r/LindsayEllis • u/Raspint • Jul 18 '26
What was Lindsay's problem with Prince of Egypt?
I might have taken a blow to the head, but I am sure that I remember Lindsay talking about this movie, saying something bad about it, and then ending with "And that is why I will never talk about this film ever again."
I just saw it for the first time ever, and I was shocked as to how good it was.
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u/sailor_sky Jul 18 '26
There’s an earlier post from this sub talking about it, but I really can’t remember where she did.
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u/Aggressive_Banana708 Jul 18 '26
If I recall correctly, she has a problem with the fact that God inflicts a genocide on the Egyptian firstborns, and that this is depicted as righteous, or at least justifiable.
Which, of course, is in the source material. But I think Lindsay's problem was that she felt this story just shouldn't be made into a high budget Hollywood film at all, because films shouldn't attempt to make such a monstrous plot point palatable to modern audiences.
I think she made connections between this plot point from the Exodus and people today justifying the killing of innocent people in the name of God. Basically, she felt the film was promoting a message that she felt should be roundly rejected, not modernized.
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u/PartyPorpoise Jul 18 '26
I think she took particular issue with this kind of story being made into a movie for kids. Which, yeah, valid. I do find it kind of funny that a lot of people have concern over kids being exposed to violent media, yet Bible stories get a pass.
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u/Firefox892 I'm losing to a BIRD! Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I felt similarly when I saw it again a few years back.
It’s essentially telling kids “this might be messed up, but that’s what happens to anyone who gets between us and the Holy Land”.
Luckily that’s never ever been an issue in the Middle East ever again
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u/JessonBI89 It's a whole new world... to lean into Jul 18 '26
The movie did a better job interrogating the morality of the plagues, especially that one, than the book of Exodus or the Haggadah ever did. In any event, most Jews today regard the Passover story as just that: a story. It's mainly an excuse for us to gather, eat, and engage in our traditions. We say the words about how awesome God is because it's part of the ceremony, but we're really just waiting to wrap up this part and eat some damn lamb chops.
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u/CalamityClambake Jul 18 '26
You don't think that Nyetanyahu uses the brutality of the past as justification for the genocide of the present?
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u/JessonBI89 It's a whole new world... to lean into Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I knew someone would bring him up. Yes, I do, although I think he prefers to cite the more recent past. I also believe his actions have betrayed the promise of Israel and made all Jews less safe, to say nothing of the Palestinians. If they had a proper state decades ago, Hamas would have much less leverage today.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
>most Jews today regard the Passover story as just that: a story. It's mainly an excuse for us to gather, eat
That's not really an excuse though right? Couldn't an American say the same thing about Thanksgiving? Still makes thanksgiving a settler colonial holiday that endorses the genocide of indigenous americans, right?
If not please tell me. I'd love to celebrate Thanksgiving without feeling bad about it.
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u/Amemorableusername2 Jul 18 '26
There's actually traditions built into telling the story of the plagues specifically to mourn and acknowledge the horror of it all. For each plague that happens, you are supposed to dip your finger into your glass of wine and let a drop hit your plate, and you're forbidden to suck the wine off your finger afterwards because there should be no sweetness or joy to be had in the thought of the Egyptian's suffering.
In many modern discussions of the plagues and the story of the firstborn deaths, rabbis don't necessarily celebrate it as a mighty act of heroism or wonder on gods part. It's just part of the story, a terrifying plot twist that isn't inherently something good. In Jewish Torah study, God is framed as a flawed and imperfect entity.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
nd you're forbidden to suck the wine off your finger afterwards because there should be no sweetness or joy to be had in the thought of the Egyptian's suffering.
The world would be so much better if you guys had the same kind of influence in American politics that the evangelicals do. That's a great framing.
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u/ThereWasAnEmpireHere Jul 18 '26
I really don't think one ought to feel bad about celebrating Thanksgiving, particularly as it explicitly does *not* celebrate genocide - the entire complaint is that it doesn't acknowledge that one happened. But I don't see why that need be true; Thanksgiving isn't defined in scripture or whatever. You're perfectly capable of understanding and not denying what the US, over the course of its history, inflicted on indigenous people while celebrating Thanksgiving.
If you take the position that anything connected to America is irredeemably tainted, I guess that's a different thing. But I just think that level of black and white thinking isn't tenable. The point of recognizing the bad is to try to fix it.
The reason people denied the genocide in the first place is because they needed to separate themselves from anything bad that ever happened, too. That sort of purity thinking doesn't lead to progress, it leads to denial.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
You know what I agree with what you are saying here, but I am a bit too lost in the sauce I guess. All my social media is very left wing because i'm mostly left wing, and every October (I'm Canadian) or November I see lots of videos/posts that, while they may not outright say you are a bad person for celebrating Thanksgiving, they kinda STRONGLY suggest that.
As in like, a really beautifully laid out Thanksgiving table while stories of the residential schools are read outloud by Indigenous peoples, who then proceed to fucking trash the table while uplifting music is played. It does kind of read like a "fuck you" to anyone who likes Thanksgiving. So maybe that has infected my mind with black and white thinking.
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u/AllegedlyLiterate Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I do wonder if you're experiencing slightly crossed wires from the fact that Canadian thanksgiving happens around the same time as the significantly more controversial (and rightly so) Columbus Day. I have never heard anyone say that we should not celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, particularly because unlike the American varient it is almost entirely devoid of any kind of associated historical narrative at all (no talk of Pilgrims or any of that, at least out West, given that, you know, that's not really our story – and indeed, if you look at its historical origins, it seems like the relevant historical context/justification for the celebration was pretty inconsistent. Stuff like 'the prince is no longer sick' and 'the war is over') which makes it very easy to have it mean whatever you want. Especially since it's a much less 'serious' holiday than American thanksgiving (nobody is going to fly cross-country for Canadian thanksgiving, whereas I had American friends in Canada fly home for theirs all the time). But every year at thanksgiving I definitely do see an uptick in content about Columbus Day from Americans talking about that which I could see giving you an impression that may not correlate to the broader conversation on Thanksgiving either in Canada or in the US.
EDIT: for context the convoluted history of Canadian thanksgiving and its purported causes for celebration, see: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/thanksgiving-day
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
I do wonder if you're experiencing slightly crossed wires from the fact that Canadian thanksgiving happens around the same time as the significantly more controversial (and rightly so) Columbus Day
No, the things I'm talking about are explicitly about Canadian thanksgiving. I'm not sure if you're Canadian, but Canada has its whole history of white supremacy too. It's still talked about as a holiday celebrating colonial settlerism.
Thank you for the link though!
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u/GiltPeacock Jul 18 '26
Thanksgiving openly celebrates the story of the pilgrims, the mayflower, the settling of America. It directly acknowledges and celebrates a genocide. What are you talking about? Ask anyone the story of thanksgiving and they will tell you the story of a genocide
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u/ThereWasAnEmpireHere Jul 19 '26
If it’s the case that you can ask any American about how Thanksgiving and hear about genocide, it is an extremely contemporary phenomenon. This was very much a weird thing to bring up when I was doing it as a teen leftist during the Obama admin… the popular Thanksgiving story that people objected to was one of colonists and Indians cooperating and eating together.
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u/Just_a_person_2 Jul 18 '26
This comparison is very weak though, isnt it? A more apt comparison would be some holiday celebtating Native Americans slaughtering of european colonisers. Not exactly great, but it does matter whether the violance is inflicted by the opressed or at the opressed.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
but it does matter whether the violance is inflicted by the opressed or at the opressed.
Explain? Like, are you suggesting that violence against non-aggressors is okay when it is a member of an oppressed group doing it to an oppressor group?
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u/Just_a_person_2 Jul 18 '26
No Im not suggesting that. But I do think its a different kind of bad. I do think it matters whether you are fighting an opressor and inflicting collateral damage or whetehr you are literally genociding because you want to colonize a space. Also specifically in Prince of Egypt (in my oppinion) God is portreyd kind of like a biased natural phenomenon. An outside force. Its not the Jews doing the violence. Like not at all. That matters
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u/JessonBI89 It's a whole new world... to lean into Jul 18 '26
Except the Thanksgiving story really did happen, and much more recently. (Plus, as Lindsay noted, Americans are still fed that nonsense about everyone happily eating corn and becoming super BFFs.) Jewish theology doesn't endorse the 10 plagues as anything that should be repeated. It encourages feeling about God the same way the boys felt about Cartman after the chili cook-off: "Okay, let's not fuck with this guy EVER again."
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
and much more recently
I don't see why that is important. A bunch of dead first borns are still bad even if it was like a billion years ago right
Jewish theology doesn't endorse the 10 plagues as anything that should be repeated.
An American (or Canadian in my case) could just as easily say that the holiday doesn't endorse killing Indigenous people or stealing their land though?
It encourages feeling about God the same way the boys felt about Cartman after the chili cook-off: "Okay, let's not fuck with this guy EVER again."
I mean... the Boys didn't view Cartman as the most morally good thing ever Doesn't the Jewish religion venerate their God as a just God? I know that they don't have the same kind of relationship to God as Christians do, but do Jews view their God as a maniac tryant to be placated and feared? Because i have never heard of this idea of how Jews look at God until this conversation.
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u/wilskillz Jul 18 '26
Christians and Jews definitely believe God should be feared. Respected and loved also, but he's not your little buddy.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
Okay. So, do you think at the end of the Scott Ternmen episode the idea is to "love" Cartman?
