I was ok with Animal Farm, but...

[intertribal]

Yann Martel:  I needed to find two animals that might represent the Jews. So trading on positive stereotypes, donkeys are held to be stubborn, they’ve endured, in a sense. Jews are historically have been stubborn in a sense, they’ve held onto their culture, to their religion, despite centuries of discrimination. At the same time, we hold monkeys to be clever, to be nimble. Well, historically, Jews have proven themselves to be exceptionally nimble and clever, they’ve adapted to all different kinds of circumstances, all kinds of different countries, cultures, and also historically, they’ve contributed enormously, disproportionately to the arts and sciences.  So trading on those positive stereotypes, I chose, well, here, how can I represent Jews? Well, here, I’ll represent them as this combination, these two animals, monkeys and donkeys. It could also be that the donkey is sort of a representation of the body and monkey the representation of the mind of Jews.

David Sexton:  What is one to say? Perhaps, to be kind, that Martel, not Jewish himself incidentally, is just not very bright.

Yann Martel:  If he says that of me, I wonder what he feels about Art Spiegelman in Maus. In Maus the Jews are characterised as mice. But were the Jews mouse-like in the Warsaw ghetto uprising? I wonder how he feels about that characterisation.

Hey hey hey hey,or: we could not use different animal species to symbolize different groups of people, especially when you're using stereotypical animal traits to match up with stereotypical human group traits.  We could not reduce huge groups of God's creatures to one or two sweeping adjectives.

Just a thought!

Comments

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Aside from all of that, there's a huge difference between me having a kneejerk reaction to something and me congratulating myself on my moral superiority on some issue. At least I think there is. The kneejerk thing I will cop to - I originally was going to title this post something about literary pet peeves, because that's basically what it is (well, with more emotion than is maybe normal).

But I really don't want to come across as being all holier-than-thou and judgmental and all of this stuff that you frequently read me as being. I mean, if there's something in my wording of the post that implies that - and maybe what I see as just being critical of a device comes across as self-congratulation, in which case, I need to work on that - could you let me know, so I know not to do it in the future? I feel like you very often get this vibe from me and self-righteousness is really not a big part of how I react to things. I'm way more likely to get emotional and angry than to be all "I am up here, and you are down here."

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Hm, interesting. I'll definitely think about it (which is probably more productive than me being put off or just ignoring it anyway). My first guess is that it has something to do with sarcasm and/or ridicule. Ridicule usually condemns--and puts out of the sphere of argument--a point far better than arguing against it and therefore respecting and taking it seriously as an argument. Maybe sometimes ridicule is warranted, but I think one should be careful. And it's the not even taking it seriously as an argument part that seems, I guess, "I am up here, and you are down here." That's my initial impression about why I respond that way, at least.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I'm also not the first to make that (or a similar) point about ridicule, fwiw. I know Nietzsche and DFW have, and who knows who else.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

So in this case, "the argument" being the use of animals to symbolize ethnic groups? And that's what I don't seem to be taking seriously? I mean, just to be clear on what exactly I seem to be condemning and not respecting.

I feel like I write more in anger than ridicule, is the thing. Anger on the behalf of animals (and I kind of wonder about how sane that is), but anger just the same. And that's probably why it comes across that I'm not even going to allow for the possibility that it could be done ok. I think that I should probably be careful about using sweeping generalizations and hyperbole - I guess I'm used to reading that, and assuming that everyone writes that way on the internet. And I think it's also a problem of very short posts. In any case, I will work on that.

TBH I still don't see it as ridicule because it feels more like "this angers me so much I can't even talk about it," not... "ha ha you are so stupid and I will laugh at you." But maybe that's just how I read it, and in any case, it still means I'm not taking it seriously as a... literary device. I don't know, I really am not a fan of ridicule and I'd rather be an irrational angry person than someone who ridicules.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Hm...not only that, but like, Maus's legitimacy as a work of art, insofar as it's related to your point. Like the whole work gets dismissed b/c you see it as doing this one thing with animals. Because we should never do this with animals, so we should never create things like Maus, regardless of what he has to say or what his motivations were for choosing the representations or anything.

What's giving me the impression of ridicule: "Hey hey hey hey,or: we could" and "Just a thought!" The sort of sarcastic, 'Hey let me make this obvious point that you are too stupid to realize because you just stereotype animals and ethnic groups.'

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I don't personally see it as dismissing the entire work as much as criticizing this thing that the work does. I don't know, I'm very used to criticizing bits and pieces of things without making that a dismissal of the entire thing. There's things I dislike in work that I like and I'd be ok with pointing that out. But I take your point.

Hm, okay. It is definitely sarcastic, and I see how it reads that way. I think some of my natural voice just comes out that way, even when it's kind of a hysterical anger/disbelief that I'm actually feeling.