# Is it racist for a World War 2 film to refer to Japanese soldiers as "Japs"?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996>\
**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:** 1\
**Showing post:** 29

<div class="post-metadata">

**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, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996/29 "2018-10-16T05:02:03Z")

</div>

> [@Any good "hard" SF that isn't depressing?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-good-hard-sf-that-isnt-depressing/822948/46):
>
> I would recommend Poul Anderson’s _The High Crusade_. Medieval Englishmen take on an interstellar empire. There are some humorous bits and an upbeat ending. Anderson wrote some stories that are upbeat and/or pretty funny and some that were tragic. His short story “Day of Burning” gives Chee Lan some funny lines and is pretty good. That story uses FTL travel, but _Tau Zero_ was firmly grounded in the hard science of the early 1970’s and has a great ending.
> 
> I recently read Connie Willis’ _The Domesday Book_, and while parts are grim, it does have an ending as upbeat as can be about the Black Death. Highly recommended.
> 
> Fritz Leiber’s novel _The Silver Eggheads_ is hilarious and has a great ending.
> 
> Someone mentioned P.J. Farmer’s Riverworld series. Try _The Maker of Universes_, the first and best of the World of Tiers series.
> 
> I agree that Heinlein, Niven, and Asimov were generally upbeat. Pournelle and Niven’s _Lucifer’s Hammer_ has an optimistic ending although much of the world gets destroyed. Someone mentioned Arthur C. Clarke and I would try _Childhood’s End_ and _The Sands of Mars_.
> 
> Also recommended are Zelazy’s _Lord of Light, Creatures of Light and Darkness_, and “The Doors of his Eyes, the Lamps of his Mouth.”

I suspect you meant this for [this thread.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=863904)

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-racist-for-a-world-war-2-film-to-refer-to-japanese-soldiers-as-japs/822996)._