Lizardfuckers are Nazis

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Title: Lizardfuckers are Nazis
Creator: Ravenamore
Date(s): 2020
Medium: Reddit
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Topic:
External Links: Lizardfuckers are Nazis; archive link
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Lizardfuckers are Nazis is a 2020 Star Trek: Deep Space 9 essay by Ravenamore on Reddit in r/HobbyDrama.

From the introduction:

So, when the "lizardfuckers are Nazis" confession came out, there was a chorus of 'OMG, it makes so much sense!' and a group of people on the sides going, 'No it fucking doesn't, are you out of your mind? Go outside and get some air - they're not even real, FFS!' Doesn't matter, Tumblr says, because EVERYONE KNOWS fiction is the same as reality, so if you'd bend over for Gul Dukat, you'd do it for Hitler!

Some Topics Discussed in the Post and Comments

From the Essay

Most Trekkies are wonderful, open-minded people. I love the Reddit DS9 community, which is very upbeat and non-judgmental.

Not so the DS9 fandom on Tumblr. It's nearly a caricature of the SJW-ness of Tumblr.

When you look at the series, it looks like there'd be very little for Tumblr to complain about. The main character's a black single dad. His second in command is a take-no-shit woman. It's the first show I'd EVER seen depict an Arab character that WASN'T a terrorist or a royal playboy. There's a pansexual woman (well, technically agender, but it's hard to explain)who was involved in another Trek first - the first same-sex kiss on TV. So on, and so forth.

But it wasn't ENOUGH for Tumblr.

Kira is hotheaded because, until a few months prior to the start of the series, her people, the Bajorans, had been occupied, religiously oppressed, enslaved, raped, and just plain brutalized by another species, the Cardassians, for 60+ years, and she herself had been a freedom fighter/terrorist.

The Cardassians are reptilian humanoids - they're greyish, tall, broad-shouldered, with crocodile-like ridges/scales around their eyes, down their neck, across their shoulders - and they're explicitly fascists.

Most of the Cardassians encountered in the show are males in the military. There's a fair number of people who find them sexually attractive, who are self-deprecating enough to jokingly call themselves "lizardfuckers."

No harm in that- people have wanted to fuck Star Trek aliens since Mr. Spock first walked across the screen in the Original Series. We all know that, people being what they are, the first thing humans will wonder whenever we have first contact with aliens is "Can I fuck them?"

The show itself encourages this - if aliens are good enough for Captain Kirk, they're good enough for us, damnit! And it's all science-fiction anyway, none of these guys are real, so it doesn't really matter which aliens people want to bone or not, right?

Hahaha, no. This is Tumblr.

When I described the Bajoran - Cardassian conflict, you probably went, "Sounds like the Bajorans are the Jews and the Cardassians are the Nazis." This is the exact parallel the show was going for, though the showrunners said you could substitute Chinese Communists vs. Tibetans, or Palestinians and Israelis or whatever oppressor vs. oppressed groups. The Holocaust, however, is going to be the first parallel most people draw.

So, a few years ago, some Trekkies got bored and came up with this "logic."

Bajorans = Jews, Cardassians = Nazis (Agreed)

Cardassians = Nazis = evil (Not quite as simple as that, but we'll roll with it.)

People want to bone other people who think exactly like they do (Uh, that's not quite how-?)

People who find Cardassians hot must think exactly like Cardassians (What?)

Therefore, all lizardfuckers are Nazis Q.E.D.

(Example confession: The wealth obsessed hypercapitalist Ferengi are obviously anti-Semitic Jewish caricatures! Jewish creator Armin Shimmerman has, for decades, said they're based on Donald Trump.)

So, when the "lizardfuckers are Nazis" confession came out, there was a chorus of "OMG, it makes so much sense!" and a group of people on the sides going, "No it fucking doesn't, are you out of your mind? Go outside and get some air - they're not even real, FFS!"

Doesn't matter, Tumblr says, because EVERYONE KNOWS fiction is the same as reality, so if you'd bend over for Gul Dukat, you'd do it for Hitler!

[...]

This started an outbreak of death threats against not only the self-confessed Cardassian fuckers, but anyone who liked their culture, wrote fanfic about them, and/or expressed even the slightest sympathy for any Cardassian characters, except Garak, who's gay.

Anyone who disagreed publicly and told them to knock of the crusade? They were lizardfucker Nazi SYMPATHIZERS, that's what, and THEY started getting death threats.

