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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Jon Stewart sticking the knife in to JKR over "Jewish" goblins

330 replies

WandaWomblesaurus73 · 05/01/2022 10:58

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10368289/Jon-Stewart-accuses-JK-Rowling-anti-Semitism-Harry-Potter.html

Ffs

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
barleybadminton · 05/01/2022 13:14

It’s utterly specious. To find it credible, you would have to believe that Jo Rowling, despite being very publicly on record as defending and standing up for Jewish members of the Labour Party in the face of the vicious anti semitism they were being subjected to within the party, is actually, secretly an anti semite, and she coded this into her books.

No you don't, lots of people have unconscious prejudices or propagate bigoted tropes without consciously thinking of themselves as a bigot. That's what's happened here, the portrayal of the goblins in the films is deeply antisemitic, Rowling oversaw that and it's hardly the only time she appears to have embraced stereotypes or been clumsy about characters of different ethnicities.

I mean the whole series of books is little more than an upper class English public school fantasy where (almost exclusively) white elites preside over the 'lesser' races and classes. That in this world the banks are portrayed as being controlled by hook nosed gold obsessed greedy goblins, almost the exact historical stereotype of Jews, is not out of place with the rest of the narrative. She may well be picking up on historical tropes subconsciously and not have intended to cause offence, but she clearly has done and as a children's author should have taken more care.

It's also telling that she has never addressed this criticism, she seems somewhat reluctant to allow her views to be put under any real scrutiny, preferring instead to remotely tweet or make statements from her castle rather than face an inerviewer who might interrogate her more robustly on some of her comments. For someone with so much power and wealth it strikes me as deeply cowardly to approach things like this.

FlowerArranger · 05/01/2022 13:18

@NotBadConsidering....... I am wondering whether JS's is formulating this thesis at this moment in time because his current platform is not doing nearly as well as his previous plarform? From what I heard his new show is not doing as well as expected...

Changechangychange · 05/01/2022 13:21

@WildishBambino he was linking the portrayal of goblins to anti-Semitic tropes years before JKR said anything about trans women. That was my point. That this isn’t a new complaint driven by her GC views. I have no idea how you think anything you’ve copied is out of keeping with that point.

I also don’t know why people think a prominent Jewish comedian is only complaining about the perceived anti-semitism to punish her for her GC comments - isn’t it more likely that as a Jewish man he genuinely objects to the anti-semitism?

And how does any of this makes me a TRA? You can not like JKR and not be a TRA you know. She isn’t Jesus.

Omicrone · 05/01/2022 13:22

No you don't, lots of people have unconscious prejudices or propagate bigoted tropes without consciously thinking of themselves as a bigot.

Christ, don't we know it.

The misogyny, conscious or unconscious, that runs straight through the heart of trans ideology and through so many 'woke' men, is pretty astonishing. Some of the people actually have the audacity to call themselves 'feminists'! 🤣

Omicrone · 05/01/2022 13:26

@barleybadminton

It’s utterly specious. To find it credible, you would have to believe that Jo Rowling, despite being very publicly on record as defending and standing up for Jewish members of the Labour Party in the face of the vicious anti semitism they were being subjected to within the party, is actually, secretly an anti semite, and she coded this into her books.

No you don't, lots of people have unconscious prejudices or propagate bigoted tropes without consciously thinking of themselves as a bigot. That's what's happened here, the portrayal of the goblins in the films is deeply antisemitic, Rowling oversaw that and it's hardly the only time she appears to have embraced stereotypes or been clumsy about characters of different ethnicities.

I mean the whole series of books is little more than an upper class English public school fantasy where (almost exclusively) white elites preside over the 'lesser' races and classes. That in this world the banks are portrayed as being controlled by hook nosed gold obsessed greedy goblins, almost the exact historical stereotype of Jews, is not out of place with the rest of the narrative. She may well be picking up on historical tropes subconsciously and not have intended to cause offence, but she clearly has done and as a children's author should have taken more care.

It's also telling that she has never addressed this criticism, she seems somewhat reluctant to allow her views to be put under any real scrutiny, preferring instead to remotely tweet or make statements from her castle rather than face an inerviewer who might interrogate her more robustly on some of her comments. For someone with so much power and wealth it strikes me as deeply cowardly to approach things like this.

