ ed Watto as
more offensive than the other two characters once she had read the reviews identifying
the character as a Jewish stereotype.57 Shade Afonja, a Nigerian woman, rated Jar Jar as
‘very stereotypical’ on the second questionnaire—‘I totally think this is a typical
stereotype of a “black man0 ’—while assessing Watto as ‘not stereotypical’58 at the same
stage of the research. Reem Zainalabedin, identifying herself as ‘Middle Eastern
28 W. Brooker

(Arabian Gulf)’, rated Jar Jar as entirely inoffensive—in contrast to Watto and the
Neimoidians, whom she considered ‘very stereotypical’—through each of the three
questionnaires, 59 while Phillip Mwarabu, ‘half English, half Tanzanian’, immediately
identiŽ ed Jar Jar with a ‘slave’ which was developed to ‘black slave’ by the second
questionnaire. 60
Again, this pattern of response echoes my own personal response to the Ž lm—that is,
my immediate identiŽ cation of the ‘Japanese’ stereotype and failure to recognize the
‘Jew’. Viewers were more likely to see offence in a character when it was associated
with a culture, or cultural stereotype, with which they were familiar. Once Jar Jar’s links
with black identity were made apparent, students from Nigeria and Tanzania responded
with understandable distaste; Watto’s connotations of Jewishness, on the other hand,
were apparently irrelevant to Shade, although her Arabic and Jewish colleagues both
found this character more offensive than Jar Jar.
Above and beyond these cultural differences, though, was the interpretive community
which the subjects, for the most part, entered when they aligned with the dominant
interpretation. Despite the variation in background and beliefs, by the time they Ž lled in
the third questionnaire the vast majority of respondents had agreed that Jar Jar was an
offensive stereotype of Caribbeans, Watto of Jewishness and the Neimoidians of Asian
culture. The relative diversity of interpretation revealed in the Ž rst questionnaires had
been shaped to produce a shared reading which linked each character with a fairly
speciŽ c ethnic group or geographic region. The woman who read Watto as an Italian
mobster now accepted he also had ‘Jewish characteristics’;61 the respondent who initially
saw the Neimoidians as a satire of the United States now judged them as ‘stereotypical
of Chinese’.62 The third questionnaire, then, speaks of a far more uniŽ ed interpretive
group than that which had entered the research.
It might be contested that the setting of this research in class time, and my own
relationship to the students as a member of faculty, led to a strong possibility of
conformity among the respondents. On the other hand, these were students of Communi-
cation, who are regularly encouraged in class to analyse, question and challenge, even
when that means contradicting the opinions of their professor. It was this latter
characteristic, rather than the desire to please, which seemed to emerge most clearly as
a distinct strand in the responses. Leslie McLellan, who had sacriŽ ced her original
reading of the Neimoidians as ‘American’ for the majority reading of ‘Chinese’, noted
on her third questionnaire that ‘I feel the obvious outcome the researcher wanted us to
make was “very stereotypical”.’63 While on the surface Leslie ‘conformed’ to the
dominant interpretation, and did indeed rate each of the characters as ‘very stereotypical’
on the Ž nal questionnaire, there was a strong voice of resistance underlying her response.
This sense of a split reaction—of bowing to the preferred meaning but stressing that this
was done under protest—was echoed, with variation, in other responses. Suzanne
Olsson, for instance, suggested a doubled perspective when she rated Watto and the
Neimoidian as ‘not stereotypical’ but observed ‘however, you really direct my thinking
that it’s very racially stereotypical’. If Leslie’s was, in the terms popularized by David
Morley and Stuart Hall, a ‘preferred’ reading with an undercurrent of opposition,
Suzanne’s was an ‘oppositional’ reading which showed an acute awareness of the
‘preferred’ interpretation.64
Similarly, Nouna Andersson stubbornly judged Watto and the Neimoidian as inoffen-
sive throughout the three questionnaires and repeatedly claimed they were ‘not really’
stereotypical, yet made it clear that she knew the reaction she was ‘expected’ to give.
In her reply to the question about Watto, she admitted:
 Readings of Racism 29

