I think Jar Jar, unfortunately, takes the cake for being perhaps the worst and most overtly racist stereotype. And it certainly doesn't help that they made him so incredibly annoying.
Ms Rowling: insightful critic of gender policy or myopic [insult]
- Thread starter TheVat
- Start date
Nope. You are the one who introduced this to the thread:
The author of that article is dripping with venom, she writes like Tiassa.
Turns Out J.K. Rowling Is Mad at More Letters Than Just the “T” in LGBTQIA+
On International Asexuality Day, Rowling joked she would like to observe “Bored of This Shit Day.”www.them.us
Daniel Radcliffe and all the other actors were happy to go along with the series of Potter films.
Beside Daniel Radcliff (mother Jewish) and Helena Bonham Carter (part Jewish,) how many other Jewish, Black and Asian actors never knew they were in a set of racist films?
Or, seems those actors are just all around... what's the words I'm looking for here?
Racist bast*rds.
Lump it on.
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
Nope. My post was # 194
Your post containing that very link was earlier here... post #176
So after you read that article you say… "Seems that Rowling is just an all around... what's the word I'm looking for here?"Seems that Rowling is just an all around... what's the word I'm looking for here?Turns Out J.K. Rowling Is Mad at More Letters Than Just the “T” in LGBTQIA+
On International Asexuality Day, Rowling joked she would like to observe “Bored of This Shit Day.”
Having a single Jewish (minor) character might, one could argue, be simply an obfuscation to the otherwise antisemtic nature of the goblins. I mean, the tokenism of "I'm not racist: I have a black friend!" would spring to mind, should such an argument be made that the presence of Goldstein is somehow a viable defence.
And what is the description of Anthony Goldstein in the books? He is not otherwise explicitly or implicitly identified as being Jewish, although his surname might suggest (but not guarantee) that he is. It is, in fact, only through external mention on Twitter by Rowling that he is identified as, in fact, Jewish. He is not given a physical description, and is barely mentioned at all. So, um, there's that.
I said that with respect to her comments on asexuality. You introduced, fallaciously I might add, the notion that "people have said the books make her racist" (paraphrasing). Again, for the umpteenth time: people have been sayng, for decades now, that the books and the films are full of lazy racist tropes.
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
In the 1968 film Oliver, Ron Moody (Jewish) was happy to play the ‘trope’.
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
You said "Seems that Rowling is just an all around.."
Don't forget your bringing up Slavery and George Floyd in this thread. What is the connection to Rowling's view on trans people?
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
Have you looked up the names of the bank Goblins? Are they Jewish sounding?
He (mostly) calls them orcs in LOTR and goblins in Hobbit.
???
I honestly do not know whether you are simply this stupid or if you are simply a bigot, and I don't care. But this shit is fucked up.
For the record, when I'm in less friendly parts of the US or Europe, say, it does not make me "happy" when people assume that I am cheap (even though I am) or that I am intent on swindling them. Nor does it make me "happy" when people assume that epileptics are prone to switching into some sort of "berserker" mode or something, and thereby pose a threat to everyone (don't even know where that one comes from, but it's a commonly held belief in cop-world). Likewise, it generally does not make Asian people "happy" when people assume that they are good at math. And so on and so on--do I need to continue these illustrations with the more "negative" stereotypes, as well?
Jesus Fucking Christ.
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Well, as is pretty much every "fake race" ever. They all contain characteristics (both positive and negative) of other races, creeds and philosophies. Unless you use it to attack present day races, though, a similarity to a real race does not (in and of itself) make it racist.
For example, the Ferengi most closely represent the worst of capitalism. You can see that in a lot of other races (including white Westerners.)
No, they're not "Jewish sounding". But does that matter? Does a racist characterisation live or die by the name used for that character? Sure, if you intend to make it as obvious as possible, then go the whole hog. But I don't think it's necessary. Do you?
It has something to do with it, yes.
Like I said, you can make anything about race, gender or religion. If there are only one or two aspects of a character that seem like that racial stereotype, it is unlikely to be referencing that stereotype. If there are ten - yes, the odds that it's based on a stereotype go up.
"Something to do with it" is not the same as living or dying by it.
For what it's worth, though, I'll take your non-answer as your acceptance that "no, a racist characterisation does not live or die by the name of the character".
