Disney Ad Gives Scrooge Exagerrated Semitic Features
One of the above images appeared, at the turn of the century, in an anti-Semitic Austrian newspaper. One of the images, however, is a contemporary portrayal of the legendary tight fisted businessman, Scrooge. It has gone up on posters across the London Underground – and elsewhere – to advertise Disney’s new animated version of the story.
As I walked past the picture I was struck by the way Scrooge had – actually quite unusually – been given exaggerated Semitic features, specifically a ridiculously hooked nose. Meanwhile his talon like hand is not unusual in traditional, hostile portrayals of Jews.
It is worth stressing that Scrooge – unlike Shylock or Faigin – has not traditionally been considered a Jewish character. It is, after all, a story about Christmas. As such there is no ‘artistic integrity’ type justification for such portrayals. Do I think the illustrator set out to make Scrooge ‘look like a Jew’? Perhaps not. But the image does seem to draw upon certain ingrained cultural reference as to what a tight-fisted businessman should look like. And such imagery cannot be fully disconnected from Jewry, or from anti-Semitism, in either its origins or its contemporary consequences.
Reader Comments
unbelievable. I thought we were done with all this crap?
Perhaps both artists were wishing to make their subjects look like vultures, with beak-like noses and talon-like hands.
I don’t think you are correct about this particular case. Scrooge has a elongated chin in the picture – not a Jewish trait or stereotype. The only parallels with the antisemitic image are the glasses, the posture and the nose. The glasses are surely irrelevant. The posture is one of an old man who has been bent over a desk for some time. (He’s *Scrooge*, for God’s sake.) And the possession of a big nose is not confined to those of semitic descent. Scrooge basically just looks a bit like Gladstone.
You do have a point, though, about insidious portayals of Jewish-stereotyped characters in film. A much worse example would be, I think, the creatures who run the *bank* in the Harry Potter films, which no one seems to have twigged.
Thanks for your comments. You may indeed be right. If we are to be right, though technically speaking his nose is not just elongated but shaped in a somewhat distinctive way. But anyway this is all rather impressionistic. So like I say you I wouldn’t claim to be 100 per cent sure on this
Stuart: I’ll see your Harry Potter goblins and raise you Watto out of Star Wars Episode 1 (http://www.completewermosguide.com/Black/Black_Watto.JPG).
Plus, of course, there was the mock-Japanese Trade Federation and the Jafaican Jar Jar Binks. Not the most racially sensitive of films.
Phantom Menace was filled with gratuitous ethnic stereotypes. South Park did a great satire on Jewish stereotypes as evil business leaders. Can’t find the original clip, but someone mixed it into a silly video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2QkBFMjlag
are claiming that everyone with a long nose is jewish or its some anti jewish plot when you have people with long noses in the media, so like the child catcher in chitty chitty bang bang is jewish .
isn’t the head of disney jewish he used to be, and I really don’t see any discrimination against jews in the media in fact the opposite .
jews are seldom portrayed as bad guys even if you have cases of them running for example camps in poland killing torturing and raping 90,000 people that was after the war and the victims were german and poles mainly women and children.
Im not saying jews are bad but like everyone else they have bad apples, but your very unlikely to see these bad apples in film because we have a biased media but not the way you think.
and looking at that scrooge I wouldn’t have thought jewish unless Id read this article, there are lots of non jewish people who look like that
Jonathon, the child catcher was not a egendary tight fisted businessman. And it is not just him having a long nose – it is not long like pinnochio’s. And I am not even going to engage with the rubbish you are talking about poland.
I’m pretty sure Walt Disney was a fascist.
Rueben you wont discuss victims of Jews and Hollywood wont make films about them, unlike all the many films where Germans are the villains and Jews are the innocent victims .
there is clearly a racist bias which you share .
The men guilty of the crimes escaped to Israel and the Israeli’s wont let them stand trial in cases that would be very similar to the trials of Nazi concentration camp guards .
I tried posting earlier with a link to the story but for some reason it didn’t seem to post
I may be a bit harsh on you reuben the guy who exposed the story died a couple of years ago hes called john sack wrote a book a eye for a eye he was jewish.
great fellow
While we are on the subject on antsemitic stereotypes – Has anyone in ThirdEstate land seen ‘The Wire.’ I’ve only seen Series One and Two and intend to watch all five. It is critically acclaimed. And deserves it. The beauty of the writing lets you look into the hearts and souls of people – criminals, law-enforcers and those stuck between them – and understand who and why they are. Everyone is – what EM Forster called ’round characters’ except Levy. Levy is the jewish lawyer for the drug dealers. Levy is small, porcine, nasty, venal and colludes with his clients to subvert the law. This fine series, for me, is let down by this cardboard cutout. Nothing betrays bad or lazy drama writing than when your villain smirks as he watches his vitims suffer. I am reliably informed – Levy’s character does not develop.