Pygmies, Stereotyping and all that.

Chico

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

Olean, those big lipped midgets are really well done. Very good job.
 

mbh

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

Chico":1tsfyv04 said:
Olean, those big lipped midgets are really well done. Very good job.

super racist but still a really nice job
 
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

mbh":2o2hs7a4 said:
Chico":2o2hs7a4 said:
Olean, those big lipped midgets are really well done. Very good job.

super racist but still a really nice job

Indeed, they are nicely done.

I am torn with this kind of subject matter. On the one hand it can be viewed as offensive and on the other hand it is an example of a specific art style and is not intended to be hateful. I think it is good to have it around as at least it provokes discussion and it's better than pretending it never happened.
 

mbh

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

theottovonbismark":2fbmo18e said:
mbh":2fbmo18e said:
Chico":2fbmo18e said:
Olean, those big lipped midgets are really well done. Very good job.

super racist but still a really nice job

Indeed, they are nicely done.

I am torn with this kind of subject matter. On the one hand it can be viewed as offensive and on the other hand it is an example of a specific art style and is not intended to be hateful. I think it is good to have it around as at least it provokes discussion and it's better than pretending it never happened.

probably not hateful but ignorant at the very least. I wonder if I see it differently being from the US.

but it is a really nice looking force
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

mbh":24x88uwu said:
theottovonbismark":24x88uwu said:
mbh":24x88uwu said:
Chico":24x88uwu said:
Olean, those big lipped midgets are really well done. Very good job.

super racist but still a really nice job

Indeed, they are nicely done.

I am torn with this kind of subject matter. On the one hand it can be viewed as offensive and on the other hand it is an example of a specific art style and is not intended to be hateful. I think it is good to have it around as at least it provokes discussion and it's better than pretending it never happened.

probably not hateful but ignorant at the very least. I wonder if I see it differently being from the US.

but it is a really nice looking force

neither hateful nor ignorant, long protracted rambling here: http://realmofzhu.blogspot.co.uk/2013/0 ... gmies.html

But perhaps discussion on this theme would be served better in another thread.

Nice Pygmies btw! Wish I had more time to spend on my hobbitses!
 

Padre

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

It's a fantasy world, and as such it would never have occurred to me to look for insult or bigotry. Are short, bearded men mocked when we paint bizarrely proportioned dwarfs? Are the Eastern people really mocked when we say that hobgoblins and worse live in the geographically equivalent places in our fantasy worlds? The pygmies are bizarrely proportioned, yes, but so is nearly every fantasy range. The Kallistra ones happen to be modeled from early White Dwarf illustrations, which themselves are 'inspired' by pulp fictions and old films and such. None of that is an 'excuse', just an explanation of origins. And as such it is entirely possible no nastiness was/is meant at all.

Oops. Just read that we are supposed to discuss this elsewhere. I will shut up now, and will happily delete this if anyone at all requests it.
 

Erny

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

Nastiness doesn't have top be meant. Godfrey Bloom didn't mean offense when he used the term Bongo Bongo land. It still was offensive. These pygmies fall into the same category as Bongo Bongo land and golliwogs to me. No offense necessarily meant but still offensive IMHO.

I know many people feel differently on this and I don't want to start a fight or alienate other people but after having read the subject I cannot say nothing. Please feel free to discuss as you like, post pictures as you like but in the knowledge that at least one person and likely more here find them offensive, we will just have to disagree.
 

Padre

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

I have never been a racist, not in the slightest. (Maybe when I was 7 I told Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman jokes, but that's it - that was the early 70's for ya.) I think my complete lack of racism meant I didn't see any issue with the pygmies. Just didn't occur to me - they were simply another fantasy race, populating another fantasy region, and best of all, different from the other armies I had.

I can, however, see where you are coming from. I am not daft. But are dwarfs offensive? Are stereotype/pantomime arabyans? Are hobgoblins? The 'line' is hazy, the sort of line drawn in different places by different people. I certainly don't expect my fantasy armies to mean anything, to say anything about me or my attitudes. They're just toy soldiers, and usually silly ones at that.
 

zoggin-eck

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

There you go. I won't say another word about it here, but I must admit I barely knew a thing about real-world pygmies, so have spent some of the night reading some awful tales from history and some frighteningly recent events. I don't (and didn't when I saw the earlier posts here) really consider the Warhammer pygmies as anything like people from our own world or an intentional insult, no more than the other stereotypes shown. If anyone takes offence, then fair enough I think, even if I originally didn't.

Hey Zhu, I know I'm pushing the topic but since you bring your blog post up, there was actually a mention of Warhammer Pygmies much later than 1988 in White Dwarf. A Warhammer Quest piece I believe involving orcs (I remember how awkwardly the orcs used the term pygmy, it actually took a couple of reads to notice what he was saying). Seemed really out of place in the 90's. Perhaps the same goes for the Warmaster "Jungle Halflings" given at Games Day 2003, but they were just as generic "jungle/forest men" as forest goblins, for example.

Anyway, back on topic, it's been way too hot lately for me to paint! Pretty awful here at the moment in general. The other day I had paint drying as I applied it, and the fan only made things worse, so not much progress.
 

