Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best says his career "began and ended" with "Star Wars." As "Phantom Menace" celebrates its 25th anniversary, he told People magazine "Everybody came for me ... I'm the first person to do this kind of work, but I was also the first Black person, Black man." He remembers being ostracized from motion-capture work after the movie came out, but forged a new career as an educator and co-founder of the AfroRithm Futures Group. Here's more.
#JarJarBinks became one of the most polarizing figures in cinema history when he debutted in The Phantom Menace. After the release, Ahmed Best, who played him, was hit w/ the full force of backlash & it nearly destroyed him. The #podcast is a six-part journey through the early internet to know how one of the first-ever online hate campaigns began, & to right what we got so wrong about Jar Jar the first time around.
> Ahmed Best thought he’d made it big when cast as Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. But it turned into a nightmare of online abuse and accusations of racism