Imperial Racism, EU Brain bug?

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Actually, I'd say the case for the officer is stronger. He's talking about what he assumes to be a criminal prisoner (not that I know how prison guards talk about prisoners IRL, but I doubt it's glowingly). Leia was talking about someone risking his life to save hers!

The scene goes like this (hopefully these are exact)
"Han Solo: Look, Your Worshipfulness, let's get one thing straight. I take orders from just one person: me.
Princess Leia: It's a wonder you're still alive.
[Pushing past Chewbacca]
Princess Leia: Will someone get this big walking carpet out of my way?
Han Solo: No reward is worth this. "

She isn't that respectful of Han after rescuing her either (although it wasn't the most ept rescue in the world). So you could assign this as either sarcasm or exasperation.

She also has other lines like "Into the garbage chute, flyboy. " So she has a sharp tongue more than being racist. At least Chewie wasn't called a nerfherder.

So if I call a black guy who's in my way when I'm exasperated a "goddamn darkie" it's not racism, just a sharp or annoyed tongue? And when I yell "Redskin" at First Nations people it's 'sarcasm'. She was insulting his race out-and-out. It's not a hard stretch to call her a racist.

[Cao Cao]

Well, to be honest, she was expecting General Kenobi the Negotiator to save her.

She got Sargent Mullet and the Dynamic Duo instead

Plus she just got out of a trash compactor. That would really mess up someone's mood.

I doubt the prison guard was in the best of moods either.
Think about it. You're an Imperial officer stationed aboard the Death Star.. the most powerful force in the galaxy.. a planet cracking sphere of absolute doom and a symbol of total power.. and you're stuck in the detention block handling scruffy criminals. That'd ruin anyone's day.

[Stark]

I figure the detention areas are simply scaled-up brigs. The DS would have a crew in the billions, so there would probably be thousands or tens of thousands of personel on fatigues at any given time. It certainly wasn't designed to hold the odd Senatorial traitor!

[Covenant]

I think it's fairly obvious from the films that Lucas wanted to depict an evil, intolerant, subservient Empire as a foil to the open, accepting, freedom-loving Rebellion. I believe he intended for them to appear suitably hateful in all ways, including the intolerance of other races, but this may be more of a byproduct of the fact that they aren't Imperial in the correct sense than that they are alien.

I think the best example of this is that Luke and his friends all wanted to join the Academy and learn to be Imperial pilots. Sure, he's out from Nowhere Land on some hick rock, but why should that make him any more accepting of alien species? Doesn't seem to work that way in real life.

So I think, if the Empire is made up of people similar to that, that most Imperials probably look down on anyone--human, alien, or otherwise. They may make it harder for hicks, women and aliens to meet their 'rigorous' Imperial Standards, but that's probably because they don't like anyone who is different. Aliens have more than two arms or maybe their torso is extra wide? Can't be stormtroopers! Useless! Or they can't fly TIE's. Useless! To the spice mines with them. Or they breathe methane and can't speak. Worthless!

We hardly saw any fat Imperials either. Or bearded ones. Do they all hate facial hair and overweight people? Nearly all the officers seem to have the same accent--do they come from Coruscant? All of them? I think it's more likely that the Imperials are closer to the Nazis than they are to your average garden-variety bigot. They seem to have such SPECIFIC requirements to be worth more than contempt that I doubt hardly anyone really fits their bill as more than just a stormtrooper, and they don't even call those by name. The indoctrination must be severe, and though they surely are individuals, I think any individuality is quashed. Desire for approval and to belong to a group will breed a hate of others where one did not exist before. And I think that's the real message. Yes the Empire is racist by nature and intent, but it's hardly restricted to aliens.

[Cao Cao]

What in blazes does Luke wanting to go to the Imperial Academy have to do with this entirely plucked-from-thin-air notion of super racism?

And while it's obvious that Lucas intended the Empire to be The Bad Guys and authoritarian, I see no evidence in the movies of racism or truly Nazi style traits.

[Stark]

Since humans are so dramatically dominant, none of this is surprising. Unless/until there are examples from the movies of race-motivated hate, it's a bullshit brainbug. Authors intent counts for nothing - if the best basis for it is 'lolz the MP chaindog is rude to visitors' then that's pretty weak.

