Thinking Critically About Jar-Jar Binks' Ethnicity; presented to Western Social Science Association national conference, 2000

Thinking critically about Jar-Jar Binks’ ethnicity


by Chris Rodgers



autonomous cultural productions




History is an infinite number of events, an infinite number of facts. Inevitably, you must select from that number of facts those things which you are going to present, if you’re going to write, if you’re going to teach. What is going to go into this book, or what is going to go into your lecture, into your classroom; there’s no way of avoiding the process of selection. And once you make that selection, that selection is based on your point of view, whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you even know it or not. There’s a way you can reproduce the point of view that has been dominant in your culture without even knowing you are reproducing the dominant point of view.

Howard Zinn

Not everyone hates Jar Jar Binks, the controversial comic relief sidekick of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Some viewers were amused, some are still disgusted. Many viewers were extremely irritated; few had the words to explain why. I identified with Jar Jar’s social inappropriateness, marginalization, and general ambiguity. Maybe that is why I feel qualified to identify Jar Jar’s ethnicity: socially emasculated by my feminisms, academic docility, and consumption of cultural goods from groups of which I am not an authentic member, an ascendant oriented member of a dominated region of social space, I am marked by my class background and trained in symbolic sensitivity.

My aim is to give the listener a feel for the cultural affiliations of a character most find hard to take seriously, unless one feels insulted. I am indebted to everyone who gave me input on their reactions to the film; my ownership of these ideas is tenuous. Though much fieldwork helped shape this presentation, I want to specifically thank Daniel Buffington, Mollie Johnson, and Mike Friis without whom I would not have come to this. Now let me tell you a story.

I will follow a pragmatic course: from the more straightforward, to the more abstract, and back again. Race is the most publicly disputed of Jar Jar’s issues. Gender will follow. Class will be still more ambiguous. I generally start with an official representation, from the movie, The Illustrated Screenplay, and The Illustrated Dictionary. When appropriate, I will follow this with input from people I’ll call informants. Then I will articulate more possible perceptions of Binks’ group affiliations. Influential will be my perspective as cultural native, likely target audience, biased critic, and scientist, among others.1

Given the biases involved in analyses of narrative and popular culture, the tone taken here may seem peculiar. In order to remove implications from their filmic context to then reconstruct them in an historical manner, a relatively polemic style was adopted. For example, putting the meanings together in this way destroys the time frame of the cinematic presentation; which is problematic as The Phantom Menace retemporalizes the type of history we might find in primary and secondary history textbooks in the United States. Thus, representations of the past, generally unpopular with their juridically enforced audiences (i.e. students), are made entertaining through the reconfiguration of time, space, auditory and visual perception, and association: that is, historical and cultural references are transfigured into a homological discourse. I cannot substitute for the movie with its sights and sounds, but I will interpret it. References will be more fully cited in footnotes, though I will re-articulate many of the symbolic associations offered to the international cinema audience. The literary tone of present tense is used for the above reasons, and because the future of the movie is only a VCR or DVD away.

RACE

The term race is only used once in the film, but the word is given many connotations. The junk trader Watto (a heavily ethnicized character identified as stereotypical of Italians, Jews and Arabs, and New Yorkers) says to Jedi Knight Qui Gon Jinn that Anikin Skywalker is “a credit to your race.”2. Jinn calls Watto “my blue friend.” Qui Gon and Anikin both seem to be homo sapiens sapiens (though, supposedly, we are viewing long ago, far away). Jar Jar (JJ) comes from a group (or race) called Gungan. The Gungan live on a planet called Naboo, which is also the name of the apparently homo sapiens group that also lives on that planet, as well as the name of the star system. Qui Gon calls Binks “a local.” Trade Federation viceroy Nute Gunray calls the Gungans “primitive life forms.” Jar Jar says that the Gungan are “warriors.” Qui Gon uses the term “indigenous tribes” in describing some inhabitants of the planet Tattoine. The proud and primitive locals of what is now Naboo, that might also be called an indigenous tribe, consider themselves warriors. It is interesting to note who reveals what euphemism, how, and when. Even this cursory sample of positions taken implies positions occupied.

