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The perpetuation in fiction of racial stereotypes... in space!
The Space Jew is an alien, monster, or other nonhuman creature that embodies the worst aspects of a real-world racial stereotype, whether Jewish, black, Chinese or whatever. Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes it's subconscious and sometimes it's just an unlucky confluence of bad characteristics coupled with a naive creative mind. We're in no place to speculate.
But whatever the reason, the end result raises hairs on the necks of people worldwide as they wonder "surely that can't be intentional... can it?"
This can be very easily spotted where it wasn't intended. The fact is that Jews are often stereotyped as "greedy little creeps". Therefore, whenever an author writes about small, money-grubbing humanoids, with or without hooked noses and big ears, someone will always assume that they're meant to be Jews.
On the other hand, it's also common for those overly fond of the fandom to defensively claim that the author didn't mean it when he damn well did. They'll rant and rave about " Political Correctness Gone Mad", ending in the Call of the Fanboy: "Get Over It!". Of course, they will rarely be a member of the group being depicted. See HP Lovecraft for a popular example.
Beyond this, it can be very hard to tell in fantasy settings, as authors base "races" on medieval legends. Now, what distinguishes medieval people? If you guessed antisemitism, you are correct.
To complicate things even further, Jews love poking fun at themselves, and are very prominent in the entertainment industry.
Compare Fantastic Racism, Have You Tried Not Being A Monster. See also Unfortunate Implications. Not to be confused with this .
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Film
- The Star Wars universe contains a few examples:
- Watto, from the prequel films, raised concerns about being a Jewish caricature, being a big-nosed, penny-pinching salesman whose accent sounds vaguely Yiddish. In the second film he even wears a beard and black, Orthodox Jew-style hat! On the other hand, Watto also seems to be partially inspired by Sheik Ilderim of Ben Hur. Some critics have accused the character of being an Arab caricature. Perhaps to dissuade these accusations, in Star Wars The Clone Wars the king of Watto's species has a vaguely British accent. Although Toydarians are all grasping and unpleasant, they are rarely portrayed as outright villains.
- A popular Russian Gag Dub called "Star Wars: Storm in the Glass" Dmitry "Goblin" Puchkov riffs on the popular perception by comically amplifying Watto's stereotypically Jewish attributes.
- The Star Wars prequel films also feature the Neimoidians - a race of slit-eyed, inscrutible, unscrupulous villain aliens who speak with a vague Asian accent, wear Qing dynasty robes and hats, and threaten the galaxy with their trade routes and mass production technology. Many English-speaking critics saw the race as a collection of Asian stereotypes. Interestingly every localization of the film gives the species new accents, usually those of a culture that the target market has had some problem with at some point.
- The Sand People/Tusken Raiders in the original films come across as a violent caricature of desert-dwelling Bedouin-like groups, being low-tech, desert-dwelling nomads wearing robes, with the females in burkhas. Lucas apparently intended the species to resemble the depiction of American Indians in old Wild West movies through their violent behavior toward the more technologically advanced settlers. The females also wear papoose boards. Whether Lucas realized the Unfortunate Implications or not is anybody's guess.
- In the Expanded Universe, the Kaleesh (Grievous' species) are Space Arabs. Their shrines are even big black square rocks.
- And the Nelvaanians, who are Space Native Americans... except they speak Hungarian for some reason.
- The Clone Wars movie features a Space Gay. Jabba's uncle, Ziro the Hutt, is purple, wears feathers and facepaint, owns a nightclub on Coruscant, and talks vaguely like Truman Capote. However, an obvious inspiration for the character is Zero Mostel, who was not gay. Also, Hutts are all technically hermaphrodites.
- Many critics accused Jar Jar Binks of resembling black caricatures in minstrel shows and early American cinema, highlighting his broken English, clumsiness, naivety, and shuffling gait. The character was voiced and motion-captured by black actor Ahmed Best, who denied any attempt to make Jar Jar a black caricature. Not all Gungans share Jar Jar's characteristics, and not all of them were played by black actors.
- One rather bizarre accusation, which nonetheless still gets brought up, was that he was a Jamaican stereotype. This despite the fact that he had no stereotypical Jamaican traits.
- Duloks, judging from the article.
- Has nobody noticed the Banking Clan's representative at the secret meeting on Geonosis in Attack Of The Clones? He's probably the singlemost egregious anti-semitic caricature of an usurer in the whole of Star Wars (notice his exagerated dolichocephaly).
