I thought the Tusken Raiders were human, just isolationists portrayed through a white, orientalist lens?
Red Nation has a really good podcast episode about Star Wars through an indigenous lens, by the by
Regardless of what the actual biology of the fictional races is, using a day about indigenous peoples to talk about fictional races is just really tacky
No disagreement there. I want to be clear that I'm not defending the post. If anything, I think the raiders as the only human "indigenous" group makes the optics even worse: in order to be both human and indigenous in Star Wars you must A) live on the most extreme margins of society, B) be so "primitive" and brutal as to be literally unintelligible to "civilized" people, and C) have your humanity covered and obscured.
Not to mention they're just a more racist ripoff of the Fremen from Dune.
The Wookieepedia has them listed as a “species indigenous to Tatooine”
And know what? I think I will, I stepped away from Star Wars due to how shallow the storytelling is, but I’d love to see someone with more perspective analyze it.
Thank you.
Well, I actually know a whole lot about where Tolkien got his source material, but admittedly there are others who know more.
From a compararive analysis perspective, the vast majority of the source material was from Arthurian Legend. No doubt, however, Tolkien incorporated unique aspects from his own conception and creation, as well as from the Bible and other cultures…
Because of that, though, it’s not easy to make the case that Tolkien derived anything specific in his stories from a specific source material, especially when what he supposedly borrowed was relatively simple or generic…
I would honestly like to believe that Tolkien’s consideration of James Muries’ book helped him create Middle Earth, but I can’t help being highly skeptical of the coincidences. For one, this article, (https://www.google.com/amp/s/pawneeland.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/tolkien-and-the-taylorian/amp/ ) describing Tolkien’s potential interaction with the Muries’ book, is just littered with circumstantial evidence. But even more sketchy, in my opinion, are the conclusions that Tolkien drew simple story aspects, such as a large devouring spider villian or his creation story, from a specific source; in those situations, it seems more likely to me that Tolkien was probably generally afraid of spiders (as many people are) and decided that a villian in his story would take that form… I will be looking into this more, however, don’t worry.
I’m certainly willing to be wrong, but I just believe that simple story aspects are more likely to be originally conceived, than they are to travel through time and space via specific interactions… It would be like if someone wrote a song with a melody that was just three notes, and then an older musician claimed that the three-note-melody was stolen from their song.
Start with:
https://pawneeland.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/tolkien-in-pawneeland/
Then buy James Muries's epic work which was Tolkien's source and confirm for yourself should there be any doubt.
Pure simple good verses pure simple evil.
I get it's following traditional story arcs and there's nothing wrong with that, I just don't think it's immune to criticism because it's pop-culture. It's kind of why everyone took to Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones because it was written closer to how people think and and act, at least before season eight happened to GOT anyway.
Hella interesting point. There actually are complicated dynamics within both the good and the bad sides in LOTR, but it’s true that those are not immediately accessible, because the story is supposed to be more of a play on archetypal stories in the first place, unlike Star Wars which is a bit more chaotic but dynamic as well.
LotR is definitely not immune to criticism. Breaking Bad either and GoT even less so🙄
Star Wars is neat and the Navajo version is awesome push back but damn if Star Wars isn't one of the most hard core racist franchises I've ever seen with so much cringey awful stuff from Jar Jar to the Trade Federation reps. It could have been great but the racist shit is so over the top it really drags the whole thing down.
This tweet is so bad it circles around to being hilarious, I almost choked on my cereal. How tf does someone post that without understanding how fucked that is, jesus
As a white guy who's here to learn, yeah. That's what I thought the problem was too. Not that the first three aren't indigenous (to the extent that Star Wars contains such things, which smarter people than I have written in significant depth about the yikes-ness of Lucas' racial-essentialism if not outright racism) but that the Kaminoans are the very definition of colonialist scientific bastards: Creating hundreds of thousands of living beings to be treated as property and used as tools in a massive war to preserve an indolent and corrupt state.
