Saturday, October 6, 2018

Favorite Characters: Chirrut Îmwe (Star Wars)


Rogue One is packed with new characters, and it nails so many of them so well, despite a busy story with a lot to do.  In a pretty great collection of the new favorites that were introduced here, Chirrut is my most favorite of all.  I am all about this badass Force-sensitive temple guardian from start to finish (a few spoilers.)

Let’s face it:  it would’ve been so easy for this character to have been a cliché.  The Asian guy playing the blind warrior monk whose awesome martial arts skills are boosted by his mystical Force powers?  Come on.  I mean, they cast Donnie Yen for a reason, so the martial arts were kind of a given, but for whatever reason, it was the blind part that put it over-the-top for me before I saw the movie.  I wouldn’t say I found it offensive, but I certainly found it convenient and tropey, and it did make me chuckle a little whenever I saw Chirrut in the promo spots – like, “A little on the nose, don’t you think, Disney?”

But that skepticism was greatly misplaced.  It’s true that Chirrut’s Force sensitivity allows him to “just know” stuff he shouldn’t (some things that a blind guy specifically wouldn’t know, some things that nobody would know,) that his fighting skills definitely flirt with the mystical, and that he’s the character voted Most Likely to Intone Something Profound about the Force.  But you know what else?  He’s also a person.

When I think about this type of character as a trope, I imagine someone who’s very non-specific, either a character solely there for the purpose of guiding/imparting wisdom to the hero or one who’s there to make cool fight scenes and nothing else.  I think of someone solem, deep, important, and, perhaps most significantly, humorless.  Being a blind warrior monk with awesome martial arts skils and mystical powers is serious business.

Chirrut, though, always zigs when I think he’s gonna zag.  Right from the start, he sets the hairs on the back of Jyn’s neck on end by correctly divining information about the necklace he shouldn’t be able to know she’s wearing, but he immediately lets the air out of the profound soothsayer thing by turning his abilities into a parlor trick, telling her she’s going to have to pay if she wants to know more.  He’s very deeply devoted to his faith, and it’s no joke to him, but he also knows that Baze thinks his devotion more-than-borders on ridiculous, and so Chirrut gets a kick out of aggravating him with it, such as when they’re captured and Chirrut is trying to pray their cell door open.  And, as funny as K-2 is, my biggest laugh of the whole movie is Chirrut’s indignant “Are you kidding me?!  I’m blind!!” when his captors put a bag over his head.

Don’t get me wrong – the action stuff is totally amazing in that particular-brand-of-impossible way this trope likes to rock.  Chirrut’s staff fight against the Stormtroopers is all kinds of cool, and him shooting that Imperial ship down is epic.  But throughout, even at his most mystically badass, we keep getting these small moments of warm, personability, and yes, humor.  Whether it’s bickering affectionately with Baze or just smiling softly as Jyn passes, Chirrut always remains grounded in humanity.  I feel like he’s a great answer to Marvel’s bull about having no choice but to cast a white woman as the Ancient One because an Asian man inevitably would’ve been a Fu Manchu and an Asian woman inevitably would’ve been a Dragon Lady.  Just because a character type or trope has a racial history doesn’t mean any character who aligns with it has no choice but to be racist.  It’s all in the execution, and by keeping focused on who the character is as a person and giving them a spark that’s all their own, you can create something really wonderful.

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