Stormies are even mostly clones - no shit they'd prefer people who fit the standard clone equipment. ZOMG RACISM.

[Covenant]

I was saying that since Luke and others like Luke joined up with the Imperial armed forces that it's safe to assume that a fair number of the Imperials within the Imperial ranks were actually older, more mature versions of idiots like young Luke and his buddies. They, who are not super racists, would then take their not-super-racist thinking to Imperial Academy with them, and would probably remain tolerant of aliens throughout their career.

So I think it's unfair to say that every IMPERIAL hated Aliens. We know the Emperor is not a fan of 'em, and that people who are different are treated poorly, and have very little place in the Imperial framework, but I think that is more an institutional degree of intolerance towards difference than a hatred of aliens and love of humans.

So I'm agreeing with you. I say that while Lucas does indeed intend for us to percieve them as hateful, intolerant, evil Imperials... they rarely exhibit this (stormtroopers even listen to that goofy nosed informant without saying Filthy Alien! or something to it) and it's not hard to assume that the Empire's political, civilian and military temperment, since it has been drawn from people we know to be tolerant of aliens, wouldn't automatically exhibit a super xenophobia just because they've put on a gray suit or white helmet.

-edit- Did Lucas originally intend for them to be clones? We can all fit this together in EU theme, but in the order they were made was the order in which he envisioned the series. It's important not to confuse the chronology with the actual evolution of the Universe in question. Afterall, the topic wasn't "Is in the full theme there a sign of the Empire's Racism" but rather "Was this primarily an invention of authors, was it inferred, or was it obviously portrayed on film?"

[Stark]

Sorry, Lucas' intentions are totally irrelevant. Stormies are the remains of the CW clones, new clone batches, and regular professional soldiers. Lucas has changed his mind on lots of things over the last thirty years.

[Covenant]

Do you believe that the films depict an Empire that primarily serves humans? Do you believe that was Lucas' intent? Or do you believe that the anti-alien sentiment in the Imperial forces was a creation of the authors of the Extended Universe?

That's the original post. It -does- matter what his intent was, since that's the venue for this thread. He's not asking if the expanded universe and the old republic are racist, but if the Empire as depicted in the films is a humans-first anti-Imperial group, or if it was all that other stuff that made it so.

Reading your first post I'd think you would agree with me, since we are saying approximately the same thing, except I'm directing some of my interest towards what his intent was. Afterall, another good example of intent and implication about racism is Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, in which no racial slurs are thrown or violence demonstrated, but the discomfort shown by the characters involved is all you need to see to know that there is a lot of tension there--at least at the beginning of the movie.

So, directly to the question of the original post...

Do you believe that the films depict an Empire that primarily serves humans? Yes, humans are the soldiers of the Empire, the sole leader of it's governance is a human, all the Moffs we see in the movie are humans.

Do you believe that was Lucas' intent? Yes, I believe it was. He did show the Imperials reactions to the various bounty hunters, but they may have been reacting to the smell of one of them or just general annoyance. But it certainly was his intent to make them look evil and intolerant, even if the film evidence for it is thin in spots.

Or do you believe that the anti-alien sentiment in the Imperial forces was a creation of the authors of the Extended Universe? I think there was indeed a lot of it made by EU authors to spice stuff up, especially since the only real act of horrific violence we see being done is blowing up Alderaan, which we could assume was full of people, like Leia, not Ewoks or Gungans or anything. They did massacre all those Jawas, treat Chewie kinda bad, but that doesn't count for too much. But Lucas did draw paralells between the faceless Imperial pilots and the various faces of the rebellion, with several aliens working on rebel ships--and in the case of the Mon Cal ships, commanding them.

[Stark]

In the terms of the OP, most of the discussion in this thread has focussed on the outright racism portrayed in the EU. However, I can accept that the Empire 'primarily serves humans' without moving further into outright racism, for many reasons mentioned above.

[Covenant]

In the terms of the OP, most of the discussion in this thread has focussed on the outright racism portrayed in the EU. However, I can accept that the Empire 'primarily serves humans' without moving further into outright racism, for many reasons mentioned above.

