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Problematic Darth Vader
Darth Vader, the super-villain of the Star Wars movies, is a racist construct. You knew that, right? Or do you need to be educated?
If so, here’s what Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC’s resident movie critic, has to say about this:
“I know why I have feelings — good, bad and otherwise — about Star Wars,” Perry explained. “…I spent the whole day talking about the Darth Vader situation.”
“The part where he was totally a black guy, whose name was basically James Earl Jones,” she said. “While he was black he was terrible and bad, awful and used to cut off white men’s hand, and didn’t actually claim his son. But as soon as he claims his son, goes over to the good, takes off his mask and he is white — yes, I have many feelings about that.”
The arguments against this interpretation are here, if you need to read them.
As for me, I would like to remind Harris-Perry that Darth Vader merely dresses in black. Like Johnny Cash and Liza Minnelli.
#blacklivesmatter #hasgone #offthedeepend
Published in Entertainment
MSNBC baffles me – it seems like an asylum that’s masquerading as TV studio to get the nuttiest media personalities to check themselves in.
Moral Swamp NBC, the home to the progressive loons.
I haven’t seen this mentioned elsewhere yet, so I’m gonna assume that I’m the only nerd who has noticed that her rant is basically plagiarized from Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy. The difference, of course, is that in the movie the rant was a satire on race-baiters stirring things up in order to sell more product:
Clip is non CofC compliant, but highly relevant so I say it should be allowed.
Talk about seeing the glass half-empty. The most famous, awesome, most powerful presence in the Star Wars universe is voiced by a black guy. Some people should just take the win.
Leftists like that are only happy when they stomp on other people’s good time.
“Spent the whole day talking about the Darth Vader situation”?
The whole day?
The Darth Vader “situation”?
The poor woman needs help.
Would it make her feel better if we told her there was a black guy behind every white stormtrooper mask?
Rob, what you don’t see is that Melissa Harris-Perry is a plant. She really works for that magnificent Machiavel Karl Rove, and her assignment is to parody MSNBC on . . . you guessed it! . . . MSNBC. It was Rove’s calculation — and a sign of his genius — that no one at MSNBC would ever figure out that she has her tongue in her cheek and is mocking them. And, hey, it has worked. Declining ratings . . . that was the aim. And Ms. Harris-Perry — or is it Mr. Harris-Perry . . . in this crowd I am not sure there is a difference — has worked hard and successfully to achieve that end.
Melissa Harris-Perry is married to Obama’s personal chef, (the President attended the wedding) so kudos to Rove for getting a mole so high up.
Casey, you took the words right out of my mouth.
The backdrop of her rant is a huge poster of dozens of white-clad Storm Troopers. Clearly this woman, whose name I first heard when she said something like “children don’t belong to their parents, they belong to the community,” can’t see, and is a dolt who doesn’t have enough to occupy what passes for her mind.
MHP should try telling James Earl Jones to send his checks back to Lucas/Disney since he did such a disservice to his race. I’d love to watch the response.
I brought it up in the PIT a few days ago. Kevin Smith has been making those kind of Star Wars jokes for years. Maybe she didn’t understand this was supposed to be a joke?
Basically James Earl Jones? Pretty sure it was actually James Earl Jones. And if the voice of a black guy counts as being black, then I guess that means we need to include these guys as well:
The irony is that Jones himself has always downplayed how much he was Darth Vader and says that David Prowse (the man in the suit in every movie) was Darth Vader. So Vader was never truly “a black guy”.
He was uncredited on the first two movies at his own request.
Jones wasn’t even on set and hadn’t met some of the cast like Carrie Fisher until recently.
Melissa Harris-Perry is never gonna give this up.
Rob,
You just won’t leave poor Ms Perry alone will you. Truly you are part of the patriarchal oppression. Poor Ms Perry often suffered when she was young. As I mentioned on another post, her limo was often late picking her up to go to school in the morning. Not only that but sometimes on vacations to Europe they stayed at only 3-star hotels instead of 5 star what she really deserved.
Rob, you simply don’t have any real sensitivity. Why can’t you feel her pain?
Regards,
Jim
Wait..wait..I’m not done with this yet! Listen Ms Perry’s painful childhood has left her with psychological disabilities. She has a negative IQ. That means if someone is sitting next to her their IQ is lowered by at least 35 points. Imagine how that would make you feel.
Don’t be an ableist Rob!!
Regards,
Jim
I call her show, “Who’s Racist Today, Melissa?”
But I do watch it, because…well… she’s cute as a button.
I’ll admit she’s cute, but not cute enough to endure her show.
If you’re convinced the world around you is racist, you will find racial disparity and injustice everywhere you look. It’s self fulfilling. The ubiquitously adored sci fi movie has racist undertones (obviously), and so does the arrangement of single-serving chocolate and vanilla pudding packs at the supermarket (probably).
Mis, you aren’t the only one. This clip was the first thing I though of when I saw this story yesterday. I knew somebody on here would get around to posting it. Sometimes I wonder if Ms. Harris-Perry isn’t engaging in a little satire herself. Can anybody really be this shallow?
Melissa Harris-Perry making a profound argument by wearing tampons in her ears.
I recall someone once saying the clone troopers from the prequel trilogy were racist because they “looked Hispanic” and were therefore supposed to symbolize illegal aliens.
Glad to know that people who can’t tell the difference between someone who is Hispanic and someone who is Maori want to discuss racial sensitivity.
If Melissa Harris-Perry took her mask off, what would it reveal?
A 42-year-old.
Elizabeth “1/16 Native” Warren.
I want to hear her thoughts on panda bears.
A la Reason.com
https://youtu.be/G4MemWayPcA
[CoC] Curses – I can’t figure out how to embed video. Trust me, it’s funny, if you haven’t already seen it.
Prowse also spoke the lines on set so the other actors could react and get the timing right, even though it was later dubbed over. Apparently during the famous “I am your father” scene, in order to keep that spoiler from leaking out, they rewrote the dialog and he said something else entirely and no one on set except the director and Mark Hamill knew the real dialog that Jones would later record.
So you’re saying he’s a white man wearing a black face mask… i.e. he’s wearing blackface. See, racist. Case closed.
So Star Wars was the first sci-fi minstrel show?
As someone recently said, “What a stupid time to be alive.”