hanukkahfinn:

Well, Jewish identity and Jewish experience is only allowed to exist with goyim’s permission didn’t you know? And preferably with their translation because a good two millennia of Christian suppressionism has convinced at least the white goyim out there that they know our experiences and stories so much better than we do.

And I know the following is a bit garbled, I’ve been trying to put this into words all day and it’s a struggle because goyim are so damn good at double standards and sidestepping when it comes to Jewishness and Jewish identities.

I think there’s also an element of erasure of Jewish identity when it is used in a positive manner and for ourselves.

When we do something that the goyim approve of then we need to stop being Jewish or they can’t relate to us (e.g. Carrie Fisher who after her death constantly had her Jewishness erased to the point that people drew Catholic fanart of her >.<). And when we do something for us, like telling our own stories in a medium or genre that is “inappropriate” (as determined by goyim of course) then our Jewishness, with all that that entails including a history of being the target of genocide, must become unimportant or a problem.

Positive Jewish identity cannot exist in a Christian normative society. We either have to be erased or a problem. Or both. 

The erasure and dismissal of intent on JJ’s and Lawrence’s part is the kind where they’re either not Jewish (or their Jewishness is treated as irrelevant), or their Jewishness is a problem because clearly two Jewish creators cannot have intended an overt neo Nazi parallel with the First Order and for their members for be the equivalent of radicalized, neo Nazi extremists. To permit this (cultural) Christian goyim would have to allow Jewish identity and experiences to exist unmediated of their own will and understanding and they just can’t have that, can they?

I wonder if that’s part of the widespread fandom animosity toward Finn in addition to antiblackness, because his narrative in TFA has Jewish elements much like Princess Leia’s that are not mediated or controlled by a goyische perspective. He suffered kidnap, the erasure of his culture, and enslavement. If he was part of a mass abduction of children, as seems likely, that is a major element of genocide. So far he was set up for a Jewish (as well as African disapora–they’re not mutually exclusive, though distinct, because as I understand it a lot of European colonialist tactics were used on Jewish and Romani people first and then scaled up) victim narrative, although it’s already uncomfortable for goyim because it’s not confined to the specific trappings of the Holocaust. Rather it’s shit that European goyim have been doing to Jewish people for millennia, thus refusing to confine antisemitic destruction to a decade or so of “bad apples” that are supposedly aberrations and not Good Christian Folk.

Yet Finn is not saved by heroic white Christians. but rather fights back and escapes together with another prisoner. He may free others as well in the mold of the Moses narrative in Episode IX (DEW IT JJ YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO), the hinting of which was literally erased from TLJ by an aggressively Christian director.

The violence Finn used to liberate himself, however, is somehow subject to more criticism than Kylo Ren’s crimes. Finn is unironically called a terrorist (a misquote of John Boyega who said the First Order saw him as a terrorist), and even those who admit he was justified in his actions still think he should be more visibly conflicted about killing Stormtroopers. I suspect this last part is also related to the culturally Christian construct that feeling bad about one’s inherently sinful self is more righteous than actually doing right, as seen in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

I don’t need to tell you that if Finn does lead a Stormtrooper uprising a lot of us goyim are going to be wringing our hands for decades to come about the justifiability of a repressed and enslaved people rising up against their oppressors. No! we’ll cry. They should have waited and suffered until a redeemed Kylo Ren or someone else who fits the approved heroic mold rescued them! Because otherwise it’s terrible violence and disorder that makes the Stormtroopers the “real” terrorists, and also Stormtroopers who were kidnapped and brainwashed as children are worse criminals than Kylo Ren, etc. etc. I’m getting tired just thinking about it.

But yeah, I hope JJ flips a giant bird and does all that. He started something with TFA and I really hope he ends it with Episode IX. TLJ? I don’t know her.