- In Spaceballs, the "Druish Princess" Vespa is a riff on the stereotypical "Jewish American Princess," being rich, spoiled, and shallow. It is also revealed that she had a nose job to tone down her pronounced proboscis. One of the heroes notes, "Funny, she doesn't look Druish," riffing off the trend for gentiles to comment when Jews lack stereotypically Jewish features. In the commentary, Mel Brooks said that he was both ashamed of that joke and proud of himself for leaving it in the film. Brooks himself plays Yogurt with an emphasized Yiddish accent and gives a speech about the joys of film merchandising.
- The race of banker goblins shown in the first Harry Potter movie are squat and long nosed, and are the only people allowed to handle money, much like the Jews of Medieval Europe.
- Making Jazz in the Transformers movie noticeably "black" was a bad idea in and of itself, but it sure doesn't help that he's the only one of the Autobots who dies. Transformers 2 drew a fair amount of controversy over "The Twins," Skids and Mudflap, who embody a number of black "gangsta" stereotypes in their appearance and behavior. According to one of the voice actors, Tom Kenny, the Twins were supposed to be "wiggers."
- According to at least one interview, apparently Jazz was killed because he was the only Autobot in the movie who hadn't already died at least once. Whether this is justification or handwaving is hard to say. It's also been said that it was because Jazz is the third most popular character after Prime and Bumblebee.
- It's been said that the decision to make Jazz "black" was an homage to Scatman Crothers, who voiced the character in the original 80's cartoon. There's also been some blame passing over the Twins, with the writers saying that wasn't their intention, and Bay saying that was the direction with which the voice actors, who ad-libbed the dialogue, went.
- The Gremlins in Gremlins have been accused of displaying negative stereotypical behavior of African-Americans. In one particular scene, unruly Gremlins take over a bar while wearing sunglasses and "street clothing," smoking, drinking, gambling, fighting, listening to wild music, engaging in prostitution, and breakdancing. Critics accused the film of exemplifying white fear of black culture invading white suburbia.
- The aliens in Avatar seem to be "Space Indians" partially because of their lifestyle and ability to "connect" with nature, and partially because the story is about
Europeans, er, Terrans coming in and saying to them "Right, we want your land, so GTFO", and when the aliens tell them to go frak themselves, the Europeans, er, Terrans say "Right, then we'll just kill the lot of you."
- Much of their culture seems literally ripped off from Native Americans and Africans; their music seems similar, the "horse clans" have the stick-in-the-nose thing that the Theme Park Version of native Africans have, the baby carrying device is almost fiber for fiber exactly what Native Americans use to carry babies around, their culture has both a chief and a shaman...the list goes on. They even border into the Magical Native American territory, what with worshipping
the great spirit Eywa, being a Friend To All Living Things, having Bond Creatures, and being protected by Gaias Vengeance.
- Dances With Wolves, anyone?
- Or The Last Samurai, either one.
- In his review of Predator 2, Roger Ebert accused the alien's design, which includes tentacles that resemble dreadlocks, of encouraging the audience to connect its menace with fear of black males. It's rather interesting to note that the second film's hero is a black male, but it also includes a number of dreadlocked black crooks.
Literature
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld series frequently uses Dwarfs and Trolls as stand-ins for any and all oppressed or angry minorities. This can cause much confusion and debate among fans as to which groups they really represent (see the discussion for about two pages of such).
- In "The Art of Discworld", Pratchett mentions that there is a (mostly Jewish) group of fans who compare the dwarfs quite favorably to Jews.
- The early non-Discworld novel The Dark Side of the Sun has a background group of humans named the Whole Erse who sound suspiciously like (negative) stereotypes of the Irish. 'Erse' is a (slightly unfortunate) obsolete term for the Irish language (Gaeilge). Interestingly the Irish are one of the few European groups which seem to have no stand-ins at all on the Disc (they even have a Violent Glaswegian race in the form of the Nac Mac Feegle).
- ...on the other hand, Pratchett makes fun of everyone, and the ambiguity of certain races is surely intentional. Never is this clearer than in Thud!, a novel about racism and tradition, in which the escalating conflict between the Dwarfs and Trolls may stand in for any number of racially and/or religiously charged real-world conflicts, past and present - and be just as relevant and insightful in any case.