… I almost changed my mind. This I Ž nd is a way of ‘manipulating’ me into

thinking he is stereotyped. Actually, by giving me more and more information
based only on the view that all the characters are stereotyped, you direct me
(force me?) into thinking they all are.65
In the same way, Aurelia Kulig rated all three characters as ‘not stereotypical’
throughout, accepting the ‘intended’ reading of the reviews but only as a potentially
valid interpretation which remained distinct from her own. Asked whether Jar Jar was
racially stereotypical in any way, she replied:
In my opinion, no. But after reading the commentaries, and the connections
these authors were making to stereotypes in past Ž lms, I suppose some ideas
could be linked … but unless one is familiar with the Ž lms, their argument
isn’t very solid. I see what point is trying to be made, but on the whole I just
didn’t make any link to racism or stereotypes. … After being briefed on the
character Jar Jar is supposed to take after, I can see the connection of racial
stereotypes, but I really don’t think Lucas would risk racial anger in these
sensitive times … I think Watto was created purely in the image of an ugly,
horrible and cruel slave owner. 66
Again, these four respondents were drawn into an interpretive community which had
little, if anything, to do with their various cultural backgrounds. The resistance which
informed these answers may have something to do with the dynamic of nineteen-year-
old students replying to a twenty-nine year-old faculty member, or with the group’s
shared training in critical cultural analysis. On the intranet discussion following the
questionnaire research, Suzanne complained that she felt ‘manipulated’, and Nouna that
she was ‘angry’ at being persuaded to conform to a dominant set of responses. 67 It was
this feeling which seemed to lie behind the Bayne and Roge articles above, and it may
be compounded in the case of my research group by the uneasy awareness that
‘resistance’ to the pressure of the dominant Phantom Menace interpretation seems
aligned with a politically reactionary position.
Finally, and linked to the above group, was a small but distinct strand of response
which can perhaps be labelled the ‘fan’ reaction. Two young men, Ahmed Maasarani and
Satoshi Nakane, rated all three characters as inoffensive throughout the questionnaires.
Ahmed offered detailed reasons for his refusal to acknowledge the aliens as racially
stereotypical, based on a fan investment in the Ž lms and the director. Again, the parallel
to Jason Bayne’s argument is signiŽ cant:
My answer is the same for all categories. George Lucas’ intention in creating
Star Wars was never to create racial stereotypes. He gives particular human
accents and mannerisms to alien characters so that audiences can empathize
with and understand the characters …
…Lucas purposely imbues his fantastical alien characters with cultural man-
nerisms and accents that we are accustomed to so that we can universally
empathize with the alien characters … for example, the Jedi are based on the
samurai culture. The director was in uenced by the classic Kurosawa samurai
Ž lms.68
Satoshi’s response was brief, but heartfelt.
I am sorry.
30 W. Brooker

I do not want to think about it anymore, because I love Star Wars.69

So while the majority of respondents, once made aware of the cultural precedents which
informed the reading of The Phantom Menace as racist, agreed with this interpretation,
certain others chose—for various reasons—to resist. Just as those who aligned with the
‘dominant’ reading, once given the historical framework through which the reviews had
judged the Ž lm text, reached agreement despite their diverse cultural backgrounds and
their initially varied reactions, so resistance to the dominant interpretation also formed
a ‘community’ which has little relation to actual cultural identity. In this case, Satoshi
and Ahmed—‘Japanese Atheist’ and ‘British Islamic’, respectively—were united by
their loyalty to the Star Wars saga and director, and so formed a tight-knit subgroup
which would hear no word against George Lucas.

