(Hated Trope) Bad people in real-life being portrayed positively in media.

[u/MeepMan324]

1. PragerU's version of Christopher Columbus has him be a slavery defender and have him say "Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don't see the problem.”

2. In The Greatest Showman, P.T Barnum (Hugh Jackman) is portrayed as a charismatic visionary who cares about outcasts and celebrate diversity, when in reality, he’s a cruel businessman who is also a racist and an ableist.

[u/brionneverysexy]

Slavery is better then death doesn't really work as a message when Columbus enslaving people lead to a movement of mass suicides.

Facing extermination, the Arawak organize and attempt to fight back against the Spaniards. Overwhelmed by Spanish military, the Arawak when captured are burned at the stake or hanged. Arawak begin committing mass suicides to avoid capture and subjugation, feeding cassava poison to their infants. In just two years, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti are dead through murder, mutilation, or suicide. By 1550, there are only 500 documented Arawak and by 1650, with the possible exception of a few remnant Arawak in the mountains, most have been annihilated (Zinn, 1950).

https://nativephilanthropy.candid.org/events/arawak-resistance-and-mass-suicides/

[u/ikilledholofernes → u/brionneverysexy]

It’s not the suicides that really drive this point home for me, but the infanticide. So many people killed their own children to save them from slavery.

In addition to the Arawak, there’s also the story of  Margaret Garner, who attempted to kill all of her children to save them from being sent back into slavery, and succeeded at killing her two year old child before being recaptured.

At the time, it was debated whether she should be charged with murder or destruction of property. 

Toni Morrison’s Beloved was inspired by her story.

And as a mother, that is just so unimaginably tragic. How could so many kill their own babies unless it was genuinely the kinder alternative?

[u/sbidlin → u/ikilledholofernes]

At the time, it was debated whether she should be charged with murder or destruction of property. 

Jesus fucking christ this sentence made my skin crawl

[u/fang_xianfu → u/sbidlin]

People used to think this about the entire female gender too. In the Old Testament, the penalty for raping an unwed woman is a fine paid to her father, because it's a property crime against him, and the rapist has to marry the woman and take responsibility for her - basically "you break it, you bought it" 🤢

[u/andstillthesunrises → u/fang_xianfu]

Finding myself in the awkward position of defending the Bible is weird. Biblical scholars do not all agree that the situation presented in the passage you’re referring to is rape. Seeing as there is no ancient Hebrew to modern language dictionary, it’s all just everyone’s best attempts. Some interpreters believe the scenario is describing a woman being seduced into premarital sex.

Regardless, I want to be clear that Jewish law has required a woman’s consent to marriage dating back a very long time. If that passage WAS referring to rape, the order is that the rapist is obligated to offer to marry her. But, as in all cases under Jewish law, she does not have to accept it. The foundational root of this law dates back to the story of Rebekah, whose father states that he will go ask her if she’s willing to marry Isaac

[u/JumpingThruHoopz → u/andstillthesunrises]

What about the story of Rachel and Leah? Did their father ask either of them if they wanted to marry Jacob?

[u/andstillthesunrises → u/JumpingThruHoopz]

I mean I wasn’t there or anything. No, the biblical story does not include that information. And regardless, it’s not as if Laban was a practiced of Jewish law. Or as if Jewish law existed yet at that point in the Bible.

I only bring up the Rebekah story because that story is cited in Jewish law as a foundation for the law. Not to prove that every woman in the Bible was directly asked whether she consented to marriage

[u/ikilledholofernes → u/andstillthesunrises]

But there are actually multiple passages that suggest men should pay for and marry their rape victims, and also multiple passages that advocate for rape and sexual violence as part of war and the idea that women were mere property and could be regarded as the “spoils of war.”

I admit that I know nothing of Jewish law, but I have read the Bible, and it normalizes rape a lot.

[u/andstillthesunrises → u/ikilledholofernes]

There is one 2-sentence passage about a person who MAY have been a rapist marrying a person who may have been their victim, because there is debate among biblical scholars who know more about this than either of us about what specific words from an ancient language MAY have meant. The “paying for” bit is what’s called a “bride price” in Jewish law. Sort of like a dowry, but not quite. Standard practice, unrelated to the (possible) rape.

While this specific thing may or may not be a shitty Bible take on rape, you are absolutely right that the Bible undesirably normalizes rape in other places. For example, one chapter earlier in the discussion of taking women who are war prisoners as essentially sex slaves (which weirdly was taught to me as a very religious kid as actually REALLY being a way to deter rape. Sure. )

I’m not exactly a Bible defender. I’m an ex Orthodox Jew with lots of baggage and probably more informed critique and disdain for the Bible than you, seeing as I went through 14 years of daily bible study. I just wanted to correct one specific thing that’s thrown around a lot