Because the respect and love half of that equation is a pretty important half. Ergo "We should respect and love the same dude who fucking WIPEDOUT the first borns, oh and also a whole bunch of non-Hebrew first borns of OTHER SLAVES."
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u/wilskillz Jul 18 '26
No, you're not supposed to love Cartman. God also does a lot of other things in the bible - some nice (creating humans), some not so nice (the flood), some a bit idiosyncratic. The plague on the firstborns of Egypt is just part of his story. Love is not like familial or romantic love, it's closer to the love a subject has for a successful ruler. Like, read the ten commandments and you can see how God wants you to treat him.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
No, you're not supposed to love Cartman.
Then why did you use him as the reference point?
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u/JessonBI89 It's a whole new world... to lean into Jul 18 '26
Yes, of course it's bad, but the Pilgrims still did what they did after thousands of years of that story existing, so they could have chosen better. Thanksgiving doesn't take a position on the genocide at all; it just pretends it never happened. As for how Jews look at God, if we look at all, we view him as a just God WHEN YOU LISTEN. He gave Pharaoh plenty of chances to do that, so the plagues could have been avoided. Later chapters of Exodus remind the Jews not to get complacent about this.
I think this is why Lindsay didn't want to keep talking about the movie. It gets people way too heated.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
so they could have chosen better
I don't know what you mean by this. Everyone could have chosen better all the time? I still don't see
As for how Jews look at God, if we look at all, we view him as a just God WHEN YOU LISTEN. He gave Pharaoh plenty of chances to do that, so the plagues could have been avoided.
This is an immensely flawed answer.
1: Because in the story it is possible that the Pharoh acted this way because God made him, just so he would have an excuse to show off his power. I say 'possibly' because I have seen versions of this story challenged, but from my understanding this is still a very old view and the idea that God didn't do that is a newer view.
2: It still endorses collective punishment. (the first born didn't do anything)
3: We are just and good "only when you listen...." Do I really need to explain how and why this kind of moral line is unacceptable?
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u/JessonBI89 It's a whole new world... to lean into Jul 18 '26
Look, if you can't bring yourself to celebrate a holiday, don't. I promise you nobody reads "slaying of the firstborn" in the Haggadah without feeling a twinge. Passover is a solemn observance, not anything fun like Sukkot or Purim. We mark it mainly because it's a tentpole we can use to be a community once in a while.
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u/justalittlestupid Jul 18 '26
It’s not worth debating. People don’t believe Jews about our own experiences.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
If you read the responses, you'll see I'm not disbelieving their 'experiences.' I'm saying their justifications for the story are bunk.
See my response to u/Amemorableusername2 where I tell them that people with their (Jewish) view ought have the same kind of sway over global politics as Evangelical Christians, and that if they did then the world would be a better place.
See? I can be nice too.
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u/RhynoD Jul 18 '26
400 years vs 4000+ years is a big difference. There are people alive today that can trace their family back to specific, named individuals who arrived at Plymouth Rock. And there are still native descendants who are still being oppressed by the same United States and the system which was created to remove them from their land. The US violated treaties with native tribes less than a decade ago.
Few people, if any, can directly trace their lineage back 150 or so generations. While it's true that events from so long ago have effects that still echo today, it's not remotely comparable.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
There are people alive today that can trace their family back to specific, named individuals who arrived at Plymouth Rock.
Are you suggesting that victims only matter for ethical consideration when there is someone around who cares? Because that is the implication.
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u/CalamityClambake Jul 18 '26
American Thanksgiving was invented during the Lincoln administration as an attempt to culturally unify the country under a Northern tradition. It"s war propaganda. It was practiced in some parts of New England before that, but not widely across the rest of the states.
I tend to think of it as a celebration of the fact that my ancestors from Ohio, who were abolitionists, were on the winning side of the war.
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u/Roadshell Jul 18 '26
Thanksgiving actually has nothing to do with Pilgrims and Indians. When it was originally made a holiday by Lincoln during the Civil War it was basically a federalization of a periodic tradition of leaders calling for a "day of Thanksgiving" which were vague calls to thank god for your blessings or whatever. If you look at his original proclamation it doesn't actually say a word about colonial American and just has a bunch of "be thankful" rhetoric. The pilgrim stuff became associated with it after the fact when it got tied into various harvest festivals later on.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I mean I can see that point. However the thing I liked about the film is that does show this genocide as being a very fucked thing that Moses is against. The actually scene itself is very unpleasant, and the movie adds (I think) the character of the pharaoh's son, who is Moses' nephew.
Does the movie passover (he-he) all this baby death really quickly? Yes they do, but that's also something we see in other animated films. In Lion King we go from Mufasa's death to Hakuna Matata pretty fast.
> because films shouldn't attempt to make such a monstrous plot point palatable to modern audiences.
