Well, this was obviously much more of a response then I was expecting. (This is my first chance to go online since I posted the OP and I was amazed to see the thread was on its second page - but I guess celebrity guest appearances can do that.)
First - Yes, I had the same interpretation everyone else had. I didn’t want to say it because I was worried I might be missing something and wanted to see what other people thought from a cold reading of the strip.
Second - Hi, Gordon, love the strip. Although my post might not have indicated this. I know from past strips that you’ve often commented on race and religion. I think the reason this one seemed different was because you usually have the comments coming from “within” (ie when a member of the race or religion being discussed is present and able to represent) rather than “without” (in this case, two non-Jewish characters apparently making non-joking comments affirming a stereotype about Jews - especially as in this case where the credits were showing they had a factual basis for their belief in a stereotype).
The strip doesn’t say that at all. The line of dialogue reads: “[Almost every single Christmas movie makes] not even the slightest attempt to say something substantial about… real life.”
The line is about Christmas movies, not Jews.
It’s not just possible – it’s intended that readers make some connections between the two ideas (shitty Christmas movies and Jews) that aren’t in the strip. They have to in order to make sense of it. I’ve already acknowledged that the strip can be interpreted any number of ways, some of which are pretty ugly (anti-semitic, if you must). That was the idea.
But the strip itself raises none of the anti-semitic “messages” that anybody here has raised – not explicitly, anyway. There is no “explicit” anti-semitic message, as you said before. Look up the word “explicit,” lissener, because you used it incorrectly.
The strip inarguably implies that the Jews in Hollywood make shitty Christmas movies. But it says nothing of why.
There are NO words in this comic strip commenting about Christmas or Jews of any kind, however, and nothing is stated about those two things. There are absolutely no words establishing any relationship between Jews and the secularization of Christmas. The characters do not even acknowledge any connection between the host of Jewish names in the credits and their musing about the sad state of Christmas movies. They don’t see it: “I wonder why that is?” is not a statement; it’s a prompt for the reader to start wondering that themselves, and to see the answer that eludes the characters right in front of their eyes. But any connection that the reader establishes between the names and the shitty Christmas movies (based on their juxtaposition) is entirely imagined by the reader.
In making any connections, or in expanding the scope of the strip beyond the subject of Christmas movies (which is kind of retarded, since it’s a movie-themed comic strip), readers have to realize that all the contextual stuff they’re bringing to the table is just that: the reader bringing it to the table, and not something that was already on the table to begin with.
Anyway, this is pointless. I don’t want to debate basic literary theory here. It’s a humor comic strip, not Shakespeare.
I’m irritated by the strip because it implies that Jews have rigged Christmas to make people spend as much money as possible (in the stores that Jews of course own), and to spend more money than they can afford, thereby taking out loans (from the banks that Jews of course own).
Gordon, are you really so tone-deaf? You picked the one ethnic group with a history of being thought to be greedy, commercial, and in control of financial institutions that ruin “poor honest ordinary folks,” and you claim it wasn’t intentional? Give me a break.
You come across as a pleasant chap who wishes to amuse.
I’m sure you’ll agree the public consciousness has been raised by various events (e.g. WW2, apartheid, civil rights campaign) so that various forms of discrimination can be spotted and dealt with.
The problem is that in turn, nasty pieces of work (like the British National Party) now use euphemisms to avoid prosecution.
So the unpleasant messages have got subtler.
Given this climate, I may well have over-reacted to your strip. However it was my honest initial reaction.
No, I’m claiming it was a joke, and plenty of people before you have successfully noticed that.
Because any intelligent, sane person would recognize that the idea that Jews had any sort of influence on the pathetic state of Christmas movies is ludicrous in the extreme. And especially so if you’re retarded enough to leap to the conclusion that they’re doing it consciously – even malevolently?!
Look, everbody. This strip is easily colored by the context in which it’s introduced. Over at IGN today, a thread started, where someone thought it was funny and posted a link. Every single response (so far) that had any discernable opinion on the strip was positive. Here, the post was started with more apprehension (“it’s generally a good strip, but…”) which sets people up for a negative reaction, and so it gets a much more mixed response.
And yet I have never once had a Jew write me and tell me they found this strip seriously, actually, offensive. But I have had one Jewish acquaintance say, without solicitation, that it was her favorite strip in the series. That’s enough for me.
I dunno. I’m Jewish, though admittedly not very strongly, and I find it hilarious. It’s just too over-the-top to discern any real hate in it - I mean, Joseph and Mary Christian played by Seth Goldberg and Nicole Levy? Friskers the Cat played by Dreidel? It’s too absurd to be anti-Semitic. I bet Jon Stewart would find it funny - he goes for these kinds of jokes all the time. Yeah, I know, it’s different when you’re part of the group you’re mocking, but Gordon does a pretty good job of making it clear there’s no real hate behind the commentary.
Speaking of which, Gordon, count me in as another who likes the comic. I wouldn’t have found it without this thread, but I blew through the archives during downtime at work. Funny stuff.
Why does one have to be Chrsitian to be able to produce an “authentic” Christmas movie? I once read a quote from some British guy who had written a really popular touching love song and he kept getting people asking him about the relationship or whatever that influenced the writing of the song and he said there was none, that he was sitting on the bog one day with a bad case of the trots and the song just came to him.
Gordon, I read the strip again. You keep saying that there are any number of possible interpretations. But the one that goes “Jews use Christmas to steal money from Christians” is kind of the elephant in the room that makes it pretty hard to see the other interpretations.
I like a lot of your stuff, but it’s time for you to admit that this one is a misfire.
That one needs a little background in the comic to realize that the dude holding the pitcher is dumber than a bag of hair, so the guy kneeling by the water fountain is screwing with him.
The fact that some people here (and many more people elsewhere) have stated that they think it’s at least pretty funny makes it not a misfire. Nobody laughs at misfires.
