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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32408 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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"Effete elite" is part of what Slytherin has going on, but there's stuff like the Slytherin dormitory being in a dungeon, I've seen that called out as based in an antisemitic trope around ghettoes.

Ghettoes are just the part of a city where a secluded minority lives. Jews living in ghettos is a historical fact, making it an antisemitic trope is already a stretch.

But all the houses have their own secluded dormitories - this isn't Slytherin-specific, it's Hogwarts-generic, so the ghetto comparison has no leg to stand on. "Dungeon" is just generic evil.

Adult Slytherins, at least the wealthy leaders*, live in manors. Unless "rich and evil" immediately makes you think "Jews" - in which case I suspect you are the antisemite - they should code to snooty aristocrats.

*Also an important distinction. The Malfoys are rich, but that's about it - the rank-and-file Slytherins/Death Dealers tend to be thugs.

Corrupted pattern-matching finding antisemitism where there isn't any is a rather big problem, but this is one of the more egregious examples.

The antisemitic angle is that, like, one asks "why are the rich evil guys living in squalor?", and while the surface answer is "that's a generic evil trope", the underlying origin of the trope that would have a scheming, wealthy villain who lives in squalor is negative stereotypes about Jews.

Is it?

Slytherins aren't living in squalor - the dungeon ambience is merely an aesthetic.

I have never heard of a "wealthy villains living in squalor" trope, and I struggle to come up with examples.

Also, even if a trope was originally based in antisemitism, if it since has entered the cultural background, and no longer has a connection to jews, because most people are no longer aware of the origin and it doesn't match their own image of jews, then I'd say it's not antisemitic anymore.

I don't know, this all requires someone who seems otherwise quite progressive having a whole lot of knowledge of Jewish stereotypes that I've never heard of before.

In the context I saw it discussed, it was more "this generic evil trope is based on anti-semitism so the series is unconsciously anti-semitic"; this being before Rowling's cancellation the assumption wasn't going to be evil intent.

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