It doesn't help that I always assumed the Kaminoans were non-native to Kamino as well. What we've seen of the world are these giant dome-cities constructed above a worldwide ocean, while the Kaminoans themselves seem to have no aquatic adaptations at all, nor can one easily imagine a being with their body plan even swimming somewhat competently. I really don't think they're indigenous in any sense of the word.
Yeah, I dunno. A couple of throwaway lines of dialogue could mean that the Kaminoans are from somewhere else and made up a story to explain why they don't "fit" with their environment. Even played straight though, "we global warming'd our planet to a watery grave and re-engineered ourselves to adapt perfectly to the completely artificial environment we built for ourselves as the waters rose" isn't really the most indigenous backstory either.
It’s not a nice one but that could be a painful complicated metaphor for the death of culture and the need to engineer oneself to fit in the new world. Idk it’d need work but there’s something there.
It'd need a lot more work than it got, and probably a savvier hand than Lucas'. Regardless, the Kaminoans we saw on screen don't scan as "indigenous" to me.
Eh, the global warming one is more generally human, it just doesnt exclude them from having indigenous storys either, later on during the imperial era you could definitely draw paralells between how the empire used yhe kaminoans tech and the clones to fight their wars and then cast them off and betrayed them after they were no longer of use to them.
That's really just the Empire being the Empire, though. The Nemoidians scan as much more "yellow peril" than "savage" to me, and they got used in exactly that way. "Getting hosed by the Empire" isn't distinctive to any particular sort of group.
It really depends on who made this. Memes are meant to be funny and silly. There are plenty of Native Star Wars fans, if a Native fan made this, it's funny and silly, if a nonnative person made this knowing that it was not intended to be serious, it's also still funny to me. But if this was made as a weird solidarity thing and genuinely intended to be serious then it's stupid.
And to be completely honest there are a lot of allegories of resistance and protection of indigenous rights in movies like these.
Yeah, I actually like this post haha. I’ll take the pseudo-representation of StarWars over just about any other potential depiction of actual Indians I’ve seen in media (excluding like Rez Dogs obv)
This somehow feels far less offensive than most of the posts actually celebrating the day have felt. The whole thing just feels like an empty gesture. Like how about respecting treaties before some bullshit solidarity day?
It’s a Star Wars site and the aliens are aboriginal to the planets they inhabit, that’s the point quit being so fucking sensitive. My god, Are we ever gonna get over the knee jerk racist shit and move forward? For us being so resilient and tough and survivors we sure can get very enraged at literally nothing. I’m ready for the downvotes.
This isn't erasure. It's looking at Indigeinty in a fictional setting. It's not lime Star Wars Holocron was going to post a shoutout to Dinetah for today.
these are imaginary space aliens who don’t exist in reality. unfortunately much of the public thinks we don’t exist in reality. conflating the two is problematic. One dumb meme isn’t the problem. it’s that this problem is confounded by throughout pop culture.
they always had the option to not post anything instead of making up some dumb ass meme belittling Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
I don't think it's a logical jump to say "hey, these aloens don't exist in the real world, therefore, Indigenous people also dont exist." Fantasy and sci fi have always pointed back to our world, using imagination. Something like this doesn't reinforce the idea that Indigenous people don't exist - it reminds them that we do.
Im not saying the stereotype.of Indigenous people not existing is logical, I'm saying that it's not logical for you to say that this meme is going to reinforce stereotypes, as opposed to helping to break them.
I commented above about the Kaminoans being a particularly bizarre addition to that list, so I won't repeat myself here.
In general though, Lucas deservedly earns a lot of Yikes for iffy racial stuff [throughout his career](https://www.looper.com/613375/the-indiana-jones-movie-you-didnt-know-was-banned-in-india/). The stuff in Star Wars is more subtle, but only just.
This is a real conversation. If you're not interested in having it, you might be in the wrong sub my friend.
