#antisemitism in fairytales

[adarkrainbow]

One very interesting to note when comparing the "literary" fairytales and the "folkloric" fairytales - the fairytales actually rewritten or entirely written by authors for a literate public versus the oral folktales and "countryside" or "simple folks" fairytales collected by folklorists.

The latter tend to be very conservative, the former much more progressive than you think. Or rather... when you've got crazy nationalist and xenophobes and discriminators of all kinds, they'll turn towards the "folkloric" fairytales - but when you want to research queer, society-questioning, gender-norms-breaking, eerily modern fairytales, you'll go with the literary fairytales rather.

Don't get me wrong, do NOT get me wrong - both kind of fairytales are usually very racist in one way or another because they are from ancient times. The Pentamerone, madame d'Aulnoy's fairytales and the brothers Grimm fairytales all are very not-Black-people-friendly and always depict having dark skin as being ugly, being wicked or being a laughingstock. Because they were written by Renaissance-era Italians and French people, and by 19th century German men, so casual racism is just there.

BUT... Folkloric countrysides tend to play the cards of the casual European racism, and the common antisemitism, and the ingrained misogynistic views, much more plainly, openly and directly, because they were literaly collected among the folks that thought that, among the common population with the "common" views of the time. For example in a lot of French folkloric fairytales (not reprinted for children today) the role of the ogre or the devil or the murder in the woods will often be "the Moor" or "the Mooress", because it was okay to depict Moors are humanoid, devilish monsters used to eat the flesh of Christian children. The casual racism and antisemitism in good handfuls of the Grimm fairytales also prove the point (NOT HANSEL AND GRETEL THOUGH! I think I made my point clear). And the same way, in the Grimm you have the absolute "heterosexual-happiness" structure that was reinforced by Disney movie and is the reason why people think fairytales are inherently homophobic.

However, when it comes to literary fairytales, you have an entirely different song. Because they were LITERARY works, and as with a lot of literature pieces, you often get more progressive things than you think. Everybody knows of Andersen's fairytales queerness today that make them beautiful allegories for things such as coming out of the closet or transitioning or living in an homophobic setting, but if we take less "modern" and "invented", more traditional fairytales, we can be in for quite a surprise...

Take the Italian fairytales classics - the Pentamerone and the Facetious Nights. These works were originally satirical and humoristic adult works. Crude satire, dark humor - they were basically the South Park of their time. Slapstick gore out of an Itchy and Scratchy show, very flowery insults the kind of which you except to come of a Brandon Rogers video, poop and piss everywhere (yet another common trait with Brandon Rogers video, in fact I realized the classic Italian literary fairytales have actually a LOT in common with Brandon's videos...), and lot of sexual innuendos and jokes involving the limits of what was accepted as tolerable (extra-marital affairs, homosexuality, incest, gerontophilia, zoophilia). This was one big crude joke where everybody got something for their money and everyone, no matter the skin color, the religion, the gender or the social status, got a nasty little caricature. It does come off as a result as massively racist, antisemitic, ageist and misogynistic tales today... But it also clearly calls out the bad treatment of women, and takes all kings for fools, and completely deconstructs the "prince charming" trope before it even existed because they're all horny brutes, and it encourages good people to actually go and KILL wicked people who abuse others and commit horrid deeds... These tales inherited the "medieval comedy style" of the Middle-Ages, where it was all about showing how everybody in the world is an asshole, all "goodness" and "purity" is just foolishness and hypocrisy, how the world is just sex and feces, and how everybody ended up beaten up in the end.. (See the Reynard the Fox stories for example - which themselves spawned an entire category of "animal fairytales" listed alongside traditional "magical fairytales" in the Aarne-Thompson Catalogue.

But what about the French classical literary fairytales? Charles Perrault, and madame d'Aulnoy, and all the other "précieuses" and salon fairytale authors - mademoiselle Lhéritier, madame de Murat, the knight of Mailly, Catherine Bernard, etc etc...

The common opinion that was held by everyone, France included, for a very long tale, was that their fairytales were the "sweet and saccharine-crap and ridiculous-romance" type of fairytales. They were the basis of several Disney movies afterall, and created many of the stereotyped fairytale cliches (such as the knight in shiny armor saving a damsel in distress). People accused these authors - delicate and elegant fashionable women, upper-class people close to the royal court and part of the luxurious and vain world of Versailles, "proper" intellectuals more concerned with finding poetic metaphors and correct phrasing - they were accused of removing the truth, the power, the darkness, the heart of the "original" folkloric fairytales to dilute them into a syrupy and childish bedtime story.

But the truth is - a truth that fairytale authorities and students are rediscovering since a dozen of years now, and that is quite obvious when you actually take time to LEARN about the context of these fairytales and actually read them as literary products - that they are much more complex and progressive than you could think of. Or rather... subversive. This is a word that reoccurs very often with French fairytales studies recently: these tales are subversive. Indeed on the outside these fairytales look like everything I described above... But that's because people look at them with modern expectations, and forget that A) fairytales were generally discredited and disregarded as a "useless, pointless child-game" by the intellectuals of the time, despite it being a true craze among bookish circles and B) the authors had to deal with censorship, royal and state censorship. As a result, they had to be sly and discreet, and hide clues between the lines, and enigmas to be solved with a specific context, and references obscure to one not in the known - these tales are PACKED with internal jokes only other fairytale authors of the time could get.

These fairytales were mostly written by women. This in itself was something GRANDIOSE because remember that in the 17th century France, women writing books or novels or even short stories was seen as something indecent - women weren't even supposed to be educated or to read "serious stuff" else their brain might fry or something. Fairytales were a true outlet for women to epxress their literary sensibilities and social messages - since they were allowed to take part in this "game" and nobody bothered looking too deep into "naive stories about whimsical things like fairies and other stupid romances".

But then here's the twist... When you look at the lie of the various fairytale authors (or authoresses) oh boy! Do you get a surprise. They were bad girls, naughty girls (and naughty boys too). They were "upper-class, delicate, refined people of the salons" true. But they were not part of the high-aristocracy, they usually were just middle or low nobility or not even true nobility but grand bourgeois or administrative nobility - and they had VERY interesting lives. Some of them went to prison. Others were exiled - or went into exile to not be arrested. You had people who were persecuted for sharing vies opposing the current politico-status of France ; you had women who had to live through very hard and traumatic events (most commonly very bad child marriages, or tragic death of their kids). And a lot of them had some crazy stories to tell...