The Gungan body seems racialized. They have very large lips and mouths that seem to dominate their heads. Jar Jar seems to walk with an exageratedly loose loping stride. An excerpt from The Visual Dictionary3 reads: “Like all Gungans, Jar Jar’s skeleton is made of cartilage, making him flexible and rubbery. Even his skull and jaws are elastic, giving the simple Gungan a wide range of facial expressions.”

In context, certain portrayals are literal denials of racialization, though signs remain. The Gungan live in Otoh Gunga, a city hidden underwater. Jar Jar is amphibious, so the Gungan seem similarly implicated. In fact, Binks “worries about exposing his amphibian skin to the heat and suns” of Tattoine.4 But the “sacred place” to which the Gungan retreat from the intrusions of the invading droid army is above water, described in the Screenplay as the “NABOO SACRED TEMPLE RUINS” in the “NABOO SWAMP.”5 The Naboo occupy the opposite end of the planet, in a city on land called Theed, connected to Otoh Gunga by underwater passages that lead through the planet’s core.

The Visual Dictionary offers this about Binks’ language: “Jar Jar speaks a pidgin Gungan dialect of Galactic Basic. Few Gungans speak the pure Gungan language.” Galactic Basic sounds like English, though there are a variety of recognizable accents among the movie’s various characters. What exactly is meant by a pidgin here is ambiguous; but Jar Jar does not speak pure Galactic Basic, nor the pure Gungan language.6 This is a prudent place to introduce a break with the relatively internal representation of Jar Jar’s ethnicity. The official positions taken reify artistic (or at least entertainment market) consecration: license that severs cultural production from its socio-political implications.7

There is another official social fact relevant here. In The Illustrated Screenplay, the only characters who’s lines are spelled out phonetically are Gungan. Thus, the Gungan are made to seem linguistically different; an ‘alien’ race distinguished as no other was (at least in pre-production). One reason to spell out in dialect is to differentiate from the standard, or better, legitimate pronunciation and implied spelling.

Though this is by no means a study of reactions to Binks’, some presentation is in order. For example, from newspaper articles available on-line (many comments of which were also heard from survey participants and other informants): “a computer-generated idiot who talks like a Caribbean galley-slave.”8 Binks “speaks in Caribbean-accented pidgin English and wears dreadlocks,” and is labeled “Rastafarian.”9 Jar Jar’s “big lips, dreadlocks, bulging eyes and wide nose” make him an obvious racist black parody.10 “In addition, the Gungan, the primitive tribe of which Jar Jar is a member, is ruled by a fat, buffoonish character, seemingly a caricature of a stereotypical African chieftain.”11 One very concise and articulated set of comments from the publication The Nation reads: “Lets’ just take the movie’s chief comic relief, the popeyed, brainless Jar Jar Binks, who is, apparently, a black man in frog face. Nothing wrong with that, say Lucasfilm; this is science fiction. Except he’s a froggy alien who talks, yet says nothing. And who “lopes” (as per George Lucas’s specifications, according to Ahmed Best, who plays Jar Jar) in a prancing, high-stepping cakewalk. He is a ‘Gungan Chuba Thief,’ as a Star Wars card in my son’s little trading collection proclaims. Whether intentionally or not, Jar Jar’s pratfalls and high jinx borrow heavily from the genre of minstrelsy. Despite the amphibian get-up, his relentless, panicky, manchild-like idiocy is imported directly from the days of Amos ‘N’ Andy. And whether it were a white man, a black woman or Al Jolsin himself beneath the mask, what would make all the clowning so particularly insulting is the fact that Jar Jar’s speech is a weird pidgin mush of West African, Caribbean and African-American linguistic styles.”12

As for more traditionally ethnographic evidence, three particularly strong phrases used in response to my query seem to have racial connotations: “black ghetto idiot,” “black ghetto punk,” and “noble savage.” One informant said he thought Binks spoke like a plantation slave constantly expecting to be hit. From informants, I’ve read and heard the phrases “blackface comedy” and “black stereotype” many times. Many people identified JJ specifically as Jamaican, and more generally as Caribbean.

