I guess when you think about it, the idea that avarice or double-dealing could be the defining attributes of a race is pretty abhorrent.
I mean yeah, a lot of fantasy worlds are inherently racist and that’s maybe not always a bad thing, overly simplistic parables are a good way to turn ideas into culture. But a racial predisposition to banking? I can see how a Jewish person might get pretty tired of that trope, and also how a certain type of person might enjoy showing it to their children for entirely the wrong reasons.
The descriptions she used in the books are pretty much old antisemitic propaganda. If you can’t see that, then I’m actually glad, because it means that the old slurs are starting to be weakened.
Recently, Christianity Today published an article entitled, “Jesus Didn’t Eat a Seder Meal: Why Christians Shouldn’t Either” by rabbis Yehiel E. Poupko and David Sandmel. The article argues that Christians should refrain from participating in Christian Seders as a matter of historical and ecumenical respect. We disagree on both points.
Quote one of my friends: “We disagree with you about your interpretation of your own religion and culture,” is what that last sentence means, and the whole article is basically one long “We’re not murdering you now, so why can’t we steal your rituals and slobber Jesus all over them?”
I’m not denying that such stereotypes were applied to Jews, I’m questioning whether it is reasonable to presume that every depiction of one of those negative traits is automatically a coded reference to Jews. The Ferengi, for example, are avaricious - but this finds expression through trade and business rather than them being a species of financiers. Surely if that was intended as a direct reference to Jews, rather than a compare-and-contrast to the Federation’s Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism, then it is wide of the mark - since Jews were forbidden from business and trade for centuries.
@bibliophile20 I was only referring to the films, since it has been a very long time since I read any of the books.
I wish. We were banned from trades, but we were used as bankers and tax collectors for centuries, having been forced into it due to lack of other options, to the point where most stereotypes of Jews in Europe directly relate to that.
And I’ll just put this here:
(The Happy Merchant antisemitic image)
(A Ferengi… played by a Jewish man)
(A Gringotts goblin from the movies)
I totally agree. But at least some Christians have utterly weird persecution complexes, and think the rest of us are out to get them. [quote=“bibliophile20, post:254, topic:95090”]
“We’re not murdering you now, so why can’t we steal your rituals and slobber Jesus all over them?”
[/quote]
And if you don’t let them do a Christian Seder, that means you’re persecuting them… /s But seriously, Christians, get over yourselves.
Wow… yeah… put the two next to each other really shows that influence of those old stereotypes. I wonder how Armin Shimmerman felt about it? I really did love him in DS9. He’s such a great actor.
So, if you can’t see it, please pat yourself on the back on how you aren’t affected/afflicted by antisemitic stereotypes. But please trust me when I say that they’re antisemitic stereotypes used to degrade me and my people.
Even worse, they like to try to trick Jews into attending their Christian Seders, for proselytizing purposes.
Since they can’t use coercion to force conversions anymore, they have to fall back on pious fraud. Christians really hate Jews, because we disprove their narratives of being the inheritors of the Jewish tradition and reject their zombie god, among other reasons.
Quote from Wikipedia:
Snape is described as a thin man with sallow skin, a large, hooked nose, and yellow, uneven teeth. He has shoulder-length, greasy black hair which frames his face, and cold, black eyes. He wears black, flowing robes which give him the appearance of “an overgrown bat”. The youthful Snape had a “stringy, pallid look”, being “round-shouldered yet angular”, having a “twitchy” walk “that recalled a spider” and “long oily hair that jumped about his face”
And Snape is, at best, an antihero who only fought back against a terrorist organization that he belonged to because his leader killed the woman that he claimed to be a friend with, yet treated as a possession with no agency of her own, and used a slur against her. But that’s a discussion for another thread.
Oh, I believe you on Snape, BTW. I wasn’t questioning at all what you said. I assume you’re more aware of these kinds of cultural depictions than I am, I was just noting that it’s been a while since I’ve read the book. If you say it’s so, I believe you, for sure.
I was wondering what the Tsar had done to enjoy such relatively complimentary depiction. Marianne, too. (Also, who depicts a bunch of world leaders and then inserts ‘Generic National Embodiment’ for one of the nations? Didn’t think that one through).
He apparently had “reservations” about it. And the show’s bigwigs were well aware of the issue. Sheldon Teitlebaum, who should know, has a nice discussion.
Sorry if I singled you out! I didn’t mean to disagree with you, I more just wanted to add something to the conversation. You are totally right, and I personally wouldn’t write off the creators of the Ferengi as antisemites purely on the evidence of their creations. I can’t speak to what they might have had in mind, I never watched the show but it sounds like they wanted a culture clash between utopian socialism and cynical capitalism. And hey, since we’re in space, instead of another culture they can be another species! Then the species is cobbled together out of common fantasy tropes adapted for space.
But if you trace back the lineage of those tropes…
I really don’t want to rag on the whole fantasy genre, but I do think it’s important to understand and accept that a lot of fantasy worlds are fundamentally racist. I don’t mean the authors are particularly racist or that their characters are particularly racist, but that the worlds themselves have racism woven into their fabric. Dwarves are X. Elves are Y. Culture and values and species and race are all blended together and served up as an unidentifiable slurry. It’s a handy shortcut for creating a seemingly vast backdrop without overwhelming the reader/viewer, but for me at least it’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the sort of wilful ignorance about the world that has driven colonial empires and slave trades for a very long time.
So all of that’s in my head before we even get to the hooked noses and the crooked teeth. The moment you go creating a race that is more or less uniform in thought and deed you’re already in problematic territory because there are a good many people who still believe that’s how the real world works.
And again, I know you’re defending the intent of the authors and I’m sort of talking past you a bit. But if you had the chance to go back and meet the creators of Star Trek as they were drawing up the Ferengi, you might be tempted to pull them aside for a quiet word about how it looks, no?
As far as the visual resemblance goes, I did a google image search for “ferengi jew” and I honestly don’t want to talk about it.
Well, the cartoon is French, from the 1890s, so that explains her. The cartoonist personifies “us” as a beautiful symbol of the nation, rather than a characature of a leader. And I suspect that this is the reason for the Czar’s generous depiction:
I think the troublesome shorthand of ‘race’ in fantasy and SF is a topic really worthy of discussion, but perhaps this isn’t the place for it? Why don’t we start a new topic to discuss it further? I feel like I’ve already strayed towards derailing this topic, and I don’t want to do that, because, besides risking hurting people for whom the themes are experienced daily, which I want to avoid, the rise of real, actual antisemitic crime is important and I don’t want to distract further from that.
You are totally right, and I personally wouldn’t write off the creators of the Ferengi as antisemites purely on the evidence of their creations. I can’t speak to what they might have had in mind, I never watched the show but it sounds like they wanted a culture clash between utopian socialism and cynical capitalism. And hey, since we’re in space, instead of another culture they can be another species! Then the species is cobbled together out of common fantasy tropes adapted for space.