Just take madame d'Aulnoy. Often discredited as the symbol of the "unreadable, badly-aged, naive, bloated with romance, uninteresting fairytale", and erased in favor of Perrault's shorter, darker, more "folkloric" tales - and that despite madame d'Aulnoy being the mother of the French fairytale genre, the one that got the name "fairytale" to exist in the first place, and being even more popular than Perrault up until the 19th century. Imagine this so called "precious, delicate, too-refined and too-romantic middled aged woman in her salon"... And know that she was forced into a marriage with an alcoholic, abusive old man when she as just a teenager, that things got so bad she had to conspire with family members of her (and some male friends, maybe lovers, can't recall right now) to accuse her husband of a murder so he would get death sentence - but the conspiracy backfired, madame d'Aulnoy's friends got sentenced to death, and she had to exile herself it her mother in England to not get caught too. And she only returned to France and became known as a fairytale writer there after many decades of exile in other European countries the time the case got settled down. Oh, and when escaping France's justice she even had to hide under the frontsteps of a church. Yep.

Now I am reciting it all out of memory, I might get some details wrong, but the key thing is: madame d'Aulnoy was a woman with a crazy criminal life, and in fact she got such a reputaton of a "woman of debauchery" the British people reinvented her and her fairytales around the folk/fairytale figure of Mother Bunch (Madame d'Aulnoy's fairytales became "Mother Bunch" fairytales in England to match Perrault's "Mother Goose" fairytales, and Mother Bunch was previously in England a stereotype associated with the old wise woman, kind of witchy, that girls of the village went to to get love potions and aphrodisiacs or some advice on what to do once in bed with a guy - think fo Nanny Ogg from Discworld).

And many other fairytale authors of this "classical era of fairytales" had just as interesting, wild or marginal lives. The result? When you look at their tales you find... numerous situations where a character has to dress up and pass off as the opposite gender, resulting in many gender-confusing emotion and situations just as queer as Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Several suspiciously close and intimate friendships between two girls or two men. Various dark jokes at all the vices and corruption underlying in the "good society". Discreet sexual references hinting that there's more than is told about those idyllic romances. And lots of disguised criticism of the monarchic government and the gender politics of the society of their time - kings being depicted as villains or fools, princes either being villains or behaving very wrongly towards women, many of the typical fairytale love stories ending in tragedies (yes there's a lot of those fairytales where, because a prince loved a princess, they both died), numerous courtly depictions of rape and forced and abusive marriages, and of course - supreme subversion of all subversions - people of lower class ending up at the same level as kings (Puss in Boots' moral is that all you need to be a prince is just to look the part), and other mixed-class marriages (which was the great terror of the old nobility of France, for whom it was impossible to marry below their rank - if a king married a common peasant girl, the Apocalypse would arrive and it was the End of times).

So yeah, all of that to say... All the literary fairytales I came across with had subversive or progressive elements to it ; and this is why they are generally so easier to adapt or re-adapt in more queer or democratic or feminist takes, because there's always seeds here and there, even though people do not see it obviously. Meanwhile folkloric fairytales tend to be much more conservative and reflective of past (or present) prejudices, but people tend to forget it because these stories simple format and shortness allows them to "break" into pieces more easily like Legos you rearrange.

All I'm going to say is that there's a reason wy the Nazis very easily re-used the Grimm brothers fairytales as part of their antisemitic and fascist propaganda ; and why Russian dictators like Putin also love using traditional Russian fairytales in their own propaganda, while you rarely see Italian or French political evils reuse Perrault, d'Aulnoy, Basile or Straparole fairytales.

#fairytale analysis #fairy tales #fairytales #literary fairytales #folkloric fairytales #french fairytales #madame d'aulnoy #d'aulnoy fairytales #brothers grimm #grimm #queerness in fairytales #subversion in fairytales #queer fairytales #racism in fairytales #antisemitism in fairytales #politics and fairytales

[galwithalibrarycard]

So I just watched the school for good and evil movie, mostly for Kit Young, and the two main girl characters essentially recreated the main story beats of the scene from beauty and the beast where belle’s love saves the beast, complete with a kiss on the lips, only to then reiterate that their love is “best friends only” AND I just went in the tag to find out that in the books these two girls are SIBLINGS?????? I think this is the most convoluted case of queer baiting I have ever experienced and my head is SPINNING netflix pls you’re going to give the kids watching this a COMPLEX

#WHAT did I just watch #the school for good and evil spoilers #I never read the books they came out long after I aged out of middle grade #I just like fairytales #and clearly the screenwriter/s wanted to make these girls a queer couple so just DO IT #what the actual fucj #so bad it’s hilarious #and the best part is up until that Freudian mess of an ending the rest of the movie was really pretty good #BAFFLING #don’t get me wrong I was bothered by the gender essentialism #and the equating of oldness and hooked noses with ugliness and evil #have we learned nothing with the ageism and antisemitism Hollywood????? #I am losing it someone laugh at the madness with me

[fancylala4]

You know, I don’t think people know or read about the fairy tale rumpelstiltskin anymore. It used to be such a famous story to tell and now, I feel like no one under 23 knows about it. It’s probably for the best since it’s a really antisemitic fairy tale.

#mine #rumplestiltskin #fairy tales #fairytales #antisemitism

[meydia]

🎭 HANSEL & GRETEL (2008)

13 Nov 2022 | Day 6/∞: Hansel & Gretel (2008) - Met Opera Trigger warnings: cannibalism, murder, burning, near-suicide attempt, possible Holocaust implications

An operatic fairytale told in 3 kitchens. Set in a timeless, modern age, hunger is at the core of this narrative - hunger for food, hunger for the flesh of children, and hunger for vengeance. Surrealistic in design, one feels as though they are experiencing a fever dream brought on and punctuated by hunger pangs. Set designer John McFarlane's scenic paintings are reminiscent of Francis Bacon's screaming popes in their visual cruelty, and wow, I might be having nightmares tonight.