One colleague, taking a class in Anthropology of Caribbean colonial relations immediately identified Jar Jar as Caribbean and Jamaican and insisted I see the movie. Both my roommate in Albuquerque and my sister in western New York claimed they were immediately sure that Binks walked like Bob Marley.

The analysis this evidence has provoked is premised on a number of (relatively) similar ideas. We might describe Gungan ethnicity in terms of metaphor, resonance, recognition, or association. The term I prefer is homological resemblance of discourse, the transfiguration of meaning that manages social misrecognition.13 This sort of misrecognition requires enough association to make sense, yet has been symbolically manipulated so as to dis-resemble or dis-associate from the sub-textualized signifiers such discursive homology requires. The whole of the presentation is thus equal to more than the sum of the parts.

There are a number of specific strategies that seem utilized in the science fictionalization of the Star Wars universe. In working to define science fiction Darko Suvin describes the appropriation of an authors empirical world, to which is added the “novuum”, or strange newness.14 Thus, Suvin calls sci-fi the “literature of cognitive estrangement.” Philip Dick, in another definitional essay, describes a “conceptual dislocation” that leads to a convulsive “shock of dysrecognition.”15 The most telling strategy, for our purposes, documented by a science fiction academic, concerns the blatant (and subtle) ways that ‘aliens’ have been racialized, especially in films. Though Charles Ramirez Berg most specifically shows how Hispanics and Latinos (‘aliens’) have been represented as ‘Aliens’ (in anxiety about immigration pressures),16 its not too difficult to see how ‘ethnic’ Star Wars ‘aliens’ are in relation to all the white humans (and black humans that sound rather white). Perhaps instead of immigration anxiety, in T.P.M. we are to resolve tension over slavery, colonization, and imperialism (all of which involve the movement of bodies).

The Phantom Menace also evidences the social division of differentiated groups into two antagonistic, complimentary opposites. In addition, other strategies include the union of these divided contraries, public and subjective denials of the objective reality of the situation, and the many inversions, reversals, and transfigurations required to sufficiently deny the relationships involved.

Let’s take, for example, the ambiguous symbiance between the Gungan and Naboo. If we let the ambiguity cloud the relational implications, we cut ourselves off from the benefits of further analysis. In talking with Boss Nass, the Gungan leader, Obi-Wan says: “You and the Naboo form a symbiont circle. What happens to one of you will affect the other. You must understand this.” Later, Qui-Gon explains to Anikin about midi-chlorians: “Midi-chlorians are a microscopic life form that resides within all living cells and communicates with the Force.” Anikin replies “They live inside of me?” “In your cells. We are symbionts with the midi-chlorians,” Qui-Gon explains. “Symbionts?” “Life forms living together for mutual advantage. Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force.” These are all relevant comments, but here, we should take note that symbionts are defined as life forms living together for mutual advantage. Unsurprisingly, the symbiosis between the Gungan and Naboo is not fully explained within the cinematic presentation, nor within the screenplay.

The symbiotic relationship ambiguously alluded to between the Naboo and Gungan reminds me of Hegel’s famous analysis of the Master-Slave antagonism. This is likely due to my exposure to Paul Gilroy’s notion of a black Atlantic experience, using the colonization of the African continent as an historical example of this social and cultural vision and division of the world.17 If the colonizer can believe in the correctness and justness of enslavement, he will likely invest more effort than if he believes slavery to be wrong or immoral. If the colonized can be convinced of their profit from their exploitation, which is normal, natural, and mutually advantageous, they may collude in their own domination more and struggle against it less. More importantly, it seems, if we can unite the two toward a common cause, that relieves the pressure imminent in any sublimated relation of exploitation, we might focus the powers of both outward instead of inward at each other.

