#antisemitic coding

[spot-the-antisemitism]

You know the thing in Snow White where the Queen tells the huntsman to kill Snow White and butcher her, and the huntsman butchers a pig instead? Do you think that's an allusion to the blood libel story (I think it was La Guardia) about Jews telling a Christian man to give them a child's heart and him giving them a pig's heart instead?

Dear Going Rampant,

Considering none of the characters are codedly Jewish no I don’t so. However…..

The queen in older versions of Snow White is half non human hence her craving for human flesh so do with that what you will. Considering the original story was written in reconquista Spain, she’s portrayed as a mixed cannibal jealous of her step daughter’s pale skin I don’t think the stereotype is antisemitic as much as racist, honestly.

The replacing humsn flesh with pig or lamb is a staple of not olny snow white but also sleeping beauty stories and why it’s there is a subject of debate that I’m not qualified to comment on.

Yours,

Cecil

[spot-the-antisemitism]

So I’m a uni student, and my dissertation involves vampires (long story) and I have recently learned that not everyone knows the connection between vampiric folklore and antisemitism. Needless to say I was very confused when people looked at me like I was insane.

Dear Dirtbag,

Yeah that's because vampires mean different things to different people. The original strigoi legends ranged between regular ghost story of wronged people lashing out at their abuser or just random innocents. They WERE closely tied to romani people in the Romanian myths but (usually) in a "those romani are tied to the mystical and make good hunters of the supernatural" way. Which is still antiromanyism

But in the hands of Victorians hopped up on eugenicism it was the fear of the other. Dracula is every orientalist stereotype in one. He's not neccesarily Jewish but he's very much not christian and almost a satanist. Which is clearly the same thing to the antisemite. Nosferatu is absolutely about the fear of the other betraying you and ties to the "stab in the back myth". Nosferatu was absolutely an antisemitic caricature.

Nowayadays vampires are tied to class and so telling someone on their allegory for bloodsucking aristocrats has antisemitic connotations has a a tankie go into a fit. "you think admititng vampires embody the bourgouise means I think Jews run the banks?" they'll cry.

That said I think it's weird to say the problems with Twilight is that Edward is codedly Jewish when he's so painfully mormon. The allegory isn't that literal. the problem isn't that we should view all vampires as Jews. The problem is that many writers truly saw all Jews as vampires

Cecil

[gerrysherry]

Are you Jewish, and if so, do you feel like the movie Tangled is anti-Semitic?

I am indeed Jewish (patrilineal and reform but Jewish) but I am terrible with 'this is antisemitism in media' as opposed to 'this is antisemitism in real life'. My thoughts on media anti-semitism are complicated.

I actually enjoy characters that are antisemitic* caricatures if they're charismatic enough. I actually like Shylock and Svengali** because damn they really manipulate people and get what they want. I also will analyze that Shakespeare and Du Mariner were appealing to antisemitic tropes of their times and that those characters are now archetypes wielded against us. People are accused of being a "Svengali" or a "Shylock".

Tangled doesn't have that kind of reach so it's not as worrisome to me but it's disturbing to see tropes from the Middle Ages and the 19th and 20th century surfacing in the 21st.

Mother Gothel also has an appeal to her that will likely make her a nostalgic Disney villian to Gen Z and younger millennial. Those who are gentiles and don't catch the coding. I didn't as a teen until it was pointed out to me.

Mother Gothel has both a hooked nose and the bouncy black ringlets typical of young Jewish women. She steals a blond-haired child to live forever and while she doesn't steal Rapunzel's blood or life force she's clearly using a very typical white gentile child in order to live forever so it's still blood libel just watered down (pun intended).

Also this is a film that associates broken and hooked noses with villians and (reformed) thugs, while our two leads are traditinally attractive. This is of course classic Disney but here it just so telling.

The fairy tale story of Rapunzel itself positions a witch stealing a child from a good christian couple but it was the movie that made her look as Ashkenazi as possible.

It's antisemitic as the early harry Potter books are antisemitic**. Accidentally tapping in to old fantasy narratives that are very bigoted and not updating the bigotry.

Did I answer your question?

footnotes:

*apparently it's better to not hypenate 'antisemitism' to distance from the roots of the it's coiner who was a racist antisemitic eugenicist who wanted something more pseudo-academic sounding than 'Judenhass' - 'Jew-hatred'. I write it as one word but I don't see how one is better than the other.

** The antagonist of Du Mariner's book 'Trilby' who hypnotises people to his bidding so he doesn't have to get his hands dirty. He is explicitly an ashkenazi Jew who is so many antisemitic stereotypes that a 'Svengali' is now a derogatory term for a manipulative person especially a one who is Jewish.

***as opposed to Hogwarts Legacy which was written by an alt-right crank and is deliberately antisemitic. But what appealed to him was Rowling's already antisemitic portrayals of the Goblins