Offensive trope, IMO, seeking others' opinions: You Have To Have Jews

Original author here.

"Jewish populations are frankly small everywhere except Israel"

False. Jewish population of New York City is something like one in eight. Jewish population of LA is something like one in ten or twelve. These may appear small, but compared to practically every other city in the world outside Israel they are massive, both in raw numbers and as a proportion.

The title is a joke derived from Eric Idle's song. If you don't think it's funny, well, YMMV.

In response to the very first post, I simply don't understand how it's offensive to point out that in Great Britain, the Jewish population is so vanishingly insignificant that our trope for "the mean guy" is a Scotsman rather than a Jew. How this is then spun into "you're implying Jews control the media" simply baffles me.

To the rather inarticulate "Some Sort Of Troper", who said " just having a bunch of jewish characters on the page doesn't mean jack" might I point out that the page explicitly and clearly states that "a bunch of jewish characters" does NOT constitute an example.

I don't *think* there was ever a serious suggestion that "there's some kind of obligation for media to have Jewish characters". As previously pointed out, the title is a JOKE.

If it " stops short of explaining what visable effect this has on the media" (and I didn't think it did) it's probably because if you tried to explain the visible effect there'd be a chorus of people crying anti-semitism. Oh look, there it is. To people who don't live in places where the Jewish population is significant (i.e. practically everyone in the world who doesn't live in Israel, New York or LA), the disproportionate number of Jews in entertainment media appears incongruous. Not bad, not "too many", not different than it should be, just odd. Just as a comparison, how interested is anyone reading this in Burkina Faso? Would it seem odd to you if in a significant proportion of your entertainment media, there were people from Burkina Faso? Television regularly showed documentaries about issues affecting people from Burkina Faso, there was usually a character in any sitcom or drama from Burkina Faso, to the point that some people made jokes or even serious suggestions that there was some sort of Burkina Faso conspiracy? Would it then be racist to say "hey, there's only like 14 million people from Burkina Faso in the whole world, and half of them are in Burkina Faso, so doesn't strike anyone as just a little bit odd that I, someone who has never been there, knows so much about their language, culture, traditions and history?"

It's not quite exactly the opposite of Token Jew... Consider: in the UK, there's a significant black population, spread right around the country, in practically every town and city. Therefore, it seems perfectly natural to us that in any group, there's a token black guy. That's a cultural thing we in the UK share with the US, something that translates perfectly well.

In NYC and LA, however, Token Jew also makes sense, for exactly the same reason. But Token Jew does NOT translate to the UK, because to us - a country with more Jedi than Jews - having a Jew in "any given group" of guys just seems... weird. And that applies basically everywhere except NYC and LA. And that is all. It's just a bit weird. It's not bad, it's not a symptom of a conspiracy any more than it's a symptom of a conspiracy that cops say "You have the right to remain silent" (they don't say that in the UK - we don't have the right to remain silent).

"it's unusual in the same way that there's noticeably more South Asian characters in British media than you'd see in American shows"

EXACTLY. Indeed, that's an excellent example of exactly this trope.

"Jews tend to be overrepresented in such occupations because they are more likely to be crazy smart"

Wow. Racist much?

And on the subject of offensiveness, I can think of no more appropriate response than a quotation of Mr. Stephen Fry, King of Twitter, all round bastion of general wonderfulness and, if it matters, a Jewish gentleman. I shalln't post the actual quotation, but would encourage anyone interested to google the words "Stephen Fry So You're Offended".

"Jews tend to be overrepresented in such occupations because they are more likely to be crazy smart"

EXCUSE ME??? Are you trolling? You'd better be cuz THIS is offensive indeed.

Now, as a person who lives in a country (France) where Jews overreact almost to the point of sending enforcers every time a Goy utters the word "Jewish" (and I am NOT kidding), I find this trope hardly offensive. Because, yes, it's demographically incorrect.

The Burkina Faso parallel makes a good point here. This trope exists but it isn't about stigmatizing Jews as "the evil controllers of media". Please, take a chill pill!

It's about showing that the over-representation of a community that is so insignificant on a demographic scale is quite surprising and indeed inaccurate. Because, I'm sorry, there are much more African-Americans in the US than there are Jews yet they're not as present in the media in comparison, especially women. Oh, and before you jump at my throat in outrage, I'm just making a parallel like that of Burkina Faso, not trying to stir shit up or implying anything anti-semitic in any way. Thanks.

Hypocrisy can be pretty funny sometimes.

