"Space Jews" to "Funny She Doesn't Look Druish"?: Space Jews

Should we change the trope name? The new name, by the way, is from Spaceballs.

As much as I love Spaceballs - which is a LOT - it won't really help anything.

You need a better reason than "I found a new name"

Any particular reason?

The trope is not about jewish people. So a rename like that will just make the confusion worse.

Why?

Also, the suggested name seems worse to me.

Maybe a blunt redirect would be nice: Sterotypes In Space maybe.

edited 4th Dec '10 7:01:33 PM by Sackett

Stereotypes In Space sounds like it could work.

Since the trope isn't about JEWS! IN! SPAAAAAAAACE! but rather aliens who act in a stereotypical manner to cultures on earth (E.G. Aliens who talk like a rabbi and focus their lives on making money), I think Stereotypes In Space would make a much better rename.

edited 4th Dec '10 7:17:02 PM by DRCEQ

Space Jews found in: 137 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 5,457 people to the wiki from non-search engine links since 20th FEB '09.

That's a lot of use. Show some misuse in the wicks.

Funny thought: considering that the main misuse would be thinking this trope is Jews in Space, which can still actually fit under the "real" meaning, how can we tell if an example involving Jews in Space is misuse or not? :)

Depends on how stereotypical they are, I would think. They may be Jews in space, but, you know, not Space Jews.

^^Well, seeing that the trope is intended to be about aliens and such portraying any and all racial stereotypes, I guess the key thing to look for is if it has a healthy number of examples and wicks about aliens resembling a variety of stereotypes. If all or a ridiculously large majority of the wicks are JUST covering Jewish stereotypes, we might want to consider that something might be throwing people off about the trope's true intentions or not.

^You mean like in Spaceballs? I'd at least consider something like that more of a Played for Laughs, Literal-Minded variant. I think this trope can be flexible like that.

edited 4th Dec '10 7:56:11 PM by SeanMurrayI

Honestly, I'd be pretty unlikely to cold-click on the trope as it's currently titled. Feels like the trope itself is going to be anti-Semitic.

^Yeah, I wasn't figuring anything like that into my views on this one. If a lot of people are feeling uneasy about the current name for that reason, I'll definitely say that's grounds for a rename as well, but that definitely wasn't a thought that was crossing my mind.

I honestly prefer Stereotypes In Space, but I think we should observe the formalities.

I'm fine with the current title as long as we have a more blunt redirect- which we now do.

"That's a lot of use. Show some misuse in the wicks." - Deboss

That's hard to prove, since someone having an example of a "stereotype in space" other than one of Jews would simply not add it as an example. It's not exactly a traceable kind of misuse. Remember, what is being argued is that the current name makes it seem like it is especially about Jewish stereotypes...

It is a kind of traceable misuse actually. We did looked for it for You Gotta Have Blue Hair. We just made sure that there were a good number of people using it for other hair colours when we checked the wicks. If we only find jews at the end of those links then we'll know it's being misused.

Yes and no. when I did the check up for You Gotta Have Blue Hair, what I did is check (all) of the character pages. If the page had the trope only for a/all the blue haired character(s), and there were other characters with other weird hair colors, I counted them as a misuse. If the trope was used on both blue haired and other weird hair color, I counted it as a good use.

Problem with using it there is that just how many works will have at least two characters on their character page who fit two different stereotypes? I am not that sure this is gonna happen all that much, so using the same methodology is hard at best. I can prove the trope is used correctly whenever its used on a non-jewish stereotype. But how do I prove incorrect use? For all I know, the Jewish-like Space Jew IS the only Space Jew on the show. When doing the You Gotta Have Blue Hair, I could simply google the show and see in the cast images the hair colors (not counting that alot of character pages have portraits to begin with).

So Misuse in this case is very hard to prove. We could check the wicks and see just how often they only mention Jewish sterotypes, but that could be flawed (it's not impossible that Jewish stereotypes may simply occur more often in fiction to begin with).

The one type of misuse I have noticed, which IS provable, but I do not know far spread it is, is to use the trope to refer to Jews In Space, To quote Mel Brooks. IE: I have seen it potholed to refer to character in a scifi setting who literally are Jewish, which is not what the trope is about. Don't know how widespread this is however.

edited 4th Dec '10 11:03:08 PM by Ghilz

"It is a kind of traceable misuse actually. We did looked for it for You Gotta Have Blue Hair. We just made sure that there were a good number of people using it for other hair colours when we checked the wicks." - shimaspawn

But even then, that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't OTHER people who WOULD be using it for other hair colours had the title been clearer.

The You Gotta Have Blue Hair debate is pretty much closed. It had less than 10% misuse, and over 1400 wicks So that argument makes no sense ( The "but people might not know" argument doesn't hold much water when people are clearly using it. Alot, and in an overwhelming majority correctly). So there's no point in reopening that topic really. Especially in a discussion on another page.

edited 4th Dec '10 11:12:58 PM by Ghilz

My point was not to reopen that topic. My point was to discuss how my reasoning applied to what shimaspawn was comparing it to.

In this case, my remark on the You Gotta Have Blue Hair title was more than anything else an analogy for my point on this subject; you never know who might mistake this for specifically being about Jewish stereotypes in space, and have in mind some other kind of stereotype in space that they do not add to the page because of this misunderstanding. It's hard to prove otherwise. (Alternatively, we could look at similar tropes like Fantastic Racism to try to see if some entries there belong on Space Jews instead...)

If most of the examples are about Jewish people, or seeming Jewish, more than stereotypes in general, then we can be certain the name is limiting the use.

Not necessarily. It could mean any number of factors:

1. ) That Jewish stereotypes DO outnumber other types in fiction.
2. ) Maybe Jewish stereotypes are just easier to find/detect, because they are so many, it's easier to find aliens that fit but a few and call them Space Jews.
3. ) That the trope really IS being misused and just applies to Aliens with specifically Jewish stereotypes. This would be cause for a rename, but how to be sure this is what is happening?

I've done some looking around, and while there ARE examples of the trope being used to mean Jews In Space, these are a minority (well bellow 10% of the wicks I've checked so far, which are, admitably, not a representative sample).

edited 5th Dec '10 7:55:56 AM by Ghilz

Well maybe "Funny, she doesn't look Druish" should be the quote instead of the title. Anyone like that idea?