In that sense, won't have any arguements here. I know what I'm supposed to get from them, but viewed out of context of ominous music, their name being 'stormtroopers' and such, an impartial observer may not pick up on any racial tension motifs.

[Kurgan]

I'll toss this one in for fun...

"My little... green... friend." - Palpatine to Yoda, ROTS

Yeah, because single quotes mean shit.

Right, and we know the Empire is NOT predjudiced, because it is just isolated incidents, and individual opinions we can ignore, dialouge we can throw out. And the EU is all Rebel propaganda (except the parts that make the Rebels/New Republic look bad, which was probably also propaganda). So then the conclusion we wish to reach is assured! Excellent.

Anyway, I gave no other conclusive comments when I made that quote, I just threw it in, but it's nice to see you can dismiss it so easily. Now that's over with...

That's all this is based on. Single quotes. We ignore the nasty racist shit the good guys say, and use the nasty racist shit the bad guys say to invent a galaxy-spanning attitude.

Quotes and observation, that's what people are talking about with the "lack of" faces in the crowd and supporting characters. It's not really stated outright in the movies that there is an Empire wide policy of genocide, slavery and repression against non-human "aliens" (or non-white, non-male humans) in the Empire. That's all EU stuff. So we're left to draw our own conclusions. This thread has been about what possible indications we have from the movies, so I'm just making my contribution, since I didn't see anyone else mention that quote before in here.

Frankly, since most aliens appear to be limited to few planets - ie, Sullustans are actually from Sullust - while humans are EVERYWHERE - humans aren't from planet Hum - means that aliens in general are outnumbered, and individual species are stark minorities. Holy shit, maybe the prison officer had never even SEEN a wookie!

Well we don't know that either. The EU tells us where aliens are from, but some of that has been changed (like the Ree Yees type alien is from some place called Malestar, and they have some kind of Jawa drink on Coruscant, plus we see lots of aliens all over, if nothing else they all have little communities on the capital planet). We see huge numbers of human Jedi (on Geonosis) so for all we know that indicates humans are by and large dominate over the whole galaxy, or just somehow more likely to have force ability (take your pick), or maybe they're speciesist and tend to train humans more for combat roles in the Order...

And as for Leia's quote, everybody remember that despite her being a Rebel, she's also a career politician with the Empire. Can we say "cultural indoctrination"? Hello! To say the Empire is racist we don't need to also argue that the Rebels are all pristine tolerant inclusivists (at least not at first). The EU again takes up that banner. The movies don't really do much about the whole "droids are slaves" thing either, but that's a whole 'nother thread topic.

The real reason is that the alien effects are more costly, so we're left with these explanations just like in Star Trek. Oh well.

One last riff, this time regarding itent... in the ESB audio commentary, Lucas actually slips up and refers to the Imperials officers as "the Nazis."

[K. A. Pital]

Right, and we know the Empire is NOT predjudiced, because it is just isolated incidents, and individual opinions we can ignore, dialouge we can throw out. And the EU is all Rebel propaganda (except the parts that make the Rebels/New Republic look bad, which was probably also propaganda). So then the conclusion we wish to reach is assured! Excellent.

Ahem. The quote in question really means shit. And the OP question was whether Imperial racism was a EU brain bug, not whether the EU is a viable source of information or rebel propaganda. The question is also not whether the Empire is prejudiced, but whether we can infer such from the movies. Which we cannot, at least directly, because there's no direct reference to that. And that's it. If something is so vaguely implied that it is possible not to notice it alltogether, it's the same as if it's not implied at all.

[Lord Pounder]

Palpatine was observed by Obi-Wan in EP2 to be good at giving the people what they wanted, or atleast seeming to. He got what he wanted from them. he got his emergancy powers and his throne.

As Emperor he needs a different type of person to maintain that power. He needed animals on a leash that he could sic on those who rocked the boat and became a threat to the throne. One of the side effects seems to be that they hatted what the Empire later called non-huMAN's.

[Srynerson]

I also recall Irvin Kershner stating in an interview that Imperial uniforms and the atmosphere of Imperial ships were supposed to bring to mind Nazis (not to mention the use of the word "stormtroopers"), which seems like an odd choice if one doesn't intend to convey the impression of an organization being xenophobic.

