Hi there! This may not be your usual question, but meh. I write fanfiction for the musical Be More Chill, and at least Jeremy Heere is confirmed to be Jewish. There's this girl, Chloe Valentine, who, until I heard the bootleg- I thought was the best character (I believed she was only trying to convince Jeremy to sleep with her- it very much was sexual harassment,at the least) Is it racist to headcanon her as Jewish?
Jewish Woman Sexually Harassing Man
I don’t know this fandom AT ALL –never even heard of it – so I’m going to punt this question to Jewish WWC readers. Do you know anything about this girl?
Here’s the stereotypes to avoid page: Jewish Characters and What to Avoid
…you’ll notice on there that the stereotype about Jewish women is actually the opposite of being sexually aggressive. There’s a stereotype about us being frigid and uninterested until someone is rich, and then maybe we’re interested if we can get bling. Which is gross, obviously, but at least it makes me think that a boundary-crossing Jewish character isn’t going to have her sexual aggression blamed on her ethnoreligion.
However, I have no idea. So let’s let people who actually know, take point on this; keep checking the notes for responses.
I will say that my general approach to marginalized characters who do bad things is “are there other representatives of their specific group in the story?” Because that goes a long way toward making one bad Jewish character or bi character or whatever else, not serve as the sum total of how that group appears in the micro-world of that individual story. That’s how I feel comfortable having dishonest or even abusive Jewish characters in A Harvest of Ripe Figs, for example – because literally the entire cast is Jewish so there are two dozen counter-examples (plus, the victims of their irresponsible behavior are also Jewish, so it doesn’t fall into some kind of “look at those Jewish characters hurting those gentile characters” thing.)
So if the show already has strong, sturdy, positive Jewish representation, I’d be more inclined to see this character as herself alone and not as “and they did include someone Jewish, but she sucks.”
–Shira
I don’t know if my input is welcome, but…
No it wouldn’t be racist (judaism is a religion not a race). Is it anti-Semitic? It can be, that is if you’re associated her Judaism with acts of sexual harassment. Chloe Valentine can very much just be a creepy asshole. However, if you see/think of her as Jewish because she’s a creepy asshole; it can most definitely be seen as anti-Semitic.
Oh! Thanks! I was tired, and used the wrong word, to clear your first point up. Secondly, I sure as hell don’t see Chloe doing that as her doing it because she’d Jewish.
