Ethnic essentialism and SF/F

Have you noticed that every intelligent species seems to have its own language? And style of dress? And defining ethnic characteristic? The Star Wars eps 1-2 Trade Federation are bandits (as are Star Trek's Ferengi), the Jawas itinerant tinkers and/or Gypsies, Klingons and Pukkel-Men are noble savages, Romulans sneaky fascists, elves and Minbari classicist semi-deities, dwarves little Midases.... (Granted, Tolkien's elves have different languages, as do the Minbari; I'm not so knowledgeable about the former, but the latter's languages are, as I recall, specific to their "caste" — as seem to be their skull crests: satisfying my point that things that should be uncorrelated still appear to have strong positive correlations.) Only humans usually show much in the way of heterogeneity, but even so we are often still given central ethnic traits of "curiosity" (why humans dominate Starfleet) and "community building" (why humans drove the United Federation of Planets, why humans built the Babylon stations, why humans organized defense against the Shadows). Essentialism is even still applied sex, as in that ST:TNG ep with the humanlike aliens among whom females had evolved to be dominant and males subordinate: the males wore filmy clothes and used perfume atomizers (like a 20th-century middle-class American TV audience couldn't tell the difference otherwise).

Granted, this does not apply universally [no pun intended]. Individual characters do display some individuality: we never see Greedo with any other greedos, and it is a bit difficult to imagine a whole species of bounty hunters. In some respects, though, it is species rather than individuals thereof who are the character. Take Chewbacca — really, what do we know about him as an individual (I'd argue we actually know Greedo better as an individual)? But I hear there's a Wookie planet in the new Star Wars flick.

Why is this? Would it really have been too confusing if it were a motley band of aliens in the sandcrawler selling robots to Luke Skywalker's uncle, instead of a bunch of indistinguishable Jawas? Why do all the humans in the Star Wars Empire speak the same language regardless of what planet they're from, but the non-humans usually speak different ones (and bad Human if they don't), yet everyone still understands everyone else? And why doesn't Chewbacca get subtitles when he speaks?

I'm not sure it's appropriate to chalk this up to racism — I think ethnic essentialism would be a better frame. (Racism is essentialist, of course, but there's more to even just ethnic essentialism than racism.) In this connection, I can now understand why J. Michael Straczynski's core message in Babylon 5 was that one person can make a difference. I mention this because until now, its importance puzzled me. History is still mostly presented as driven by influential individuals rather than by mass circumstances. But if the unique individual is ostensibly a pretty rare thing — most "individuals" virtually indistinguishable from their fellows, more what they are than who they are – then paradoxically the importance of the individual is greatest.

Michael Wong has some pretty good arguments. If I were, as S. J. Gould has said, "to substitute quips for analysis", I would gloss Mr. Wong's basic argument as, 'takes one to know one' (i.e., racist). I found the site while looking to see if my point has been commonly addressed, and some of what he had to say makes me uncomfortable. Why are we educated crackers so sensitive to the putative Caribbean analogues of Jar-Jar Binks, or the Asian ones of the Trade Federation, if not because we've internalized them? My explanation/post-hoc rationalization/excuse is that it's one thing to internalize a characterization, and another to deploy it; that what we in fact are responding to is Lucas' apparent deployment of essentialist characterizations too similar to hurtful ethnic or racial stereotypes. I don't know anyone who thinks Jar-Jar reminds them of any actual Caribbean blacks; I know lots of people who think Jar-Jar is too much like a 21st-century Caribbean Amos 'n' Andy to be appropriate.

(I would also remind Mr. Wong that there are such things as unintended consequences, and that an actor is not the eternal arbiter of their acts' meaning.)

I think it ironic that only this week, with twelve years of tertiary education in anthropology under my belt, did I learn of Ruth Benedict's adage that "the purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences."