Antisemitism tangent (split from Kaworu return thread)

[BusterMachine4]

Eh. I see where their frustrations come from, though. Like, imagine if every depiction of a white dude in film was along the same lines as Val Kilmer in a nipple suit for Batman Forever. After so many decades of that, we’d at least start making some fun drinking games focused on that trope.

But Eva isn’t really a work like that. You have to look really deep to find anything that could be considered even mildly offensive to any marginalized minority groups, which is why I consider it pointless to try and dig up stuff like that. This is besides the point, though.

[Lavinius]

But Eva isn’t really a work like that. You have to look really deep to find anything that could be considered even mildly offensive to any marginalized minority groups, which is why I consider it pointless to try and dig up stuff like that.

I'm afraid you're not very versed in offensive stereotypes then, if you don't see how casting as antagonists a hook-nosed, money-obsessed globalist cabal who controls the media & the United Nations, who crucify children in mockery of Christ in their religious rituals and explicitly practice Judaism isn't damn questionable.

Of course, that's in the original, while in rebuild Seele have been reimagined. I would almost wonder if Anno realized his error and changed it for that reason, if it weren't for the fact that making them into the entombed consciousnesses of a predecessor civilization is so much more interesting as to justify the change by itself anyway.

(Regarding the original Eva's antisemitism, I don't think it's really best understood as having the same sort of malice attached to it as antisemitism in a western work should be seen as having. The Japanese simply don't have the same history or points of contact with the Jews as Europeans do. I suspect that to Anno et al., Jews are just another sort of westerner, and that the intention is antiwestern rather than antisemitic per se.)

[Zusuchan]

What explicit proof is there of SEELE practicing Judaism? I can't recall any. I also take issue with saying SEELE are obsessed with money-Kiel is pretty anti-materialist and their entire endgame involves the merging of humanity into a single consciousness. Everything that I know of SEELE in NGE seems to indicate they're not obsessed with money and want a world that is actually better. They're wrong, yes, but they're more akin to philosophers who decided to forcibly make their beliefs of the ideal world true, than capitalists who screw over the world...because.

Also, SEELE isn't mocking Christ in religious rituals. That may be a similarity between the necessary actions for making Instrumentality a reality and the blood libels, but they don't actually make religious rituals with the intention of mocking Christianity. I agree that basically Jewish hook-nosed world-running conglomerate are a bit...dated on Anno's behalf (though like you said, it's not really antisemitism), but those assertions you make seem more like assumptions to me.

[BusterMachine4]

Yeah, I really don’t see how the SEELE people could have been intended as an anti-Semitic stereotype on Anno’s part. Most of the stuff Lav mentioned seems like baseless assumptions, and I doubt that a guy from Japan would be very well-versed in Western stereotypes. I always thought the facial features of SEELE were intended to portray them as distinctly European, in order to contrast them with the generically white-looking Japanese characters.

We’re really getting off-topic here, though.

[Kendrix]

I see how it can be antisemitic if executed or handled in a certain way, but I must protest the notion that any global cabal, behind the scenes conspiracy etc. is immediately antisemitic.
a) Real conspiracies happen - things like the kissinger report, coups being founded by superpowers in smaller countries, the fossile fuel &... though SEELE also represents a cult... so can we not talk about those topics at all?
b) Some of this also comes out of human psychology, what produces all the fake conspiracies or makes ppl receptive to them. The ambiguous relationship of the self vs the collective, the inherent residual ambiguity of all knowledge outside the reach of our senses, or even within their reach... can we not talk about those topics at all?

For all that the 18th century ppl & their modern day hellspawn were obsessed with skin color, if you ask a person in east asia the most distinctive thing about Europeans is big noses.
Or, they're just supposed to be old & wrinkly; Noses & ears getting emphasized in older people
They re even often called "the old men" in dialogue; In how they manipulate the lives of the protags they might be seen in a sense as representing the old using up the young as a resource or leaving them a crappy world to live in.

They were probably made into monoliths from the start from the same reason that Anno started to use them half way through - to make them seem more ominous & unfathomable. He probably didn't have the idea until he started making the later eps/ it was too late to introduce them retroactively

Same for greedy fantasy creatures; You can certainly point at particular instances/portrayals that are very obviously antisemitic - But in the end fantasy creatures have two functions: To be anthropomorphic personifications of the environment or concepts (say, Mermaids = The Sea) or to represent aspects of the human psyche that are particularly emphasized - Like maybe Elves are higher beauty & romantic sentiment, angels are idealized goodness etc. Greed is part of human nature.
I can think of many instances where the greedy aliens are vaguely US American. (though there is also a tonal difference between American companies as an affectionate self parody or criticism of their own societyvs outsiders doing it)


As for Maya, you can't discuss her without the context that she is a sweet, friendly vulnerable cutie pre-timeskip.
If you flip that to it's opposite, you get a harsh boss - the takeaway here is that the last 14 years have fucked her up, or at least that enough time has passed for her to be completely changed.
I mean she's harsh with Kitakami too in the trailer. It's not so much men as green recruits, Heck maybe she's projecting a bit, being reminded of her naive younger self.
Most importantly, she's probably echoing the author's own opinions about unserious whiny youth, not being a carricaturesque enemy.

I mean ok, let's have no illusions here, this is not a show that it about lgbtq themes or geared especially at that audience;
But does it need to be? What sort of "for us or against us" mentality is that. Sometimes a piece of media is... just about a different topic.
I can understand why someone with prior trauma would be sensitive to a queer person dying in any context even if it's an everyone can die show; That is after all, how trauma works. ; There's entire websites where you can check for that (or other things that set off your trauma etc. ) to avoid it & no one should have to sit through something that upsets them because "its a classic" (same if someone who had been a victim of racism wanted to opt out o reading Moby Dick; or for someone who wished to avoid, say, ecchi content/fanservice) - but that can't mean that no queer character can die ever or its immediately a personal assault.
With more modern, more commercial shows you could certainly expect ppl to keep in mind that this is a trauma/sensitive spot especially if they're pursuing a strategy to broaden their appeal, that exists but this is super duper old & an autheur piece meant for a niche market that unexpectedly made it big; Kaworu's a dude cause he's a foil/ negative mirror image of Shinji; Much About him is ultimately subservient to his role in the plot & the concepts he's made to represent.

By which again, I don't mean "its true art so it must be a holy cow beyond reproach" but that, "this upsets me for legit reasons to do with my life experience" and "this is objectively bad" are two pair of shoes; A part of this is certainly that "It don't feel comfortable with this" doesn't get respected & gets treated as frivollous causing ppl to feel the need to find something objectively wrong

Now I don't think Kaworu is going to walk out alive because he's framed as a "tragic" character(irregardless of his romantic preferences - i'd say the same about Rei for example) but if he's in the trailer he will certainly have some role in the plot in themidpart of the story.

[Blockio]

I went ahead and split this off into its own thread; by all means continue this discussion here. Just keep in mind that like anything that can be related back to politics, keep it Eva-focused and civil

I don't have much to add here, but I'm also leaning towards Kendrix' point, I don't think that Seele was intentionally coded as antisemitic

[Zusuchan]

^Yeah, pretty much. SEELE still features some traits that come out of stereotypes and could be construed as antisemitic, but like Lavinius said, Japan has a different vantage point and it's worth pointing out the Japanese had a bit of an interest in the Jews back in the '90s. But yes, no antisemitism was certainly intended, despite what some details might make people think.

[silvermoonlight]

The thing I found strange about Seele in the original anime was them being all being white and male, as if you look at the UN in pictures even today's it's people from all countries and genders but when I watched that I felt that maybe the undertone was pointing to corrupt people with masses of money who were less than savoury, but from the perspective of a villain this makes sense as they only care about power and starting human instrumentality I can see though how someone could view them as a racist, sexist stereotype bunch who are evil and self-centred, whether it was intentional or accidental in the narrative I have no idea.

[Zusuchan]

Well, despite the world having become far more inclusive in all realms, including political ones, the fact that still remains that white hetero males have it the easiest in terms of not just gaining money, power and influence, but also keeping them. If you're a woman or not white, then it's already way harder to do that. It's different with homosexuals-I assume if you keep it hidden from the public view, it's not really that hard and shouldn't hinder your career aspirations in the slightest.

Why SEELE is entirely composed of white men is another question. Besides from the aforementioned points, I think it's also perhaps another little metaphor play-a bunch of supposedly grown-up males who actually want the entirety of humanity regressed into a childhood without anything like pain, but also anything like true happiness and feelings, because they consider a world without pain so good they're willing to do everything to get back to it, while at the same time being cock-sure about themselves and dismissive of actual women. Yui didn't get high in SEELE's list of influential people despite having connections with them. Gendo had an easier time with them, despite being constantly mistrusted. If we go by the PS2 game, then Yui is literally the daughter of a SEELE member. hey even have Lilith-their literal mother-mutilated for their own selfish goals. Is it possible SEELE are Anno's vision of the worst kinds of otaku? Hmm...The idea of SEELE as a patriarchal society of well-off males unable to tear their eyes away from a possible childhood makes sense considering the kind of person Anno is.

[kuribo-04]

I'm not touching this topic with a ten foot pole.
...Well I am.

I've always thought the antisemitism claims to be silly, attempts at finding something that isn't there (like similar claims about sexism, Anno treating the cast badly and such). Like, for some reason, people want to read this controversial stuff into Anno and his work.

I had a conversation recently with The Killer of Heroes too where it came up how the Angels' Blood Type Blue and the film they reference (according to him) show these claims don't make much sense. But I haven't seen the film myseld yet so I'll not go deeply into it.

[Lavinius]

I see how it can be antisemitic if executed or handled in a certain way, but I must protest the notion that any global cabal, behind the scenes conspiracy etc. is immediately antisemitic.

I don't mean to imply that at all. It's just that in this case the global conspiracy is composed of men who are following a Jewish prophecy, who use Jewish occult terminology and deal with godlike beings from Jewish lore, who were outright given the name of a Jewish sect in earlier drafts. These things, combined with them happening to match every other major stereotype- if they aren't supposed to be a Jewish World Conspiracy, they're at least a World Conspiracy Which Practices Judaism (in at least the same way a sexy battle nun practices Catholicism), which is quite a happenstance.

Consider also how Anno's other work contain militaristic-nationalist themes - see the articles here (to be clear, some of these points are less valid than others). I should also point out that the cyberpunk OVA Angel Cop famously goes off on an antisemitic rant in its last episode (from 1994). Notice however how the antisemitism there is mixed in synonymously with anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism, which is just what I meant when I say that the intent in Eva too is primarily antiwestern.

Obviously Seele are more than the West, Jewish or otherwise- they're also reflective of pessimistic Schopenhauer type philosophy (and perhaps even Buddhism) as opposed to the more Nietzschean (and Shintou?) view taken by characters like Misato and Yui, of patriarchal-monotheistic religion in general, as well as being a satire of the "telepathic union will bring about UNDERSTANDING and world peace" trope that you get in sci-fi like Foundation's Edge.

I always thought the facial features of SEELE were intended to portray them as distinctly European, in order to contrast them with the generically white-looking Japanese characters.

You're right that similar caricature elements occur in Japanese depictions of Europeans more broadly (Example)

The thing I found strange about Seele in the original anime was them being all being white and male.

Actually the American HIC delegate (the green one) seems to be African-American, judging by production art and his appearances in the Super Robot Wars games (I believe). It's just hard to tell given that he's glowing green. (And of course we can't really tell who's in the full 12-member council since they are, after all, Sound Only).

That said, it is interesting that the five countries on the HIC are the five countries on the UN Permanent Security Council (America, UK, France, Russia, & China, the five main victors of WWII) except that China has been removed and replaced with Germany (obviously not a victor of WWII), so that Seele is explicitly The West.

[silvermoonlight]

I've always thought the antisemitism claims to be silly, attempts at finding something that isn't there (like similar claims about sexism, Anno treating the cast badly and such). Like, for some reason, people want to read this controversial stuff into Anno and his work.

I find it really strange that they'd do that as villains are just extensions of authors works they are not reflections on how they feel in real life, as they're writing characters that repulse them, it's true that writers always put something of themselves in to their work, but they normally have a point where the full personalty does not cross over and you're just reading a facet. (Unless your JK but that's a whole other issue)

[FelipeFritschF]

Might I just say that Anno, as a fairly conservative Japanese nationalist, probably doesn't hold views that are wholly in line with what we, as mostly progressive Westerners, would expect or like from him. It's worth looking into, I guess. The Japanese right, which dominates their political landscape and has done so uninterruptedly for over 50 years, has significant influences from some Western movements, so I think it's hardly far fetched that Anno might be influenced by those cultural tropes to at least some extent.

[BusterMachine4]

Might I just say that Anno, as a fairly conservative Japanese nationalist, probably doesn't hold views that are wholly in line with what we, as mostly progressive Westerners, would expect or like from him. It's worth looking into, I guess. The Japanese right, which dominates their political landscape and has done so uninterruptedly for over 50 years, has significant influences from some Western movements, so I think it's hardly far fetched that Anno might be influenced by those cultural tropes to at least some extent.

Well, I always thought the Japanese nationalists were a pretty scummy group of people (except Anno, he’s ok), but I doubt they really care much about the Jews. They seem more concerned with fighting against the “white devil,” which the SEELE guys with their stereotypical European features (by Asian standards) definitely represent.

[kuribo-04]

fairly conservative Japanese nationalist

Is there at all a source for this?

AFAIK Anno doesn't really comment on politics, and his most political work (Shin Godzilla) seems to say

SPOILER: Show

old bureaucrats should get the hell out and let young people (and nerds) take over to make the country better.

I'd say Godzilla was patriotic, but in a pretty normal way.

[FelipeFritschF]

I'm thinking of those statements Anno made regarding women, militarism, education, etc. But I guess we can't outright pinpoint Anno's political preferences very clearly, no, though he does seem to lean that way as even though we fairly limited info on him being conservative, there isn't really anything indicating he'd be progresssive. This is a fairly old discussion, and is the first note in gwern's source anthology:

While more ‘mil­i­tary hard­ware otaku’ than any kind of real right-wing nation­al­ism like Shinzō Abe, Anno’s views tend to lean con­ser­v­a­tive, nation­al­ist, & anti-Amer­i­can.

This lean­ing col­ors some of the ear­li­est Gainax works (see the descrip­tions of their ear­li­est projects in “Otak­ing” or Notenki Mem­oirs), appears in con­ver­sa­tions dis­cussing Amer­ica (eg “Please Lis­ten To Me, Mr. Anno!”) or his fic­tional depic­tions of the USA (eg Shin Godzilla), sub­tle allu­sions to Impe­r­ial Japan/WWII (Kri­tik der Ani­ma­tion­skraft’s Gun­buster analy­sis is par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing) & admi­ra­tion for works such as Okamo­to’s Bat­tle of Oki­nawa, col­lab­o­ra­tions with the JSDF (like his 1999 train­ing video), etc.

The over­all effect is a mix of 1960s stu­dent movement/anti-base activism, anti-paci­fi­cism, and Amer­i­can mil­i­tary envy.↩︎

This is in contrast to his friend Ikuhara, for instance, a rather typical '68 (or rather, anpo toso) burnout that gave up on politics being changeable in the real world. It wouldn't surprise me if Tsurumaki, Enokido et al, as even more typical otaku, also leaned conservative. Tomino, another friend and great influence on Anno, is a more obvious and well-known case of a conservative nationalist author.

