Pygmies, Stereotyping and all that.

Erny":3710571m said:
This isn't the original article Zhu posted, the original article was a rebuttal of this article (making it the actual original article).

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.
Click to expand...

I dunno, now I totally see anti-semitic caricatures being propagated in this stuff:

13771_original.jpg


The stereotypical facial features associated with societal notions of being jewish are the principal features of this design. These are features which show up on most Dwarf models. A little green stuff and I will never want for options if I should decide to build a unit of stereotypical Rabbi caricatures.

[THE HOBBIT SPOILER WARNING]

The one Dwarf without a full beard and heavy makeup (Kili) is the basically the male love interest in this movie who will presumably get it on with the nice pure white elf lady :roll: .

[ END OF SPOILING ]
 
Big nose, gold hungry/greedy, lost their homeland and thats about all I have. Pretty superficial stuff. Then there's the superior blacksmithing/tradesmen, love of axes and hammers and Scottish accent and the whole thing starts to fall apart.

Pygmies on the otherhand... :roll:
 
I think as far as dwarves go the silly gnomes portrayed in Harry Potter to be far more offensive than Tolkien's dwarves. The citadel pygmies are offensive if someone is offended by them but I think they say more of the people who actually thought real pygmies were like that than of the people who just collect and paint them.
I think they are not offensive or racist because the stereotype they portray comes from a time when people didn't know a thing about what was happening a few miles away from their home so try to guess what they knew about what was happening thousnads miles away...
Now we're a bit more educated, I believe we can enjoy these stereotypes because they just say our ancestors were uneducated and because they say in no way that real pygmies were big lipped banana eating savages. If someone still believes this kind of crap or any racist BS of the sort then that's a totally different problem.

However offense is always in the other guy's eye so if I knew taking such models out in front of someone would hurt him or ake him feel uneasy, I'd just pull soething else out...
 
I'm not sure about that. The black face thing was not really from a time when we didn't know better.
 
Not sure why this thread is showing as being started by me, but I will say if anyone is offended by a bit of metal then more shame of you. I'll just be over there getting on with my life and not caring about what doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life.

Oh Affinity Miniatures will be releasing a range of the little buggers.. so make of that what you will :)
 
I now know I would be afraid to post my campaign thread entitled "All that Glistens" (which was my intention once I finished the current, #6) as the pygmies are featured in it, fighting battles and in little dioramas with silly names. There are dwarfs as well, and lots of pirates (living and undead), admittedly, but the pygmies play an important part and to remove the posts with them in would make the whole thing fail.

It's a weird feeling, without ever having given it any thought, simply assuming thy were another little fantasy army no more daft than halflings or goblins, to suddenly feel self conscious about them, as if they reveal some hidden nastiness lurking in my psyche. Weird.
 
Padre":iwemfffn said:
It's a weird feeling, without ever having given it any thought, simply assuming thy were another little fantasy army no more daft than halflings or goblins, to suddenly feel self conscious about them, as if they reveal some hidden nastiness lurking in my psyche. Weird.
Click to expand...

I don't think collecting/painting/gaming with pygmies makes anyone a racist, i'm pretty sure I have half a dozen somewhere myself. I don't think the Perry Twins are racists for sculpting them, nor Blanche for drawing them.
They are what they are, which unfortunately is the sole representation of African/Black people in the warhammer world, portrayed as childlike cannibals with sambo features.
They are 1980's works based on earlier 20th century stereotypes and ignorance viewed through my 21st century eye, like the black pirate in the Asterix books.
There's no 'recontextualising' to be done, no tying them to earlier proud space faring ebony demi-gods or whatever.

The issue for me is, if the argument that they are not 'racist' (for want of a better word) requires a lengthy (and for my money unconvincing) explanation, they don't fall into the same category as Dwarves that require a lengthy and weak argument to try to convince me they are.
 
Chico":39dbqecf said:
Not sure why this thread is showing as being started by me, but I will say if anyone is offended by a bit of metal then more shame of you. I'll just be over there getting on with my life and not caring about what doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life.

Oh Affinity Miniatures will be releasing a range of the little buggers.. so make of that what you will :)
Click to expand...

I try not to be offended by too much in life but why couldn't someone be offended by these models? There are people still living today who have had much different experience relating to this image than most of us (I assume).

personally I wouldn't want to own or display these models but I'm not judging anyone who doesn't share that opinion.
 
I'm with you Aiteal. I wouldn't have a problem showing my Jewish friend my dwarf army (assuming he showed any interest in miniatures) I also wouldn't have an issue discussing the actual links to European Jews that Tolkien mentions himself. Not that you'd have to be Jewish to be offended but it is a good litmus test.