*shrug*

The OP specifically asked in part whether it was Lucas' intent that the Empire be viewed as xenophobic. The statement of a director who worked with Lucas to bring one of the films to the screen would seem to be relevant.

[Stark]

The 'was it Lucas' intent' issue has been answered. Frankly, it *is* now irrelevant, since the discussion has moved towards the question of whether the Empire is a demonstrably racist organisation.

[Knife]

I also recall Irvin Kershner stating in an interview that Imperial uniforms and the atmosphere of Imperial ships were supposed to bring to mind Nazis (not to mention the use of the word "stormtroopers"), which seems like an odd choice if one doesn't intend to convey the impression of an organization being xenophobic.

*shrug*

The OP specifically asked in part whether it was Lucas' intent that the Empire be viewed as xenophobic. The statement of a director who worked with Lucas to bring one of the films to the screen would seem to be relevant.

That's one interpertation. You could involk the dreaded 'Nazi' image for just a big old plain 'bad guys' since calling some one or their plans 'Nazi' has pretty much boiled down to 'badguy' for over 60 years now.

[Illuminatus Primus]

From an in-universe perspective, we cannot conclude with any degree of certainty from evidence presented in the OT that the Galactic Empire is an institutionally specieist state. From an out-of-universe perspective, with the prison guard's remark and Piett aboard the Executor in TESB, it becomes much more tempting. It would be unusual for a director and writer to simply casually insert such references without some goal of imprinting the audience with a particular opinion regarding the Imperials.

As for Palpatine, he used the COMPNOR fanatics with their "High Human Culture" to his advantage politically, but did not share their elitist and anti-alien biases. Palpatine's true prejudice was against those blind to the Force. His writings in the Weakness of Inferiors spells out that he regards most non-Force sensitives as a pitifully weak underclass that cannot exercise power: The Weak Do Not Understand The Force. While non-Force sensitives are awknowledged to have the possibility of strength and power, and non-Force sensitives could fail to exercise power (his indictment against the Jedi), he identifies them closely, and it casually appears he finds non-Force sensitives generally inferior to himself and other Force-sensitives. He did intend to replace even his most trusted and loyal and strong underlings with partially-assimilated Force-sensitive adepts.

[Cao Cao]

Piett's comment is not racist.

"Bounty Hunters! We don't need that kind of scum here."

After all, many bounty hunters are human.
Piett is simply a proud military man who doesn't like lowlife vigilantes being hired to do his job on his ship.

[Stark]

Yeah, seriously, it's a stretch to get 'racism' out of Fleet elitism. They were messy and smelly and hadn't pressed their uniforms in YEARS!

[thejester]

It was the impression I got, but an examination of actual evidence doesn't show that much for it. In ANH at least we didn't know that humans were such a dominant species, and the number of aliens in Mos Eisely was huge; so I think, along with a natural tendency to link rascism as a trait of the bad guys, the impression of rascism was conveyed in the movies but only solidified in the EU.

[WTR]

Maybe the security guard just came from a long line of proud speciests. The occasionally growed 'Goddamned squid-heads' by dear old dad, like out of American History X. Being in the military and having comrades who happen to be goddamned aliens doesn't get rid of that engrained stuff.
Besides, if aliens were not allowed, then wouldn't it be that much more difficult for the Bothans to accquire the plans?

[Xon]

Mos Eisely was also a back of nowhere location, and it was a lower economic area (water farmers? ROFL).

If that doesnt explain why deadbeat miniorities where concentrated there...

[WTR]

But just think of Mos Eisely as the ghetto of the 'wars galaxy. Instead of gangbangers or Gringo-hating latinos, you have the Sand People. Everything else is pratically the same. Instead of the skinheads, you have the alien-haters. I'm sure the Empire has the crime of DWA (Driving Whilst Alien) on Tatooine.
The gangs, the people in power like the Hutts who probably make money of the various vices. It's just not concealed so much because there's nothing viable out there that is worth getting hassled by cops.

[WTR]

And just as you see affluent people on the upper levels of Coruscant, you have the dregs living down below. There's probably Clone War Vets ambling around looking for the next meal and a strong drink.