Jar Jar Binks

Character
Name:	Jar Jar Binks
Occupation:
Relationships:
Fandom:	The Phantom Menace The Clone Wars
Other:
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cover of I Don't Care What You Smell #8, a rare piece of fan art: the rifle target graphic represents this character's lack of appeal and downright hostility from many fans

Jar Jar Binks is a character in The Phantom Menace, to a much lesser extent, Attack of the Clones, and a little more in The Clone Wars cartoon.

from the interior of Imperium #11, Sandra Scholes is the artist

"Jar Jar Binks was the first Gungan to represent his people in the Galactic Senate, first serving as a Junior Representative along with Senator Padmé Amidala, and then, after her death, serving as full Senator himself. Like most Gungans, Jar Jar was lanky and spoke Basic with a unique accent. Despite being naïve and clumsy, Jar Jar Binks contributed greatly to the fate of the Galactic Republic, both for good and ill. He was a General, Representative, and later a Senator."

Jar Jar Binks' footprint in fannish works is minimal.

Fannish Reaction

Jar Jar Binks was met with largely negative fan response and character bashing.

The fan-edited The Phantom Edit by Mike J. Nichols tinkered with nearly all scenes featuring Jar Jar Binks and removed some of what Nichols dubbed 'Jar Jar Antics.'

Many fans felt that Jar Jar Binks was an example of racial caricature and were offended. A fan in 1999 wrote: "Racism. It was racist. Jar Jar whateverhewas spoke bad Jamaican ick and the flat headed flat nosed trade federationists spoke whatever-passes-for-WWII-Japanese. When I left the theatre all I wanted was my two and a half hours back."

They also felt that the inclusion of the character dumbed down the movie.

One Star Wars link collection that was last updated in 1999 lists 56 Jar Jar Binks hate sites from Ways Jar Jar Binks Should Die to the Kill Jar Jar Binks Game.

A viral Reddit post in 2015 posited that Jar Jar, "far from being simply the bumbling idiot he portrays himself as, is in fact a highly skilled force user in terms of martial ability and mind control"—or rather, that Jar Jar was actually the main Sith villain in the Star Wars saga all along.

In 2018, Jar Jar's actor, Ahmed Best admitted on Twitter that the enormous backlash that he received for his role as the character made him consider suicide. This revelation changed a lot how people talk about the character, and made many people who grew up with the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy come foward with praise for Jar Jar and his actor, a lot focusing on how revolutionary the Motion Capture special effects used for the character were at the time.