Ferengi are love, Ferengi are life

Googling around, I've seen a lot of users and journos claiming they are a jewish stereotype. I struggled to even compare them to what HP did. And as a partially jew, I'm really jealous of qualities these bigots paint and the thinking process Quark put to work. He's probably my favorite character of the whole franchise.

35 comments

The HP goblins are so unabashedly antisemitic. It really takes an English writer to pump the xenophobia up to eleven.
- The funny thing is - Rowling could avoid it, not mention t at all, but she's gone out of her way to print it.
  
  You could basically remove money from HP and not make a difference. The hate between the Malfoys and Harry/the Weasleys is mostly based on world view anyway. The fact that they are rich and powerful would just as well serve as them just being influential.
  There was was really no reason to bring the goblins in, or at least not as she did
- Meanwhile, over on Reddit, you're the racist if you call the Goblins anti-semitic because you're assuming that they look Jewish. My brother in Christ, I didn't write the books or direct the movies.
  
  It's not like JK is some paragon of moral character either. She's already a prolific transphobic bigot, are people really shocked that she is also racist and an anti-semite?
  
  I get it. If someone else doesn't think they look Jewish and hasn't even though about it then someone else saying these fucked up looking goblins look Jewish does sound a bit jeez dude.
  I can imagine someone going
  "Well it's obvious just look at their noses"
  "..."
  "What, it can't be a coincidence that they're also greedy bankers!"
  "👀"
- The antisemitism of HP books is a dumbass take on the whole thing.
  If the HP goblins are Jews, then they are a defeated people living in a backwards, isolated society, fearful of change.
  The wizards are openly mocked in the story. Do none of you really see that? They are a caricature of the British system of lords and commoners.
  Pure blood, mudblood. Ring a bell?
  The goblins as bankers in the story can be compared to Jews in medieval Europe who were forced to become merchants because they were not allowed to hold a title.
  That's not antisemitism, it's history.
  During the war, goblin and mixed families are shown as victims same as the Jewish and gypsy purge.
  Antisemitism? No. History.
  The epilogue shows that the wizard society remains mostly unchanged, still backwards, still isolated with only the new generation taking a step forward towards equality.
  Antisemitism? No. History.
  The only antisemitism found is the portrayal of Jews as goblins, in a fantasy series about dumb human wizards being dumb and most magical creatures being awesome.
  It's a very tryhard theory that only holds water after Rowling said some hot take in her old age.
  And only considers people as static blocks of stone unable to start young and change as they grow older, for better or worse.
  It's a sucky POV and completely wrong.
If we're going on the HP route, then it has to be mentioned that by promoting the Ferengi, you are also supporting the objectification of women.
It's not a secret that one of the main producers in charge was anti-women. This idea of having women paraded around naked and servile is a gross violation of women's rights everywhere.
Yet it's ok when the Ferengi are doing it because it's an "alien" culture that someone invented out of thin air. Nevermind that the women acting those roles were being actively humiliated.
But I guess it might not be the same in some people's eyes. After all, it's one thing to portray a race or a culture in a stereotypically racist way, and it's quite another to maltreat every representative of a biological sex. Completely different, I'm sure.
- I always lumped that in with the rest of Ferengi culture. The capitalism and sexism were exaggerated versions of our own problems
- DS9 saw a feminist Ferengi revolution that largely happened off-screen but the women (sorry, feeemales) started off as objectified and servile and enslaved, and ended able to go about without men, make their own profit, and wear whatever they want! If anything, their insanely advanced timeline was something I found enviable.
  
  So the problem is that the HP goblins didn't accept a major shift in their culture to more easily integrate and develop with the rest of the magical world?
  Wizards aren't the United Federation of Planets. They're conservative and isolationists. Why would the goblins want to integrate with them and their values?
  There's no reasonable explanation for such a major shift in culture over night, for any of the magical races.
- The thing is - they grow out of sexism in recent series. I've heard Quark's own mom became a business-woman. Isn't that sweet?
  
  And the goblins in HP start out as something to frighten an 11-old and grow to become their own people, with a culture and a way of life.
  Some people might not like the exposure, but it's still growth.
- You talk like they were constantly parading naked Ferengi women around on the show, but I struggle to recall even a single instance of one being on screen without clothing. If there was one it has completely faded from my mind.
  
  I can say a similar thing about the goblins.

35 comments