Star Wars and Overthinking the Race Issue

It’s time to talk about Star Wars and racism.

Yeah, it’s going to get a bit weird.

Race and racism (institutionalized or otherwise) is one of the most vexing issues any society struggles with. It’s a complicated, touchy subject in the real world and placing it in a fantastic context doesn’t really make it easier to discuss. There’s also the question of whether it empowers or trivializes that discussion to place the issue in a fantastic setting. I won’t dare to give any sort of definitive answer. But stories are created by humans, and humans struggle with racism, bigotry, and a million other issues that show up in our fiction, whether we like it or not. So here’s a quick disclaimer:

All ideas and conclusions put forth in this blog aren’t aimed at solving racism or offering any particular new insight into the problems of real world racism. Rather, it’s all about how fiction, even fantastic fiction, frames race for our shared culture. I’m just one writer discussing complex social issues via a series of movies about space wizards and broad “Good vs. Evil” themes. Keep that in mind.

Got it? Good. Let’s get to it.

One of my biggest pet peeves as a writer is Fantasy Racism. I don’t mean the appearance of racism in fantastic settings, although that’s not my favorite thing. I usually avoid any overt and obvious racism in my own work, not because I find it realistic but because it’s my story and if I don’t want there to be racism, there doesn’t have to be any. It’s a convention and an unrealistic one. But, like I said, there my stories so I can do what I want.

The Fantastic Racism I’m talking about is when a character is primarily defined by their fantastic race or species. This happens all the time. So often, we know the tropes by heart: Stubborn dwarves, Aloof elves, Brutish orcs, etc. We know them so well that we’ve transported them into space. Klingons are just space orcs, and Vulcans are space elves. It’s just built into how we characterize non-human characters.

And it, frankly, bothers the hell out of me. In Star Trek, a fictionalized universe devoted to a more inclusive tomorrow, we still have all Klingons be warriors, all Romulans be shifty, all Ferengi be greedy. There’s a trope called Planet of Hats that covers it. Whether it’s conservation of detail or laziness or just unintentional, Star Wars talks about a better tomorrow while simultaneously suggesting that one Klingon is pretty much interchangeable with another.

To be fair, we do this sort of shorthand all the time. The original Predator tells us nothing about the title character. We only know that he’s a sports hunter come to Earth to collect trophies. There’s no reason to assume that his entire culture is like this, or that the Predator homeworld might be full of peace loving citizens trying to shut down the trophy hunting hobbyists on their own world. By Predator 2, an ending gag suggests that this is a way of life for the race. Although, again, we’ve only seen a very small percentage of them at this point.

This extends to even human characters. The first Jedi we met culturally was Obi-Wan Kenobi. A desert dwelling loner who dresses and lives like a desert dwelling loner. Within a short time, all Jedi were defined by this aesthetic, which only really makes sense if you assume that disillusioned, in-hiding Jedi Master Obi-Wan is the default setting for an entire order of space wizards.

Shorthand. It leads to weird places.

Race in Star Wars is a peculiar thing. The series focuses almost entirely on humans, with a few token non-humans here and there. While there is a sense of a larger universe, if one goes solely by the films (and that’s all I’m going by. Sorry, cartoon and EU fans) aliens are mostly a special effect. They’re there. They make nice set dressing. Occasionally one speaks. But mostly they’re there to remind us this is a science fantasy setting. That’s not a problem in itself. But there is a shorthand at work in the Star Wars films, and it isn’t one I’m always comfortable with.

There’s a formula for a Star Wars alien, and it depends entirely on how important that alien is, the location, and whether we’re supposed to like that alien.

Jabba the Hutt is giant, slug-like, and doesn’t speak English. He also lives in a dark den full of weird aliens. This codes him as a bad guy.

Greedo is humanoid, but with a weird non-human face. He doesn’t speak English. We meet him a dark den full of weird aliens. This codes him as a bad guy.

Admiral Ackbar is a humanoid fish alien. He speaks English. He wears white. He sits on a brightly lit bridge. This codes him as a good guy.

The Cantina is dark and full of weird creatures. This codes it as a seedy, dangerous locations.