- Battlefield Earth contained an effeminate, weak, but highly intelligent servant race of the evil Psychlos (themselves moneygrubbing, sexist, drug abusing exploiters to a man), known as the Chinko. This was probably intentional, as L. Ron Hubbard said that the main problem he had with China was that it had Chinese living there. (L. Ron used a different word here than "Chinese".)
- That Scientology uses the word "wog", dated but still offensive British slang for someone from the Indian subcontinent, to refer to an unbeliever might be another reflection of Hubbard's views on race.
- Later in the novel Hubbard introduces a race of interuniversal bankers that are apparently descended from sharks (or local equivalents). They were short, big-nosed, and thought of nothing but cash, going so far as to attempt to foreclose on the Earth after the humans free it from the Psyklos.
- Though Hubbard probably wouldn't have known it, chinko is also the Japanese word for "(small) penis."
- In the film, they were called clinkos, but still had the exact same behavior and voice.
- Subverted/Deconstructed in Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream, a book presented as a work by a science fiction writer named Adolf Hitler, where the Always Chaotic Evil mutants are obvious stand-ins for Russians and/or other ethnic groups, with the worst of the lot clearly stand-ins for Jews.
- Similarly, the Calormene of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia are a dark-skinned, turban-wearing, desert-living, Tash (read: Satan)-worshiping foes of Narnia, and the only two Calormene characters that are shown to have any sort of virtue are the ones that end up siding with Narnia and Aslan in the end.
- Only two named Calormene characters are shown as good. However, The Last Battle establishes that the entire city of Tashbaan exists in Aslan's Country, where only good things exist. It can be confidently stated that there were many good Calormenes who simply never entered the main story.
- In Robert Asprin's Myth Adventure fantasy novels, the race of "deveels" are hard-bargaining master traders, but look like traditional red-skinned hoofed devils rather than stereotypical Jews. When Phil Foglio adapted the first tome in the series as a comic book he tossed in more overt Jewish references, and got hit with enough complaints that he (sort of) apologized in a later issue.
- The original book Deveels were more like Arab stereotypes, but still...
- Deep Ones are water negroes. That is all. Probably intentional example do to Lovecrtaft's massive, massive racism, and his being from a time when that was okay. Perhaps they're just generically foreign: Cpt. Marsh is said to have met them in the East Indies.
- Well, it was okay to be racist at the time he was writing, but he was still significantly more racist than most.
- "Submicroscopic" by S.P. Meek and its sequel have three factions of aliens differentiated by skin color. One forms the heroes, one's a group of giant but stupid savages that constantly attack them, and one is technologically advanced but ethically stunted. Guess which correspond to which colors? (Admittedly, one of the technologically advanced folk who had a grandparent from the heroic faction is portrayed as a Worthy Opponent, but the protagonist doesn't hesitate to kill him, saying that his death was saddening but necessary.
- H. Beam Piper's Space Viking has the Gilgameshers, a mercantile people for whom haggling appears to be the planetary sport (one reviewer noted, "sadly, we are not given glimpses of the Gilgameshers accusing Trask of wanting to starve their wives and children"). It's specifically stated that they deserve admiration for having rebuilt a space-going civilization from the ground up, and "they had religious objections to violence, though they kept these within sensible limits, and were able and willing to fight with fanatical ferocity in defense...." However:
Aside from their propensity for sharp trading, their bigoted refusal to regard anybody not of their creed as more than half human, and the maze of dietary and other taboos in which they hid from others, made them generally disliked.
- Interestingly enough, Tolkien's dwarves are literal Fantasy Jews. All the signs are there when you think about it—they're short, disposessed of their homeland, live among other groups while still fiercely devoted to their own culture, warlike (as portrayed in The Bible), are all craftsmen, only use their native language (based on Semitic tongues) among themselves, and are obsessed with gold. The dwarvish calendar invented for The Hobbit is even based off the Jewish calendar! No one ever complains about this one, though, because Tolkein's dwarves are also totally awesome.
- The friendship between Gimli and Legolas was a reconciliation between "Gentile anti-Semitism and Jewish exclusiveness," according to Tolkien himself.
Live Action TV
- Star Trek has a few of these:
- The lumpen-nosed, big-eared, insatiably greedy Ferengi are seen by some as anti-semitic characters, and their earliest appearances were criticized as being Japanese stereotypes. In reality, the Ferengi were meant to be strawmen for American capitalists in general, and were compared to "Yankee Traders" in their first appearance. The unfortunate comparisons to Jewish stereotypes came in after they were ditched as villains and became comic relief. It should also be noted that their name is derived from an Arabic and Hindi slur for white people.
