StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Has anyone actually listened to it? I've read the transcripts and it's pretty interesting.

No.

So why don't you give a little more to go on?

https://www.ted.com/podcasts/the-redemp ... -jar-binks

It talks about the behind the scenes stuff, as well as the backlash Ahmed Best received. Best talks about how he nearly attempted suicide.

They also delved into the "Jar Jar is a racist stereotype" and the discussion was actually pretty even handed.

Essentially, the voice was something Best did for his young cousins, and the movements were his attempts to imitate Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan. George Lucas actually used Goofy as a primary source of inspiration. The expert they had on the show summed it up as "Lucas drew on elements with racist baggage, and some of that baggage unwittingly transferred over to Jar Jar even if the actual intent was just a goofy comic relief character" (one of the things they talked about was how Art Babbitt based Goofy in part on black minstrel shows.) I felt that was relatively fair. The Tuskens in the OT have been accused of being racist stereotypes of native americans/arabs, and the Mandalorian did flesh them out in more detail.

They also got the guys who ran one of the biggest Jar Jar hate sites in the early 2000s. He pretty much admitted that he did it for popularity and when he sat down and watched it with his four year old he actually said "I can see how someone my son's age can like Jar Jar." He also expressed some degree of regret for the shit Best went through.