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Jar Jar Binks

Representative Jar Jar Binks (born c. 50 BBY) is a fictional character in the Star Wars films The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. His primary role was intended to provide comic relief - based on his gangly way of walking and his unique accent. Jar Jar's voice was portrayed by Ahmed Best. He is almost completely computer-generated. Although he was played on set by a costumed Best, Best was usually edited out and replaced by the animated character, except in some close-up shots where his face is not visible.

This was the first time that such a highly detailed photo-realistic CGI character had interacted with live actors in a motion picture. Director George Lucas and his effects team were quick to hail this as a major technical breakthrough, but the controversy surrounding the character has to some extent overshadowed his importance to the development of movie special effects.

Jar Jar Binks is a 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall Gungan, with long ears and eyes mounted on stalks, and overall looks something vaguely like an anthropomorphized platypus crossed with an amphibian or perhaps a hadrosaurus.

Fate

Many fans assumed that Jar Jar would be one of the characters killed in Revenge of the Sith, yet no on-screen death is portrayed nor has any death of the character been depicted in the Expanded Universe. Jar Jar's appearance at the funeral of Padmé Amidala on Naboo is his final scene in the film saga.

Rumors as to a depiction of his ultimate fate (or rather, lack thereof) proliferated when the 2004 DVD version of Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi was released, featuring a newly added shot of Naboo in the celebration montage featuring a distant Gungan standing atop a pillar who shouts "Wesa free!". However, the official Star Wars website's character databank file on Jar Jar does not list Return of the Jedi as one of his appearances, while Gungans are thusly listed, suggesting that a conscious distinction may have been made.

However, this topic of disagreement within fandom has been largely put to rest recently as George Lucas has personally stated that the Gungan in question is not Jar Jar. He has also debunked the rumor that Jar Jar perished on Alderaan when it was destroyed by the Death Star in Episode IV. The most recent claim is that Jar Jar returned to Coruscant and served in the Imperial Senate and eventually settled down with a family, presumably dying of old age. According to Lucasfilm's official system, this is regarded as G-canon

Controversy

Upon the release of The Phantom Menace, the character of Jar Jar Binks became the subject of a great deal of media and popular attention, though not in the way his creators intended. Binks became symbolic of what many thought were the inherent creative and critical flaws of the film. The character was even widely rejected and often ridiculed by sections of the series' hardcore fanbase, who felt that Jar Jar was clearly and admittedly included in the film solely to appeal to younger members of the audience. In part, his character clashed with the expectations of some fans, who perceived the earlier films in the series as having a more adult tone. However, such appeal is also highly marketable, and can be taken to represent a mercenary eagerness to generate as much cash as possible, no matter how such an approach may affect the film in terms of story and artistic merit.

It is commonly argued that Jar Jar is simply a marketing gimmick designed to sell memorabilia, and shows a cynical turn in George Lucas' epic. Some saw Jar Jar's merchandising surrounding the film as proof that Lucas was a sell-out. Similar charges were leveled at the appearance of the teddy bear-like Ewoks in 1983's Return of the Jedi. Others argue that the same charges could be made towards the extensive amount of Darth Vader merchandise produced from early 1978 onwards.

They claim that such fans often seek to identify with movie characters (e.g. cosplay at fan conventions and premiers). Few adults wish to identify with comical characters, while adolescents, in particular, have a tendency to object to characters and motifs they identify as being intended principally for children.

Many fans object to any portrayal of excessive cuteness in the Star Wars series although this can perceived as odd given acceptance of 'cute' elements in the films made between 1977 and 1983 and argued to be another example of cognitive dissonance on their parts. Series creator George Lucas has himself stated that he feels there is a section of the fanbase who get upset with aspects of Star Wars because "The movies are for children but they don't want to admit that... There is a group of fans that doesn't like comic sidekicks. They want the films to be tough like The Terminator, and they get very upset and opinionated about anything that has anything to do with being childlike." This may raise the question of whether George Lucas himself understands the market for his own work, his consistently high box-office totals notwithstanding.

It has been argued that Jar Jar Binks proved not to be terribly popular with children, and that dollar stores (99 Cents Only stores) were packed with unsold Jar Jar merchandise. It is hugely difficult to tackle this particular aspect objectively and much evidence on the topic could be counted as purely anecdotal. What is certainly true is that Jar Jar is a character designed to appeal to children who did not appeal to an adolescent market, i.e. he did not appeal to a group he was not designed to appeal to. Whether or not he appealed to the group he was designed for is a separate issue. As Star Wars was already popular with children, another issue is whether anything was gained by alienating the adolescent and adult market in an attempt to gain a market they already had.

Some of the more serious charges against Jar Jar (and consequently against Lucas, his creator) suggest that Jar Jar is a modern incarnation of racist stereotypes used as comic relief in many motion pictures of the first half of the 20th century. Many aspects of Jar Jar's character are highly reminiscent of the archetypes portrayed in Blackface Minstrelsy, a theater form prevalent during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Jar Jar's bodily expressions and tendency to get into trouble have also been said to remind many of Stepin Fetchit and other similar offensive (black) stereotypical characters that persisted after the general demise of Blackface. While this is harder to counter than the above, it is also a matter of perception and many audiences have seen the character without ever perceiving a link between Jar Jar and such character types.

His dialect has been argued to sound stereotypically like Jamaican English. Actor Ahmed Best is clearly not speaking this actual real world dialect in the film and the scale of the resemblance is disputed. George Lucas spoke about these issues on British television in 1999. Interviewed by Kirsty Wark on the BBC's political review programme Newsnight on July 14 of that year he countered that criticisms of Jar Jar's mode of speaking were "...made by people who've obviously never met a Jamaican, because it's definitely not Jamaican and if you were to say those lines in Jamaican they wouldn't be anything like the way Jar Jar Binks says them." The similarity between the names "Jar Jar" and "Jah Jah" supports the theory of connection between Jar Jar Binks and Jamaicans, because they sometimes use this similar term to refer to God (typically Haile Selassie I or God the Father).

It can be argued that any resemblance comes from an unfortunate confluence of Best's own voice and the 'broken' English the character speaks. In support of this it can be pointed out that the other Gungans featured in the movie speak in the same manner, and use the same disputed phrases, but their accents (such as that of English actor Brian Blessed) do not create the same accidental semiotic link in some audience member's minds. Also, in his Newsnight interview, Lucas seemed astonished by this area of controversy and commented, with genuine seeming bewilderment "How in the world you could take an orange amphibian and say that he's a Jamaican? It's completely absurd. Believe me, Jar Jar was not drawn from a Jamaican, from any stretch of the imagination."

Jar Jar is not the only character in The Phantom Menace whose accent has been used to generate controversy. Notably, detractors claim, the greedy Trade Federation spoke with East Asian accents, and Watto (who lives in a desert climate and was a trader) spoke with a Yiddish accent. These allegations are controversial and not universally agreed upon. Watto, played by British actor Andy Secombe, is counter-argued to have a specifically London mode of speaking while a maximum of one of four speaking Trade Federation representatives can be even contended to speak in East Asian manner.

The plot thread in the latter two prequel films which concern Jar Jar's manipulation by other political elements and the manner in which his innocence betrays him (leading him to inadvertently cause the undoing of the Galactic Republic) has been interpreted by some as a shift in significance and character emphasis initiated by George Lucas in response to the criticism he received originally. Others commentators contend that this shift was most likely planned far in advance and was always intended as a comment on, and re-contextualisation of, Jar Jar's role in The Phantom Menace by the series' creator who has a far greater history of ignoring his audience's reactions than endorsing or acquiescing to them.

As a result of all of the controversy above, Jar Jar has been one of the major springboards for vehement anti-Lucas sentiment aka Lucas Bashing.

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