Okay... so what? Bear in mind that I was talking about racist characterisations, not simply racial stereotypes. Not all racial stereotyping is racist, as it can depend on intent, context, framing etc. E.g. setting up a stereotype and then subverting it, showing how the character is more than the stereotype, thereby challenging the reader. Or deliberately setting it up only to satirise it.
What was the intent of JKR using goblins, tied throughout history to antisemitic propaganda, as the bankers in the HP series? Does she satirise the stereotype she's relying on (if one accepts that she is, of course)? Does she subvert it? Or does she play into it (however shallowly), utilising it, and thereby, intentionally or otherwise, perpetuating the prejudices, the harm etc?
As said, I put it down to laziness on her part. But there's certainly an argument to be made otherwise.
OK. In that case it does not live or die by whether they are called goblins, either."Something to do with it" is not the same as living or dying by it.
For what it's worth, though, I'll take your non-answer as your acceptance that "no, a racist characterisation does not live or die by the name of the character".
Probably the same intent that Tolkien, Gygax, Pratchett, the DC comics authors etc had. They wanted a race they could use as amusing characters.
Yeah, unless one is doing obvious satire, it can be like walking a tightrope--or like Nigel Tufnel's "fine line between clever and stupid."
A guy I know wrote what I consider to be the definitive works on the cinematic oeuvre of Jess Franco--here and here. Two massive volumes with nearly 1200 very big pages with very tiny print and lots of pictures. One reviewer was generally favorable, but observed that the author went a bit too far with trying to redeem Franco as a sort of bastion of progressivism, feminism, etc. And in some respects, he kinda was all that, given that he was working within underground genres that were ultra cheap, crudely exploitative and frequently pornographic (or porn-adjacent, at least), but still... he wasn't without his problems. The reviewer remarks that Franco was pretty progressive, but in many ways he was also "every bit the tired old sleaze he appeared to be." That "appeared to be" bit sounds somewhat... off or something, but then, this is Jess Franco in his prime:
It was the '70s, but that guy is definitely a "type"--was he really all that, or was he being "ironic"? You can maybe cut someone a bit of slack for thinking that that guy looks maybe a bit sketchy. We all have irrational biases and we're all prone to making lazy generalizations at times, but what really matters is what we do with them, how mindful or aware we are to them, and the degree to which we work to parse the more harmful generalizations from those which are simply attributes of a "race" or "ethnicity" or whatever.
parmalee:
Either you think the goblins are an antisemitic trope, or you don't. Why not tell us what you think, and - more importantly - why you think it?
After all, previously you were keen to share your opinions. Now, all of sudden, you've gone all coy. Why?
Were you surprised that somebody asked you to try to justify your (repeated) demonisation of JKR?
It's strange that it took you three or four goes to attempt a relevant response to the questions I asked you. Or, maybe not.
You're telling me that you, personally, don't think that goblin bankers in Harry Potter constitute an antisemitic trope, then? But you felt it was necessary to amplify comments from the "many" who apparently do? Why?
It seems to me that one would have to reference Jews in some way to be putting forward an antisemitic trope or stereotype. How are goblins a reference to Jews?
JKR can't be held entirely responsible for the films, you know. There were quite a few other people involved. Watch the credits at the end and you'll see what I mean.
Okay. So, where's the link that makes the goblins an antisemitic trope? Explain.
No, I do not. Do you? You're the one who is claiming they somehow represent Jews in the Harry Potter books and/or films. So, make your case.
Well, that would be a question about the Harry Potter universe, I suppose. A purely hypothetical one, however, since JKR never brings up the matter in any of the books and it is never once mentioned in any of the films.
Your strawman is weak and flaccid, parmalee. You should probably stop that bullshit.
Again, you failed to notice the question marks, which indicate that I was putting some questions to you. You seem to be struggling, once again, to tell me your honest opinion on the matter.
Why can't you just answer the question I asked you, rather than taking three or four posts to try to distract and deflect?
Either you think the goblins are an antisemitic trope, or you don't. Why not tell us what you think, and - more importantly - why you think it?
After all, previously you were keen to share your opinions. Now, all of sudden, you've gone all coy. Why?
Were you surprised that somebody asked you to try to justify your (repeated) demonisation of JKR?
Sure, not that anyone has asked, or suggested otherwise.
Yet none of them inserted any more Jewishness into the creatures beyond what was historically there. None of them accentuated their Jewish features nor had them in charge of financial matters, or made them appear greedy.In D&D, for example, goblins barely have any treasure and would spend what money they had on defences. Tolkien really didn't make them "amusing characters" as the word was synonymous with "orc" (and orcs are clearly a barrel of laughs) and Pratchett used them as a metaphor for oppressed, marginalised, mistreated races. Not Jews in particular (although obviously including them). His intent was to shine a light on that issue. To challenge it.
Rowling? Gave them certain features that could be seen as suggesting Jewishness, and put them in charge of the finances. And then laughed at them.
See a difference yet?
The visualisation of goblins as jewish was certainly not helped by the films' depiction, but they were mostly using what was in the books.
Whether the bad intent was there in the writing, and, I'll say it again, I don't think it was, she was certainly guilty of using harmful stereotypes. So I'm calling it lazy writing rather than anything else.
So no more "what about"isms or false equivalences, please.
???
Uhhhh, it was your buddy--you know, the guy who claims that Jews are "happy" to be stereotyped--who introduced this way back here:
and, characteristically, misunderstood what he had quoted, and I was simply responding to that.The author of that article is dripping with venom, she writes like Tiassa.
Turns Out J.K. Rowling Is Mad at More Letters Than Just the “T” in LGBTQIA+
On International Asexuality Day, Rowling joked she would like to observe “Bored of This Shit Day.”
Have you even bothered to read the thread, James? (Clearly you have not.)
And I'm not wasting any more of my time on your trolling. So, fuck off, troll.
I just wonder about the people who pretend to not understand.
That is, in this world, sure there are people who don't know about this stuff, but I don't really believe our neighbors, here, are so clueless.
I don't think they should be attempting this argument if they really don't know. The confidence of the clueless, the arrogance of the ignorant, stands out in a setting like this, and they only discredit themselves.
I mean, it's one thing if they skipped Parmalee's post↗, or didn't read the link he provided, but it's not exactly subtle:
A December episode of "The Problem With Jon Stewart" podcast picked up steam over the last few days, as Stewart in the episode called out an "anti-Semitic" portrayal of Jews in the franchise in the form of the goblins who run Gringotts bank.
"Here's how you know Jews are still where they are," Stewart began. "Talking to people I say, 'Have you ever seen a 'Harry Potter' movie?' and people are all like, 'Oh, I love the 'Harry Potter' movies!' and I'm like, 'Have you ever seen the scenes in Gringotts Bank?' and they're like, 'Oh, I love Gringotts Bank' and I'm like, 'Do you know what those folks who run the bank are?' and they're like, 'What?' and I'm like, 'Jews.'"
Stewart continued, comparing the portrayal of the goblins to caricatures of Jews. "Let me show you this from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I just want to show you a caricature and they're like, 'Oh, look at that, that's from 'Harry Potter,' and you're like, 'No, that's a caricature of a Jew from an anti-Semitic piece of literature.' J.K. Rowling was like, 'Can we get these guys to run our bank?' and you're like, 'It's a wizarding world. It's a world where the train station has a half a thing and no one can see it and we can ride dragons and you've gotta pet owls. Who's gonna run the bank? Jews?"
Stewart added, "They look like Jews but what if the teeth were sharper?" ....
.... "It reminded me of those horror movies where everyone's been taken over by the thing but you haven't so you're looking around and every time someone sees you they go, 'Ah!' It was one of those things where I saw it on the screen and I was expecting the crowd to be like, 'Holy s—, she did not in a wizarding world just throw Jews in there to run the f—-ing underground bank,' and everybody was just like, 'Wizards!'"
Stewart's observation concluded with, "Even Dobby was like, 'That's f—ed up.'"
(Chitwood↱)
"Here's how you know Jews are still where they are," Stewart began. "Talking to people I say, 'Have you ever seen a 'Harry Potter' movie?' and people are all like, 'Oh, I love the 'Harry Potter' movies!' and I'm like, 'Have you ever seen the scenes in Gringotts Bank?' and they're like, 'Oh, I love Gringotts Bank' and I'm like, 'Do you know what those folks who run the bank are?' and they're like, 'What?' and I'm like, 'Jews.'"
