I don't get these types of post. Are people supposed to give Lucas shit instead? How about no shit to anyone? It's a fucking movie.
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Jar Jar Binks Actor Opens Up About Suicide
- Thread starter Newlove
- Start date
If your fandom gets to the point where you think the thing you're a fan of is real, you need help. I can be fan and know that at the end of the day, it's just something that's for entertainment.
This was a heart-wrenching vid, thank you for sharing.
I think all the comments like "well he didn't write the character, George Lucas did" or similar (for other characters e.g. Rose in TLJ) are missing the point, and that was my first thought too. It shouldn't be about being mad at someone or blaming anybody. It's a movie. It's a product designed for entertainment (and let's be real, marketing). Episode 1 could have been Jar-Jar taking a steamy shit on the original trilogy for two hours and getting that upset about it would still be lame.
As an artist I know what it's like to have someone dump on your work and it's one of the worst feelings in the world, and obviously nothing I've done has ever had the same notoriety or worldwide audience that Ahmed's had to deal with. I'm glad he's doing better and especially glad he was able to share this.
I think all the comments like "well he didn't write the character, George Lucas did" or similar (for other characters e.g. Rose in TLJ) are missing the point, and that was my first thought too. It shouldn't be about being mad at someone or blaming anybody. It's a movie. It's a product designed for entertainment (and let's be real, marketing). Episode 1 could have been Jar-Jar taking a steamy shit on the original trilogy for two hours and getting that upset about it would still be lame.
As an artist I know what it's like to have someone dump on your work and it's one of the worst feelings in the world, and obviously nothing I've done has ever had the same notoriety or worldwide audience that Ahmed's had to deal with. I'm glad he's doing better and especially glad he was able to share this.
Fuck those fans, especially those who felt they needed to send hate mail to jake Lloyd at the time
If the OT was released today, I feel like you'd have similar abuse hurled at C-3PO and Anthony Daniels.
Oh god no. Not this "Jar Jar is a Sith Lord" nonsense again. Nobody was ever going to accept Jar Jar as a bad guy.
Oh god no. Not this "Jar Jar is a Sith Lord" nonsense again. Nobody was ever going to accept Jar Jar as a bad guy.
I think people didn't fully get that there was an actor behind the character.
I mean while people gave shit to the kid playing Anakin, I feel like people at least understood that the kid clearly was never to blame as he was a child actor after all.
Jar Jar is like a cartoon character so people don't see the actor behind the character and kind of let loose.
And this guy paid the price in full for that.
Say what you want about the movies (and I'm certainly no fan of them), but I think that Jar Jar was actually well played and animated.
Was it a role worth playing in the context of making the movie a better experience? That is an entirely different question, but the guy did a great job which is light of the abysmal performance of the main cast in that trilogy is not faint praise.
I mean while people gave shit to the kid playing Anakin, I feel like people at least understood that the kid clearly was never to blame as he was a child actor after all.
Jar Jar is like a cartoon character so people don't see the actor behind the character and kind of let loose.
And this guy paid the price in full for that.
Say what you want about the movies (and I'm certainly no fan of them), but I think that Jar Jar was actually well played and animated.
Was it a role worth playing in the context of making the movie a better experience? That is an entirely different question, but the guy did a great job which is light of the abysmal performance of the main cast in that trilogy is not faint praise.
I updated that post with a direct quote from this video:
"And a lot of time, you know, I hear people say 'we're not talking about you, we're talking about Jar Jar.' You're talking about me. I put a lot of me into that role. And if you talk to any artist, and you talk to anyone who really cares about their work... you're talking about them."
My point stands.
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We can play "what ifs" but a goofball character that is peripheral to the plot that sort of help the heroes and turns out to be evil incarnate is not something inherently bad or even unbelievable.
Wakfu did that for its 2nd season and indeed for the reveal they changed the look and demeanor of the character for that.
It could have worked for Star Wars.
It angers me that people go after guys like this, for playing a part in their thing that they're so passionate about that they cannot control themselves like normal human beings can. I like passionate people but fuck off if you're attacking someone that way. There is a line. Normal people know it. Internet hate mobs cross that perhaps because that line is always being tested and fandom anger is normalized.
Jar jar never bothered me. He is like a pretty minor character. It's the movies themselves which were subpar imo.
Jar jar never bothered me. He is like a pretty minor character. It's the movies themselves which were subpar imo.
Remember, this is the fandom that turned on freaking Mark Hamill when he didn't step onboard the hate train for what Rian "did to his character". Fanatics, the lot of them.
Fandom takes being cruel to be kind to a lifestyle. Anything significant becomes showered with sentiment. The work becomes personal to them, even when this means violating the personal barriers of others, positive or negative. And lo, it will always remain, because to be obsessed is what drives cult and mega hits alike, love and hate in equal measure. Moderation is forever crucial, but impossible to enforce immediately. All you can do is hope that people are prepared and rabid fans are satiated when necessary and the time comes. ;p
All the best to Ahmed, some just don't bounce back.
All the best to Ahmed, some just don't bounce back.
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It's fucking Jar Jar Binks.
"Meesa gonna kill you, Ani"
No. Absolutely not.
I'm curious what parts of himself he put into that part cause like.... Jarhead felt like 1000% Lucas. Through and through.
I feel for him in the same way I feel for some of the people in my life and the way they carry around things from work after they are off. My ex was a come home and cry for a while after workinging at a call center and it was inevitably because of the things strangers said to her about a job she was doing. I could never really relate and my advice was always useless to her because my thinking/attitude towards work and people was so different but i've straight up seen a relatively low stress position just fucking wreck people.
I can't imagine how hard it would be to be someone with that kind of a personality and be an actor AND catch the monumental amount of shit a fandom can throw at someone.
Kid anakin was an even worse situation though. That poor dude had no fuckin chance growing up after that. Like people gush over the goonies and that movie is shit with garbage kid acting and nobody cares because it's a kids movie and they are fuckin kids! like who would lose their mind and antagonize a kid over something so dumb?
Star wars fans. Obvi.
I feel for him in the same way I feel for some of the people in my life and the way they carry around things from work after they are off. My ex was a come home and cry for a while after workinging at a call center and it was inevitably because of the things strangers said to her about a job she was doing. I could never really relate and my advice was always useless to her because my thinking/attitude towards work and people was so different but i've straight up seen a relatively low stress position just fucking wreck people.
I can't imagine how hard it would be to be someone with that kind of a personality and be an actor AND catch the monumental amount of shit a fandom can throw at someone.
Kid anakin was an even worse situation though. That poor dude had no fuckin chance growing up after that. Like people gush over the goonies and that movie is shit with garbage kid acting and nobody cares because it's a kids movie and they are fuckin kids! like who would lose their mind and antagonize a kid over something so dumb?
Star wars fans. Obvi.
Not absolving the fanbase but Jar Jar hate didn't end at the fanbase. It crept into mainstream media at the time and that probably exacerbated how much he took in that criticism and venom because he felt that personally about this character. Honestly though now liking or disliking Jar Jar is irrelevant because this is the story now--that a human being almost died because of this role and we as a society played a role in that.
The contrast is what makes it work.
The most inoffensive the character the most shocking the reveal.
And if you're gonna make him a menace that speech pattern has to go of course (or not, you would have to work a lot to make it work with a character speaking like that).
It requires far more mastery than anything Lucas and his team ever showed but it's actually something that could work.
Is there a worse fanbase?
They ran Daisy Ridley and Kelly Marie Tran off the internet too.
Yeah, I keep reading posts saying the same thing and wondering if people even watched the video.
I was young enough to enjoy Jar Jar and when I was older I realized the prequels were bad for reasons beyond his character. No one should have received this level of vitriol over something so miniscule.
People lost their damn minds when Luke showed some weakness in TLJ. You think they'd really accept evil Sith Lord Jar Jar Binks?
Yeah, no one really cares about that part of the fandom.
they hate everything that is even 1 iota different from what they have in their stale heads.
It would have made for a more interesting plot AND would have been a way to keep the character that Lucas seemed attached to as well.
Feel so bad for Best, some Star Wars fans are truly the worst of humanity. I feel like he should be paid huge sums of money to work as an advisor for anyone signing on to be in a Star Wars film to warn them of the shit they're agreeing to deal with for the rest of their lives.
People are gonna try to abstract their actions so as to justify why their vitriol is acceptable. Not to say that shitting on a character is the same thing as harassing the actor or telling them to commit suicide. But if it leads to the same end-effect, it's probably a good idea to take a step back and re-evaluate your own actions.
Did they though? I thought a lot of them go with "well Disney is paying mark so of course he can't say anything!"
It's still a dick move on the fans part, it's like how they take something Mark said sarcastically or out of context as "evidence" of him hating Luke now
People are assholes and take things too far when they start personally attacking people. I nonetheless respectfully disagree with his opinion that disliking a shitty character is a personal attack against a real person. Frankly, however he feels on the matter, he is simply not Jar Jar. He was one of many artists went into that character's creation.
Jar Jar is one of my fiancee's favorite character from the prelogy. Every time we watch Star Wars 1, she's laughin af when Jar Jar is on screen doing some stupid shit. So I can't help but laugh too. I like Jar Jar thanks to her.
This dude did a great job, Jar Jar is a dumb character doing some stupid shit and, somehow, surviving a fucking war and even being a hero. It's stupid and it's awesome. He gave to the character the perfect tone while playing it.
This dude did a great job, Jar Jar is a dumb character doing some stupid shit and, somehow, surviving a fucking war and even being a hero. It's stupid and it's awesome. He gave to the character the perfect tone while playing it.
I also feel they did a better job on writing him in the clone wars cg show
It's easy to forget that there are people behind your entertainment, and when you don't like a thing, someone, somewhere, is hurting because of that. Videos like the one in OP can be a good reminder of why we need to collectively care less about this shit.
I put "Jar Jar is a Sith Lord" in the same bucket as the "Indoctrination Theory" used for Mass Effect 3.
It's elements of the fandom having difficulty accepting the failures of the franchises they like, so they use conspiracy theory level thinking in order to create elaborate fan theories as a kind of apologetics to try and "fix" the problems they have with the stuff they love. They do this because creating the fantasy that these things are actually better than they really are is more easy for them to accept than simply accepting that the thing that they have put a lot of time and effort into appreciating is actually bad.
Part of me thinks they should invite him back and let him play another character who's rad, but I feel like that could easily go so, so bad.
Every time I've seen Ahmed Best, he seems like a hell of a nice person, and talented, too. I hope he gets all kinds of non-Star Wars-related opportunities to flex that talent.
People who have said that words matter are right, and something I want to mention as sort of an extension of that: Working as an entertainer in the public eye is an absolute minefield. And I don't mean that in the sense of "whoops, it turns out I'm racist/sexist on Twitter" -- that's not a minefield, that's shitty behavior that deserves plenty of rebuke. I mean it's a minefield in the genuine sense that some good, talented people are just out here trying to do their jobs, taking opportunities that any one would take, doing their best in circumstances that they often have very limited control over, and shit just explodes by no fault of their own. I'm close to it, and I see it happen all the time.
Just something to keep in mind the next time your favorite movie or video game or what have you doesn't turn out exactly the way you wanted it to; there are real human beings in there, and they're listening.
People who have said that words matter are right, and something I want to mention as sort of an extension of that: Working as an entertainer in the public eye is an absolute minefield. And I don't mean that in the sense of "whoops, it turns out I'm racist/sexist on Twitter" -- that's not a minefield, that's shitty behavior that deserves plenty of rebuke. I mean it's a minefield in the genuine sense that some good, talented people are just out here trying to do their jobs, taking opportunities that any one would take, doing their best in circumstances that they often have very limited control over, and shit just explodes by no fault of their own. I'm close to it, and I see it happen all the time.
Just something to keep in mind the next time your favorite movie or video game or what have you doesn't turn out exactly the way you wanted it to; there are real human beings in there, and they're listening.
I mean professional movie critics didn't attacking him personally like the online fanbase did. They rightly called out the terrible writing and weird racist caricature features of the character (along with other aliens in the film) but they never told the guy to go kill himself or said it was his fault because they most likely knew he was working with an awful script/they aren't assholes. I think it's disingenous to say "but what about the critical" when the toxic hate was coming from the "fanbase".
He did a good job.
Harrassment is never justified.
I have to rewatch, but I think they could have toned it down a bit in the third act. Jar and Anakin stumbling towards being heroes was slight overkill.
Harrassment is never justified.
I have to rewatch, but I think they could have toned it down a bit in the third act. Jar and Anakin stumbling towards being heroes was slight overkill.
Oh don't mistake what I'm saying.
I don't really care if JarJar was originally planned as a villain or not.
I'm saying ep2 and 3 would have been better off following that path.
And it's not something that couldn't be pulled off either, it's a rather common cliché to have the real man behind the man be someone inoffensive after all.
Jar Jar is actually pretty cool in The clone wars show which I think Ahmed played too. He had some cool episodes.
Fans who take things seriously to the point of making people like Ahmed hurt the way he hurt are the problem. They are gross and really alienate me from fandoms.
Fans who take things seriously to the point of making people like Ahmed hurt the way he hurt are the problem. They are gross and really alienate me from fandoms.
If I'm hearing Ahmed right, I think what hurt the most was a broader feeling of having let people down. The gulf between the hype behind The Phantom Menace and the resulting disappointment was so huge. A movie was never as hyped as that movie was. The ensuing shock of what happened was felt pretty much collectively in pop culture, and I'm being completely serious, if you were old enough during the time of its release you'll know what I mean. There were 24 Pepsi cans of the movie to collect, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell all ran heavy promotions. Books, toys, just endless merchandise. I myself purchased my ticket early and put in a baseball card protector for posterity. It was a massive, collective event. And then... the movie was incomprehensibly bad.
So I can believe the shame and feeling of having let people down must have hit Ahmed Best like a sack of bricks. If it had been me, I would have felt so low. To feel like it was your fault.
So I can believe the shame and feeling of having let people down must have hit Ahmed Best like a sack of bricks. If it had been me, I would have felt so low. To feel like it was your fault.
I agree, but the actor is saying that negative comments about the character are taken personally, which I think is a difficult perspective. People talk about movies online, both what they love and what they don't like. Should they reign in the vitriol and hyperbolics? Absolutely. Should they avoid personal shots on actors? Absolutely. If someone respectfully makes the point (not to the actor, but to others on a message board) that Jar Jar is a bad character with racist undertones who detracts from the movie, however, I don't see why that is problematic. Stifling honesty or pretending that something is great even if it's not isn't a great solution. Actors, I think, need to be able to distance themselves from characters. If I think that Cavill's Superman is not great then I could be talking about Cavill, the writers, the directors, the costume designer, etc... Film, after all, is collaborative. In this case there are a ton of people who brought Jar Jar to the screen, so I don't think that it makes sense for the actor to tie his own worth to the reception of the character that he didn't write, direct, animate, etc...
I sure don't think Best is to blame at all for the Jar Jar we got. I put the blame on the writers honestly, and I wouldn't go out of my way to attack them either. It's a movie that was disappointing, but that's hardly the end of the world.
Nah, they'll just make altright clickbait videos and then more clickbait videos to justify their point of view
I think this is missing the greater point. Ultimately we need to acknowledge that in any sufficiently large fandom widespread toxicity can take hold. The fan theories aren't the problem, it's the toxicity. We can be better fans not by adhering to canon only, but by calling out and rejecting abusers among us. I personally welcome fan theories, but that's kind of irrelevant.