The latest iteration has gotten particularly ugly. Someone pointed out awhile back that Marc Alaimo, who played the main Cardassian bad guy Gul Dukat, has ALWAYS said the character is not actually evil, per se, but, like everyone else does in their head, thinks he's the hero of the story, and that's how he played the character.

Now they're saying that because THE ACTOR is sympathetic to Lizard Hitler HE TOO must be a Nazi.

The actor, in a recent documentary, lamented his character, who's a womanizer, never got together with a certain character, partially b/c at the time he'd had a crush on the actress playing her.

Yeah, you guessed it - he played a rapist, he said he was attracted to a woman, therefore he's probably a rapist in real life.

Fan Comments

[frellingaround]: I think I remember the actor who played Garak saying he intentionally played him as "omnisexual" (bi). But he did come across as gay to me, until that weird shoehorned romance with Ziyal. I can understand people just saying he's gay.

I don't really know that much about history, but the Bajor/Cardassia conflict made me think of the British occupation of India, because spirituality is really important to every aspect of many Bajorans' lives, and some of the Hindus I know IRL are very similar. I have not known Jewish people who were openly like that. But of course I can see that parallel as well, and my perception of what historical events the show was referencing is clearly based on my own life experiences.

The Ferengis do seem like anti-Semitic stereotypes to me, but they're a fictional culture too. On DS9, the Ferengi characters have their own personalities and goals, also, unlike (e.g.) JK Rowling's goblins. But I have no Jewish heritage, so it isn't my place to criticize it or give it a pass.

[Ravenamore, original poster] I got in arguments about everyone insisting Kira's a lesbian, because it's really clearly based on stereotypes and not by ANY action in the show.
The general thing with Mirror Universe women seems to be uninhibited bisexuality - Intendant Kira, Mirror Ezri and Mirror Leeta, Mirror Hoshi, and, now, Empress Phillipa Georgiou.
Andy Robinson did state Garak's omnisexual - people online have a tendency to reduce it down to "gay" - saying that he's more interested in if a person can be a good conversationalist rather than race, sex, or species.
He wrote about Garak's past in the novel "Stitch in Time", and Garak expresses attraction to both men and women in it. In the current DS9 novels, Garak's in a long-term relationship with a man.
Robinson and Alexander Siddig wrote a play with Garak and Bashir in it that they used to perform at conventions, where that relationship is explored in more detail, with some declarations of love.
Ira Behr said directly that EVERYONE involved with DS9 knew Garak was gay, that they should have had him come out around season 2, and that he regretted it.
To be fair, he would have had to go up against Rick Berman who, along with being completely sexist to many of the female actors on multiple series, blocked the idea of having major male characters in both Voyager AND Enterprise come out.

[LorenOlin] Oh and the heist episode with Vic is super cringey.
[Block Me Amadeus]: I fucking LOVE the Vegas heist episode. Hush your early 60s-hating mouth!

[hey hey you you]: It's not Star Trek because it's a space station and they don't trek anywhere. I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.

[jaycatt7]: I'm just psyched people care that much about a show that ended 20 years ago.

But I will say... the Cardassian apologists in fandom bother me a bit. Like, if you think they're misunderstood good guys, you're not getting the message. Dukat can be evil and see himself as the hero at the same time: it's his self-image that lets him do evil.

[duck duck grayduck]: My husband is a big DS9 fan. I told him about this thread, and after I said, "so there's this subset of fans who want to fuck the Cardassians," and he interjected with "jesus tit, they're literally Nazis, what the fuck is wrong with people."
[worm4real]: I mean there is Garak and Damar, who I think are a lot more redeemable than Dukat. Though what makes Dukat great is how good of a bad guy he is.
But do people really try to like ... justify the Occupation of Bajor?

[Nerdorama09]: The problem here is partially that what we're looking at is not "SJW" culture. It's Outrage Culture, the sort of subculture that seeks out things to be mad about so they can feel morally superior to others. That's politically agnostic and equally common among teenagers and grandparents. They Just Want To Feel Superior. It's sad, but it's human nature for people to get wrapped up in reasons to self-justify creating an outgroup. Case in point: the entire Star Wars fandom.

Also that Marc Alaimo quote is actually pretty weird. Like it's just kind of a cringey thing to say. It's a character dude, who cares who he fucks.

Also Ferengi are the perfect intersection of Donald and Redpills and I say we should see more of them in modern Trek so we can laugh at them.

[ender1200]: I agree with you that outrage culture is a big part of this, but I'd like to note that this outrage is part of a very specific flavour of outrage culture, wich is almost unique to Tumblr. This kind of outrage culture comes with distinctive tropes, themes, and justifications.
From my own experience the kind of outrage culture, have a lot to do with young people who for the first time get exposed to issues of politics, human rights and morality, who want to engage with these important issues but don't quite understand how to do so yet, or a lot of the neuance of the situation. (Examples for issues comml on Tumblr that require neuance to handle well: kinks and fetishes that have problematic real world contaminations, character shipping that would have some troubling implications if happened in the source material, claiming a popular character as a gay icon.) This than get compound by the fact that all social media is terrible at filtering bad ideas, but great at floating popular ideas to the top. Wich ideas be become popular? The ones that get stronger emotional reactions from people. Outrage is a big one, bit so are compassion and belonging. All make the reader feel good about themselves for accepting the messeg. Problem is if the message contains a bad idea there is a risk of this bad idea being parroted becoming part of the consensus of the social group.
Dismantling these bad ideas requires neuance, critical thinking and the ability to mount a good argument. All are skills that needs to be acquired over practice and time. This is why I think a lot of the more egregious examples of tumblr outrage have somewhar died down in recent years, people are learning, and there are more people who can shoot down bad ideas and point the conversation in constructive direction nowadays.

[nuclear wizard]: So Tumblr is gonna Tumblr; is this really that surprising? Regardless of whatever fandom is being discussed on Tumblr it's going to be this way, right? Seems like less drama than just a few idiots complaining on the internet. Even aside from that this write up is a bit too editorialized imo.

Also one point of contention:

"The wealth obsessed hypercapitalist Ferengi are obviously anti-Semitic Jewish caricatures! Jewish creator Armin Shimmerman has, for decades, said they're based on Donald Trump."

Armin Shimmerman played a ferengi in DS9 and arguably portrayed his character in a more complex way than they had been depicted in the past, but the race was introduced in TNG as a foil to the post-scarcity federation in the form of a race with who practice hypercapitalism as a religion with large noses and ears (all of which are traits very often seen in racist caricatures of Jewish people). Whether or not that's what ferengi characters (or the actors portraying them) in a show with them regularly appearing actually had them boiled down to or intended doesn't change the fact that their original premise invites some pretty uncomfortable comparisons between the fictional race and the myriad racist cultural depictions that the fictional alien race is "similar to". To be fair to later writers, when the TNG staff were basically waiting for Roddenberry to kick it, he got away with introducing a lot of crazy shit (seasons 1 & 2 of TNG) then they were left with all these ideas that they had to salvage.

Am I personally offended by these similarities? Does this make me reconsider watching any of the series? No on both counts. Mainly because the similarities are only surface level at their closest and comedic meta humor at their furthest (in later ferengi focused episodes), but it doesn't change the fact that they are there and some people will be offended by them.

[Ravenamore, original poster]: Hi. Armin Shimerman was not only the actor who played Quark, he (and Ira Behr) helped change Ferengi from what were intended to be the new villains of TNG and who ended up annoying goblinoids, took the TNG mentions of being greedy, and turned it into an entire culture.

He's mentioned several times, in print and at conventions, that the Ferengi were his idea of what 20th-21st century capitalism would look like if, instead of becoming the cashless socialism of the Federation, it got enshrined instead. He's specifically had Donald Trump in mind as an example. He even had Quark accuse Sisko in one episode of being prejudiced against Ferengi BECAUSE in the past humans were like them.

He's written up a book-length version of the Rules of Acquisition, a book on Ferengi legends, and wrote a DS9 novel called "The 34th Rule" (not THAT 34th Rule, thank you God, though, interestingly, Roddenberry wanted them to have giant dicks and be sexual dynamos).

He's directly stated that they're not based on anti-Semitic Jewish stereotypes. Here's something he said about it in a convention: "In America, people ask 'Do the Ferengi represent Jews?' In England, they ask 'Do the Ferengi represent the Irish?' In Australia, they ask if the Ferengi represent the Chinese[…] The Ferengi represent the outcast… it's the person who lives among us that we don't fully understand."