Also, I don't think that taking a line, from a song you like, without seriously considering whether it makes a good title or not, is a good idea.

edited 11th Apr '11 9:58:50 AM by Nyarly

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

Sonof Roj Blake explains it quite well.

Which also means it's really part of a trope about LA and New York dominating media. Don't we already have that trope, Flyover Country or something?

It's not really a stand alone trope.

I vote cut.

No, Flyover Country is about the way the Midwest is treated in fiction. It is incidental to the trope that the fact that the entertainment centers are in New York and California. Simply because two tropes share one of several reasons for being used doesn't make them the same.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Still, isn't this Everything's Better With Jews? And do we want that with minorities? Or if it's about the cultural/historical phenomenon of there being a disproportionate amount of Jews in high places, does this need a trope more than, say, the amount of people with Dutch ancestry in Michigan?

Sorry haven't replied to this thread for a while. I guess for me this comes down to that if this subject is meant as a demographic observation, then it's not really a trope, and at best, is the kind of thing that would go in some Useful Notes page.

And looking at Alrune's post and what Sonof Roj Blake posted, I see something that bothers me. It seems like they (and I suppose other people in their countries) are at least mildly bothered/distracted when watching American media when they see Jewish characters, finding it odd that there are so many of them *

If Norwegian television often had people of Burkina Fasoan dissent as characters, as a result of that being a vibrant/successful minority in that country, I might find that mildly interesting, but it's not really trope material. So what if I've never met someone from Burkina Faso? There's nothing weird about a Norwegian work having characters from there- the demographics of a viewer in another country are really immaterial/not a trope.

And the use of the Monty Python title is problematic, because the line is more like Self-Deprecating Humor about perceptions about Jewish presence in media- it's not really intended as a lampshade hanging (humorous or not) that "every work" has to have Jewish characters.

edited 12th Apr '11 8:43:00 AM by Jordan

Hodor

>>it's really part of a trope about LA and New York dominating media

Big Apple Sauce, kind of. Which is (or was) explicitly stated in the description.

>>isn't this Everything's Better With Jews?

From "Everything's better with": 'any trope where X is thrown in to a story just for the hell of it. Just having X around makes everything else better for it.' I don't think this is that at all, because having read a few "Everything's better with" tropes, I think if you recast this as "Everything's better with Jews", then it really could be offensive. If it's anything, it's "Everything's NORMAL with Jews", and its incongruity in contexts where Jews are not a demographic group you meet every day.

>>does this need a trope more than, say, the amount of people with Dutch ancestry in Michigan?

Most of the characters in the movie "Sleepy Hollow" had Dutch names - van Tassel, van Brunt etc. In that one, specific movie, that fact gave a specific, localised atmosphere, and marked the place out as different.

Now imagine if in practically every movie, every sitcom, every drama coming out of the USA, there was at least one and probably many more characters with Dutch names. That would, to other Anglophone countries with negligible Dutch immigrant populations - England, Australia, South Africa - seem weird. The preponderance of "van" names would be a thing, like "You have the right to remain silent", "Have a nice day" or "D'you want fries with that" that would mark it out as specifically unusual and different from our normal experience.

The idea about Norwegian television doesn't really work, for two reasons: 1. Norway is already, by virtue of language, climate, history etc. "exotic". *Nothing* about media from Norway is comfortable and familiar to us in the way media from the USA are. 2. Norway is not the cultural juggernaut that the USA is. I am reasonably confident I have never seen a Norwegian sitcom, drama, documentary or movie. I watch US media every day.

>>the use of the Monty Python title is problematic, because the line is more like Self-Deprecating Humor about perceptions about Jewish presence

I might be being pedantic, but in order to do "self-deprecating humour" about Jews, don't you have to BE Jewish?

"it's not really intended as a lampshade hanging "

Might be a stupid question, but have you actually seen the show? I have. (In the West End of London, not Broadway to my regret - I was in Manhattan, there were tickets available and I didn't go! Idiot.) In context, it pretty much is exactly a lampshade hanging.

If "practically every movie, every sitcom, every drama coming out of the USA, there was at least one and probably many more characters with Dutch names" is an analogy for your perception of the amount of Jews, this sounds like a massive exaggeration. Reminds me of the webcomic linked to on the trope page- here- yeah, there are a fair amount of Jews in Hollywood, but I really hope you don't think that is an accurate mirror of reality.

Norway was given as a joke example- not sure what minority (if any) you'd see a lot of in their media. You do have a point about how that would differ from U.S. media- although, going back to an earlier examples, you don't see me creating a trope called You Have To Have South Asians as a reaction to noticing a lot of South Asian actors in the shows I've watched on BBC America.

I haven't seen the Python show, so I guess I shouldn't have commented on that. I did have a recollection of the lyrics, which does seem to have been incorrect. Looking at them, it still seems to me more like a joking exageration- I wouldn't take it as an "Ah ha! They admit it!" moment.

edited 12th Apr '11 1:37:43 PM by Jordan

Hodor

>you don't see me creating a trope called You Have To Have South Asians as a reaction to noticing a lot of South Asian actors in the shows I've watched on BBC America

Dunno why. It's a not unreasonable parallel. In fact, I'd go so far as to add it to the trope description... off there now.

(And no, that's not "an accurate description of my impression", it's an exaggeration for effect, like the webcomic. But the point is, it's not a huge, ridiculous exaggeration.

As to whether this is even a trope, I looked at the People Sit On Chairs page, and here's what it says: "Tropes are conventions used in storytelling to convey some sort of information across to the audience".

The convention, in this case, is that in a "normal" group of people, there is, reasonably often, a Jewish guy/girl. The information being conveyed is "hey, this is set in the Perfectly Normal Real World, y'known, just like where YOU live". Except, unless you live in New York, LA or Israel, it's explicitly and noticeably NOT like the real world, even though it clearly thinks it is.

Speaking as yet another Jew, I don't find the idea offensive in the least - there are more Jews in media than you'd expect to find as a function of their proportion in actual society. I'm not completely convinced this is a trope, though.

At the very least, I say we remove the examples, make an interesting observation about the trend, and move on.

That's Token Minority.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

do we need a trope about how in fiction, there are a lot of black basketball players because in real life, there are a lot of black basketball players?

or how about for works set in china, there tend to be a lot of chinese people because in real life, there are a lot of chinese people in china?

or maybe that in american works, characters are more likely to be christian than zen buddhist because in real life america, there are a lot more christians than zen buddhists?

if you haven't gotten the point yet: these are not tropes.

And this trope is none of these. This trope is about the number of Jews in media being the opposite of the number of Jews in real life. A pattern of things diverging from reality is very much a trope.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

That's been accused of a lot of minorities in fiction. I remember a time it was leveled at black people and gays.

Plus the title doesn't help. It looks like Jewish Token Minority instead of "Jewish Population In Fiction Greater Than Real Life".

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.

"This trope is about the number of Jews in media being the opposite of the number of Jews in real life."

are we reading the same trope? near as i can tell (and this is reflected on the trope description), we've established that the number of jews in media is not any different than the number of jews in real life, given that new york and LA have two of the largest jewish populations outside of israel.

it only seems like a trope if you're completely unaware of that fact (or racist). just like how black people playing basketball might seem like a trope if you've never actually watched an NBA game.

edited 13th Apr '11 3:58:19 PM by jaytee

If the show is set in LA or New York, sure, but a lot of media isn't set there and still shows the same number of Jewish characters. That's the trope here. I'm not saying there aren't Jews in New York and LA, but in some little suburban anytown USA? Not so much.

It's like watching a NBA game, seeing a lot of African Americans guys, and then expecting the same ratio of African Americans playing polo.

edited 13th Apr '11 4:02:27 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Actually, if I understood correctly, the claim was that because New York and LA have such large Jewish populations, American entertainment will feature a significant Jewish element whether it's actually set in New York/LA or not. Or at least I think that's what's been claimed, anyway.

Edit: Ninjas!

edited 13th Apr '11 4:05:06 PM by nrjxll

This sounds like a more general trope. Shooting Location Demographics: where the demographics shown in the work reflect the shooting location rather than the actual location? Or hell, call it Hollywood Demographics.

Fight smart, not fair.

I would definitely buy that. Even more generally, it could be Write What You Know. edit: oops, didn't realize that already existed (this is not an example of Write What You Know).

So either this is an arbitrary splinter of a larger trope or it's Jewish People Sitting In Chairs.

edited 13th Apr '11 4:59:02 PM by jaytee

So you're saying it's a subtrope of a larger trope. I can buy that.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Technically, it would be Write Who You Know, or more accurately, Cast Who You Know. Possibly, Cast The Locals.

Fight smart, not fair.

It's not about the actors being Jewish. It doesn't matter if they are or not. What matters is if the characters are Jewish.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick