Invisible Jews and Jewish monsters: Jews and Jewishness in medieval-inspired media
摘要
This article explores the invisibility of Jews in medieval-inspired films and television shows. Jews were an important part of the mix of religions and cultures in the medieval world—yet, they are almost entirely absent from on-screen representations of the Middle Ages, even in cases where their presence would enhance the accuracy of the narrative and their absence necessitates anachronisms or renders stories incomplete. The erasure of Jews from supposedly realistic medieval media narratives coexists alongside the practice of coding non-humans as Jewish in fantastical, medieval-inspired universes. Together, these intertwined practices contribute to a filmic medievalism that reinforces white nationalist visions of an exclusively white, Christian medieval past. This article explores Jewish absence in Robin Hood adaptations, crusade and Reconquista narratives, and films that obliquely reference medieval persecutions and expulsions of Jews, as well as the coding of fantastical creatures as Jewish in medieval-inspired fantasy.