Fan Reaction To Jar Jar Almost Led An Actor To Suicide

Captain Dunsel

Captain Dunsel

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Sad to see the outcome of the negative side of fandom and the collateral damage it can cause when a movie is taken far too seriously and the vitriol is showered on an actor:

Star Wars: Jar Jar Binks actor Ahmed Best considered suicide

I will be the first to admit that I could not (and still cannot) stand the character; however, I never transferred that dislike to the actor. Obviously, there were a lot of fans who transferred their feelings onto the shoulders of the actor and that’s a heavy burden to carry, I imagine.

It sounds very similar to what happened to Jake Lloyd.
 
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I feel terrible.




FWIW most of the hate for the character was directed at GL. But it’s still awful being the vessel for all these decades of hate. A more seasoned performer might have even laughed it off but as his first major acting part he must’ve placed a good deal of love into the role.
 
Two sides to this. For one, the actor needs to understand that it was a character role, not his life, not him. People’s derision for Jar Jar didn’t mean he couldn’t give great performances in the future. In fact, I’d consider it a feather in his cap, he took a cartoonish, comedic role and tried to flesh it out as best he could. Not an easy job. …*I hesitate to believe that “Jar Jar backlash” was the principal cause of emotional issues. A factor, sure, but he considered suicide because people rejected Jar Jar? Really?

But, the behavior of the cultish SW fans sometimes disturbs me. They take it way, way, way too seriously. You didn’t like a character, so what. You didn’t like a movie, so what. You didn’t like the plot direction it took, or what happened to your favorite ship/prop/character, SO WHAT.

I hated the prequels on many levels. The last one, ROTS (ironic acronym), wasn’t even enjoyable. Did it ruin the first film for me? Of course not. Did it ruin my youth? Of course not. The statement “you ruined my childhood” is such a stupid, self indulging fantasy as to not be taken seriously, but laughed at. No healthy person’s character, or memories of childhood, should be so fragile that some movie character could ruin it.

I smell a strong whiff of hyperbole on both sides of this. Without the histrionics of “actor contemplated suicide because of fans” or “Jar Jar was so bad people were traumatized,” there’s no real story. Just, “an actor struggled with depression after some notoriety of a role he played.” Not as compelling as clickbait, is it? >:)

Bah, humbug. [emoji20]
 
You can say that, but look at the whole scope:

Apparently it took a massive toll on Ahmed, Jake Lloyd, and now the girl who played Rose. Not saying it doesn't happen elsewhere, i've just never heard it another films fans doing that, and star wars fans have done it to 3 at least so far.

When it's one person you can maybe put it on the actor, two you have to seriously think about, three or more, you have to point the finger squarely at the <bleep> so-called fans doing it.

I was talking about jar-jar actually last night with a couple younger cousins (in their 20's) and the actor never ever came up. There was plenty of talk about the character being bad but nothing remotely directed at the actor. It's far from difficult to keep the two separate. Those who can't aren't very bright.
 
Im kinda torn about this, cause on one hand, as a die hard Star Wars fan, I didnt know who the hell the guy even was, he isnt the face of the character like Jake Lloyd was, not to mention, is he doing this for publicity? How come we never heard about this before? He mentioned a show in the tweet, was that referencing something else? When that movie came out in 1999, the internet was barely a thing, so Im wondering how much "fan backlash" he actually experienced. Meesa thinks dis kinda fishy...
 
The show he references is a podcast he does, I think.

The negativity is something he’s talked about before, but he’s not a super famous actor and didn’t have the sort of meltdown that made for a good news story like Jake Lloyd did.

And while the internet was a different place as far as social media being less of a focus, there were still plenty of websites, and both online and newspaper reviews probably didn’t help:

https://www.indiewire.com/2013/03/r...tar-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-100146/
 
Okay, I'll be "that guy".

These people played a role in a great franchise. They were well paid. They recieved a level of celebrity status.
They were hired to do a job.
Now fans don't like the character they played and are verbally beating you up for it.

Suck it up, Buttercup! Are your widdle feelbads so sensitive the it ruins your life and even consider suicide?! Many of us have experienced MUCH greater hardships and somehow we manage to soldier on and lead happy lives. But you? Yeah, we should be so lucky to have your "problem". They are just WORDS!
Pull up your diaper and get over it.
 
Funky said:
Okay, I'll be "that guy".

These people played a role in a great franchise. They were well paid. They recieved a level of celebrity status.
They were hired to do a job.
Now fans don't like the character they played and are verbally beating you up for it.

Suck it up, Buttercup! Are your widdle feelbads so sensitive the it ruins your life and even consider suicide?! Many of us have experienced MUCH greater hardships and somehow we manage to soldier on and lead happy lives. But you? Yeah, we should be so lucky to have your "problem". They are just WORDS!
Pull up your diaper and get over it.
Click to expand...
Dude, I want to be friends with "that guy"! Thats exactly how I feel but you put it more eloquently than I did. Cheers!
 
I don’t know...being a non-celebrity, myself, I have no idea what it would be like to be publicly associated with something I did at work that people say sucked to the extreme and spoke of in only as an all-time project low-point.

I have never had a “Ja Jar experience” based on what I do for a living and been publicly shamed. There is a certain loss of anonymity associated that I have no way to comprehend; I could only imagine.

It doesn’t change my feelings about the character—he sucked as a concept and was horrible in execution, IMHO—but I can still empathize with the guy.
 
I find it a little suspicious that the takeaway, at least in my eyes, from that post? It is “would this be a good story for my solo show?” I’m not him, I don’t know what he went through or how he felt when he received the “backlash.” I didn’t even know his name until moments ago... but the cynic in me feels like he saw the support and attention Kelly Tran was getting and he thought he could get a piece of that attention. Why this is news or article worthy is beyond me.
 