Inconclusion
What we can usefully draw from this research, I think, is the notion that to read a text
as ‘racist’ depends, as do most readings, on interpretive community. Certainly, ethnic
background is an important factor, as, it seems, is age: younger viewers are unlikely to
be aware of the historical stereotyping of Japanese, Jewish and African-American
identity during the 1940s which, according to many critics, informs Lucas’ depiction of
alien races. Education, in the broadest sense, also plays a part; once they had been
introduced to this historical material, most of my respondents joined a new interpretive
community which viewed the Ž lm through a shared framework.
In other circumstances, to make such proposals about interpretation would seem
utterly banal. However, as I indicated at the start of this paper, when we discuss
interpretations of race we encounter a different terrain. Some of my fellow academic
delegates, like the journalists and critics cited above, were insistent that the Ž lm was
incontrovertibly racist, that the interpretation they held to was absolutely obvious, and
that to argue otherwise was ethically suspect. I still cannot fall into accord with this
approach, although I understand it, and can imagine myself arguing with the same
tenacity about the Phantom Menace characters which I did see as unambiguously
stereotypical.
I do not think we can assume that there exists a shared cultural body of racial
stereotypes, a shared interpretive template through which racism in popular texts
becomes ‘obvious’. I believe that we can be shown the template, and invited to look
through it, and that what we see may change our original view of the text. On the other
hand, the experience may cause us to adopt a double vision which, though ambivalent,
is not necessarily uncomfortable. It is quite possible to accept that Watto is genuinely
offensive to Jewish audiences and to respect this position, while not actually occupying
it oneself; even while maintaining an alternative perspective at the same time.
I suspect that most viewers engaged with The Phantom Menace in much the same way
that I did; reading it through a framework which combined personal experience of
stereotypes with a degree of secondary knowledge from another viewpoint; seeing some
correlations between text and ‘real life’ referent as immediately obvious, some as
persuasive after consideration, some as interesting and potentially valid, and some as
difŽ cult to accept. Like all issues of interpretation, reading racism is a complex and
ambiguous process. Surely we should not set it aside as a special case, refusing to
examine the frameworks which determine our reading and implying that racial stereo-
 Readings of Racism 31

type, once identiŽ ed, cannot be disputed or examined. The questions are less simple than
that, and they deserve to be opened up to debate, rather than closed down.

Correspondence: Will Brooker, e-mail: BROOKEW@Richmond.ac.uk

Notes
[1] Steve Wilson, I was a Jar Jar jackass, Salon.com, http://www.salon.com (8 June 1999).
[2] David West Reynolds, Star Wars Episode One: the Visual Dictionary (London: Lucas Books/Dorling
Kindersley, 1999), pp. 36–37.
[3] See Vladimir Propp, The Morphology of the Folktale (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968). The
British teaser posters featuring Jar Jar Binks emphasized this narrative function with the simple caption
‘One Clown. One Friend.’
[4] Laurent Bouzereau and Jody Duncan, The Making of The Phantom Menace (London: Lucas Books/Ebury
Press, 1999), p. 105.
[5] Stepin Fetchit is mentioned by name in Wilson, op. cit., C. Antonio Romero, What real Phantom Menace
haunts this movie?, http://www.culturekiosque.com (12 June 1999), ‘Glen’, response to Alexandra
Dupont, review of The Phantom Menace, DVD Journal, http://www.dvdjournal.com (15 May 1999), and
John Leo, Fu Manchu on Naboo, US News & World Report 127 (2) 7 December 1999.
[6] I use the term to include both on-line versions of print newspapers or journals and dedicated,
Internet-only forums like Salon.com.
[7] David Brin, review, Salon.com, op. cit. (15 June 1999).
[8] Rita Kempley, Phantom: lost in hyperspace, Washington Post on-line, http://www.washingtonpost.com
(13 May 1999).
[9] Anon, Cybercreatures rule The Phantom Menace, New York Now on-line, http://www.nynow.com (9 May
1999).
[10] Frank Scheck, Impressive Phantom Menace lacks human element, The Hollywood Reporter on-line,
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com (May 1999).
[11] Karen Hershenson, Alienating: Menace lacks soul, Contra Costa Times on-line, http://www.cctimes.com
(13 May 1999).
[12] DuPont, op. cit.
[13] Patricia J. Williams, Racial ventriloquism, The Nation on-line, http://www.thenation.com (5 July 1999).
[14] Leo, op. cit.
[15] Romero, op. cit.
[16] DuPont, op. cit.
[17] Vincent Law, The Phantom Menace of Asian stereotypes, About.com, http://about.com (22 May 1999).
[18] Romero, op. cit.
[19] Williams, op. cit.
[20] Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: an Interpretive History of Blacks in
American Films (New York: Continuum, 1990), pp. 39–41.
[21] Lucas, op. cit., p. 15.
[22] See Anthony Rhodes, Propaganda: the Art of Persuasion (London: Angus & Robertson, 1984), p. 182.
[23] Sander Gilman, The Jew’s Body (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 179.
[24] David West Reynolds, Star Wars Episode One: the Visual Dictionary (London: Lucas Books/Dorling
Kindersley, 1999), pp. 50–51.
[25] Ibid., p. 172.
[26] Ibid., p. 16.
[27] John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the PaciŽ c War (New York: Pantheon Books,
1986), p. 83.
[28] Ibid., p. 185.
[29] Ibid., p. 113.
[30] Ibid., p. 313.
[31] Reynolds, pp. 16–17.
[32] Quoted in Leo, op. cit.
[33] Lucas, ‘stung by charges of ethnic stereotyping in The Phantom Menace’, is ‘seeking a more culturally
diverse cast’ for Episode 2, Evening Standard, 10 February 2000.
32 W. Brooker