I cannot here stress enough the importance of spatial orientation in the construction of Gungan ethnicity. The Gungan live below water, in hidden cities. The Naboo live above, on land, in a futuristic renaissance metropolis. Yet, when in trouble, Gungans return to a sacred place on land, creating the impression of displacement. This impression is furthered by the name of the area: “NABOO SACRED TEMPLE RUINS.” Fortunately, Gungans are amphibious. Otoh Gunga and Theed are located at opposite ends of the planet. Yet they maintain an unexplained mutual advantage. This is the symbiance between the dominant and dominated, represented as mutually advantageous in the manner of a truly hegemonic discourse: the benefits accrued to those willing to participate in their exploitation as one of the lower, by those of the higher.

Why would the Gungan speak a pidgin language? A pidgin can be defined by its usage as a manner of mediation between two or more groups; or alternatively through its illegitimacy, incorrectness, and inappropriateness in either/any of the ‘natural language’ situations from which it would have been born. Perhaps their cultural situation had been immersed within that of a now temporally dominant force. Maybe their linguistic situation had been changed by colonial and cultural imperialism. Maybe the ambiguity is supposed to cloud conclusions. ‘Race’ here takes on in filmic life that which it really is: metaphor and justification for a specific time and place in the rationalization of domination, exploitation, and colonization. Pidgin implies an official illegitimacy; while race becomes a discursive meta-narrative that justifies the violence of history, and thus the present. If pidgin here refers to Sierra Leone (one name for the west African trading language used before, and utilized during, the colonization of west Africa), which may also be one of the earliest forms of “pidgin-English,” from which the word possibly originates, the picture would become more clear.

There is, perhaps, no more concise manifestation of Gungan racial implications than the final battle scene. The Gungan emerge from the swamp to the sound of an instrument associated with Australian natives referred to as a digderydoo. Some Gungan are mounted on kaadu, bipedal horse-like creatures. Their weapons include energy rods that look like spears, as well as ‘boomers,’ balls of energy that short out battle droids on impact. These last are propelled by both catapult and sling. As well, the Gungan are shielded by a canopy of energy, in addition to a front line of individual shield holders inside the larger barrier. Not only do the warriors assembled seem technologically disadvantaged, especially compared to the droid invasion army they face. The Gungan are specifically referred to as ‘primitives.’ At best they look to be canon fodder. At worst, this could be a futuristic recreation of African continental colonization by industrialized imperial nation-state armies.

But where is Jar Jar in all of this? The Visual Dictionary says most of it. “Boss Nass misinterprets Jar Jar’s connections with the newly-favored Naboo royalty as maturity and makes him a general in the Gungan Grand Army-much to the dismay of the troops he is to ‘command.’ Jar Jar lives up to their expectations when he panics during combat, falls off his mount, and instantly surrenders when surrounded. Fortunately, few soldiers pay the new general any attention and since the Gungans win the battle anyway Boss Nass is none the wiser.” But the Screenplay tells us even more. Before the fighting, “Jar Jar is nervous” (118). Once the Gungan distraction is raging, “Jar Jar’s clumsiness works for him in the battle. He gets caught up in the wiring of a blasted DROID, dragging the torso around with him, the DROID’s gun firing randomly, accidentally blasting SEVERAL DROIDS in the process” (125). There is simply not space for all of Binks’ battle bungling here, much less time to recall all of his high jinx. But let me quickly list the implications of the last two selections: Jar Jar is immature, nervous and panic-prone under stress, inept, cowardly, and clumsy, though clumsiness can work for him.

The Visual Dictionary seemingly misattributes victory to the Gungan. In fact, Queen Amidala persuaded Boss Nass to offer the Gungan Grand Army as diversion; the battle was to draw the invasion forces away from the city, so that a raiding party could capture the Trade Federation viceroy. This, however, would have led to the complete decimation of the Gungan, according to the orders of Darth Sidious, had not Anikin Skywalker blown up the droid army control ship, seemingly without meaning to do so. This is not the first time Jar Jar has narrowly escaped catastrophe. Additionally, there is also by now a growing list of the times Jar Jar has been assisted from harm’s path.