Ira Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe said in the DS9 documentary: "The Ferengi are us. That's the gag, the Ferengis are humans. They're more human than the humans on Star Trek because they are so screwed-up, and they are so dysfunctional. They're regular people. And that was the fun of that."

[torchwood1842]: Man, I love DS9 and had no idea this was going on. I would bet money that some of the people arguing that attraction to fictional lizard Nazi = actual Nazi are some of the same people who are attracted to Kylo Ren in Star Wars, who is a genocidal emo space nazi. But it's okay, because he's not a lizard.
[blaghart]: Just a minor clarification, Kylo Ren leads genocidal space neo nazis. As in, people who looked at nazism, its atrocities and its failings, and said "great idea, let's do that!"
A clarification I bring only because it actually makes the first order far more interesting than just another nazi analogue.

[Ravenamore, original poster]: There's a great deal of difference between caring about actual social justice - which Star Trek is indeed fantastic at, being absolutely pioneering when it came/comes to dealing with race, sex, religion, homelessness, etc. without trivializing it, talking down, or browbeating someone into it, instead of making people think- and the ironically used term "SJW" for a mentality that's more interested in APPEARING to give a shit about certain things, but are more interested in shallow temporary solutions and "diversity" based on stereotypes and enforced by guilt trips.

Jadzia Dax in "Rejoined" gets reinvolved with her widow - not a single person in show makes any comment whatsoever about them now being women. That's social justice - it was a momentous episode BECAUSE it didn't make a huge fucking deal about the sex of the people involved, the conflict being something else entirely

SJW mentality? I've seen people say "Rejoined" doesn't count as representation because the two women were both feminine, and insist Kira Nerys is real lesbian representation, because she's got a short masculine haircut and "acts" like a man. Lets leave aside the fact she has no sexual relationships with women and 3 sexual relationships with men. The idea that she's got to be a lesbian b/c she has traits associated with media stereotypes of what a lesbian looks and acts like is unalloyed horseshit and is perpetuating those hateful stereotypes. How she LOOKS is more important than what she IS. Blech.

This is, BTW, also the EXACT ISSUE with the "Ferengi = Jews" argument. Someone insistent on saying "Hey, they must be Jewish because they look like Jewish stereotypes!" despite contrary evidence, might want to consider why their first thing they think upon seeing a large nose and wealth obsession is Jews.

[Flaktrack]: I'm watching Deep Space 9 for the first time because I bought the lies when it first came out that it was boring and shitty and I must say, it's quite good. It's mature, just like TNG was, but in a different way: instead of tackling the philosophers of old, questions of what makes a person a person, ideas of justice, and the increasingly important question of Artificial Intelligence, Deep Space 9 gets into the grey zone of being on the losing side of a war, of taking actions that are arguably bad for the greater good, of what it means to be a hero and a villain and how can be both to different people at the same time. I strongly dislike the implication involved with Benny and wish they hadn't done that, but otherwise it's a great show. It does not surprise me that the grievance studies/outrage culture/social justice zealots of Tumblr would find a way to take a show whose major themes are nuance and context, and strip them away in favour of a black-or-white view from a modern context that not everyone even agrees on in the first place. They truly are ignorant and stupid people.

[Paragadeon]: The actor (Andrew Robinson) has been on record for years saying that he played Garak as omnisexual, that when he spotted Bashir he wanted to bang him. Andrew and Alexander Siddig (Bashir) wrote a shippy play they performed together and were playing the feelings up to the point they were told to step it down. Ira Steven Behr, one of the showrunners and executive producers, is on record saying he wish they'd gone for it, he wishes he'd thought to ask about it. While technically it isn't stated-in-canon that Garak was very into Bashir, there's deliberate, purposeful subtext there for it.

[squiddishly]: Yeah, they were conceived as satire of American capitalists yet somehow turned into a weird antisemitic caricature. DS9 gave them more nuance, but it was too late for me.

[ARayofLight]: Imperialism and capitalism at all cost. For those who want to claim they are meant to be anti-semetic [sic], the episode they were introduced in way back in the first season of TNG they were compared to "Yankee traders." A commentary on American capitalism if I've ever seen it.

[nekolalia]: This was a great read! I'm a big DS9 fan too and if someone doesn't get that certain Cardassians were meant to be charming and attractive, they've missed the point. Big difference between finding someone hot and agreeing with their ideology.

References

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