- The Bajorans, a spiritual people who are recovering from persecution by a fascist empire, are more intentionally modeled after the Jews, though they could echo any number of cultures.
- It works in the Bajoran's case, however, mainly because instead of making them stereotypes, they were modelled far more after the actual Jewish people, and are always portrayed as strong, spiritual and possessing a strong will.
- The Klingons started out as obviously based upon Cold War stereotypes of Russians, but became more like a cross between stereotypical Vikings and Japanese samurai under the shogunate in Star Trek The Next Generation. The Borg took over their position as a metaphor for communists.
- Kivas Fajo, from the Next Generation episode "The Most Toys," is a greedy, amoral trader who specializes in collecting—by whatever means necessary—especially rare and precious items. It didn't help that Fajo was played by the very Jewish Saul Rubinek.
- The casting, though, gets something of a pass; Rubinek was a last-minute recast, as the original planned actor, David Rappaport, had just committed suicide.
- Star Trek TOS's also had a race, the Zeons, directly modeled after the Jews. These were portrayed unstereotypically and positively as a peaceful people being scapegoated by the Ekosians. The whole episode was an allegory for the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.
- Incidentally, the famous "live long and prosper" hand is a one-handed version of a motion made in Jewish prayer the kohanim (the descendants of the men who were priests back when the Holy Temple was still around) when they bless the congregation. The words "Live long and prosper" are taken from the kohanic blessing.
- The Original Series have once ridiculed the concept of racial segregation by displaying members of the two races inhabiting the planet Cheron. They were both half black half white (vertically), but with an opposite colour pattern. The half-blacks persecuted the half-whites, who in turn launched a permanent uprising against them. To cut the long story short, the two races slaughtered one onother. It brings to mind such social phenomena as appartheid, but also the Tutsi-Hutu conflict.
- In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the wedding episode heavily implies that Lord Zedd is Jewish. The third season Christmas episode "I'm Dreaming Of A White Ranger" features a plot of Zedd's to control the children of the world by taking over Santa's work shop, replacing the toys with brainwashing spinning tops. In other words, the Evil Space Jew plots to ruin Christmas with what could only be described as hypno-dreidels. Fortunately, the fact that both series producers Haim Saban and Shuki Levy are Jewish means that this was probably done tongue-in-cheek with no real ill will intended.
- Ming the Merciless, an obvious Yellow Peril type villain. The version in the '80s gave him a Race Lift with Swedish actor Max von Sydow, and since then, he's been white.
- Except in the "Defenders Of The Earth" cartoon, where he was green.
- In the Doctor Who episode "The Long Game", we learn that a consortium of bankers has been covertly manipulating the mass media to control Earth. This is more or less the plot of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. What makes this extra-strange (or something) is that we eventually learn that the Daleks were behind it the whole time.
Comic Books
- The Dominators, in DC Comics' Invasion and subsequent appearances. Yellow skin, huge sharp teeth, bony clawed fingers, they resemble nothing so much as the Golden Age Yellow Claw except they have red circles on their foreheads.
Opera
- There have been entire books dedicated to finding antisemitic stereotypes in the portrayal of the Nibelungs (dwarfs who mine gold underground and are led by the Big Bad) in Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The evidence that this fantasy race represents Jews is fairly weak, though the fact Wagner wrote an antisemitic tract doesn't help the defense.
Tabletop Games
- The Star Wreck Role Playing Game takes a stab at Space Jews:
The Ferrets are a disgusting culture who look like chimpanzees made up as Prince Charles. They dress in scarves, gold jewelry, vests, and caftans, and often act as travelling thieves, peddlers, or money-lenders. The PR department of the Ferret Corporation is quick to point out that they have no connection with any possible stereotypes of any ancient Earth cultures. None whatsoever. The very idea is insulting. Then they will try to cheat you out of your money, the little bastards.
- Oddly enough, those sound more like Romani stereotypes than Jewish.
Video Games
- Mass Effect features a race of short and nasally speaking people who run the banks called the volus. Take that as you will.
- The elcor may also qualify - their system of government is inspired by the Talmudic scholarship.
- Because in no way do the Quarians seem a little suspicious. They seem to fit nicely into the traditional Nazi view of the Jewish, which may raise some massive implications.