Hansel and Gretel have never been so oddly delirious, casually cruel and careless, yet incredibly childlike and naïve. They play, ignore their chores, and Hansel sneaks licks of cream. In a deviation from the original story, Hansel and Gretel's mother is not evil - she instead mistakenly sends them out in a fit of anger, yet goes with their father to find them. They pass out in the woods and entertain dreams of a fanciful feast, waited upon by a humanoid fish. Upon waking, entranced by a cake carried on a lolling tongue, they enter the witch's house - the industrial basement of a cannibalistic old woman.

Throughout, though, what is most striking is the undercurrent of the possibility of and enacting of violence. Hansel and Gretel's mother pushes them about in anger and desperation when she finds that they have not done their chores. She takes out a bottle of pills and, completely hopeless, nearly overdoses before their father comes in with a bag full of food. Banished from the house and playing with berries in the woods, delirious with hunger, Hansel and Gretel begin to smear the red juice upon themselves, reminiscent of blood.

In perhaps the most striking and horrific ending, the children shove the witch into the oven - and Gretel smears a cream moustache upon Hansel's upper lip, a perfect Hitler moustache. Take a moment here to consider a few things: one, that the classic take on witches is anti-Semitic in origin, particularly their 'large noses'; two, that the witch has been burning children up and eating them for no clear reason; three, that witches are seen as horrific and live out in the woods, othered by society; four, that the oven converts human flesh into gingerbread, and the very last scene is of children rejoicing as Hansel and Gretel prepare to take bites out of the witch's appendages.

Who is who specifically is unclear - are Hansel and Gretel Hitlerian youth, poor and made to believe in ideology that the Jews are stealing all their money? Is the witch the Holocaust itself, cooking and eating innocent children in a room eerily reminiscent of a gas chamber? Does the cycle of violence continue - do Hansel and Gretel gain a taste for human flesh, put through the oven?

What kind of hunger are we talking about here? Hunger for violence, perhaps. A kind of hunger that creates more hunger.

#opera #opera review #hansel and gretel #john mcfarlane #met opera #theatre review #theater #theatre #play review #play #engelbert humperdinck #set design #antisemitism #the metropolitan opera #hansel & gretel #grimm brothers #fairytale #grimm fairy tales #film #film review

[bougainvilea]

biggest eyeroll ever at people who refuse to argue with someone and purposefully misinterpret them so that they can manufacture a sick burn. like even when ur right it's just stupid and makes them feel even more in the right because they have no idea the context from which you're talking!

#also its useless #this is abt facebook. there was a facebook argument #and like not worth arguing w antisemites first of all #but like ur not gonna win him over by saying the devil isnt real stop believing in fairytales #like you're a child and you are fundamentally not going after what matters #anyway #aya talks

[morebedsidebooks]

Aladdin: A New Translation

Until that moment, Aladdin had never seen a woman uncovered except his mother, who was aged now, and whose ordinary features had never led Aladdin to suspect that other women might look any different. He might have heard others talk about beautiful women, but whatever words one might use to describe it, none have the effect of beauty itself.

When Aladdin saw Princess Badr al-Budur, he quickly shed his notion that all women must look more or less like his mother. The princess was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen: she had brown hair, large, bright eyes, a soft and modest gaze, a flawless nose, a small mouth, lovely crimson lips, and all her features were in symphony. Aladdin reeled, shocked by such a combination of marvels. She was tall too, and carried herself magnificently, which drew the respect of all who saw her.

  Yasmine Seale is an esteemed translator from Arabic and French, and her 2018 English translation of Aladdin was notable. Though the original story from the French may not meet the overstated promotion.

The prose itself certainly comes to life. Aladdin from a rebellious youth that one worries will never amount to anything to possessing the lamp and clever Prince as well dramatic. However, the Princess Badr al-Budur being “equally active” feels like an overemphasis. A beautiful princess (as we know since Aladdin scandalously peeps) assumed content until she faces more than one trial once Aladdin becomes smitten with her. Yet, his hand in one of the first woes she undergoes is never revealed. I at least wanted to see the Sultan, who is partly to blame, and his daughter all work that one out together. But these characters don’t talk to each other about things they probably should. Then even the frightful similar circumstances leading to the climax of the story, though necessitating courage on the part of the Princess and acting as saviour, is through a ruse that in the book has its conception with Aladdin.

Obviously, there are many aspects that have captured the imagination and led to Aladdin or the Magic Lamp being retold and refashioned for centuries. The introduction by editor Paulo Lemos Horta also attests as much. French Orientalist Antoine Galland during a trend for folklore in France put Aladdin down to pen hearing it from Syrian writer and traveler Ḥannā Diyāb in 1709, including the tale in a translation of an Arabic manuscript of One Thousand and One Nights. And so round the world translations and variations can be found.

The empire of Disney of course one. Who often has so little fidelity to the works and cultures such hail from it adapts. Still, all this time later it is something that I feel like in this instance giving at least a little bit of credit to animator Mark Henn and others involved for the visions of creating Princess Jasmine in both the 1992 animated movie and more recent 2019 live-action film.

A role played by Linda Larkin and Lea Salonga, then Naomi Scott respectively. Btw in both versions at the cost of Aladdin’s mum, and the live action creates some new characters. Jasmine was the first non-white princess for the company. One having at least more of a presence, even if altered like Aladdin and given aspects that are a bit incongruous.

Only that’s the thing, Aladdin is fantastical but also a bit of a whole melting pot. Diyāb got around almost as much as Aladdin. Every time it gets told it’s going to reflect the good and bad of who tell it and who they’re telling it to. All in all, this book is a lovely edition of an old tale often associated with One Thousand and One Nights And if you’re hungry for more from Seale’s hand the very pretty “The Annotated: Arabian Nights” released in 2021 offers a selection, along with by the title you might guess to include the French tales of Diyāb’s. And I can’t wait for more of the Nights in English which is forthcoming.

  Aladdin: A New Translation is available translated in English by Yasmine Seale, in print and digital from ‎Liveright

Ḥannā Diyāb’s memoir Book of Travels is available translated in English by Elias Muhanna, in print and digital from NYU Press

#french literature #18th century french literature #folklore and fairytales #aladdin #books to film #Ḥannā Diyāb #Antoine Galland #beat the backlist #cw: antisemitism confinement death death of parent kidnapping suicidal ideation

[is-the-thing-actually-jewish]

Ik this isn't about whether or not something is actually Jewish but I've been curious about this for over a year. I'd heard a few times on the internet that goblins are based on antisemitic imagery and that it's one of the big controversies/criticisms of goblincore. I personally enjoy goblincore: collecting rocks and snail shells, cozy and simple clothes, and enjoying anything that's shiny, whether or not it has monetary value; and when I draw my goblins I avoid things I know are common parts of antisemitic imagery, like the dramatically hooked noses and such, but I also want to draw more diverse noses so I'm not always drawing button noses. Ik this is probably a silly ask and I'm sorry if it's dumb I just want to know...here is one of my goblin drawings as an example of what I draw...