[Lavinius]

Well, I always thought the Japanese nationalists were a pretty scummy group of people (except Anno, he’s ok), but I doubt they really care much about the Jews. They seem more concerned with fighting against the “white devil,” which the SEELE guys with their stereotypical European features (by Asian standards) definitely represent.

Agreed; as I've said I get the impression that even if they do pick up on overtly antisemitic tropes they just subsume them into antiwestern animus.

This is in contrast to his friend Ikuhara, for instance, a rather typical '68 (or rather, anpo toso) burnout that gave up on politics being changeable in the real world. It wouldn't surprise me if Tsurumaki, Enokido et al, as even more typical otaku, also leaned conservative. Tomino, another friend and great influence on Anno, is a more obvious and well-known case of a conservative nationalist author.

Each is definitely their own beast and a nuanced thinker, but I'm very surprised at where you put Tomino- I'd have imagined him as pretty clearly leftist, if a bit more cynical about women perhaps than the likes of Miyazaki.

(I should add that Anno's definitely not the idiot sort of nationalist, not a war crime denier, for instance- otherwise we wouldn't have gotten EoE depicting the JSDF as fanatic thugs casually murdering noncombatants to make a point about human depravity.)

[FelipeFritschF]

Each is definitely their own beast and a nuanced thinker, but I'm very surprised at where you put Tomino- I'd have imagined him as pretty clearly leftist, if a bit more cynical about women perhaps than the likes of Miyazaki.

I was surprised too, from what little I've seen he's borderline mysonistic. You'd have to ask our Gundam experts to really have a good idea of it though. He could just be a raving old man, I guess.

I never looked into other influences Anno had, like Go Nagai. I'm reminded of that conversation they had (gettermario.dynamicforum.net/t974p15-entretien-go-nagai-hideaki-anno), and Anno's notorious statements about giving children "a little poison". That kinda leans towards a social Darwinist outlook, which is something conservatives tend to like. It's not at all a sure sign - I largely agree with his perspective on "poison" but I'm not at all conservative.

https://www.gwern.net/otaku#p-4

Miyazaki was also a socialist in his youth, though, and now is downright reactionary. There are of course many variables that apply to the Japanese political context that we should take into account before making conclusions - Miyazaki is also anti-imperialist, for instance.

[Lavinius]

Miyazaki was also a socialist in his youth, though, and now is downright reactionary. There are of course many variables that apply to the Japanese political context that we should take into account before making conclusions - Miyazaki is also anti-imperialist, for instance.

Again, I'm surprised you characterize Miyazaki as reactionary. Everything I've seen him rail about is the (correct) railings of a stern old man, but nothing that I would characterize as "right-wing" as opposed to just... a stern old man.
The left-right axis is very superficial, and when I've been speaking of it here I've been primarily thinking about attitudes to the military & foreign policy. I'd guess that Miyazaki, Tomino, & Ikuhara are all in opposition to repealing Article 9 (hence "leftist" by my account), but I wouldn't be surprised if Anno thought differently.

[UrsusArctos]

Actually the American HIC delegate (the green one) seems to be African-American, judging by production art and his appearances in the Super Robot Wars games (I believe). It's just hard to tell given that he's glowing green. (And of course we can't really tell who's in the full 12-member council since they are, after all, Sound Only).

The American HIC delegate is an odd one and I admit I never thought of him being African-American, although his appearance is fairly ambiguous. During the days of the Eva Commentary people thought he looked like an evil version of Theodore Roosevelt who was of course very white. By the way, it's why "GangstaTeddy" is written on the chalkboard banner on this site, it's a nickname for him. If Seele are meant to be a bunch of "evil imperialists" in addition to "diabolical cultists", a lookalike of the quintessential American imperialist makes more sense, don't you think?