Front Row Geek: Race in the Phantom Menace

: Image via Wikipedia

By: W.B. Preston
Of course the issue of racism must be brought up when ever talking about The Phantom Menace. There are three main characters in the film that can be seen as racial stereotypes. Watto the junk dealer is supposed to be seen as Jewish, The Neimoidians, whom are the evil Trad Federation are supposed to resemble a caricature of some sort of homogeneous Asian stereotype, and of course Jar Jar represents some sort of minstrel show, Stepin Fetchit African American stereotype. While the characters themselves are terribly written and 1 dimensional, and this should be enough to offend any first year screenplay student, it is the overt similarities to old Hollywood stereotypes that is offensive to the respective nationalities. Some claim that there is no race involved here and that these are just alien creatures with strange accents and have nothing to do with the stereotypes they seem to resemble quite well. You be the judge. Is this racist or just coincidence?