Stewart continued, comparing the portrayal of the goblins to caricatures of Jews. "Let me show you this from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I just want to show you a caricature and they're like, 'Oh, look at that, that's from 'Harry Potter,' and you're like, 'No, that's a caricature of a Jew from an anti-Semitic piece of literature.' J.K. Rowling was like, 'Can we get these guys to run our bank?' and you're like, 'It's a wizarding world. It's a world where the train station has a half a thing and no one can see it and we can ride dragons and you've gotta pet owls. Who's gonna run the bank? Jews?"
Stewart added, "They look like Jews but what if the teeth were sharper?" ....
.... "It reminded me of those horror movies where everyone's been taken over by the thing but you haven't so you're looking around and every time someone sees you they go, 'Ah!' It was one of those things where I saw it on the screen and I was expecting the crowd to be like, 'Holy s—, she did not in a wizarding world just throw Jews in there to run the f—-ing underground bank,' and everybody was just like, 'Wizards!'"
Stewart's observation concluded with, "Even Dobby was like, 'That's f—ed up.'"
(Chitwood↱)
†
There is in all this an example of a certain irony. Start with a standard anti-liberal complaint about how people rush to judgment, and then consider that the Stewart question we see in this discussion is an example of how it works.
Like, maybe I razz Foghorn, even in this thread↑, about his own advice against taking him seriously↗, but consider what he just did, relying on a BBC News↱ article that opens, "US chat-show host Jon Stewart has denied accusing Harry Potter author JK Rowling of anti-Semitism in comments he made on a podcast last month."
This is precisely the difference, and that difference is precisely the point. That Foghorn cannot understand the difference between the two—
• That one has done something antisemitic, or resembling antisemitism.
• That one is an antisemite.
• That one is an antisemite.
—is his own self-indictment.
It's one of the things the long bawl against political correctness, "cancel culture", &c., has never figured out, and at some point, it's true, the rest of us eventually come to accept there is a reason why they can't.
But Stewart didn't say Rowling is an antisemite. Rather, he observed the presence of historically antisemitic tropes in the film. And that's the (not so) tricky part: People give themselves away when they fall back to dualism like that.
And the idea that Rowling somehow didn't know is both ridiculous and, well, okay, I can accept that she didn't, but that excuse doesn't speak well of her.
How many times can the question be, "Why did they do something so obviously inadvisable?" and how many times can they answer, "How dare you accuse anyone of evil!" before we accept that, for those people, there really is no difference?
That is to say, eventually, we believe them, because the alternative, to erase their words and experiences by pretending none of it ever happened, is its own manner of silencing.
†
One of the tragic ironies in questions of decency and villainy is that there are in theory myriad decent folk, good people, who fell down a hole, who can tell us Very Important Things about what they saw from that perspective, but inasmuch as that requires acknowledging what happened, many prefer, instead, to keep on digging, and at some point we accept they didn't just whoopsie-down fall in a hole.
†
Literature and History 101: Because of the way literary tropes and even archetypes emerge, there is frequently a risk of infamy in caricature and grotesque. This is a perpetual hazard of storytelling.
What we do with these narrative elements is entirely up to us, but the thing is, nobody bats a thousand. And as I've been reminding of late, "If I call a casual drinker an alcoholic they don't go binging just to 'show me.'"
With Rowling, it was, of course, more than just goblins and Jews, but even still, the question of how significant we find the (ahem!) accident of these tropes in creative process can be informed by subsequent events. That is to say, maybe-maybe, once upon a time, but now that we've seen her perform the stations of supremacism, questions we might have passed over in realtime take on a greater significance in their context.
†
Once upon a time, we might have said there was bigotry, supremacism, chauvinism, and then mere insensitivity. Those who wonder about the echoes of bigotry are not the ones who reduced the question to scaramouche heroic dualism. We couldn't tone it down enough: The sense of dualism is their own imposition of right and wrong, either do it their way, or how dare you suggest there is anything wrong with their way.
And, yes, eventually we accept that, for those people, there really is no difference, and this is who they really are.
____________________
Notes:
BBC News. "Jon Stewart denies accusing JK Rowling of anti-Semitism". 6 January 2022. BBC.com. 16 May 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59893206
Chitwood, Adam. "Jon Stewart Goes Off on ‘Anti-Semitic’ Caricature of Gringotts Bank Goblins in ‘Harry Potter’ Franchise" The Wrap. 5 January 2022. TheWrap.com. 16 May 2025. https://www.thewrap.com/jon-stewart-jk-rowling-harry-potter-goblins-jews-anti-semitic/