When the Future was White
23/5/10 15:32![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madrobinsSo last week, in honor of the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, Skywalker screened the movie for employees and family in the Blue-Ray edition. I went up, and as always, it's a great place to hang out and work, as well as see a movie. But because I've seen this film so many times, I focused on things beyond the story (the fact that Mark Hamill acts better with his voice than his face--not surprising that so much of his work has been voice talent). One of the things I realized is that all of the Vader army are not only white, but they look like they were from the same gene pool, give or take. I don't know that this was deliberate, but I can't rule it out. Long nose, small, protuberant eyes, thin lips, narrow faces--to a man.
And boy, is that a white future. Other than Lando Calrissian and one extra moving around the city-in-the-clouds, I saw no person of color. Which made me remember the extent that, 30 years ago, the future--and the present--in film and TV, was so much whiter. I remember the buzz that went around when it was discovered that Lucas had cast a black actor in the second Star Wars movie, as if it were a great step forward (and at the time it was). Of course, I also remember the buzz that said that Boba Fett was really Luke's father, and we all know how that panned out.
It's still the best of the Star Wars movies, I think, and it's still fun to watch. But it also has become, in the words of Galaxy Quest, one of the Historical Documents.
And boy, is that a white future. Other than Lando Calrissian and one extra moving around the city-in-the-clouds, I saw no person of color. Which made me remember the extent that, 30 years ago, the future--and the present--in film and TV, was so much whiter. I remember the buzz that went around when it was discovered that Lucas had cast a black actor in the second Star Wars movie, as if it were a great step forward (and at the time it was). Of course, I also remember the buzz that said that Boba Fett was really Luke's father, and we all know how that panned out.
It's still the best of the Star Wars movies, I think, and it's still fun to watch. But it also has become, in the words of Galaxy Quest, one of the Historical Documents.