It’s not a dumb ask at all, and we welcome silly asks (though this isn’t that either).

So, goblins are very old European mythological creatures. And with most old European mythologies, they've gotten tangled up in some pretty antisemitic imagery. While no one has ever outright said "this goblin represents Jews" in fairytales, for anyone with an understanding of antisemitic imagery, the parallels and underlying messages are evident. Jews have for a long time been portrayed as having shorter statues, speaking in strange languages, and having grotesque facial features. Jews have been portrayed as living at the margins of society and engaging in amoral behaviour such as outright thievery or hoarding wealth. Sound familiar? Now, goblin-core as I understand it seeks to emulate popular features of goblins, such as dressing more 'grunge' and collecting shiny trinkets and generally not aligning with mainstream societal norms. Goblin-core in its origins is merely a niche countercultural aesthetic, and I believe most people do not engage in it maliciously. However, it becomes problematic when the goblin-core aesthetic readily embraces artwork and images with antisemitic undertones, and when the people who identify with the aesthetic try to shut down Jews when we voice our discomfort with certain aspects of it. As an alternate term, some prefer “corvid-core,” as it has the same nesting and shiny-collection vibe without the history.

Verdict: It's not inherently antisemitic, but just like cottagecore isn't inherently white supremacist, you've got to tread carefully in the space and check yourself.

#jumblr #pop culture #goblincore #it's complicated

[mylight-png]

Hello. I have been really depressed these past three weeks. In over twenty years of my life I do not remember seeing as much antisemitism as I have in the past month. I am deeply disappointed in the world. I had a higher opinion of it, especially places like Europe, Britain and America. I had believed that when we said "never again", we really had meant "never again". But I was wrong.

It turns out, that our history, and history of Israel has been lied about and twisted into something unrecognizable in universities and mass media, and the world just allowed it to happen. It turns out, that when Jewish people are massacred, people still rejoice in our deaths, using new lies to justify their hatred than the ones they used in WW2. It turns out that the world hates the idea of a Jewish state, it does not want us to have a country of our own, and so will look for any excuse to disparage our state, holding us to an impossible standard that cannot ever be realistically achieved.

We were not given the chance to mourn October 7th. We were not allowed to do so. Almost immediately the world rejoiced, came out in these "Pro-Palestine" protests — even before Israel had retaliated. Called the horrific massacre "resistance". Victim blamed us with the fictional fairytale of "75 year old oppression". Dismissed our grief with "Yeah well but the Palestinian deaths—". Screamed "From the River to the Sea". These were the words we heard on the 7th and 8th of October as news of our people's deaths were reaching us in real time. How can anyone support this so-called "Pro-Palestine" movement after that? Are we still hated this much?

I have already lost someone I considered a friend over this. She started reposting antisemitic lies, calling us "colonial settlers", parroting the Khazar conspiracy theory about Ashkenazi jews (which I am), making absurd claims about how we weren't indigenous, and how Israel does not have the right to exist and how we should cede control to the Palestinians and then live in "their" state, under "their" government. Yeah, we have already seen on the 7th how that idea would go. I was especially disheartened, because she is a person of color, as a fellow minority, I thought she would know better and would know what it's like to be hated over something you can't control...

I still may lose another friend. Recently, she has written me "It looks like Israel is enjoying this! They used this as an excuse!" I have tried to educate her and she seems to have listened, but I doubt my words will be enough. I know where she has gotten these lies, with the mass media continuously airing unverified statistics posted by Hamas controlled institutions all the while sneering at every shred of evidence Israel publishes. I'm tired. I do not believe I can fight against this continuous stream of lies. I'm tired and heartbroken that this is happening to us again.

I always wondered how the world ever bought these lies about how we were responsible for Germany's economic crisis and how we controlled world governments. Now I know. Because it's happening again. Just with new lies. And everything we've seen in WW2: the marking of Jewish homes, the pogroms, the persecution - it's all happening. Again.

I'm sorry for this extremely depressing message. My father, my grandmother and I no longer feel safe in this world. And we feel silenced lest we become victims as well.

I have nothing to add to this, it is as if someone wrote out my thoughts and feelings for me.

I wish and pray for safety for you and your family in this time when safety is an uncertain luxury. We have outlived them before, we will outlive them again. We meant "never again" when we said it, and I know our community well enough to know we follow through.

Am Yisrael chai

#jewish #jumblr #judaism #jew #opinion #proud israeli #israel solidarity #discourse #antisemitism has no place here #antizionism is antisemitism #fuck antisemitism #fuck hamas #never again is now #never again #we will outlive them

[floralcavern]

We live in a world where saying you think that a terrorist organization breaking into one’s country and killing thousands, r@ping hundreds, and kidnapping hundreds is a bad thing. We live in a world where saying that that country has the right to fight back and destroy that terrorist organization and get their civilians back is a bad thing. We live in a world where people, the majority, defend the terrorist organization who abuse their citizens while the same people supporting them say they want to civilians to be “free” from the country that had been ransacked just months before. We live in a world where people side with an organization who have openly stated their desire to eradicate Jews. We live in a world where people act like kidnapped civilians had lived through a Disney fairytale. We live in a world where more people believe in already proven misinformation rather than admit that they are wrong. We live in a world where people are saying Hitler ‘had some good points’. We live in a world where people are more outraged by kids being arrested for attempted murder than months old babies being kidnapped. We live in a world where people can say the most antisemitic shit you have ever heard and get away with it because they’re using a new term that has roots within Jewish culture. We live in a world where people take history and change it to their liking and everyone believes them without a second thought because it gives them an excuse to continue hating on a certain group. We live in a world where people can chant out calls for Jewish genocide because of “context”. And she only got fired for plagiarism.

You guys are disgusting and have no right to call yourself on the morally right side of things.