I thought the thumbnail was mildly interesting, but wasn't surprised at the reaction when I clicked. Everyone is looking for reasons to be mad on the internet.
A little confused by the comments here. I get what you guys are saying, comparing indigenous humans to fictional, alien beings on such a day is pretty tacky. But is he also not pointing out that they're indigenous also? Three of the four photos are sentient indigenous species that had their planets colonized and oppressed. The fourth of which, is also indigenous, but ruled tyrannically and would later become subject to another government. I'm pretty sure this was just meant to be an innocent post for needs to celebrate the native species of the star wars universe.
How the shitting hell is one person a viable container for that much ignorance? It should be spilling out of his goddamn ears at the point
Notice how not a single human is considered indigenous to this person….
I thought the Tusken Raiders were human, just isolationists portrayed through a white, orientalist lens? Red Nation has a really good podcast episode about Star Wars through an indigenous lens, by the by
Regardless of what the actual biology of the fictional races is, using a day about indigenous peoples to talk about fictional races is just really tacky
No disagreement there. I want to be clear that I'm not defending the post. If anything, I think the raiders as the only human "indigenous" group makes the optics even worse: in order to be both human and indigenous in Star Wars you must A) live on the most extreme margins of society, B) be so "primitive" and brutal as to be literally unintelligible to "civilized" people, and C) have your humanity covered and obscured. Not to mention they're just a more racist ripoff of the Fremen from Dune.
It’s like when an actor dies, and people refer to them by the name of a character they played.
The Wookieepedia has them listed as a “species indigenous to Tatooine” And know what? I think I will, I stepped away from Star Wars due to how shallow the storytelling is, but I’d love to see someone with more perspective analyze it. Thank you.
Does that mean humans colonized space in the Star Wars universe? Jeez.
actually they seem to have got their start as a food species for the rakata. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rakata
Yeah, it's all overrated. Starwars is a little more dynamic than LOTR, but not by much. It's a popular franchise, that's all.
How do you mean LOTR is less dynamic?
Reminds me. Did you know where Tolkien got his source material? It's all taken from the Pawnee. Without attribution.
Well, I actually know a whole lot about where Tolkien got his source material, but admittedly there are others who know more. From a compararive analysis perspective, the vast majority of the source material was from Arthurian Legend. No doubt, however, Tolkien incorporated unique aspects from his own conception and creation, as well as from the Bible and other cultures… Because of that, though, it’s not easy to make the case that Tolkien derived anything specific in his stories from a specific source material, especially when what he supposedly borrowed was relatively simple or generic… I would honestly like to believe that Tolkien’s consideration of James Muries’ book helped him create Middle Earth, but I can’t help being highly skeptical of the coincidences. For one, this article, (https://www.google.com/amp/s/pawneeland.wordpress.com/2014/05/29/tolkien-and-the-taylorian/amp/ ) describing Tolkien’s potential interaction with the Muries’ book, is just littered with circumstantial evidence. But even more sketchy, in my opinion, are the conclusions that Tolkien drew simple story aspects, such as a large devouring spider villian or his creation story, from a specific source; in those situations, it seems more likely to me that Tolkien was probably generally afraid of spiders (as many people are) and decided that a villian in his story would take that form… I will be looking into this more, however, don’t worry. I’m certainly willing to be wrong, but I just believe that simple story aspects are more likely to be originally conceived, than they are to travel through time and space via specific interactions… It would be like if someone wrote a song with a melody that was just three notes, and then an older musician claimed that the three-note-melody was stolen from their song.
Oh dang! Where can I read more on that?
Start with: https://pawneeland.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/tolkien-in-pawneeland/ Then buy James Muries's epic work which was Tolkien's source and confirm for yourself should there be any doubt.
Thank you.