Erny

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

I have never thought of you as a racist Padre, indeed the way you have used the figures is anything but racist. Additionally your painting style certainly diminishes the rubber lip look which I think is the problem with these figures.

My personal opinion is that I will use pygmies as allies for my slann but I will be using historical figures that don't over emphasis a physical traits that are part of a long history of mocking oppressive stereotypes. Different to hobbits and dwarves by so many degrees, nobody ever oppressed and enslaved fat short bearded white men and used there physical appearance to prove, "scientifically", and socially that they were different and deserved their treatment.
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

Erny":1j62zl9x said:
Different to hobbits and dwarves by so many degrees, nobody ever oppressed and enslaved fat short bearded white men and used there physical appearance to prove, "scientifically", and socially that they were different and deserved their treatment.

You know Tolkien based his dwarves on Jews?

Sorry, that was a bit short (pun intended), there's some illumination of it here:

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=s ... .vink.html
 
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

Zhu Bajie":dzrzzl4t said:
Erny":dzrzzl4t said:
Different to hobbits and dwarves by so many degrees, nobody ever oppressed and enslaved fat short bearded white men and used there physical appearance to prove, "scientifically", and socially that they were different and deserved their treatment.

You know Tolkien based his dwarves on Jews?

Sorry, that was a bit short (pun intended), there's some illumination of it here:

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=s ... .vink.html


Intriguing, I never made that connection.

I had read your article before on the Pygmys Zhu. It's a very interesting read.
 

mbh

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

Erny":12grnux9 said:
Nastiness doesn't have top be meant. Godfrey Bloom didn't mean offense when he used the term Bongo Bongo land. It still was offensive. These pygmies fall into the same category as Bongo Bongo land and golliwogs to me. No offense necessarily meant but still offensive IMHO.

I know many people feel differently on this and I don't want to start a fight or alienate other people but after having read the subject I cannot say nothing. Please feel free to discuss as you like, post pictures as you like but in the knowledge that at least one person and likely more here find them offensive, we will just have to disagree.

Pretty much this

But I should never have opened my big mouth. I don't think anyone here was trying to be offensive. Apologies
 

Erny

Member
Re: The "How to do Oldhammer" Thread

This is a very interesting subject. Totally off topic and the topic doesn't deserve the sustained derailing that is happening. Perhaps we should start a new thread.
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
To avoid the further derailing of the How to Oldhammer I've opened this up here. Hopefully the mods can split the "racism" part off and add it to this thread?

Regarding the idea of dwarves being Jewish caricatures, the earlier article was a resoponse to an article "Dwarves are not Heroes" by Rebecca Brackmann, which can be read in full here.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/%22Dwarve ... 0227196960

So if we accept this idea (which I do, btw, if not Brackmanns full theory), and that this may have been knowingly* or unknowingly replicated into post-Tolkien fantasy, then there isn't really any difference to the stereotyping of Pygmies.

*I think there is an argument that the Assyrian "Big Hat Chaos Dwarf" is directly a Semitic reference, largely because of the beards, not the hats, and shows a knowingness about the Semitic origins of the Dwarf but maybe not
 

weazil

Moderator
Hi all

Just so you know, I've moved the posts I think were related (including some of the kind comments as regarding the painting) to this topic here, as requested by Zhu. I appreciate there might be a bit of a context break for new readers, which is why I thought I'd post here - just to let you know that some posts have been moved from the How To Do Oldhammer thread to here.
 

Erny

Member
This isn't the original article Zhu posted, the original article was a rebuttal of this article (making it the actual original article).

I'd need to read the full article and rebuttal but it would certainly appear that as Tolkien worked out a culture for his creations, originally inspired by Norse mythology, he found himself leaning on Jewish stereotypes revolving around diaspora, craftsmanship, money lending and otherness.
I don't know if the article goes into the Dwarven origins as being created not by Illuvitar but Aule but that would also fall in line with anti-antisemitism if Tolkien regarded Dwarves as Jews and was saying they were not of the one true god. The question is did he see them as archetypal Jewish figures or was the Jewish experience one of many inspirations to the homogenous whole he ended up creating. It isn't anti-Semitic after all to point out that European Jews did have to form their own communities, were regarded as outside Christendom and often for good reason had to maintain a more secretive culture. He did use Icelandic names for them so clearly there is some cross pollination of ideas going on.

What I don't see in dwarven miniatures is anti-semitic caricatures of facial features directly analogous to the big lips of the pigmies, this is exactly how racist societies drew black African tribes. I don't know of any examples where the Jewish people have been drawn as rotund, bearded viking dwarfs. I don't want to dismiss this idea purely because I love fantasy dwarves and find the thought uncomfortable. Equally I don't want to accept it on the basis of one little known paper.
 

Aiteal

Member
Regarding the dwarves/Jews thing, I dare say you could find something offensive to someone if you looked long enough and hard enough.
You only have to glance at the pygmies to see the problem however. I don't buy the idea that they can be 'recontextualised' based on a WFRP scenario, no more than a alternate/hypothetical range of c30 amazons that wore nothing but thongs with gravity defying tits could be redeemed by some supporting fluff that they were all in fact learned academics.
 
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