Dryden Voss’s space yacht is brightly lit, full of mostly humans with mostly humanoid aliens with human-like faces. It is a dangerous place, but it is also coded to be a more outwardly civilized place.

The bar we meet young Lando in is dark and full of strange aliens. This codes it as a scummy, lower class place.

If you take these locations and others at face value, you could safely assume that you were in a safer, more civilized portion of the galaxy depending entirely on how many human faces you see around you.

Of course, someone will point out that the Empire is full of humans, and this is coding for its fascist leanings. And that’s correct. Sort of. Like most decisions of this sort, it has a lot to do with the logistics of making a movie. Aliens of all sorts show up more frequently in the animated and EU stuff. And I get that. As a writer, one of the reasons I write novels is that it’s a lot easier to write a story featuring things like a squid in power armor and his loyal giant ultrapede than it is in a movie or TV show.

A big reason for all this coding, intentional or not, is simply practicality. The cantina is dark and filled with weird aliens because it’s not a hugely important scene and it’s easier to cram aliens FX in a dark room than in a bright location. Jabba’s palace is a controlled location, far easier to create with showcasing weird aliens (including Jabba) in mind. Lando’s bar in Solo is basically a set built around a table where a bunch of animatronic and CGI aliens can be more easily inserted. On the reverse side, Chewbacca is a character who is relatively low tech and able to operate under lights and without having to build a set around him. Same for C3-P0 and R2DT.

It still doesn’t help that Star Wars uses weird aliens as code for danger. It’s still just a wee bit xenophobic that there are no truly weird aliens in Star Wars that we’re supposed to like or identify with. It’s not a deal breaker necessarily, and it isn’t that the creators are trying to say anything while doing this. But then again, we say things all the time without meaning to. How many stories have we experienced where minority was code for criminal? And most of that was a subtle blend of indifference, stereotype, and harmful racism.

Recently, I watched a zombie film where the initial infected are Hispanics. My first thought was that this could easily be interpreted in a negative way. To the film’s credit, it does take the time to show that these characters have some depth (as much as most minor characters in a movie) and even portrays them as sympathetic to a degree. It made me more comfortable with the idea, and once they turn into zombies, they’re pretty much monsters but this is true of every character. (No, I won’t name the movie. It wasn’t very good, and I didn’t finish it.)

Watching Solo, I found myself less forgiving of the expectations and shorthand it relied on. A character like Rio or L3, who are complicated special effects, take a lot of work to implement. But this is a weak excuse since there are ways around that. There are ways to make characters cheaper, to make them easier to use. If you don’t do it, you don’t care.

And how many aliens are worth naming in the Star Wars film universe? (Again, not the cartoons or EU.) No, it’s mostly humans, and until recently, mostly white guys. And this wasn’t an overt choice, but it was a choice. And it’s a choice that affects everything around it. And it’s not like I’m the first guy to notice Star Wars‘s complicated relationship with race, stereotypes, and aliens. It’s easy to look at that stuff and say people are overthinking it, but that’s often a criticism from people who don’t want to think about it at all.

I’m not saying more aliens in Star Wars would solve racism. There’s every indication that many people have an easier time identifying with Chewbacca than a person of a different color or social background. And you really have to look no further than many of the complaints about the new films. A wookie is an alien being who doesn’t speak English, but fans can be more accepting of Chewie than of a woman or a black man. Because a wookie doesn’t threaten them. Racism and bigotry are huge issues, and Star Wars is more of a symptom of that than any sort of cause.

But I still like aliens, and I still like it when aliens are allowed to be weird. There’s a scene in the much-maligned Green Lantern film (which I liked quite a bit) where Hal Jordan arrives on Oa and is surrounded by all manner of aliens. And those aliens are weird, from insectoids to rock creatures to robots. And it’s a moment in the film that really excites me because it implies that the universe is huge and brimming with life forms and that those life forms are worthy of heroism in their own regard. Am I reading too much into it? Sure, but it does feel inclusive in a weird way.

And I’ve never really felt that in a Star Wars film, even in a fantastic way, which is a real shame.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE