It's been obvious to me ever since my college years that Hollywood movies have been consistently reproducing post colonial depiction of everything foreign. And Star Wars is ticking more or less all the boxes, despite its (rescent) will to be inclusive and talk to everyone.
I think the relevant phrase here is, '...ever since my college years'. With possibly 'post colonial' coming in second.
I just read the article and after careful consideration, it is my professional opinion that the author is, for lack of a better appellation, fucking Looney Tunes.
If wokeness wants to rob us of awesome film music, wokeness needs to die.
"Wokeness" is something I agree with, as well as social change and acceptance. But there is part of the bleeding edge that wants to thrash things simply because they are there, not because there is a battle to be won or a victory to be had. Much like a number of people in our media the last few years, this article isn't about John Williams' music but about the person who wrote it. And the timing of this is suspect; right after the final Star Wars movie? Of course! Again: its about the writer, not the subject.
Frankly, I expected more from Stanford's PHd program than this guy. If I wanted dull opinions couched in thinly veiled racist comments, I have elderly family members I can talk to.
There's an obvious lack of musical culture in Chen's original article who seems to know only Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss among the classical composers.
How can someone write an intelligent article about music when he actually knows only... 2 classical composers, both German, while John Williams's influences come from many composers from many (western) countries?
The Battle in the Snow or the theme for the very stupid Jar Jar sound like Prokofiev for example. And Chen also forgot to tell that Qui-Gon's Funeral is sung in Sanskrit.
Apart from the original trilogy, I actually don't know very well the other films, but the Star Wars scores don't seem to be the best examples for Chen's thesis, which I find very interesting nonetheless.
I think he's right about the Balrog scene in The Lord of the Rings, why did Howard Shore use a kind of Maori haka to depict this particular scene?
Not very subtle, and not very nice for the Maoris.
I think it's unfortunate that some people will desperately search for anything even potentially racist, just so they can virtue signal to their online "friends". It also when seems to diminish real racism. It also doesn't seem to matter that most of these people seem to know so little about what they write about, which they often do poorly.
So. After a week of kicking the ideas around here on the board, what is the consensus on the actual article?
(Personally, my conclusion is that it was just one big trolling wind-up.)
I think he made some valid points when he questioned the use of non-western music to underscore "bad guys". On the other hand, he doesn't acknowledge that "The Imperial March" is in a totally western tradition, as is Lex Luthor's theme, the Nazi motifs in the Indiana Jones scores, the music for Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick, the music for the Velociraptors, Voldemort's theme, etc.
I also get the sense he's never heard (nor is aware of) Williams' scores for Seven Years In Tibet and Memoirs of A Geisha -- or that Yo-Yo Ma performed on both of them.
So. After a week of kicking the ideas around here on the board, what is the consensus on the actual article?
(Personally, my conclusion is that it was just one big trolling wind-up.)
I think he made some valid points when he questioned the use of non-western music to underscore "bad guys". On the other hand, he doesn't acknowledge that "The Imperial March" is in a totally western tradition, as is Lex Luthor's theme, the Nazi motifs in the Indiana Jones scores, the music for Jack Nicholson in The Witches of Eastwick, the music for the Velociraptors, Voldemort's theme, etc.
I also get the sense he's never heard (nor is aware of) Williams' scores for Seven Years In Tibet and Memoirs of A Geisha -- or that Yo-Yo Ma performed on both of them.
