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]

And if you don't think cats have the possibility of being good, I'm pretty sure I can come up with a bunch of examples of positive portrayals of cats, but I really don't want to do something that pointless, so please don't make me.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

LOL, that's okay. I know that there are positive portrayals (like the Aristocats!), but I still think it's overall a more negative portrayal than a positive one - especially within the Tom and Jerry motif. You get cats on their own (like in "Cats") and there's a better chance of a positive portrayal. But as soon as other animals enter the picture, the chance that the cat winds up as the antagonist skyrockets.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Oh god. Who cares?

(btw, I hate Tom & Jerry, but it's nothing to do with cats. It's just that it makes me uncomfortable, like most American comedies.)

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Hey, I warned you that it's emotional irrationality. I don't even know why I care so much at this point, but I always have.

The reason I hated Tom & Jerry was the cat thing, although it really wouldn't work with any animal combination. See the rest of Looney Toons (is that how you spell it?).