#Fuck Hamas #Hamas is evil #Hamas is a terrorist organization #Hamas is isis #free Palestine from Hamas #Free the hostages #Let them go #let the hostages go #release the hostages #i’m disappointed #antizionism is antisemitism #Free Palestine is a death cult #Hamas is a death cult #Israel #free Israel #October 7

[canyouhearmemajortom]

Simon petrikov is Russian! And probably Jewish!

I’ve been wanting to say this since Simon was first introduced in the original show but honestly just never had time and I’m sure someone has said something before but here I go!

So starting out with the obvious: petrikov, a diminutive of petri or Peter, this is a very common Russian name which when used as a nickname means small or little.

Simon on the other hand is an incredibly popular Jewish name, being the second of the six sons of Jacob, and being the founder of the tribe of Simeon. The name it’s self meaning to hear or listen. Which I think personally fits Simon very well.

We also see reference to simon’s Russian heritage in Fionna and cake episode 6, the winter king. most notably with the samover and teapot that holds hot chocolate in the background.

There is also heavy Russian fairytale imagery in this episode as well as some themes that I won’t get into right now.

There are also themes surrounding the ice king that heavily lean into antisemitic tropes (not condemning adventure time for this) such as his long nose, beard, kidnapping people, and his greed. Ice king also mirrors several Russian fairytale wizards (no I can’t name them of the top of my head I’m sorry) who kidnap princesses, uses there beards to fly, and even some who have ice/lightning powers.

My sources are, I’m Slavic and grew up with the fairytales. and have done a lot of research into Judaism becase I’m pretty sure that my family was Jewish before coming over to America during WWll. (My g-pa is super racist and won’t talk about anything to do with his “non-white/christian” family. 😬

Anyways this is all I can come up with off the top of my head but I needed to get this out of my system before I exploded bye,

#adventure time #simon petrikov #betty grof #fiona and cake #winter king

[misskriemhilds]

the jewishness of eternity from reverse: 1999, and why this is important to me

first and foremost: i doubt that any of the jewishness of eternity from reverse: 1999 was intentional on bluepoch's part. this is personal interpretation, and i am not trying to insinuate that it was intentional of the game developers. but nevertheless, i find eternity's character to be deeply comforting and resonant with me, specifically with regards to my own viewpoint as a young woman who is american jewish.

let us begin with her backstory:

at the end of the 19th century, torches constantly lit up the night sky of exeter, a frontier town in the usa.  the door of her store was closed. in a dimly lit room, on the shelves stood many candy jars. the last young buyer of these candies had been sent to that crowded, shabby cemetery (if you prefer to call it that) three months ago.  too many farms had been destroyed in the civil war, and plague was not the only terrible thing to develop from the ashes: fear of an unknown future also gradually turned into madness. the candies were taken down. instead, the store owners now stock their shelves with garlic necklaces and bottles of holy water.  more and more vampires were brought to trial, and the seed of suspicion grew in everyone's mind. the once-friendly residents became ruthless intruders and broke into the woman's house, despite the help she had provided them.  but they found nothing in her house. it seemed to have been long abandoned. the floor was covered with dead shellfish, under which there were marks of dried blue blood.  peace didn't come back to the town of exeter until the day when everyone heard about a disease called tuberculosis.

now, i retroactively found out that this aspect of her backstory was likely inspired by the mercy brown vampire incident, which i haven't researched all that thoroughly. what i want to emphasize in this context is that these trials in eternity's backstory were specifically a result of post-civil war paranoia causing exeter's townspeople to suspect others of being vampires causing misfortune.

it is important to stress that while not every portrayal of vampire characters in fiction are antisemitic portrayals, vampires being used as antisemitic caricatures is not uncommon. similarly, while jewish people have not necessarily been subject to the same legal discrimination or systemic oppression in the u.s. as much as other minorities (that said, it wasn't non-existent, and jewish people were definitely subject to systemic oppression and worse legal discrimination in other countries outside of the u.s.) it is not uncommon for us to be used as scapegoats when disaster strikes. that's why so many conspiracy theories have antisemitic routes; it's harder to acknowledge and analyze the complicated reasons as to why things in the world suck than it is to pin it on a more tangible scapegoat - more often than not, the jews.

i think with eternity from reverse: 1999, that definitely holds the same weight here. whether or not she is officially a vampire is a bit murky (to be honest, i'd say if she is then she's doing the vampire equivalent of keeping kosher by consuming the flesh of sea creatures, even if i'm pretty sure stuff like whales or jellyfish are officially considered treyf), but she was persecuted for being different.

in this jewish reading: it did not matter that she was one of "the good jews", it did not matter the kindness she had shown to exeter's people in the past, when their circumstances took a turn for the worse their memories of antisemitic imagery and myth they had subconsciously absorbed from all the fairytales they read flared to life and they realized how nice and easy it would be to get rid of all their problems if they directed it at the jewish woman residing in their little town.

surely, if the vampire - the witch, the jew, died - then their troubles would be gone, right?

on a broader, less concrete extent regarding eternity i'd also like to bring up her tagline when we first meet her - the one that all r:1999 characters have regarding their age and their ethnic background.

the exhibit was later displayed all over america.

i think this could definitely be a general reference to eternity's immortality. after all, if you've suddenly got all the time in the world you might as well tour your home country and hit the highlights, right?

from a jewish perspective, i think this feels very resonant with the experience of american-jewish diaspora. there are oftentimes when people like us are desperately searching for a place to call home and when we think we've found it, social antisemitism starts spiking up. we want a place to call home - not necessarily as a people, but definitely in the context of being jewish - and even in america where we've been here since its conception as a country, we're not even sure if we can find a place to call home.

and in a jewish context, eternity spends over a century in search of somewhere to call home. her traveling all across the usa takes on a more deliberate context - moving out of areas as soon as you realize maybe the spikes in antisemitism in your place of residence aren't going to pass as quickly as you'd like, and moving out as soon as you can because you have the luxury to. she looks for somewhere she can call home, but this there anywhere that can act as a true home for someone like her?

"there are no chill jews," is something we jewish people like to half-joke about from time to time; that is something that i certainly read into with eternity's voice lines. in particular: "my immortality allows me to be well-informed. no matter the dead or alive, you can have your answer from me as long as the pay is adequate. but just like anyone with a clear mind won’t touch a hot potato, i suggest you keep your little nose clean."

the reason there are no chill jews is because a lot of said "chill jews" died. as soon as our ancestors realized, "alright, people hate us and are using us as scapegoats, let's get the hell out of here" they left. that's how they survived. eternity's immortality allows her to be "well-informed", in a jewish reading, about how she is perceived as a jewish woman throughout time and across the usa. thanks to her old age, she has learned to be vigilant about this, and to keep watch so she can resume her life - maybe she'd have no reason to worry about death, being immortal, but at the same time it would be nice to just live and breathe in peace as a jewish woman. as she says in her voice line when you touch her head, "...what really matters is a good mind and a clear view of the time."

(as an aside, my dear friend @kingoffiends commented in our dms that eternity's voicelines remind him of his very frum grandmother from her phrasing and tone alone. this is only somewhat relevant but i thought i should put it here regardless.)

but not all is doom and gloom with eternity, even with the pains of immortality.

to quote rabbi lord jonathan sacks from his book studies in spirituality: "in judaism joy is the supreme religious emotion. here we are, in a world filled with beauty. every breath we breathe is the spirit of god within us. around us is the love that moves the sun and all the stars. we are here because someone wanted us to be. the soul that celebrates, sings."

where is the joy in eternity?

well, for all of the worst parts of immortality she has still been handed the opportunity to live forever. and eternity will live as happily as she will damn well please. though not all is sunshine and rainbows in her life, she delights in 29-inch crt tvs where she can wind down with a nice glass of warm milk before bed, and takes delight in the progression of technology as time has gone on. "...let's just call it a toast and watch a vampire movie in bed." if she has forever to live, then she might as well take delight in all the small joys she can find.

(while wealthy jewish people do have stereotypical or antisemitic connotations, as a jewish person i'd like to say that i'm definitely self-aware of that when approaching her character. while she is wealthy she is not malicious, and her "read the fine print" approach to the products of the sea for yourself shop seem to be more a result of playful mischief rather than any outright malice. she's got a sort of hershele of ostropol energy to her, if you will.)

all in all, it's so very jewish of her - and it's why her character, in a jewish context, is so resonant with me. there's something very comforting that this is a woman who has lived forever, longer than i have. she may not be real, but for all of the persecution and loss she has suffered throughout life, she is determined to find happiness in even the smallest things. that sort of fortitude and determination to forge her own joy is very meaningful to me as someone jewish, and it's why i approach her as being like me.

eternity may not be real - hell, she's likely not even officially intended to be jewish. but there's such a firm theme of sorrow and joy to her character in a jewish context, and to have even a fictional character who embodies those experiences of mine is why i hold her so close to my heart.

#rambling #reverse: 1999 #eternity reverse 1999 #jewish headcanons #reverse 1999 #r1999 #r:1999

[adarkrainbow]

Did you know that, after World War II, the Grimm fairytales could have been banned forever?

I am asking this question because I wanted to do some sort of closing post on the "Hansel and Gretel is antisemitic" question, while also bringing a point that I haven't seen brought up too often.

I saw a lot of people repeat around Tumblr, reblog across accounts and sheeply rewrite again and again that "Hansel and Gretel" was an antisemitic tale - sometimes they couldn't even bring an explanation as to why, and just said "X person said it, so that must be true". If you ask me, my answer is "No, Hansel and Gretel is not an antisemitic story", and I made several posts trying to explain why there's no antisemitism in there, just folkloric motifs and fears born of the witch-hunts. No, Hansel and Gretel is not antisemitic. But it isn't because my answer is "No" and because the fairytale isn't antisemitic that it can't be MADE antisemitic. And this is a very important point that I think can't be stressed enough.

You already saw how easily people could be convinced that the story is antisemitic given the wave on Tumblr of people who decried tit as such - notably by assimilating the witch trying to eat the children with the "blood label" antisemitic beliefs. A look at the text, at fairytales of the same nature, at the origins of such a story, can easily disprove such a reading. The witch fattens up children and eat them - there is no mention of blood, or of using said blood for occult or religious rituals. It's just good ol' cannibalism and a Sweeney Todd-flavored story. (That's actually the reverse, since the Sweeney Todd legend ended up influenced by the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, thanks to the musical, but I digress). And similarly people point out that the witch is a "Jewish caricature", invoking common witch traits in popular folklore such as a hooked nose - but the witch in the story doesn't have a hooked nose or any trait usually used to caricature Jews. She is just an old woman with red eyes walking on crutches, and that's it, nothing about any other particularity. Old + red eyes + crutches and that's it. So no, Hansel and Gretel is not antisemitic in itself, didn't start as an antisemitic tale, was not formulated as such when the brothers Grimm noted it down.

However, as I said, it doesn't mean the story cannot be "infested" by antisemitic elements a posteriori. Two points:

Point 1. There is a legitimate doubt to have when it comes to antisemitism in the Grimm fairytales, as in, it is legitimate to start wonderng "Maybe it isn't an innocent tale and maybe there's antisemitic elements in there". Because the Brothers Grimm did collect antisemitic stories among their numerous traditional fairytales - such as the infamous "The Jew in the Thorns" story. Not only were these stories collected in the 19th century, a time where racism and discriminations of all kinds were much more widespread and accepted than today, but antisemitism was a particularly strong German tradition for a long time. You could say it was the dark side of Jewish culture - and while it was everywhere in Europe, it was especially present in Germany. The fact the ones who orchestrated the greatest Jewish genocide in history were German is no coincidence.

However there is a difference between having a legitimate suspicion and just forcing onto a story a reading that is clearly grasping at the last straw, so to speak. For example, while it is understandable some people would think of Hansel and Gretel as antisemitic, it doesn't mean one shouldn't look at the text and the story and realize that it isn't antisemitic at all. It is especially important because by focusing on stories wrongly accused of antisemitism, one could pass by or hide the ACTUAL antisemitic tales of the Grimm that must be recognized and identified as such (again, The Jew among the Thorns is the most famous example).

But here is my point 2, which is the most important one and the entire reason this post was made. It is also important to recognize when someone is enforcing antisemitism in a story that wasn't antisemitic to begin with - it is important to know when someone warps a tale to fit their own ideologies or hatred. And I am not speaking about the Tumblr-folks here - but about the Nazis.