Instead of listing off the ten or more each of Binks’ accidental incidents or saviors, let me reproduce a scene from the screenplay that was changed for the film. As they journey toward the planet core, en route to the Naboo, they do so in a bongo, a Gungan sub-marine transporter not incidentally of organic design. Obi-Wan asks,

OBI-WAN: Why were you banished, Jar Jar?

JAR JAR: Tis a longo tale [pronounced tell-oh in cinema], buta small part wowdabe messa...ooooh...aaa...clumsy.

OBI-WAN: They banished you because you’re clumsy?

As the little sub glides ever deeper into the planet core, a large dark shape begins to follow.

JAR JAR: Mesa cause-ed mabee one or duey lettal bitty axadentes...yud-say boom da gasser, un crash Der Bosses heyblibber...den banished.

Suddenly there is a loud CRASH, and the little craft lurches to one side. QUI-GON looks around and sees a huge, luminous OPEE SEA KILLER has hooked them with its long gooey tongue.

QUI-GON: Full speed ahead.

Instead of full ahead, JAR JAR jams the controls into reverse. The sub flies into the mouth of the creature.

JAR JAR: Ooooops.

OBI-WAN: Give me the controls.

They get away, leaving the impression that the Force has helped them get through. The film does not show Jar Jar holding the controls (Obi-Wan pilots the bongo, of which he knows nothing), nor does it explain (as does The Visual Dictionary) that “panicky Jar Jar is possibly the worst navigator the Jedi could have...He has paid no attention to submarine piloting or to finding his way beyond his swamp home.” The racial implications of clumsiness, constant close calls, and the need for assistance are associative.

In a Pepsi television commercial, we might learn about Jar Jar’s cinematic role from an advertising alien (in case we didn’t know) when the ad proclaims “Meesa Jar Jar Binks come for comic relief.” But in light of the commentary above, we might call him a blackface, slapstick entertainer. His comedic value seems based around his clumsiness and inappropriateness, which seems to play off his background of noble savagery. When we meet JJ he has already been banished from Otoh Gunga. He is immediately saved (from his own panic-stricken immobility) by Qui-Gon, and continues to seemingly require help throughout the film - generally assisted by white humans.

Binks’ entertainment value took on expanded meaning after re-examining the first cinematic representations (several times). After being knocked to the ground and shielded by Qui-Gon Jinn, Jar Jar flips to his feet. Then, when he leads the Jedi to Otoh Gunga, Binks jumps high into a twisting, flipping dive. According to The Visual Dictionary he has “powerful calf muscles for swimming.” All of which gives me the impression of athleticism. It should be clear that no single aspect of Jar Jar’s character reveals his ethnic affiliations. It should also be clear that the affiliations are not made solely by the cultural producer, nor solely by the cultural consumer. This athletic talent seems out of character with Binks’ clumsiness. Physical clumsiness could be metaphorical for social clumsiness and cultural inappropriateness. If Jar Jar was a post-colonial black male of African diasporic descent, these attributes would seem to fall in line, from the perspective of an United States of American, of north/west European descent, in denial about the history behind her or his class positions.

But Jar Jar’s race is clouded by his other group affiliations, and by denials of group affiliations. Race is what we might call an impure concept, stigmatized as it is by the conditions of its existence. Perhaps this actually clarifies Gungan identity. Jar Jar uses the phrase “mooie-mooie” at least four times during the film. It seems an unlikely coincidence that the pronunciation sounds like muy, the Spanish word for very. The context seems to have made it virtually incomprehensible to most viewers, as I have heard and seen nothing regarding Binks’ Hispanic background. But the usage of the phrase makes it clear enough: “mooie” means “very (something).” Boss Nass says a couple of things with long rolling ‘r’ sounds, giving a southern European, possibly Italian flavor to Otoh Gunga. It would be amusing to suggest a racial line, or even a color line, being followed; but I am not informed enough about the issue to do so.

