"The Phantom Menace" gave us many offensive characters. Jar Jar Binks was a racist stereotype that poked fun at African American people. His mannerisms and speech seemed to be modeled on stereotypical and racist views of Blacks. And in the same movie, Lucas managed to also single out Jewish people with Watto the junk dealer who concerned himself with "only money." But still not satisfied with that, Lucas gave us Nute Gunray, thereby sealing "The Phantom Menace" as having a trifecta of some of the most racially offensive characters in history. And you're in luck, because Nute Gunray is in the Clone Wars cartoon series and that's who I'm going to talk about today :).
Nute Gunray was a Neimodian who served as a Minister of the Trade Federation. His first real episode is "Bombad Jedi," which is the eighth episode of season one of the television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Threepio, Jar-Jar as a Jedi and Padme Amidala on Rodia.
In this episode, Amidala is sent by Chancellor Palpatine on secret mission to Rodia (remember Greedo?) to negotiate a peace treaty. On her way, she meets up with a Rodian friend who just happens to be a traitor working for Nute Gunray (the head of the evil Trade Federation that was responsible for keeping a stranglehold on Amidala's home planet of Naboo). Anyway, this traitor captures Amidala and Jar Jar Binks disguises himself as a Jedi and tries to rescue her. With a little help from a sea monster and her friend (who has second thoughts on allying with Gunray), Padme is rescued and Nute Gunray is captured. The episode is named "Bombad Jedi" because Padme's friend calls Jar Jar "Master Bombad."
Below is a clip from the episode featuring everyone's favorite character, Jar-Jar Binks. Honestly...I hated this episode. And that's probably why it stuck in my memory.
Why do I think Nute Gunray is a racist stereotype?
1) He speaks with an Asian accent.
2) He works in the tech field (the Trade Federation is full of droid workers, robots, etc.)
3) He is every bit an unfortunate racial stereotype of Japanese businessmen, treating "trade" like "war." 4) Emasculation and asexuality. From Wikipedia: Chinese laborers in the mid 1800s were given an emasculated image due to physical appearance and the fact they did what Americans considered to be "women's work." They wore long silk gowns (which Gunray does) and usually had long braids.
So yeah...there you have it. Racism is alive and well in children's cartoons people! But I still like the series as a whole. I guess nothing is perfect. If I could ask Lucas one question though, it would be "what the hell were you thinking when you made this character?"
Jedi Master Kit Fisto and his padawan Nahdar Vebb (the fish-faced dude with
the blue lightsaber). Click to Embiggen for detail. This is not an illustration.
It is a screenshot from the actual episode. Yes, the Clone Wars animation
frickin' rocks. It's the best I've ever seen in a t.v. series.
Kit Fisto was a Nautolan (the name comes from a nautilus sea creature, because he has tentacles on his head) Jedi Master. During the Clone Wars his padawan Nahdar Vebb got killed by General Grievous. Kit often got deployed on water worlds, because he had the ability to breathe underwater.
Kit's own life ended abruptly fighting Darth Sidious alongside Mace Windu in Revenge of the Sith. And no, the part where Kit defends himself basically lasts five seconds. I always thought that was b.s., but I guess Lucas just really wanted Darth Sidious to come across as someone you cannot mess with unless you are Yoda or Mace Windu or Darth Vader. Those are the only three people that ever stood a chance against him. Sigh. Imagine if Mace and Yoda had showed up in Revenge of the Sith to arrest Palpatine instead of Kit and some Jedi that I don't even recognize. I think the movies would have ended up different for sure.
Anyway, back to the Cartoon Networks: The Clone Wars and the role Kit Fisto plays.
Kit shows up in the episode "The Lair of Grievous", which is episode 10 of season 1 and entirely excellent. Here's the blurb from it:
Viceroy Gunray escapes!
En route to Coruscant to stand trial
for war crimes, evil Separatist leader
Nute Gunray has broken free of his
Jedi escort. With the help of Count
Dooku's sinister agents, the villainous
viceroy has made a daring getaway.
Alerted to the bold prison break,
Jedi Master Kit Fisto has traced the
stolen ship to a remote system,
hoping to recapture Gunray and
return him to justice.
Kit and his padawan follow the tracking beacon to the planet Vassek, but Nute is gone. However, in cowardly Nute style, Gunray has left behind a gloating hologram which then transforms into a hologram of Dooku. Dooku then says, "You can't have Gunray, but I've got an alternative prize for you." The "alternative prize" ends up being General Grievous who really is quite a badass robot with multiple limbs and multiple lightsabers. A battle ensues in which General Grievous uses the fortress on the planet to his advantage.
General Grievous makes a pretty good bad guy, I think. Click to Embiggen.
Grievous and Kit play a cat and mouse game. The general sits in the control room and slowly whittles away at Fisto's clone support and then gets Kit separated from his padawan. Grievous makes short work of Kit's apprentice. Below, I've embedded a clip from the episode showing Kit Fisto fighting Grievous. It's a pretty sweet lightsaber battle and really shows how great the animation is. I like the two lightsaber fighting style. It just looks awesome. If you are a fan of Star Wars, you really should take the time to watch this clip.
Come back tomorrow for my post on Jedi Master Luminara Unduli (she's one of my favorites).
4) Emasculation and asexuality. From Wikipedia: Chinese laborers in the mid 1800s were given an emasculated image due to physical appearance and the fact they did what Americans considered to be "women's work." They wore long silk gowns (which Gunray does) and usually had long braids.