Yes the freacking Nazis. They're really to blame for everything. You see, this is the root of my original question, the opening line. Why did people consider maybe banning forever the Grimm fairytales after World War II? Because of the Nazis! One of the numerous scars the Nazis left on Germany was one upon German culture, since Hitler and his minions worked intensely on taking part some of the greatest pieces of German culture and twisted, reused them for their own sick purposes. Wagner's operas, for example, were forever soiled by the fact that it was Hitler's favorite pieces of music.

And the brothers Grimm fairytales did not escape the Nazi filfth. The Grimm fairytales were the emblematic folktales of Germany, collected by German nationalists, in their effort to rebuild a purely German culture after the foreign invasions of Napoleonian France. Of coursemad and fanatic fascists like the Nazis would reuse them! And they did, oh yes. They did some despicable use of the Grimm fairytales in their propaganda, and teaching programs. And no doubt, not only did they resurrect actual antisemitic tales in the brothers' book, but they certainly also added numerous antisemitic meanings which weren't there before.

If you ask me "Is Hansel and Gretel an inherently antisemitic fairytale, or was conceived as such?" I would answer you: no. If you ask me, "Did Hansel and Gretel become antisemitic during World War II", I would answer you: "Probably, yes". There is little doubt that the Nazis wouldn't have used the tale as anti-Jewish propaganda and depicted the wicked witch (and the wicked stepmother) as Jewish. The only reason I do not say a full and firm yes is because I do not have textual evidence of them using THIS specific fairytales - but it is attested they used the brothers Grimm work as a whole in their insane war crimes.

Which led to the serious question of what to do with these stories, once the war was over. Should Germany stop using them as childhood literature, remove them from their list of great cultural works? Or should they be kept, but by removing all the Nazis had done to them and trying to focus on the most non-antisemitic-parts? You can tell today the solution taken was the second.

And so this would be my last important message about this subject. Why is it important to know that Hansel and Gretel isn't antisemitic? To be able to denounce and decry those that want to make it antisemitic. To prevent antisemites from using it as some sort of cultural weapon. And this is true for ALL fairytales.

Fairytales are unfortunately all inherently racist or discriminatory at one point or another, because they come from a much older and different time. The Pentamerone is filled with racist stories. Madame d'Aulnoy's stories have some casual racism. Some Grimm stories are antisemitic. These are facts that cannot be ignored and have to be dealt with. But it is important to recognize the parts of these tales that DID NOT have racist elements to them, and to also recognize the racist parts for what they were, so that we can move forward by protecting them from any misuse or to prevent their use by the wrong people. Sometimes it isn't about "cancelling" stories - sometimes it is about making sure they cannot end up in the hands of those we fight, or denouncing how they read a tale that does not actually exist except in their mind.

#i got a bit abstract towards the end but i am very tired it is very late here #however i just want to put behind me all this topic once and for all #and move on to more joyful and innocent things #hansel and gretel #antisemitism #brothers grimm #grimm fairytales #antisemitism in fairytales #nazi propaganda #racism in fairytales #german fairytales

[fitzrove]

wow he's a horrible person

Obsessed with her. Fucking slay

(Quotes from Brigitte Hamann, "Rudolf: Crown Prince and Rebel", 2005, English-language Kindle edition, transl. Edith Borchardt)

Oagsdhjgjg like I need someone to make a movie about them. Fairytale setup devolving into horrible horrible public and private drama where they both make constant jabs at each other and despise everything. Also the world they live in is horrible to them (Stephanie for the crime of being a foreign woman, Rudolf the crime of being a liberal and an anti-antisemite and a whore but they wouldn't have really cared if he had different politics). I would watch it 9000 times

#history #kronprinz rudolf

[fancylala4]

Learning about the antisemitism in fairy tales like rapunzel (my favorite) and rumpelstiltskin, it made me have more of a critical eye on the things I watch and read. I question if what I was reading or watching is antisemitic or not. It seems like these antisemitic tropes are everywhere in media.

#mine #fairytales #rapunzel #rumplestiltskin #fairy tales #antisemitism

[mask131]

While I'm at it, because I just had a little beef with a fanatical Christian who couldn't believe I was born in a Christian setting because I had a pentagram as an icon (you see the kind of person)... [Edit: For more details they were a clearly antisemitic Orthodox person who, after refusing to believe I was anything else than Jew, atheist or a devil-worshiper, starting lashing out at me when I said I had a Catholic upbringing saying I was the cause of the crusades and the reason Hitler was alive, yada yada, you know the kind of crazy religious person]

So I decided to have a brief Christianity talk. Not much but just this:

If you ask me, yes, there is a Christian mythology, even though people do not like this term - because there is a bunch of Christian legends and Christian myths that form a Christian folklore and a set of Christian tales with distant, weak or inexistant links to ACTUAL Christian teachings, rites and the actual Christian religion.

And I do believe that folk-Christianity is a fascinating thing that deserves to exist alongside official, actual Christianity. Santa Muerte, and the local saint celebrations, and strange Christmas and Epiphany beliefs, and this story about God and Saint Peter getting drunk at a farmer's house, and the fairytale about Jesus and the Virgin Mary throwing the devil and his wife in an oven to save the girls they wanted to eat... Anyway, no matter how much one can try to destroy folk-Christianity it will always survive because it was centuries and centuries of rites and beliefs spread across several continents, and you can't destroy that easily.

The thing that many people do not get is that a lot of what is Christianity today was completely made up. There's not a lot of Christianity today that was originally in the Bible. There's a lot of Christianity as practiced by the first Christians that was lost. The dates and meanings of celebrations like Easter, All Hallows Day or Christmas kept changing all year long. Lots of saints were completely invented. Don't even get me started on the apocryphal Gospels!

This is why studying and understanding the history and evolution of a religion always allow one to be more understanding of what the religion currently is and what is actually an "option" in it. Religions never stayed the same thanks to times changing, scholarly debates, schisms dividing it into various branches, political and economical forces being at play, translations from one country to the next - and that's not just true for Christianity, but also for all other religions. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism... They all had their own evolution, they all are today very different from what they started as, and to better understand them one needs to learn of their past, what they were, what they still are, what they're not anymore. Heck, today there are talks in India of kicking out and banishing all Buddhists when the religion started there! But now, Buddhism's main nations are China and Japan, and its Indian roots almost entirely forgotten...

Fanatics usually fail to do this study of their own religion's history and evolution, because they imagine that the past was just always a carbon-copy of the present, and that their beliefs stayed unmovable monolith coming straight from God (or whatever principle they follow) instead of something that went through centuries of men and women and governments.