Denials of racial identification are subtle and blatant. The most intricate denial is the market consecration of artistic consecration: summed up in the phrase “it’s only entertainment.” I have witnessed quite a bit of animosity and derision at the mention of ethnic portrayals in The Phantom Menace. Then there is the artistic license. In a behind-the-scenes mini-documentary at the beginning of the video release of the film, George Lucas says: “We all know, Jar Jar is not real.”18

But the most interesting denial, for our purposes, involves Gungan amphibiguity. In the film, Binks makes clear, as they walk in the Tattoine desert: “dis sun doen murder to meesa skin.” He can’t be black, or even dark skinned. The Visual Dictionary reiterates the point, as mentioned above. But they seem to prefer air; not only do they live in water-resistant “bubbles” filled with air, not only is their sacred place on land, but Jar Jar was banished for “serious flooding accidents”19 among other axidentes (another seemingly transfigured Spanish word).

Even more ambiguous is the seeming coincidental assonance between Gunga and ganga, the Rastafarian holy word for cannabis flowers. Unsurprisingly, I noticed no clear analogue for ganga smoking. But Ahmad Best, the actor used to articulate the bodily movement of Binks digital facade, as well as the voice, is of Caribbean descent. He has also been ambiguously assigned creative autonomy in developing Jar Jar’s “character.” Though, Lucas, in the behind-the-scenes video segment, says he hired Best because he can act with his body.

More convincing is the distinctly inverted signifier for Caribbean history. Instead of fleeing into the hills (or up the mountain), as revolting slaves did in Jamaica and Puerto Rico during colonial plantation days, the Gungan seem to have been forced down, under the water. Were it not for the dreadlock ears, Bob Marley strut, and pidgin-English dialect with an Afro-Jamaican sound, I might be less inclined to suggest such an association.

I have certainly not exhausted the realm of possible racial portrayals. But, as we explore the ambiguously gendered possibilities, it will become clear that I do not use the term ethnicity as a politically corrected substitute for race, or as a peculiar reference for non-whiteness. Rather, I assume ethnic relations to be issues of group affiliation and identity; with the correlate assumption that identity and affiliation is not the sole ground of insiders or outsiders, the dominant or the dominated, but is to be found in the relation between the various poles of the various fields of social relations.

GENDER

Jar Jar Binks is clearly the mediator between the Gungan and Naboo (and between Boss Nass’ masculinity and Queen Amidala’s femininity), as well as between the Gungan and Jedi Knights. In fact, both times Binks leads outsiders to Boss Nass, JJ is threatened with death: an issue only made clear in The Illustrated Screenplay or Visual Dictionary. Mediation is marked by a positionality between two (or more) antagonists. This stigmatization, which makes possible his social ascension, is evidenced from the first introduction to Jar Jar in the film.

Binks was banished to the swamp. In this metaphor, the swamp lies between the underwater and the above ground, or in other words, a place of ambiguity (not quite wet, but not quite dry). This is denied because the literal mediation, as it were, between Otoh Gunga and Theed is the planet’s hollow core (a place of nothingness). Fortunately, this allows him to meet with Qui-Gon. Indeed, the scene where Boss Nass and Queen Amidala meet is in the swamp. This scene makes it seem like the swamp is relatively close to both Otoh Gunga and Theed.

But it is Binks’ gender that is much more ambiguous. Were it not that Jar Jar is an official he, I would have had a hard time referring to him without a sex. By all appearances, the Gungan are a male species. Frankly, Jar Jar seems different. His high-pitched voice is produced by his “tight vocal cords.”20 One informant said Binks’ seemed to be wearing a 1970’s pants-suit combo with a vest. The Visual Dictionary refers to his vest as a “fashion statement.” If we take the phrase “ghetto punk” as a gendered reference to position within a power relationship, the phrase “frumpy bitch body,” used by another informant, clarifies the gender polarization, androcentrism, and symbolic devaluation of females involved.