Funny how a series of books that are so very bigoted made their author an actual billionaire due to their popularity?

And that so many people who are now criticising what she wrote, also simultaneously say that those books shaped their childhoods and that they are so disappointed with JKR because they loved the books so much and the books validated them so much...I mean which is it? If the books were so awful, why did all these people love them so much?

ScreamingMeMe · 05/01/2022 13:27

People do know that goblins are ancient folklore characters and JK Rowling didn't invent them, the way they look or their greed for gold, right? Right...?

yourhairiswinterfire · 05/01/2022 13:27

I also don’t know why people think a prominent Jewish comedian is only complaining about the perceived anti-semitism to punish her for her GC comments

Weird that it has taken him 25 years to get around to complaining about HP (or 21 years, since he's talking about the films.)

Abhannmor · 05/01/2022 13:28

@Annaghgloor

I've not read the Hitchens piece, but I've certainly thought this about the films' representation of goblins, particularly Griphook -- don't remember the detail of the novels well enough to comment on to what extent this is implicit in the text.

But some unpleasant anti-Irish stereotyping has crept into the films which was, to my memory, completely absent from the novels -- Seamus Finnegan in the novels is an ordinary enough background character who doesn't keep blowing things up, or want to transform something else into alcohol, the way he does in the films. I can only assume that this is someone's confused idea that Irish people are liable to be in the IRA and hence cause explosions, and to be drinkers.

I read the first 4 books to the kids. There was certainly no anti Jewish or anti Irish sentiment in the novels I read. They were all very inclusive iirc. Now the question is : will the pitchfork mob descend upon Emma Watson and ensure she never works again? Because if not we will know there is another agenda running here.
barleybadminton · 05/01/2022 13:34

Now the question is : will the pitchfork mob descend upon Emma Watson and ensure she never works again? Because if not we will know there is another agenda running here.

Hardly. It is possible to be critical of the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israeli government and not be antisemitic. That's very different to what is being discussed here - it is a criticism of a government policy, not an ugly and crude stereotype of an entire race of people.

MissyB1 · 05/01/2022 13:38

@GreenWhiteViolet

I think that if someone reads a description in a children's fantasy book of goblin creatures who work in a magical bank, in an invented world full of fantastical beasts - and their response is to think about Jewish people? It's not the author who might have antisemitic leanings.
This. 100%.
BoredOfCbeebies · 05/01/2022 13:39

I think @merrymouse has hit the nail on the head! When she wrote the book, she had no idea it was going to be such a worldwide success, and then for it to be picked to pieces for ever more.
And as several people have said already, Jon Stewart is describing the film not the book

HoyaSaxa · 05/01/2022 13:40

I think it’s time to hold the REAL author of the Harry Potter books to account.

So, Daniel Radcliffe, are you an antiSemite?

thinkingaboutLangCleg · 05/01/2022 13:40

To find it credible, you would have to believe that Jo Rowling, despite being very publicly on record as defending and standing up for Jewish members of the Labour Party in the face of the vicious anti semitism they were being subjected to within the party, is actually, secretly an anti semite, and she coded this into her books. ....

You would, in short have to be an authoritarian bully, and a none too bright one at that.

Got it in one, Sophocles.

KimikosNightmare · 05/01/2022 13:43

@Bluebluemoon

Oh come on, he presented the Daily Show, he’s about as “unknown” in the US as Jonathan Ross is over here.

Well, I live in the U.K. - so no, I've never heard of him!

It's pretty irrelevant that you haven't heard of him.

In the US he is as famous as Jonathan Ross but certainly in the days of The Daily Show his opinions on political matters counted in a way that never applied to someone like Jonathan Ross.

I'd say he was more akin to a left wing , television equivalent someone like Richard Littlejohn.

whynotwhatknot · 05/01/2022 13:44

Im jewish i dont think shes anti-semetic im not famous like jon but thats my views

thinkingaboutLangCleg · 05/01/2022 13:47

barleybadminton says the banks are portrayed as being controlled by hook nosed gold obsessed greedy goblins, almost the exact historical stereotype of Jews.

Whereas the books (according to the wiki) say Goblins were short and fair-skinned, as they spent very little time outside. They had very long fingers and feet, dome-shaped heads and were slightly larger than house-elves. Griphook, one of the hundreds of goblins working at Gringotts, had a bald head, pointed nose, and pointed ears. Some had dark, slanted eyes, and some goblins even wore pointed hats.