Just look at why and how Protestantism came to be. People realized the Church had added a lot of stuff that wasn't there when Christians first appeared, and decided to return to the "original" Christianity, rejecting all the added, invented stuff. Like the celibacy of priests: Christians priests married and had children in the first centuries following the Christ's death. And the only reason Catholic priests took a vow of celibacy and virginity was because of economic concerns with inheritance matters. Jesus never asked those that followed him to never have children or never marry or never have sex.

Or take the existence of Purgatory! Completely invented by the Church around the Middle-Ages, never spoke about by the Christ or part of the original Christian religion, then quickly removed a few centuries later as a non-existent, borderline heretical superstition, and that yet survived in folk-Christianity, and then in popular culture.

In conclusion, I would have to say that there is one book that made me realize a lot of things about religion as a whole, and that convinced me to go from Catholic-Christian to simply deist. Terry Pratchett's book "Small Gods", which exactly put into words my feelings about the world: there is a difference between religion and organized religion. There is a difference between belief and the organizations built around this belief, between faith and the hierarchy created around this faith. The Church is like a shell that was built around the turtle that is the faith/belief/god - and sometimes, when the shell becomes too big and too heavy or too unfit for the creature it hosts, it smothers, hurts and kills the faith/belief/god, until there is only the shell. And people stop referring to the turtle, and only speak and interact with the shell.

This is the perfect explanation of how Jesus only preached peace and love and friendship and forgiveness, and its priests later invented the Inquisition and caused the witch-hunts.

#christianity #religion #christian history #christian religion #catholicism #catholic religion #folk-christianity #christian mythology

[jedi-enthusiast]

My Thoughts on Episode 2

I have now moved into my dorm and gotten more used to college life, so here is the post about Ahsoka episode 2 as promised---keep in mind, though, just like episode one these are just my thoughts upon first watching it. They may change or I may go into further detail on them in the future.

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Once again, the scenes just feel...so utterly hollow and flat.

There's no emotion exchanged when Sabine and Ahsoka talk---neither Ahsoka nor Sabine ever actually seem worried- (whether it's about Sabine or the map) -nor do they ever seem stubborn, defensive, irritated/angry, or anything else that you would expect.

Again, it's all just hollow.

----------

I'm gonna be honest, the villains are the singular interesting part of this show for me right now.

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LOTH CAT!!!

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So, even though other people have literally died by getting a lightsaber to the gut, Sabine is perfectly fine to be sitting up and working on a droid and moving around like...a day or so afterwards?

The fuck?

Even if her surviving is possible- (since other people have pointed out that it is, when taking other things into account) -she shouldn’t be all fine and dandy and moving around! That shit should hurt!

----------

Also, I've seen so many people point to Ahsoka telling Sabine- "no, you've done enough." -when Sabine says she can help as this badass line and saying- "yes, let Ahsoka be angry!" -but, ignoring the fact that there was no emotion whatsoever when she said that...

...how is it badass or "sticking it to Sabine" when she literally goes back to Sabine for the help she offered like an hour later?

----------

Again, Sabine should not be moving like that after getting stabbed with a lightsaber.

----------

"Yes, let's put this whole hospital full of people in danger because we can't be bothered to relocate, because of a timeline that we have not been very clear about---a timeline that may or may not have consequences, because we also haven't been very clear about why the timeline is the way it is or what will happen if it's not followed."

Wow, this show is just...really trying to make me not like or root for these characters at all.

I'm just...wow.

----------

I've said it once and I'll say it again, the villains are the only interesting part of this show right now.

Also, I fucking loved Baylan mentioning Jedi younglings and that little snippet of Jedi culture---the fairytales they were taught.

Although I do think it's fucking nuts that the Darksider, the villains, are giving us more insight into Jedi culture than the actual fucking "Jedi" of the show.

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CHOPPER!!!

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Someone else explained it better in another post- (I'll reblog and add it here once I actually find it again) -but the guy that's playing the "businessman who's only loyal to his investors- (aka he does things for greed)" -is an actor, who I think is Jewish if I'm remembering correctly, who is known for playing pretty much only Jewish characters...

...I don't think I need to explain how making his character one who does things only for greed is antisemitic.

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Again with the Sabine as a Jedi thing???

Non-Force-sensitives can't become Jedi---being a Jedi is being apart of a culture that is specifically centered around Force sensitivity!!!

And Sabine already has a culture, she's Mandalorian for fuck's sake!

Just-

I'm sorry, this whole fucking thing pisses me off---she better turn out to be Force-sensitive and Dave is just retconning that, because otherwise I'm going to lose my goddamn mind.

----------

"I heard your repairs were complete."

Except they shouldn't be because she literally got stabbed with a fucking lightsaber, it should take longer than just about a day to heal---with or without a bacta tank.

----------

I swear to fucking god-

Not this bullshit again.

Please, please, I'm begging, just retcon Sabine to be a little bit Force-sensitive and don't pull some "non-Force-sensitive Jedi can be a thing" bullshit. Please-

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"I'm a general, nothing's classified to me."

That's not how that works.

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CHOPPER AGAIN!!!

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I love Chopper so much istg, I'm at least glad my favorite homicidal droid is back in action <3

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LOTH CAT AGAIN!!!

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Ok, this scene is reminding me of it specifically, but why hasn't Sabine been wearing her armor? We literally never see her without it in Rebels and being Mandalorian is a huge facet of her identity, why has she not been wearing it?

Once again, I assume this'll be explained later, so I'm trying to hold back my judgement, but if it's not explained later then...honestly it's just confusing.

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Wow, so not only was the Jewish actor cast to play someone whose motivation is greed, but they also made him a bad guy...just...wow.

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*long sigh at Ahsoka calling Sabine "padawan"*

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Oh hey, the big evil bad guy station kinda fucks ngl

----------

I'm gonna be honest, Baylan---again, the bad guy---honestly shows more emotion at there being "so few Jedi left" than Ahsoka---who's supposed to be the good guy, and who's apparently just decided to take up the Jedi mantle again---does.

Also, isn't this show set before the Sequels?

So how are there "so few Jedi left" if Luke is building a new Order that's apparently successful enough to have Order 66 2.0 in the Sequels?

#star wars #ahsoka series #ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka tano critical