Misused: You Have To Have Jews

You Have to Have Jews has a confusing definition. As a Trope in Aggregate, it's apparently supposed to be about lampshading the amount of Jewish characters and creators in media. However, it is almost never used this way. At best, it refers to Jewish characters in setting where they realistically may not be as common in real life, or in fantasy settings that wouldn't have a concept of religion anyway. At worst, and likely more commonly, it is used in reference to any Jewish character, even when their Judaism isn't "unrealistic." It is also commonly used for other professions in which Jewish people are common.

You Have To Have Jews Wick Check shows that only 4 out of 50 examples are correct discussions from work, and 12 other examples are meta-discussion, not examples. The majority of the usage (15/50) is simply "Jewish characters exist" with no lampshading, which is People Sit on Chairs. 10 examples are too low on context, which means half of the wick check is either PSOC or ZCE.

I'm not sure how quite to fix this, but as it stands, YHTHJ is a confusing trope. Maybe we could spin off something (in-universe examples only, of course) for "stereotypical Jewish professions" since that's what the "Jewish people are common in the entertainment industry" skews towards, and a few other examples have characters seek out Jewish people to be their bankers due to that stereotype. It's obviously a loaded trope but it is a trope, and the closest I can see to this current trope actually being something worth documenting.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 9th 2022 at 9:05:14 AM

Opening

A Nice Jewish Index havs plenty of other tropes to pick from, I'm not sure what You Have to Have Jews is trying to say that others can't (tbf some of them are also basically "other trope + this nationality"). It needs something concrete or turned into redirect/disambig. And if there aren't enough examples in the current to redefine into anything, it can be a question for TLP for later.

Edited by Amonimus on Jan 10th 2022 at 7:56:02 PM

I could see a disambig or even a redirect to A Nice Jewish Index. In fact I'd prefer the redirect.

Do you guys think the angle of "Jewish people are stereotyped into these professions" could maybe work for a spinoff trope? I wouldn't be ready to draft it personally but it could be worth yarding?

I agree, hence why I suggested it being a draft or an idea put in Salvage Yard.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 10th 2022 at 3:18:18 PM

Probably. But it would practically be an entirly new trope and not a You Have to Have Jews retool.

Edited by Amonimus on Jan 10th 2022 at 11:14:22 PM

It has the usual problem with Tropes In Aggregate - without the "aggregate" thing, it's just "Jewish people appear in fiction". The idea is entirely based on a musical number from Spamalot. Either it should be limited to Lampshaded and Discussed examples, or just turned into a redirect to A Nice Jewish Index.

to a redirect to A Nice Jewish Index.

I think redirecting to A Nice Jewish Index is a good way to deal with the current state of the page.

The current definition (Jewish people are overrepresented on-camera and behind it) honestly seems halfway to "Jews control the media", which... blehhhhhhhhh, which is why I can see why it backtracked to IUEO. I actually did add a recent example to it that I think is correct (In You (2018), a wannabe director character speculates that Joe Goldberg is Jewish, and says his name sounds like a name for a Hollywood producer) which is why I could see a proper IUEO page for it, but it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

The actual usage (why would there be Jewish people in XYZ setting) is chairs, I agree. At the most egregious, it's Black Vikings, but even for that trope I've always felt it was tropers conflating impossibility with implausibility (like, Jewish people in Japan are rare but they exist; similarly there were real black people in Regency England etc).

As for something like "Jewish people go into law because stereotypes"... doesn't Asian and Nerdy already take "Asian character goes into law/medicine/engineering because they're stereotyped as an overachieving community" types of examples, so could those go into Jewish and Nerdy?

I noticed that too. I didn't bring it up because I've been busy and I didn't have a chance to really make a strong argument.

Agreed. This would be better off redirected.

Redirect.

Redirect. If a lot discussed examples of "Jews are [overly/supposed to be] represented in media" while digging through wicks, it could be spun into a new trope later.

IIRC, we used to have a bunch of tropes snowcloned "You Have To Have X" such as You Gotta Have Blue Hair, but it looks like a lot of these have already been renamed. "X exists" was, if memory serves, the common problem with these snowclones.

There might be value in a Jewish Doctors And Lawyers trope about stereotyped Jewish jobs, as well as salvaging this trope as... something. But if we're concerned about the implication of "Jews run the media" then I can see why we'd merge with A Nice Jewish Index.

Redirect

Even China had Jews as early as the Tang Dynasty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews

Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 10th 2022 at 12:20:57 PM

I dunno, is there statistical evidence of this trope?

Evidence of what trope? Because so far everyone just wants to cut it and turn it into a redirect- at most a few people have suggested TLP'ing a new idea if a pattern emerges.

Yeah, one problem is that it's unclear what this trope is supposed to be, particularly due to its Trope in Aggregate status. And it's hard to statistically check it out because it's it's trope about fictional portrayals — the amount of correct examples are the statistics.

I also very much don't like the "Jews are overrepresented in media" angle because it carries some Unfortunate Implications. Not sure how we could keep that premise without encouraging people to complain that Jewish representation is gratuitous and/or unrealistic. At least the Stock Jewish Professions / Jewish Doctors And Lawyers idea could be a valid Jewish and Nerdy subtrope cuz I've seen multiple media where characters specifically want a Jewish doctor/lawyer/financer because of the stereotypes.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 10th 2022 at 2:56:02 PM

Don't forget about Jewish pawnbrokers.

They are rather common in Toronto, where I live.

Not to mention we already have Greedy Jew, which covers some of the negative stereotypes already.

True, I just also find it interesting that there's a bit of a trend I saw during the wick check where even if the character didn't actually fit Greedy Jew or Jewish and Nerdy stereotypes, there was an association with characters preferring Jewish people in certain professions. But I guess it could overlap anyway.

Redirecting to A Nice Jewish Index would probably be the best solution.

I think this is less a trope than a stereotype. You might as well add "many comedians/ scientists/ lawyers/ homemakers" are Jewish.

I would vote for making it a redirect to the Jewish index.

Many if not most stereotypes are tropes, so I don't get that particular argument. But this particular stereotype just might be better covered elsewhere.