So this is a Jewish stereotype? Doesn't sound like it to me.

Cailleach1 · 05/01/2022 13:48

Just to manage outrage, I don't think anyone in full possession of their senses is taking it personally that there are Leprechauns depicted alongside the witches, wizards, goblins, elves etc etc. The Icelandics and Faroese would have beef there too, with the elves. Maybe they are to also literally associate them as some comment on Icelandic and Faroese people and need to be informed of outrage on their behalf too.

thinkingaboutLangCleg · 05/01/2022 13:49

I think it’s time to hold the REAL author of the Harry Potter books to account. So, Daniel Radcliffe, are you an antiSemite?

Of course, we should have have guessed! Those books are much too good to be written by a woman.

Grin
Packingsoapandwater · 05/01/2022 13:56

The notion that the goblin bankers in Harry Potter are an anti-Semitic trope seems to me to be culturally blinkered.

Gringotts is quite clearly a re-presentation of the Victorian British banking experience, heavily influenced by Dickens, and, in the films, visually borrows cues and concepts from the banking scene in Mary Poppins.

Historically, the connection between Jewish people and banking has never been particularly notable in Britain, largely because, Rothschilds aside, most British banks were largely founded by The Crown, Protestants or Quakers.

And I really struggle to see any historical connection between the mythical figure of the goblin and anti-Semitism. Goblins are traditionally associated with mining, with mountains and caves; they are settled creatures of the rural periphery, not of urban civilisation, which is the precise opposite to the historically urban or nomadic experience of Jewish people in Europe (though not Russia).

The idea in HP is that goblins are bankers because of their mined vaults deep below ground.

This whole thing is American cultural imperialism writ large once again. American attitudes, American racial tropes, American prejudices, and they don't map onto Britain. It irritates me no end.

MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking · 05/01/2022 13:56

FFS. They are throwing every single accusation they can at her. Anything and everything to try and get her to piss off and shut up about WOMEN'S RIGHTS. Anything to detract that she's lately raised the issue of violent male sex offenders being charged as women, and housed in the women's estate. This is just full on bullying now.

I find it very hard to believe that had she towed the TWAW line and chucked women under the bus they'd be going after her like this. A bunch of MEN, on an outright witch hunt, because a woman said that sex matters and they don't like it.

Where's the outrage over the directors eh? What about the costume designers, set designers? Anyone gunning after Warwick Davis for playing Griphook? No? All the woman's fault. The woman who has so much say, she must have wanted to keep it all in, she's clearly evil Hmm

They attack her because she's successful, the money that she's earned from her work is now used as a stick to beat her with (she's a millionaire what does she know?) Screaming transphobe at her didn't work. So they went for racist, antisemite. They tried to distance her from her own work, that doesn't seem to be working so now it's tearing down her work instead.

I've never seen such a whipped up frenzy of woman hate, how she keeps going is beyond me, it would have utterly broken me by now Sad

Speaking of latecomers I see Femi has jumped onboard the JKR hate bandwagon today....

KimikosNightmare · 05/01/2022 13:59

I haven't seen any of the films and have only read the first book, which neither my son nor I liked.

I do think the director of whichever film first featured the goblins should be commenting on this.

TurquoiseBaubles · 05/01/2022 14:00

ffs, they are children's books. The main characters use magic .

This is why I hated studying English literature at school. I would read a book and enjoy it, but by the time the teacher had finished ripping the book, the author, the characters, the scenes and the entire story to bits, reading extra bias in and removing all the interest/comedy/imagination, I'd absolutely hate it.

All those wonderful books people talk about on the "best 100 novels ever" threads on here; I've read most of them. I hate every single one I "studied".

Let stories be stories Angry

AryaStarkWolf · 05/01/2022 14:00

@HoyaSaxa

I think it’s time to hold the REAL author of the Harry Potter books to account.

So, Daniel Radcliffe, are you an antiSemite?

Grin
TurquoiseBaubles · 05/01/2022 14:01

As for Seamus, he blew things up because he wasn't very good at magic, not because he was representing someone's idea of the fucking IRA [furious]

AryaStarkWolf · 05/01/2022 14:06

@MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking absolutely spot on summary of the situation