Case in fucking point, almost as if according to script...
Complaining about a fictional character being a racist stereotype and attacking the actor who played him are different things...I'd lay odds those were the ones who went out of their way to personally harass and torment Best while the ones who simply disliked Jar Jar for racist reasons never attacked the actor who played him.
...And not because he was a preceived racist character...Whatever criticism there was of racial stereotyping was on the far fringe. And if the worst that got was complaining about minstrelsy and Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit then that hardly equates to bullying.
A no true Scotsman and special pleading.
Yes, the mainstream American press is a far fringe that can be ignored in "the big picture". Despite what Best himself says,
Ahmed Best talks his often-hated role in "The Phantom Menace," Jar Jar Binks backlash, and how the child actor who played Anakin Skywalker had it way worse than he did.
www.vice.com
Ahmed Best said:
When was the first time you can remember being genuinely hurt by the negative reactions to Jar Jar Binks?
It didn't happen until the New York press junkets. The first person who kind of gave me an idea of where it was going was a writer from The New York Post. I didn't really think much about it because I always felt like the The New York Post was a paper that fed off of that type of energy, that type of negativity. Growing up in New York you know which papers give you the news and which papers give you the gossip and the Post was definitely heavier on the gossip side than anything else. But I was really surprised that everyone picked up on that afterwards. It's a very American thing to take somebody down when they're at the top and a lot if it had to with that; people really wanted to see George crash and burn.
[...]
Joe Morganstern of the Wall Street Journal referred to your character as a "Rastafarian Stepen Fetchit." He wasn't alone in calling foul over the potential racial implications of Jar Jar. As someone who is very much conscious of being black in mass media, how did you take that?
It just further underscores the ignorance and the blind unrealness of dealing with racism in this country. The lack of education and the lack of exposure to what actually is racist to non-black folks is abysmal. For anyone to say that is offensive because it shows the ignorance of not knowing what a Rastafarian is and not having proper education and knowledge of what minstrelsy was in the time of vaudeville, Butterfly McQueen, and Stepen Fetchit. They really don't know what those roles were and why those roles were.
I think that ignorance and that lack of education that's pervasive in this country not only allows criticism like that to be actually voiced without any type of proof. It also allows what goes on in modern filmmaking as far as [limited] roles for black people—black people have experiences other than the jail- and gang-related [stories] being shown in movies today. They don't believe that black actors, specifically black American actors, have enough depth to try these other roles and it has turned into the outsourcing of an incredible amount of American talent. The top black actors in the world right now are both British. And they're the only ones being allowed to play these roles that have a lot more depth and gravitas. There's nothing wrong with playing a brother in jail as long as there's a lot more to the character than, "I kill people and I'm black." So, [Morganstern's] criticism underscores that lack of intelligence and original ideas in folks who try to understand the black experience in entertainment.
It's awful funny how the only links to Best interviews and articles about Best that get passed around by
certain folks, are the ones which conveniently omit the "Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit" part of the story. Almost as if an rhetorical agenda is being pursued rather than genuine analysis of the situation twenty years ago.
And of course, the red herring:
Jake Lloyd got bullied out of an acting career because of his role in Phantom Menace and George Lucas had people sending him death threats or people joking about killing him. These were not the social justice types. And while I won't claim such people are perfect the "anti-SJW" crowd are far more likely to be the ones to pull this type of crap.
It also doesn't explain Jake Loyd who got just as much shit from the same crowd, and there was nothing even remotely "SJW" about the hate he received. Again, he was a person most fans thought ruined something they loved so they came down on him hard.
Yes, Jake Lloyd took a lot of shit. But Jake Lloyd is not Ahmed Best, and Jake Lloyd did not take shit for perceived racial stereotyping. Nobody dismisses this? That's literally what's being attempted, right now, as we speak.
If you're gonna say "nobody does this", it's a good idea to not do it in your literal next post. You look like an idiot if some raging jackass like me comes along and points it out. Which speaking of,
The well is poisoned by people who react to the mere presence of women, minorities or LGBT people as anything other sexual conquests, villains or comic relief like a war crime. People are willing to engage with reasonable criticisms when they are made in good faith. Unfortunately, you've got too many bad actors tainting any reasonable debate while not being checked by the more level-headed people on their side.
This is literally the phenomenon I just pointed out. Guilt by association. If you criticize these given works, regardless of the arguments you make either in premise or form, those criticisms are to be taken as bad faith because guilty parties have made similar arguments.
No, you do not get your cake and eat it too by saying "well, reasonable criticism
is possible!" but reneging on it by saying "just not by anyone, because criticisms are assumed to be in bad faith by default". You're not trying to make a good faith point either, and you're sure as shit not a good faith actor. Which makes you a hypocrite if you whine about "bad faith" from "the other side".
See, this is why I didn't present example arguments when I made my original point. I knew people would be unable to resist the bait, and come along to prove the point for me. Folks came along and acted in
exactly the way I just said they would, in response to the very post I predicted that behavior.
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