If we let the ambiguity stand, we may miss the emasculation that probably irritated so many. In the first visit to Watto the junk dealer’s shop, Binks is kicked in the crotch by a troublesome droid. This action produces no visible reaction from JJ, and is so fast an occurrence few would probably mention it upon query. The contribution this scene makes is invaluable. It makes visual confirmation of the many clues to Binks’ gender with which we are presented.

If we were to lump together the many gendered associations, we would lose their contextual embeddedness, but gain from the re-immersion into the big picture. Jar Jar is highly excitable and overly emotive. Though many reported that they could not understand Binks, he is very talkative when given the opportunity. Not only a communicator, Binks is also a mediator; though he does not listen well to directions from male authority. He panics under stress, throwing fits of temper. He is bad with directions. He is publicly inappropriate and socially inconvenient. He is not fit for combat, his attempts are comical, he openly admits to fright and instantly surrenders when surrounded, showing cowardice. He is surprisingly sensitive to aesthetic quality, and mentions the coziness of Anikin’s home. “Jar Jar’s character, like his body, is resilient and able to bend to changes of fortune without letting his spirit break.”21 In a field of meaning where masculinity and femininity are the poles of attraction working on positions taken within the field, gendered associations will be evaluated accordingly. If heterosexual masculinity is the dominant principle of heirarchization, gendered ambiguity is less than masculine (stigmatized by its betrayal of strict polarization, thus devalued in the ‘middle ground’). The hetero-sexist association of homosexual male behavior with femininity is not coincidental, though not fully rational. We might even want to refer to Binks as a female man or a male woman (though the derivatives all ‘point’ back to evaluative hierarchy).

For our purposes, however, it is the amalgamation of dimensions of meaning that is most illustrative. Jar Jar is likely emasculated as a consequence of his position as mediator. Maybe he is also whitened by his association with the film’s powerful white folks; this would line up with the association of non-white cultures, especially those of African and Latino-Hispanic descent, as overly masculine, or male-dominated. Regardless of the causal relationships portrayed, Binks’ gender is homologous to the docility required for corporate or academic ascendancy.

CLASS

The class that I am talking about is neither a class in itself, nor for itself, but rather a set of shared classifications, a scheme of encryption to which audience members will likely have differential access. This is only one aspect of the economic implications of Binks’ ethnicity. As categories of perception, appreciation, and action, they are used to classify Jar Jar, both by the symbolic producers and the symbolic consumers.

One sample that well evidences the official version of how Binks’ is ‘intended’ to be received, is a list of the descriptive terms used to tell us what JJ is. “AN AMPHIBIOUS GUNGAN native to Naboo, Jar Jar is a luckless exile...simple...reticent (about the reason for his exile from Otoh Gunga)...well known to the city patrol... infamous...the worst navigator the Jedi could have...petrified...inconvenient... useful...flexible and rubbery...simple...resilient and able to bend to changes of fortune... odd...”22

Binks’ usefulness and docility outweighs his cultural inappropriateness. When we meet JJ in the screenplay he is sucking clams out of their shells in the swamp. At film’s end, he has been made ‘bombad general,’ hobnobbing with royalty and Jedi Knights, friend to Anikin Skywalker (the chosen one who will bring balance to the force, to become Darth Vader). Jar Jar has clearly come up in the world.

But Binks’ class character is to be found in clues throughout The Phantom Menace. Jar Jar displays table manners inappropriate for the situation. After licking his plate, instead of eating with utensils then slurping his drink, “JAR JAR snatches some food from a bowl at the other end of the table with his tongue.”23 Qui-Gon gives him a dirty look, and Binks apologizes. As JJ tries it again Qui-Gon catches his tongue and chastises the impertinent Gungan. If he is a primitive local, we may assume him to be unrefined. He is physically uncoordinated and culturally inappropriate, though athletic and sensitive (especially to aesthetic appearance). “Simple” is an appropriate euphemism for the many reasons Binks’ decision making capabilities seem limited. Those of the middle regions of social space in this country and present time are particularly sensitive to their continual devaluation by both the economically dominant and dominated.

