Jedism?

[loki09789]

When you determine social position largely in terms of inherited characteristics, and you tie those characteristics to certain "groups," and you link all this stuff to perfectly common stereotypes right here on earth, what the hell WOULD you like to call it? Didja not LISTEN to the way the characters talk? Jar Jar and his amusing, dancing, rhythym-loving boyos?

Making a few peripheral characters, "different," or doesn't help. it's tokenism--even if, according to your logic, it turns out that the ENTIRE ARMY OF THE, "REPUBLIC," has a dark skin. Clones, remember?

As for the original "Star Trek--" despite its pseudo-liberalism, did you NOT notice that everyplave you went in the galaxy turned out to be America? Did you NOT see the episodes focused on Nazi Germany, on the white, "Yangs," vs. the yellow, "Coms?"

Guys, watch the shows. And keep watching the skies. Sheesh, next you'll be claiming that L. Ron and Lovecraft weren't wacko on the topic of race...

And I have watched the shows. I basically grew up on them, became addicted to them and have watched them all in syndication a billion times over....

If, by 'racist', your implying that Lucas, Roddenberry were making negative ("you know how 'those' people' are") comments about blacks, jews, native americans....then you are dead wrong. As you said, ST had a liberal bent to it, how can that create 'racism' when liberalism is suppose to be all embracing? Same with Lucas' SW movies. There is some underlying social commentary about classism, money, power, corruption and he uses certain depictions of alien races to depict the haves vs. the have nots but OF COURSE that is going to be from a limited perspective (Life experience, education, research) when your talking about a single person's vision combined with production teams.

I would say that Sci Fi writers use 'stereotypes' or as they are known in literature 'archetypes' when they create alien or humanoid characters to make commentary of all kinds. Just because 'they' are doing it, doesn't automatically make it 'racist.' That would be like saying 'everyone who carries a gun is evil/good/soldier....' just because they are carrying a gun.

Sci Fi is the new allagorical tale IMO. It works, generally, from strong depictions of characters as 'types' to drive the story and create the friction that keeps us interested....but then any good story does that.

Lucas, at his worst, through his settings and characterizations, is making Dickensian commentary about money, corporations and how power greed and insensitivity will create inequitable quality of life and cultural insensitivity (look at the whole Jar Jar Binks thing).