[34] Ibid., p. 12.

[35] Ibid., p. 17.
[36] Ibid., p. 19.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid., p. 24.
[39] Ibid., p. 141.
[40] Ibid., p. 141.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Interview with New York Daily News, quoted in Jason Bayne, op. cit.
[43] Ibid., p. 13.
[44] Carroll Roge, quoted in Jason Bayne, About.com, http:www.about.com (7 June 1999).
[45] Bayne, op. cit.
[46] Roge, quoted in Bayne, ibid.
[47] Ali Majid, response to questionnaire 1 (9 February 00).
[48] Dana Albardawil, response to questionnaire 1 (9 February 00).
[49] Nejla Kouniali, response to questionnaire 1 (9 February 00).
[50] Leslie McLellan, response to questionnaire 1 (9 February 00).
[51] Kate Sherman, response to questionnaire 2 (9 February 00).
[52] Anushree Somany, response to questionnaire 2 (9 February 00).
[53] Dana Albardawil, response to questionnaire 2 (9 February 00).
[54] Dana Albardawil response to questionnaire 3 (9 February 00).
[55] Suad El-Turk, response to questionnaire (9 February 00).
[56] Ali Majid, response to questionnaire 3 (9 February 00).
[57] Kate Sherman, response to questionnaires 1, 2, 3 (9 February 00).
[58] Shade Afonja, response to questionnaires 2, 3 (9 February 00).
[59] Reem Zainalabedin, response to questionnaires 1, 2, 3 (9 February 00).
[60] Phillip Mwarabu, response to questionnaires 1, 2 (9 February 00).
[61] Dana Albardawil, response to questionnaire 3 (9 February 00).
[62] Leslie McLellan, response to questionnaire 3 (9 February 00).
[63] Ibid.
[64] See Morley, The ‘Nationwide’ Audience, London: BFI (1980).
[65] Nouna Andersson, response to questionnaire 3 (9 February 00).
[66] Aurelia Kulig, response to questionnaire 3 (9 February 00).
[67] Suzanne Olsson and Nouna Andersson, intranet discussion (9 February 00).
[68] Ahmed Maasarani, response to questionnaires 2, 3 (7 February 00).
[69] Satoshi Nakane, response to questionnaire 2 (7 February 00).

Will Brooker is lecturer in Communication at Richmond, the American International University in London. His
most recent book is Batman Unmasked (2000) and he is working on a study of Star Wars Fandom, to be
published in 2002.
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