I would have a problem showing friends of any colour particularly a black friend the pygmies. Now that highlights a level of hypocrisy on my part why particularly a black friend (or for that matter a Jewish friend)? That could be because I've heard the opinions my friends have on Tintin in the Congo. The hard time they had as kids in the 80's being called rubber lips, I heard it with my own ears often enough. The point being I guess something not very offensive to our largely white middle aged forum is quite different when perceived by someone with different life experiences. We live in much more enlightened times than the 80's so a hobby that hearkens back to that time will run into subjects that jar with modern outlooks.

You see this sort of thing all the time with golliwogs, people that have an innocent child memory of a much loved toy discovering that what they loved is now perceived in a less favorable light. Or more to the point the people that always perceived them as such are now listened to.

You don't need to mean to cause offense to be offensive. The big question is what do you do when you do know?
 
The 'show them to a friend of background XXXXX' test was at the front of my mind too Erny, hypocritical or not, it's what I base my judgements on, the pygmies fail that test, likewise I wouldn't in years to come be happy exposing my daughter to pneumatic titted warrior women miniatures wearing chainmail thongs in barely concealed porn star poses.
When the time comes that she progresses beyond showing a passing interest in painting one of 'Daddy's wee men' to actually playing we'll play something like Mice and Mystics together.
 
I am not convinced it is a 'big question'. These are toy soldiers, and fantasy ones at that. They are part of a world filled with goblins, demons, halflings, dwarves, etc. It's all nonsense, make believe, drawing on a whole bunch of past stories, myths, legends.

As for them being the only representation of African/Black people in Warhammer, not in my version of the world. I have black soldiers in my Arabyan army and my pirate army. I have as many white as black slave figures.

There's an interesting thing - again it's about where one draws the line. Should we represent slaves in our figures collections? Should there be slavery in our fantasy game world? Should we have cannibalism (ogres)? Mass murder (khornate cultists)? Sadomasochism (Dark Elves and Slaaneshi)? Devil worshippers of several cultish types. Maybe suggesting small people (halflings) are greedy is naughty?

There's a lot that some people would say was in bad taste. And some people would think just playing/painting toy soldiers was wasteful, stupid, crass.
 
I think there was a tournament in the US that banned chaos dwrafs bc of slavery. Very strange.

All those things are terrible in real life but their representations aren't specific to anything in history. Dark elf slaves are one thing but that black face caricature is another level.


I'm not sure you can find anyone who would say the black face image isn't inappropriate though.


And I'm very afraid that you are correct that painting miniature men is a waste of time :oops:
 
So we can caricature slavery, cannibalism, looting and demon-inspired mass murder, but not fantasy race faces? I still think the line is hazy.

It's like alternative world/history nazis. They're great cartoon villains as zombies, or space-base builders, or archaeological artefact looters. But ... nothing about the nazis, nothing at all, was good. (Erm, is this a case of Godwin's law?)

And yet ... yes. I get why some of you guys think the figures are offensive. I also get why it never occurred to me that they were: basically 'cos they were lumped in as one daft fantasy race amongst many. And not being a racist I just didn't see it.
 
This is basically a symbol of racism in the US. How is it a fantasy race face? It represents an actual group (pygmies) and a very racial stereotype from history.


I can't look at it and see anything else, but that could be very different in other parts of the world.



Dark elves killing or having slaves is not even close.


The nazi issue is interesting, but I've never give it thought. Never been into WWII games.
 
I haven't been able/willing to bring this up myself, but since we are on to it...

When I got my 2nd ed 40k boxed set I gave a squad of the marines to my best mate (we were 11 or 12) and he painted them with swastika pads and banner.
They actually looked mean as f*&@ (amateurish of course)...he gave them back to me last year and I gave them the Dettol treatment, but I toyed with the notion of redoing them and giving them back to him but took into consideration that these days he wouldn't be able to have them on the shelf.

I'm only 32, but I grew up playing with British and German army men and fighter planes and reading comics and big boy's bumper books etc where they stuck it to Jerry and the Japs etc...I don't really know how to articulate what I'm saying really.
 
The Nazi marines reminded me that the nominal heros of 40k, the Imperium, is a regime that celebrates facism. That and their corporate HQ being known as the Reichstag makes me think something is rotten in Nottingham.

Political correctness has never been gw's strong point. :grin:
 
Good lord. Slow news day?
These are fantasy pygmies from Lustria, a complete work of fiction with an Amazon jungle flavor. Lego minifigures would make a great next target as they make good fun of almost everyone...

If the pygmy ala Warhammer FANTASY concept is so volatile, I'd be slightly worried if any of you concerned citizens wandered over to the average AFV modeling forum or FoW board where someone expended creative energy on the Wiking Division...or the 23rd Infantry Division...or the Royal Engineers...

Relax & go paint. ;)
 
Chico":2lh4z1id said:
Not sure why this thread is showing as being started by me, but I will say if anyone is offended by a bit of metal then more shame of you. I'll just be over there getting on with my life and not caring about what doesn't matter in the grand scheme of life.

Oh Affinity Miniatures will be releasing a range of the little buggers.. so make of that what you will :)
Click to expand...

`Here here - live and let live :mrgreen:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top