Funky said:
Okay, I'll be "that guy".

These people played a role in a great franchise. They were well paid. They recieved a level of celebrity status.
They were hired to do a job.
Now fans don't like the character they played and are verbally beating you up for it.

Suck it up, Buttercup! Are your widdle feelbads so sensitive the it ruins your life and even consider suicide?! Many of us have experienced MUCH greater hardships and somehow we manage to soldier on and lead happy lives. But you? Yeah, we should be so lucky to have your "problem". They are just WORDS!
Pull up your diaper and get over it.
Click to expand...

I get your POV here, but you've not had Best's experience. ******, we've been ridiculing Jar Jar on this website right here for the last 19 years. He's allowed to have a negative emotional response to that kind of treatment.
 
Also worth noting that there's a big difference between saying "This character sucks," and (1) ****ting on the actor who portrayed them and hounding them across social media, and (2) spewing racist bile at the actor or the character (which, admittedly, is difficult to do, since we're talking about a duck-lizard who speaks in some odd patois).

For what it's worth, I always thought that Best was a talented physical actor. I just can't stand the character, as written, and especially as included in the story.
 
So, I guess what I don't understand, is that I've never heard anyone complain about the performance of Jar Jar. It's not like this actor did poorly. I would say, he did EXCELENTLY. He portrayed that character perfectly, it was just poor writing, producing, and directing to even have the character in the movie (along with so much else).

I've heard people pan Hayden Christiansen's ACTING in the films.
I've heard people pan Jake Lloyd's ACTING in the film.
I've heard people pan Natalie Portman's ACTING in the films.

etc.

I've never heard anyone go "Man, That actor playing Jar Jar ruined the character." So I don't understand, exactly, what he has to feel bad about. Everyone's complaint is that the character shouldn't have been used. Or that they should have written it differently.
 
What Dan said. There's a big difference between people complaining -- sometimes unceasingly -- about a character, or even the actor portraying that character (not going to get into shallow, blinkered, oblivious brain that manage to conflate the character with the actual human being portraying the character)... and directly lambasting that person.

We're talking about people who have told Ahmed, Jake, Kelly, and others over the years they are awful people, should be shot, die in a fire, kill themselves, or otherwise had violence and death wished upon them or threatened to them. How many of those sorts of interactions do you think you could just shrug off before it started getting to you? How often would it have to happen before you find yourself always braced against the chance of it happening at any moment?

Also bearing in mind a lot of people who get into acting are consciously or subconsciously motivated by self-worth issues. The class clown effect. They head down that path in hopes it will get people to like them. And when this is the result, it can be even more damaging to an already fragile psyche than similar abuse can have on a more-robust individual.
 
I don remember any backlash against the actor or anybody even knowing who the actor was. Now being depressed because no one knew who he was or that he was even in a Star Wars film I can buy.
 
It's not just Star Wars fans, it's fans in general these days. It really feels like the general IQ and ability to separate reality from fantasy has gone down significantly. Lena Headey, for instance, has lamented on multiple occasions that fans don't approach her at cons because they hate Cersei so much and can't separate the fact that she, herself, is an utter sweetheart. Also, let us not forget the fact that the kid who played Joffrey left acting altogether once they killed him off on the show and he still gets flack for that role.

Long story short (TOO LATE), people are stupid and can't separate the actor from the role in lots of cases. I absolutely believe that people gave this guy enough **** over the years for him to contemplate suicide.
 
I believe that for Ahmed Best it was not the role characterisation itself but how the role impacted his career that is the big issue.
It was supposed to have been his big break ... and then it was instead a major setback. It was not even neutral, it impacted negatively.

Sadly, movie actors get recognition for their roles, not their good performances doing bad roles.
And I don't think it is just "stupid people" that treat them that way, but society as a whole, including casting agents: both that some are like this themselves and that others are very aware of how people behave and how casting an actor with "bad reputation" can affect the outcome.
 
Lord Boron said:
I don remember any backlash against the actor or anybody even knowing who the actor was. Now being depressed because no one knew who he was or that he was even in a Star Wars film I can buy.
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I the circles I moved from '99-'05 (when the Prequels were actively a thing), we harshly criticized George for his portrayal of the Gungans in general and Jar-Jar in particular (more of them like Tarpals would have been great, moreso if they spoke their own language rather than pidgin), we knew who Ahmed Best was and had seen set photos and making-of featurettes of him in costume with the Jar-Jar headpiece. We acknowledged that he was a great physical actor, potentially a new Charlie Chaplin, who was wasted in a terrible role. But we never even thought to blame him for the character. In fact, I want to meet him so I can tell him how much I love his own skewering of Jar-Jar on Robot Chicken.
 
Strikerkc said:
So, I guess what I don't understand, is that I've never heard anyone complain about the performance of Jar Jar. It's not like this actor did poorly. I would say, he did EXCELENTLY. He portrayed that character perfectly, it was just poor writing, producing, and directing to even have the character in the movie (along with so much else).

I've heard people pan Hayden Christiansen's ACTING in the films.
I've heard people pan Jake Lloyd's ACTING in the film.
I've heard people pan Natalie Portman's ACTING in the films.

etc.

I've never heard anyone go "Man, That actor playing Jar Jar ruined the character." So I don't understand, exactly, what he has to feel bad about. Everyone's complaint is that the character shouldn't have been used. Or that they should have written it differently.
Click to expand...

Its the (very) small subset of people who've directly attacked him over it. Having people trash the performance is one thing, but when you start attacking the actor as a person you've crossed a line. And that's happened in nearly every case listed about - except Portman's from what I recall. But it wouldn't surpise if there's a subset of <bleeps> out there who actually did.

In the cases of Hayen, Lloyd and Portman, i think it can be very much attributed to the director.
 
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