Discussion Main / SpaceJews

Does Sebastian from The Little Mermaid (1989) count? I mean, Honest Trailers did call him "the closest thing this movie has to a black person".

I wonder if there are any nonhumans based on stereotypical white people?

Do the crabs in SpongeBob SquarePants qualify? It's not just Mr. Krabs who's greedy, all the crabs are, and have long noses. Though this stereotype is likely unintentional.

The [[Treeants Arborians]] from Chowder sound and act like stereotypical Turks, Russians or Aremerians.

I have half a mind to remove the Decapodians from the Futurama example. Apart from Dr. Zoidberg (who is just one individual, and thus not this trope), the actual culture of the Decapodians doesn't seem even remotely Jewish-inspired. They're just your typical Star Trek-inspired alien culture. They solve disputes with arena battles, reproduce in a planet-wide orgy and die upon reproduction. Does that sound Jewish to you?

What about Dwarves in Tolkien? They were great artisans, always exiled and always Fighting for a Homeland; they are more a sympathetic version but they do resemble Jews. And while Tolkien hated current events and definitely hated political allegory he must have known a few Zionists though he may have been ambiguous about their program.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: "Space Jews" to "Funny She Doesn't Look Druish"?, started by TigerKing on Dec 5th 2010 at 1:47:02 AM

The Joozians are probably the most obvious. I bet their culture forbids them from eating pigs and shellfish, or whatever their planet's equivalent of those animals is.

Removed:

• FTL Faster Than Light has the Slug race. They hide in nebulas, using their psychic powers to distract you and your crew so they can loot your ship. Those slugs that aren't pirates are often greedy merchants who offer little or no payment if you save their lives and will try to rip you off if you buy from their shops. They alsssso ssssspeak with a hissssssing accent.

This entry doesn't say what race the aliens are supposed to be stand-ins for. If they're supposed to be Jewish, I'm not seeing much correlation. There's no stereotypes for Jews being pirates who speak in hissing accents.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs Help, started by EdnaWalker on Mar 22nd 2012 at 9:00:33 PM

What would be this trope in its literal sense? Like, not just stereotypes, but actual, real-world religious practices used in a fantasy or non-Earth setting?

I'm wondering if there should be a distinction between characters who display stereotypes of a ethnicity, and characters that are supposed to actually be that ethnicity. Scrooge Mc Duck, for example, has a lot of Scottish elements to him, but only because he's actually Scottish. The various mice and cats from an American Tail all act in accordance to the cultures they've come from.

On the other hand, I suppose it's easier to draw the line with just "Are they animals? Are they a stereotype? Then they're Space Jews." But I thought it was worth at least discussing.

It's been a while since I saw "The Long Game", but I don't recall any references to a banking consortium being behind anything. There's the Mighty Jagrafess, and behind him there's the Daleks, but we don't learn that until later

I'm something of a "Star Trek" fan though not "hard-core." I found this interesting : "Bajorans are oppressed, deeply-religious terrorists, referencing Jewish and Muslim stereotypes.". I didn't see that much of the Bajoran storylines but I thought that the conflict on the Bajoran homeworld was based on/influenced by the "Troubles" of Northern Ireland. Interesting..

Removed:

• Realizing it can't avoid it, Stationery Voyagers runs with this one like it's a marathon baton. A lot of the Fantasy Counterpart Cultures may also double as Space Romans. Most of the Minshan denominations and Minshanism-based faiths are kept ambiguous (i.e., who's Baptist or Methodist or Lutheran or what-not,) but it's made pretty obvious that the main leaders of the Statonian government are Mormons, who suffer similar criticism as they do in Richard Dutcher's film Brigham City. The Yehtzigs' Religion of Evil serves as a reminder of what can happen at the crossroads of The War on Straw and Political Correctness Gone Mad with actual devil worship.
  • The Xylien Society are Magical Native Americans with Magitek and Men in Black attire.
  • Viola is a Space Jive Turkey.
  • Inkraine speaks for itself.
  • Markerterion is basically Planet Spain. Or Southern California. Or Southern Louisiana. Or Kalamazoo. Whichever of the four it needs to be for that episode.
  • Mikloche Warriors in training on Whixtitout may have very Minshan (Christian) beliefs about the universe, yet, they tend to live lives with only limited contact with their surrounding culture, fearful of overattachment; and they practice martial arts of the sort expected more of Buddhist or Shinto monks. Made worse when their countryside looks like Medieval Japan.
  • Mantith generally averts this by virtue of being the most Earth-like. But the Mosquatlons who aren't pagan are usually implied to be Roman Catholic or Russian Orthodox.

I'm not familiar with this series, but this entry looks like it's getting the trope confused with Fantasy Counterpart Culture. If someone knows this work and thinks the trope does apply, could you clean out the Fantasy Counterpart Culture stuff and stick to non-humans displaying racial stereotypes?

I don't get the definition of a Space Jew. Isn't it the same as fantasy culture counterpart? Is it only applies to only jewish attributes? No Space Americans, Space British, or Space Anything? How is this not similar to Space Roman trope? This trope seems really ambiguous...

Do you think the trope name could be changed to "Fantasy Counterpart Stereotype?" That way, it would sound less specifically focused on Jews, and would encompass all stereotypical characters.

And the trope description says that the trope is just about nonhuman characters. What about humans who embody stereotypes in fantasy settings? Wouldn't they count too?

For example, the Calormenes from The Chronicles Of Narnia are human, but they're still fantasy versions of evil Middle Easterners.

Another example would be the traveling singers and the Foggy Swamp Waterbenders from Avatar The Last Airbender, who are humans, but they're still stereotypical versions of hippies (the traveling singers) and rednecks (the Foggy Swamp Waterbenders).

What do you think?

I removed the following text from the trope description:

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 (put THIS little ditty in your pipe and smoke it...).

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 anti-Semitism, you are correct.

To complicate things even further, Jews love poking fun at themselves, and are very prominent in the entertainment industry.

The first section is just a lot of extra words for what the opening paragraph already says: that we often don't know whether the trope is or isn't intentional. The other sections focus on Jews, which has confused tropers in the past into thinking that this trope is just about Jews, or about any Jews in a sci-fi setting.