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

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could choose owls instead. They kill a lot of mice. But I don't really think that's any better, except that it's a little less what owls get stereotyped as in Western cultures, I guess.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I'm really just not concerned about animal stereotypes, except insofar as "cute and fuzzy" animals get treated better (or sometimes bought and then dumped later on when people can't take care of them in greater numbers) than others, which is stupid.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't have any proof that animal stereotypes cause people to kill animals. Like I said, not harmful or evil necessarily, just something that makes the eight-year-old girl inside me cry.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I think that would be better. I mean, owls are usually read as wise.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Yes, the wise Nazis. That would be lol (people's reactions would, at least). Cats are usually supposed to be smart too. Haha.

I am beyond the point of taking this seriously, sorry, as I don't care about animal representations except insofar as they lead to problems in how we treat animals, which, currently, has more to do with people being like "Awww a cute kitten" and then letting it destroy the ecosystem or have tons of babies they can't take care of or abandoning it.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I agree, that would be lol! And cats are cunning, see, or clever. Evil can also be cunning and clever, but never wise.

No, I'm not taking it seriously either. I mean, I care more, but animal representations of this kind don't usually result in actual damage. I mean, some do. Like prioritizing one animal (pandas?) over others (other endangered animals). Or like, trying to get endangered species protection for an animal that most people think is a pest or whatever.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I know. But we don't really 'like' predators, generally speaking, and the predators we do 'like' we ignore the predatory aspects of. (I'm using 'like' here as something more like "have positive stereotypes of," when I don't think that actually correlates with individual people liking that animal in real-world instances) Seeing owls, lions, dogs, etc. in all their bloodthirsty glory would likely put people off. Maybe even be frightening. I could easily see owls as representing the downfall of intellectual utopianism turned authoritarian killing spree or something.

Yes, but that's the sort of representation I'm concerned with.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

uh, the point of the first part is that we are very pro-victim.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Is this related to rooting for underdogs, or is it related to not wanting to relate to things that kill other creatures (as opposed to mice, who simply devour lifeless cheese)? But yeah, except for a subset of people who are into bloodthirsty glory (e.g., killer sharks eating baby seals, fuck yeah!!), that's true. I think the owl thing would be cool, but now I'm like, "what if I really really liked owls?"

No, yeah, I get that.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Aren't those both kind of the same impulse, the pro-victim impulse? Slave morality! Support weakness! Only weak things are so good they don't hurt other things, even though it's only because they can't.

Actually, I do really like owls. Probably better than I like cats. But I don't think I'd freak out about their representation.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Huh... but the underdog narrative relies on the underdog coming back and beating the "top dog." Or is this part of the whole revenge fantasy thing? Oh dear. The Bambi narrative, though, yeah, I guess. Feminine little deer.

Probably because you do not have a hang-up about it. I have refused to see movies because a cat gets sliced in half in the movie. But in my defense it was just a slasher movie.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

More seriously, I'm pretty sure you can interpret representing Nazis with anything as insulting, but, you know, the Nazis were humans, too.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah... that's why I feel it's safer to have both Jews and Nazis as the same species, but I know, there are reasons for this.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Don't give in to the pressure! Nazis are not any more evil than we are!

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? I mean, I don't think Nazis are any more evil than we are. Hence "all same species."

Unless I'm not supposed to think this.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I mean that the pressure is to respond to people thinking that if anything is chosen to represent Nazis, that thing must be evil. Cats can't represent Nazis because then cats must be evil because Nazis are evil, etc.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Ohhh... hmm. Yeah, you're right about that. I would still worry about how other people react to it, but you're right that it's kind of a shame thing that doesn't necessarily need to be there. Huh. I had not thought about it that way.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree that it's a tricky situation. Btw, I'm...glad you handled my response the way you did. I don't mean that to be patronizing. I just think this conversation could have turned out ugly if you'd been offended instead. And I tried not to be too offensive, but I did have some kind of strong reactions to your initial post.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I wrote some heady things in the comment box at first, but then deleted them. I was like, no, you know, that's not gonna accomplish anything, we need to just get to the bottom of this and move on. It makes me uncomfortable, but if you have a strong reaction like that, I want to know, because that means I'm probably communicating something I don't mean to be communicating, or should be thinking more about, or whatever.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I'm grateful you did, because I really don't want to fight. I usually just let posts like this go for that reason, but I thought I'd voice my reaction tonight.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me neither (want to fight).

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Maybe I appreciate it all the more b/c it's very much not the sort of convo I can have with Jason right now.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Ok, this is tripping me out right now, because you're totally right, and I would have thought that that would have occurred to me these days (maybe not in HS, but these days). I mean I listen to fucking Death in June. Wow. That tells you something about how insanely defensive I am of cats. I'm just staggered right now by how un-like me my response to Nazi cats is.