Do you see any goats around? No, because I sacrificed them.

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The Buffista Book Club: the Harry Potter iteration  

This thread is a focused discussion group. Please see the first post below for the current topic and upcoming book discussions. While natter will inevitably happen, we encourage you to treat this like a virtual book club and try to keep your posts in that spirit.

By consensus, this thread is reopened specifically to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will be closed again once that discussion has run its course.

***SPOILER ALERT***

  • **Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows lie here. Read at your own risk***


Vortex - Oct 25, 2007 5:47:10 am PDT #3278 of 3301
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman

well, it's kind of like the memfault!trade aliens in Phantom Menace. Lucas said that he did not intend for them to be seen as Asian, but pretty much everyone saw it.


Aims - Oct 25, 2007 5:50:15 am PDT #3279 of 3301
Shit's all sorts of different now.

Ok, but how much of that is Lucas's responsibility? How can he account for what people are going to infer?


Vortex - Oct 25, 2007 5:51:17 am PDT #3280 of 3301
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman

Yes, that's what I was saying. Although, personally, I would have been hard pressed NOT to see it. I believe that he didn't intend it, but I think that he was in some denial.


Aims - Oct 25, 2007 5:52:40 am PDT #3281 of 3301
Shit's all sorts of different now.

AH!

I need more coffee.

(See - my default is noone agress with me so I inferred you were saying I was FOS. Hee.)


Jessica - Oct 25, 2007 6:12:52 am PDT #3282 of 3301
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

Intentional or not, Lucas managed to create several fictional alien species in TPM who were basically just laundry lists of racist sterotypes. (Jar-Jar, the Not!Asians, the Not!Jew who owned Anakin & his mother, and so on.)

I'm not saying he has a responsibility to not be an ignorant dumbass, but it sure wouldn't hurt.

JKR's species have enough depth to give her plausible deniability, at the very least.


Vortex - Oct 25, 2007 6:28:40 am PDT #3283 of 3301
"Cry havoc and let slip the boobs of war!" -- Miracleman

Intentional or not, Lucas managed to create several fictional alien species in TPM who were basically just laundry lists of racist sterotypes. (Jar-Jar, the Not!Asians, the Not!Jew who owned Anakin & his mother, and so on.)

I'm not saying he has a responsibility to not be an ignorant dumbass, but it sure wouldn't hurt.

ITA. I used Lucas as an example becuase I thought that the plausibility line was veeerry blurry.


Aims - Oct 25, 2007 6:33:40 am PDT #3284 of 3301
Shit's all sorts of different now.

ITA, also.


Trudy Booth - Oct 25, 2007 6:36:15 am PDT #3285 of 3301
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

well, it's kind of like the memfault!trade aliens in Phantom Menace. Lucas said that he did not intend for them to be seen as Asian, but pretty much everyone saw it.

Didn't they have almond eyes?

I mean, its not a big reach to say "those guys are Asian" when they have almond eyes.

To say that big nosed characters are Jewish is application of a stereotype, but to say that almond-eyed characters are Asian is more actually descriptive.

JKR's species have enough depth to give her plausible deniability, at the very least.

Not only that, she has a racial analogy with the mud blood thing and the Wizards attitudes towards Muggles.


victor infante - Oct 25, 2007 6:39:18 am PDT #3286 of 3301
To understand what happened at the diner, we shall use Mr. Papaya! This is upsetting because he's the friendliest of fruits.

I think there's a fundamental difference between using traits that stereotypically are assigned to one group, as JKR did with the Goblins and the Jews, but with very little textual evidence that it's meant to be an allegory, and what Lucas did with Jar Jar Binks, which almost directly referenced a series of bad racial stereotypes.

Certainly, you can look at JKR's Goblins and say "Wow. That's meant to be Jews," and make a pretty good case for it, but it doesn't seem to be intentional and you can probably make a case the other way, too. There's no way you can look at Jar Jar and see something other than a race relations timebomb waiting to happen. (Naturally, the kids loved him.)


Connie Neil - Oct 25, 2007 7:09:49 am PDT #3287 of 3301
brillig

the Not!Jew who owned Anakin & his mother

Huh. I always thought Greek for some reason. But then I never see the parallels that other people say are obvious.