Binks is also associated with children. He has been rationalized as a kids character, perhaps explaining why he may have been fashioned as such. The Visual Dictionary supplies this “DATA FILE” fact: “Jar Jar’s insatiable curiosity frequently lands him in trouble. He comes close to learning a permanent lesson when he catches his tongue in Anakin’s Pod engine binders.” If this were Binks’ primary form of identification, most of his characteristics would fall into place. He doesn’t quite get what is going on, but is forced to blunder clumsily through. He may not listen too well, or be too smart, but he is submissive when it counts.

But this is simply not coincidental with his other associations. Were it not for early Anthropologists’ portrayals (not to mention those of non-academics) of primitivity as child-like, I would not be so inclined to recognize this association for what it is. The lack of sophistication, insatiable curiosity, and ambiguous social position (at first meeting) seem ordered to convey a certain manner of being. Maybe Binks’ child-like behavior will appeal to children. Is the same likely for his ethnic, gendered or sexed, or social class constituencies? Children are an exploited and dominated group, a relationship homologous to that between all of the other aspects of Binks representation, when distinguished against the legitimate, correct, and ultimately dominant.

JJ has every appearance of the invocation of class contempt (including racism, heterosexism, and misogyny) for ascendant members of dominated groups. It is likely not coincidence this seeming contempt is phrased in jokes, buffoonery, and mockery. Binks is able to capitalize on his ambiguities and stigmatization through his docility and willingness to accept his lot in life.

CONCLUSION

The Phantom Menace seems to be a myth of class ascendancy, specifically focused around the invocation of class racism. All the indications seem to construct an amalgamated sense of group affiliations, homologous to a picture of a member of several dominated groups, as portrayed by an elite corps of specialists. Though luckless and hapless, he bounces back; and we may assume he bounces up as well. As race was popularly mythologized during an established empire building era, as a practical rationalization and justification for colonialism, it is fitting that it should be re-invoked to implicate a variety of biological pre-determinisms.

I love JJ as a symbol for the difficulties and ambiguities of avant-garde scientific analysis of contemporary cultural phenomenon. The consumers (and producers) of such culture are generally not too excited to know about “critical” interpretations of their enjoyments. But if white American kids grow up loving Jar Jar’s submissiveness and associate ‘his’ character with any of the other stereotypes portrayed, they may develop expectations concerning the behaviors of associated groups. Binks is an almost too real, almost too literal celebration of domination.

Some folks are simply not comfortable with the openness of such contempt. Witness www.jarjarmustdie.com. Maybe viewers were even uncomfortable with the representations of blackness, primitivity and savagery, much less the transfiguration of these elements. But I can definitely say that Jar Jar Binks invokes contempt (though on occasion someone will say they thought he was cute). I have a cat named Jar Jar, and had a 7’ cardboard Binks behind my door for months. I don’t think I can put into words, however, the reactions to my dancing Jar Jar toy (that seemingly positions JJ as an entertainer).

In the neighborhood in Albuquerque where I live I sometimes shop at the “ghetto Smith’s” (as I live in the “student ghetto”). One day during this project, I could have bought a case of Binks’ ethnicity (but I was broke). Farley’s brand Lightsaber fruit roll-ups had Binks face on the box, but not his name. More strange was the flavor: “Galactic Watermelon.” I looked at two other stores out of my neighborhood and found no galactic watermelon lightsaber fruit roll-ups, though I found two other varieties of fine Farley’s fruit treats that had not been at the ghetto Smith’s. Anyone that doesn’t know that watermelon has an historically negative association to diasporic blacks of African descent in America may not see the connections between lips half the size of one’s head, social inappropriateness, and metaphors of class ascendancy. I could not help but wonder.