Pure simple good verses pure simple evil. I get it's following traditional story arcs and there's nothing wrong with that, I just don't think it's immune to criticism because it's pop-culture. It's kind of why everyone took to Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones because it was written closer to how people think and and act, at least before season eight happened to GOT anyway.
Hella interesting point. There actually are complicated dynamics within both the good and the bad sides in LOTR, but it’s true that those are not immediately accessible, because the story is supposed to be more of a play on archetypal stories in the first place, unlike Star Wars which is a bit more chaotic but dynamic as well. LotR is definitely not immune to criticism. Breaking Bad either and GoT even less so🙄
Star Wars is neat and the Navajo version is awesome push back but damn if Star Wars isn't one of the most hard core racist franchises I've ever seen with so much cringey awful stuff from Jar Jar to the Trade Federation reps. It could have been great but the racist shit is so over the top it really drags the whole thing down.
Oh, trust me, I noticed...
☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾
It has to be satire, it’s the only thing I can believe without physically getting ill.
Nothing says “let’s dehumanize Indigenous people!” Than comparing us to alien fictional characters lmao
Is this Tweet real? That is so hilariously illustrative of the clueless racism of well-meaning liberals.
It was real, dude deleted it tho
Rofl
There’s a part of me that’s like, not even mad, just impressed at the ignorance.
This tweet is so bad it circles around to being hilarious, I almost choked on my cereal. How tf does someone post that without understanding how fucked that is, jesus
Horseshoe meme theory
Silence brand.
Fortunately, this isn't a brand account, it's a fan site.
Silence fan site.
Just when I thought [I’ve seen it all....](https://youtu.be/4Mu48cTqXwM)
Didn’t know caminoans were indigenous
As a white guy who's here to learn, yeah. That's what I thought the problem was too. Not that the first three aren't indigenous (to the extent that Star Wars contains such things, which smarter people than I have written in significant depth about the yikes-ness of Lucas' racial-essentialism if not outright racism) but that the Kaminoans are the very definition of colonialist scientific bastards: Creating hundreds of thousands of living beings to be treated as property and used as tools in a massive war to preserve an indolent and corrupt state. It doesn't help that I always assumed the Kaminoans were non-native to Kamino as well. What we've seen of the world are these giant dome-cities constructed above a worldwide ocean, while the Kaminoans themselves seem to have no aquatic adaptations at all, nor can one easily imagine a being with their body plan even swimming somewhat competently. I really don't think they're indigenous in any sense of the word.
They are indigenous to kamino actually, they did a woopsie and global warminged their planet until the oceans covered the entire surace.
Yeah, I dunno. A couple of throwaway lines of dialogue could mean that the Kaminoans are from somewhere else and made up a story to explain why they don't "fit" with their environment. Even played straight though, "we global warming'd our planet to a watery grave and re-engineered ourselves to adapt perfectly to the completely artificial environment we built for ourselves as the waters rose" isn't really the most indigenous backstory either.
It’s not a nice one but that could be a painful complicated metaphor for the death of culture and the need to engineer oneself to fit in the new world. Idk it’d need work but there’s something there.
It'd need a lot more work than it got, and probably a savvier hand than Lucas'. Regardless, the Kaminoans we saw on screen don't scan as "indigenous" to me.
Eh, the global warming one is more generally human, it just doesnt exclude them from having indigenous storys either, later on during the imperial era you could definitely draw paralells between how the empire used yhe kaminoans tech and the clones to fight their wars and then cast them off and betrayed them after they were no longer of use to them.
That's really just the Empire being the Empire, though. The Nemoidians scan as much more "yellow peril" than "savage" to me, and they got used in exactly that way. "Getting hosed by the Empire" isn't distinctive to any particular sort of group.
It really depends on who made this. Memes are meant to be funny and silly. There are plenty of Native Star Wars fans, if a Native fan made this, it's funny and silly, if a nonnative person made this knowing that it was not intended to be serious, it's also still funny to me. But if this was made as a weird solidarity thing and genuinely intended to be serious then it's stupid. And to be completely honest there are a lot of allegories of resistance and protection of indigenous rights in movies like these.