- I don't see the Quarians depicted in a negative light. But the Volus... yeah, obvious space Jews.
- The quarians are really more like Space Gypsies.
- Master of Orion II features the Gnolams, a race of spacefaring traders whose insidiousness, obsession with money, visage and gesturing all hit way too close to home... They were also short of stature with big noses and wore little skullcaps. Moreover, of the various species' "hero lieutenants" the player can hire, the Gnolam example was named "ZOG", which may or may not have been intended as a reference to a delusional Anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. The name was changed in a patch.
- It's not a reference to the ex-King of Albania?
- Or to the one-word answer the tiki-looking First Ones gave Ivanova in Babylon Five?
- Shareware game Escape Velocity Nova has a side quest about mercenaries from New Ireland, a planet full of Irish colonists, that includes every Oireland stereotype imaginable, as well as some severe Unfortunate Implications when the mercenaries explain why they're so good at guerrilla warfare. The game's creators seem not to have intended any of this to be offensive, as the player's character goes on at length about how much he admires Irish culture.
- World Of Warcraft has a lot of very obvious ones. The Darkspear trolls are obviously inspired by Jamaicans (complete with the "mon"), whereas other trolls, particularly the Gurubashi, are spinoffs on Aztecs/Mayans, with very similar architecture, and even the Blood God himself is obviously inspired by Quetzalcoatl. Centaurs are a Mongolian-type race, complete with "Khans". Humans are Middle-Age Europeans, Dwarves Norse/Slavic, Dreanei have both Hindu and Jewish elements, Tauren are obvious Native Americans, Goblins are New Yorkers complete with accents, Blood Elves seem to come straight out of 1001 Nights with their cities so luxurious they might as well be palaces. And Undead are, well, Goths?
Western Animation
- The South Park episode "Cancelled" stars a race of aliens known as the Joozians, a Planet Of Hats people characterized by their gigantic noses, wealth, and control of the intergalactic entertainment business. Kyle, the Jewish kid, is implied to be related to Joozians after discovering that he's the only human in the group who likes their cuisine.
- Squidbillies, rather obviously, is about squids who display hillbilly stereotypes.
- Futurama: The Native Martians sold their home planet for a bead and are forced into small reservations; the bead, however, turns out to be an enormous diamond.
- Tripping The Rift pretty much runs on Refuge In Audacity and this is pretty much the least offensive thing about the show, but there's at least two species of purple-skinned alien (or possibly sub-species of the same specie) that have a lot in common with humans of African ancestry. One is for all intents and purposes basically a typical basketball player (only with chainsaws) and the other looks like 1940s cartoons of black people. Especially "Natives" as opposed to black characters who were born in America.
Real Life
- Interestingly, many cultures around the world have legends of diminutive, greedy, tricksy, underground-dwelling aliens who inhabited the area before humans arrived: Tomtes, brownies, pygmies, etc. Usually turn out to be aborigines who were displaced by neolithic humans. It is speculated that concepts of "green skinned aliens" (elves) and "dirty hairy immigrants with large families" (dwarves) are universal psychological artifacts of a time when our Neolithic ancestors butchered competing human tribes. Interestingly, when still around these aboriginal cultures are often revered as mascots who have a "close connection with the land" (but don't ask us to give it back to them.)
- Inverted in David Icke's bizarre conspiracy theories where he essentially believes that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is true, except the Jews in question were really "Alien Lizardmen". Apparently some 12' lizards crossbred with humans, although it's best not to wonder how. For instance, he claimed that the Rothschilds were members of this group and his presentation of them as backstabbers was very much in line with the Nazi screed about Jews. Given these beliefs, there is some debate whether Icke is merely a crackpot or also an anti-Semitic crackpot.
- Icke himself has expressed (seemingly genuine) puzzlement about why people believe he is an anti-Semite, explaining that he doesn't have anything about Jews, just giant evil space lizards! How hard is that to understand?? Many of the giant evil space lizards aren't Jews, after all! (Source is here.)
- So apparently the lizards are responsible for negative Jewish stereotypes, not the other way around. Anti-semite or not, he's still way crazy.
- And yet Icke also believes that "a small Jewish clique which has contempt for the mass of Jewish people" not only was responsible for both World Wars, but also funded Hitler and orchestrated the Holocaust. Yes, Jews did the Holocaust. It's best not to try to make sense of David Icke.
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