antisemtism in fantasy: a thread

fantasy is one of my favorite genres but there needs to be a conversation when it comes to how these genres treat jews both purposefully and accidentally

when it comes to writing for these types of genres is pretty easy to fall into problems. writers take from their own perception of the world, which comes with their own implicit bias’ about others. this thread will show examples of these biases against jews in action

and warning signs that what your writing might be antisemtic.

let’s start this off with one of the most well known fantasy properties, harry potter. i wanted to start of with j.k rowling’s writing because her work is a good example of an implicit bias against jews.

j.k rowling has a long history falling upon stereotypes when it comes to minorities. this screenshot, where she’s asked about the idea of jewish wizards she gives us one of the most stereotypical names i’ve ever seen

but this anthony never appears in any of her work, what we actually get are greedy crooked nosed goblins who are the wizarding worlds bankers. my last thread related to antisemitism talks about how those stereotypes are related to judaism so i won’t get into it here

but just know that those are some of the most popular antisemitic tropes out there. a similar character that i want to quickly mention is watto from the star wars prequels. another non human creature who boasts similar antisemitic stereotypes to the goblins and is a slave owner

although these characters may not be a purposeful slam against the jewish people, they take from antisemtic ideas that have been popularized for centuries.

so how do we combat this trope? when you’re writing mythical creatures, specifically those akin to goblins, (as they are most closely linked to jews) make sure the traits you’re putting onto these characters aren’t of insane greediness, being slimey and only caring about money

now let’s talk about another creature you really shouldn’t put any antisemitic tropes onto, lizards (specifically shapeshifting ones).

it’s quite likely you’ve heard of the shape shifting lizard people conspiracy theory before, it’s pretty huge. but it’s also anti semitic.

this conspiracy harps back to your classic elders of zion antiemetism, treating jews as non-human elites running the world.

so when making these types of characters (which i wouldn’t recommend) don’t give them the greedy, money loving constant side switching tropes asccoiated

with jews... looking at you she-ra.

with she-ra i want to state that i’m pretty sure their lizard person wasn’t meant to be an antisemites dream but i know for a fact that no jew would’ve let that character see the screen and that’s the problem.

so let’s go through what we have so far:

- no greedy shapeshifting lizard people
- no greedy money loving goblin like creatures

now let’s move on

there’s a good chunk of jewish people behind the scenes of the harley quinn animated show, (harley herself is canonically half-jewish) but even still the show has a heavy reliance on anti jewish sentiments (similar to tua, while having jewish ppl behind the scenes it’s still bad)

in an effort to keep this thread concise i’ll be linking an article that explains the problem with the show way better then i could have, also relying on jewish stereotypes and doing nothing else isn’t humor http://www.multiversitycomics.com/longform/jews-dc-uncomfortable-harley-quinn/

now onto the big finale, holocaust comparisons. first let’s be really clear, those who aren’t jewish or romani should not be making holacaust comparisons in their stories, especially if they do not have any consultant with them.

for an example on how this can be a problem, i’m going to quickly mention teen wolf season 6. in the seasons first half the main villain was a literal nazi, like an actual nazi from world war 2 , who had lines like this

let’s talk the crisis on earth x crossover. it doesn’t seem bad (i watch it a lot, idk why) but it leans in on very heavy handed dialogue, “nazis bad”, and it gets bad when most of our heroes are sent to a concentration camp in episode 3 and one of the few jewish characters dies

so you can see how that can be a problem. now let’s talk about another example of, “please don’t do holacaust stuff if you aren’t a jew or romani”, attack on titan.

the first time i heard of this show was right after my first thread where after i mentioned the “jew nose”

is made up. people quoted my tweet saying, “see attack on titan isnt antisemitic” which... not the point. although there is no such thing as a “jewish nose”, it’s still an antisemitc trope and a feature some jews have. so i looked into this show more and i have some stuff to say

the titans we see as the main evil turn out to be the eldians (the name for the series jews) who are victims of an oppressive group, but we are then told that these people were once oppressors themselves.. so not good. but among jews there’s some back in forth on the meaning

but when it comes to the creator of this work, it’s hard to tell if he meant this twist as an anti fascist statement or not. at best this part of the story is a bad holacaust comparison at worst this property is facist propaganda, so not good either way.

so what’s the tdlr of this thread?

a lot of shows perpetuate antisemitc tropes and ideas without knowing it. so please hire jewish consultants and writers to your projects, and when you come up with an idea for your fantasy sci-fi world take a step back and do some

reasearch on the traits you’re putting onto your characters to make sure you aren’t participating in a stereotype/trope against a marginalized community.

and please don’t make holocaust comparisons, we are tired.