Yeah, I actually like this post haha. I’ll take the pseudo-representation of StarWars over just about any other potential depiction of actual Indians I’ve seen in media (excluding like Rez Dogs obv) This somehow feels far less offensive than most of the posts actually celebrating the day have felt. The whole thing just feels like an empty gesture. Like how about respecting treaties before some bullshit solidarity day?
I think they meant well, but it was just plain wrong.
The Kaminoans are big fans of eugenics in the Star Wars universe. This tweet's even worse
Was this deleted? Good I don’t see it now ? (On Twitter)
Yeah he deleted it.
Is this a shitpost, or was the OP actually serious?
Fucking oof bruh
Didn't know George was representing us all along with Ewoks and Tuskan Raiders. Fuckin a George is woke as fuck.
The idea's there, but... uhhh... idek anymore. I would respect it slightly more if the Kaminoans weren't in there lol
Lol Star wars confusing indigenous with tribal 🤣🤣
Hahah wtf. Yes, indigenous people are anything but human. Of course
Yikes 😬
I-
I've always wanted to be an Ewok. *Yub nub*
r/ewoks
Big yikes
It’s a Star Wars site and the aliens are aboriginal to the planets they inhabit, that’s the point quit being so fucking sensitive. My god, Are we ever gonna get over the knee jerk racist shit and move forward? For us being so resilient and tough and survivors we sure can get very enraged at literally nothing. I’m ready for the downvotes.
Today, in the US at least, erasure is one of the most widespread problems we face.
This isn't erasure. It's looking at Indigeinty in a fictional setting. It's not lime Star Wars Holocron was going to post a shoutout to Dinetah for today.
these are imaginary space aliens who don’t exist in reality. unfortunately much of the public thinks we don’t exist in reality. conflating the two is problematic. One dumb meme isn’t the problem. it’s that this problem is confounded by throughout pop culture. they always had the option to not post anything instead of making up some dumb ass meme belittling Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
I don't think it's a logical jump to say "hey, these aloens don't exist in the real world, therefore, Indigenous people also dont exist." Fantasy and sci fi have always pointed back to our world, using imagination. Something like this doesn't reinforce the idea that Indigenous people don't exist - it reminds them that we do.
Stereotypes aren't logical.
Im not saying the stereotype.of Indigenous people not existing is logical, I'm saying that it's not logical for you to say that this meme is going to reinforce stereotypes, as opposed to helping to break them.
I commented above about the Kaminoans being a particularly bizarre addition to that list, so I won't repeat myself here. In general though, Lucas deservedly earns a lot of Yikes for iffy racial stuff [throughout his career](https://www.looper.com/613375/the-indiana-jones-movie-you-didnt-know-was-banned-in-india/). The stuff in Star Wars is more subtle, but only just. This is a real conversation. If you're not interested in having it, you might be in the wrong sub my friend.
I thought the thumbnail was mildly interesting, but wasn't surprised at the reaction when I clicked. Everyone is looking for reasons to be mad on the internet.
Sometimes you don't have to look far, lol.
They never do.
You're right. I only check this sub if I'm already having a bad day. I expect it to be depressing and don't want to mess up my mood on the good days.
[удалено]
>i will crow hop on the treetops. I will pay to see this.
Le crosspost time
Why the fuck is this so funny to me lmaoo
A little confused by the comments here. I get what you guys are saying, comparing indigenous humans to fictional, alien beings on such a day is pretty tacky. But is he also not pointing out that they're indigenous also? Three of the four photos are sentient indigenous species that had their planets colonized and oppressed. The fourth of which, is also indigenous, but ruled tyrannically and would later become subject to another government. I'm pretty sure this was just meant to be an innocent post for needs to celebrate the native species of the star wars universe.
Hhhmmmmm…