# Is it racist for a World War 2 film to refer to Japanese soldiers as "Japs"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 15, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996 "2018-10-15T20:40:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/61 "2018-10-16T21:37:09Z")
Accidentally did what to the sentence? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/62 "2018-10-16T21:45:16Z")
…Ah, I just figured it out. You meant to say “it **saves** the lookout two syllables”. Yes, and it also saves the newspaper four or five letters in a headline. That’s probably the original reason why the shortened forms were used. But like I said, it became a pejorative. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2018, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/63 "2018-10-16T21:45:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Could be. OTOH, A Bugs Bunny wartime cartoon, when all the Axis nation forces were caricatured, was titled _Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips_. Japanese pressure forced its removal from the Cartoon Network in 1991 and from a laserdisc compilation in 1992. > > Judging levels of offensiveness is next to impossible today (see ATMB) and even more so for times past, so all speculations should be regarded with a grain of salt, including mine. I think the shift began in earnest in the 1960s in response to the Civil Rights movement to be more sensitive to offensive words. By the 1990s that would have been fully in effect. BTW, there’s a _Real McCoys_ episode in which Pepino, their Mexican farm hand, hears that a friend of the family who’s an Armenian immigrant is about to be deported, and asks in surprise, “He’s a wetback?” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/64 "2018-10-17T00:16:21Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > BTW, there’s a _Real McCoys_ episode in which Pepino, their Mexican farm hand, hears that a friend of the family who’s an Armenian immigrant is about to be deported, and asks in surprise, “He’s a wetback?” That must have been a real knee-slapper to the Los Angeleno writer who thought it up. I wonder how blank the stares of the other 99% of the country were. I can say that I never heard the term in Upstate New York until much later. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/65 "2018-10-17T01:00:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …Ah, I just figured it out. You meant to say “it **saves** the lookout two syllables”. > > Yes, and it also saves the newspaper four or five letters in a headline. That’s probably the original reason why the shortened forms were used. But like I said, it became a pejorative. Interestingly, if you check Google news for “Jap”, you’ll find several newspaper headlines _still_ using it for short–even one from Reuters. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/66 "2018-10-17T01:10:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That must have been a real knee-slapper to the Los Angeleno writer who thought it up. I wonder how blank the stares of the other 99% of the country were. I can say that I never heard the term in Upstate New York until much later. I recall my fifth-grade teacher explaining the term to my class in the Bronx, which would have been about 1962. But yeah, it wouldn’t have been a word we would have generally been familiar with. Of course, it took me years to figure out that the Mexican drover Haysoose on _Rawhide_ was actually named Jesus…😉 ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/67 "2018-10-17T07:59:37Z")
I’m curious if Japanese-Americans at the time referred to the Imperial Japanese as ‘Japs’? If they did, was it intended as a slur/insult or simply a shortened form of ‘Japanese’? Or maybe they used a term like ‘Nihonjin’; even those who mostly just spoke English. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/68 "2018-10-17T08:09:56Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Could be. OTOH, A Bugs Bunny wartime cartoon, when all the Axis nation forces were caricatured, was titled _Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips_. Japanese pressure forced its removal from the Cartoon Network in 1991 and from a laserdisc compilation in 1992. Sorry… did you mean pressure from the Japanese? Or from Japanese-Americans? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/69 "2018-10-17T14:20:34Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That must have been a real knee-slapper to the Los Angeleno writer who thought it up. I wonder how blank the stares of the other 99% of the country were. I can say that I never heard the term in Upstate New York until much later. Considering that, just a couple years earlier, there was a massive federal program to deport illegal immigrants that was officially named “Operation Wetback,” I imagine most people got the reference. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/70 "2018-10-17T15:51:09Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Sorry… did you mean pressure from the Japanese? Or from Japanese-Americans? I meant Japanese-Americans. > [@Miller](#): > > Considering that, just a couple years earlier, there was a massive federal program to deport illegal immigrants that was officially named “Operation Wetback,” I imagine most people got the reference. I forgot about that. I went back and checked the newspaper database, out of curiosity. The vast majority of the hits were from papers in the southwest. There was exactly one mention in my local newspaper and that was in an article on the successor, Operation Everglade. The Real McCoys episode was shown on Nov. 12, 1959, five years after 1954 peak of Operation Wetback, which started in 1951. I even found a Wisconsin paper still explaining what the term meant in 1959, not a sign it had high public awareness. So while they could expect adults to have heard the term it was still more of a local joke than a current reference that everybody would get. But I’ll grant that Operation Wetback had to have been a huge boost to awareness of “wetback” because its number of hits quintuples from 1949-1950 to 1951-1952. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/71 "2018-10-17T19:20:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **terentii** , surely the world was even more fucked up fifty years ago? Indeterminate number of steps forward, indeterminate number back. It’s not always clear over as little as a lifetime which outnumbers the other. But the silliest excesses of PC, as where anyone would complain about the Japanese being referred to in WWII period pieces…the way they were referred to at the time (if not less politely), are clearly a step back in the rationality of society on that general kind of point. That particular kind of ridiculousness just wasn’t seen at one time. Are there other areas where things have progressed? Of course. Is PC silliness a necessary price for those advances? I don’t think so, but I suppose it might be debated. A couple of more minor points specific to the epithet. ‘Jap’ is IME relatively more acceptable in English in the UK and Australia now than the US. I think that’s the reaction of Americans of Japanese descent that it’s aimed at them as derogatory, which it also was. That’s less of an issue in other English speaking countries. IME (pretty much) with people from Japan they mainly learn about PC sensibilities in their experience in the West. People _in_ Japan tend not to care as much about such things. As to ‘nigger’ that’s different, among other reasons because it wasn’t necessarily what African Americans were called in the past. It sometimes was, but just because a Hollywood period piece has everyone using it constantly doesn’t mean that’s always what happened. Many whites would address African Americans more politely, depending the person or situation. That doesn’t mean polite people didn’t also support official segregation or practice private forms of racial discrimination. It’s just that Hollywood doesn’t deliver a video feed through a time machine. Its characterizations of the past now should be just as subject to skepticism as those of 1940’s Hollywood everyone laughs at or is horrified by now. It reflects the assumptions and ‘ticks’ of our era just like the old films do theirs. Which is back to whether ‘things are better’ now. Sometimes they are better, worse or just different. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/72 "2018-10-17T20:55:16Z")
And many people would address black people in a manner which they thought, by their own standards, was polite. The people addressed might have had different opinions. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/73 "2018-10-17T21:26:45Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > As to ‘nigger’ that’s different, among other reasons because it wasn’t necessarily what African Americans were called in the past. It sometimes was, but just because a Hollywood period piece has everyone using it constantly doesn’t mean that’s always what happened. Many whites would address African Americans more politely, depending the person or situation. That doesn’t mean polite people didn’t also support official segregation or practice private forms of racial discrimination. Going as far back as the 19th century, there were many hardcore racists who never used the “n-word” not out of respect but because they considered it a crude and uncouth term that would only be uttered by “white trash”. As for use of the word “Jap” fifty years ago, that was 1968. During the campaign for presidency that year, eventual-VP Spiro Agnew got into trouble for referring to the Japanese Prime Minister as a “fat Jap”. Agnew suffered no real consequences from his comment but the criticism he received indicated the term had moved into the “unacceptable” category by then. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/74 "2018-10-17T21:57:58Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > As for use of the word “Jap” fifty years ago, that was 1968. During the campaign for presidency that year, eventual-VP Spiro Agnew got into trouble for referring to the Japanese Prime Minister as a “fat Jap”. Agnew suffered no real consequences from his comment but the criticism he received indicated the term had moved into the “unacceptable” category by then. Actually, it was [a Japanese-American campaign reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/agnew.htm?noredirect=on) rather than the Prime Minister. Agnew also got flack by referring to Polish-Americans as “Polacks” (apparently under the impression that that was the correct term.) ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/75 "2018-10-17T22:13:51Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Actually, it was [a Japanese-American campaign reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/agnew.htm?noredirect=on) rather than the Prime Minister. Agnew also got flack by referring to Polish-Americans as “Polacks” (apparently under the impression that that was the correct term.) Thanks for clarifying the circumstances behind the story. Somehow I got the details mixed up but I guess that’s not surprising since I was only three years old when it happened. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/76 "2018-10-17T22:15:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And many people would address black people in a manner which they thought, by their own standards, was polite. The people addressed might have had different opinions. I believe that is the important point, whatever group one is speaking of. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/77 "2018-10-17T22:34:44Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Thanks for clarifying the circumstances behind the story. Somehow I got the details mixed up but I guess that’s not surprising since I was only three years old when it happened. I was 16. I remember it being reported, as well as Agnew’s other gaffes. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/78 "2018-10-18T07:28:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > . Other than the war years, though, it was used similarly to Brits or Yanks as a headline shortener and not a slur. Here’s a 1978 article about that > **[HEADLINE RULING 'Japs' not offensive - The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995)...](https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110915915)** > > LONDON, Wednesday (AAP-Reuter)—The word "Jap" as an abbreviation for Japanese cannot be regarded as offensive or derogatory ... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/79 "2018-10-18T15:57:33Z")
> [@Cugel](#): > > Here’s a 1978 article about that > [12 Oct 1978 - HEADLINE RULING 'Japs' not offensive - Trove](https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110915915) Note that’s a report about British newspaper use, not American. Man, that OCR-rendered text is awful. > [@](#): > > Mr Victor Gorringe, the editor-in > vcnkr.oT the paper, said the abbreviation > r^Jap" conveyed only one thing, a > …'Japanese Rational. But if Jap really meant a “Japanese Rational” to everyone, there shouldn’t be any animosity. I say shouldn’t because of all those who use “Rational” as a slur. And they seem sometimes to be more than half the population. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/80 "2018-10-18T17:53:44Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > 1. Going as far back as the 19th century, there were many hardcore racists who never used the “n-word” not out of respect but because they considered it a crude and uncouth term that would only be uttered by “white trash”. > > 2. As for use of the word “Jap” fifty years ago, that was 1968. During the campaign for presidency that year, eventual-VP Spiro Agnew got into trouble for referring to the Japanese Prime Minister as a “fat Jap”. Agnew suffered no real consequences from his comment but the criticism he received indicated the term had moved into the “unacceptable” category by then. 1. ‘Hardcore racist’ though is subjective. You could argue just about everyone a few generations ago was a ‘hardcore racist’ (or just about everyone a couple a decades ago was a ‘homophobe’, not many people supported same sex marriage at that time, and people who still don’t now are often called ‘homophobes’). So it tends to go off on a tangent IMO who we are going to call ist/phobe (now or historically). I’d stick to (white) _people_ using that term. My point is just that today’s Hollywood has a certain frequency though varying by writer and subject and situation. Real life had another, though also varying. They aren’t necessarily the same though in a given situation. Today’s Hollywood period pieces are a reflection of today not only the period supposedly depicted. Same with older movies of course. 2. And relevant to the last, the point AIUI about 50 yrs is how people would view a WWII period piece using the word Jap, not how acceptable Jap was to say to somebody of Japanese origin 50yrs ago. IME (a precocious grade schooler in 1968) calling another American ‘Jap’ wasn’t close to acceptable then. That wasn’t particularly revealed by Agnew. There were not Twitter mobs and the general hysteria there is now about such things, that’s true. Which I view that as itself indeterminate between progress and regression. I know a lot people involved in that think they are crusading for what’s right and they aren’t even necessarily wrong on an individual level. But the end product I’m not so sure about anymore. Good stuff can get carried away and become bad stuff and regression not progress. I believe nowadays it often does get carried away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996.md?page=5)