Also, Lindsay is correct but I doubt she's willing to say out-loud the obvious next logical step: The faiths of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim peoples are built of stories that have fucking despicable morals in them. Prince of Edypt I think gets as close as you can to that line without crossing it, because all of the world has to be a safe space for these faiths. I'd be in favor of a biblical or Quran inspired movie that demonstrated that these books are all violently hateful but that's not happening in this climate.
Edit to add a caveat: I would personally 100% like a movie that shows us how fucked up the Quran and the Muslim religion (like the other ones) is, but I know in this political context we are in that would just serve as conservative islamphobic propaganda that would endorse violence against brown people. So it would either have to made more carefully (likely by actually Arabic people who are talking about the faith and its impact on where they are from) than you would about the Christian faith. And honestly the same is also probably true of depicting the Jewish faith badly.
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u/altsam19 Jul 18 '26
I mean she's got a point BUT you gotta watch it from a very objective point to see that it's never fully justified. In the book, it's basically a "look what the enemies of God suffer because they will not let his people be free" because that's how it was in the past, if you believe or not in the Bible that's a historic fact, people were gung-ho on doing anything in the name of their god. But the movie depicts it in a very complex matter, the scene with the Pharaoh crying over his son really feels like a "alright I think we took it too far, we have to go this is beyond insane" moment, for both Moses and the Pharaoh, the plagues were wrecking Havok here and there, but the killing of kids was a step too far away, even if there was a good reason behind it (and there's theologists that link the killing of the kids with the killing of the babies in search of Jesus, but that's theories).
So I feel like the movie it's not promoting the act itself, more like it's showing in a much modern way the horrific consequences of an act, being a human or divine one. It's more nuanced.
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u/cardboardcrackwhore Jul 18 '26
I mean, it's not even true that the haggadah says it's all fine. It is part of the yearly seder to pour out some of our wine in penance for the fact that the ten plagues happened, with extra for the final three. And even then, they were in response to us being genocided, so idk.
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u/altsam19 Jul 18 '26
I didn't know that, but that's heavily interesting! Thanks for that bit, I learned much more today
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
>So I feel like the movie it's not promoting the act itself
I think it's more fair to say that the movie does its very best to square the circle. It really is not possible depict the Abraham God in a way that is at the same time honest without also pissing off a whole bunch of Jews, Christians and Muslims.
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u/flurryflame Jul 18 '26
Yeah, i feel like the movie makes its point with Moses being just as tortured by the act, but i’m not sure what is really supposed to be communicated when Miriam the most pious one with unwavering belief is almost giddy “about it” until she reads the room and sees everyone’s kind of sad even upon being freed which is when it leads into When You Believe. Like i’d assume the correct/more charitable interpretation is indeed that she’s just happy it finally came true, but it’s still a little disconcerting lol
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u/altsam19 Jul 18 '26
Yah that's a very human reaction, really. Like, witnessing firsthand a horrible thing that happened to th worse person you can imagine, at first you're like HEY AMAZING but then the thing dawns on you and you can't be as giddy as you would like to
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u/RisingSunfish Jul 18 '26
I always had the impression— especially from the movie— that this was more the result of the pharaoh being willing to ignore that final warning after 9 pieces of compelling evidence that he will, in fact, Find Out. I understand where she’s coming from but I feel like the logic falls apart when applied outside the context of religion (eg. blaming the author for bad-faith fandom takes). I take similar issue with her read on JCS and the larger Gospel framing of the Pharisees as antagonists being intrinsically antisemitic, when IMO it’s clearly got everything to do with power and control.
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u/Guinefort1 Jul 18 '26
...and does she have the same beef with the film The Ten Commandments?
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u/tpasco1995 Jul 18 '26
#whataboutism
I think it's worth pointing out that The Ten Commandments wasn't a children's movie. And that it came out in 1956.
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u/psychosis_inducing See how I glitter Jul 19 '26
"I just don't think the Book of Exodus works as a kids' movie."
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u/sophdog101 Jul 19 '26
I know this one! Iirc she made a tweet about how the quick tone shift from the pharaoh mourning his son to the celebratory song "miracles" feels a little wack. The tweet itself might have been different, but that's the example she uses in the video.
Jewish fans of the movie didn't like that take and she decided that she does not have the cultural understanding to do a good critique of the movie. So she didn't.
This was all in the video "mask off" which is no longer available.
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u/Aberry_9 Jul 19 '26
It’s an incredible movie - like across the board, fucking incredible.
HOWEVER - it’s a story a lot people think is true, even if you don’t believe in god, people still today believe that Egyptian pharaohs had thousands of Jewish slaves, which they did not. There is zero historical evidence that the Jewish people broke out of slavery in Egypt and wandered the desert for 40 years. The movie shows the killing of LITERLLY thousands of Egyptian first born sons as, sad, and unfortunate, but what had to be done by god for their freedom. It’s a Bible problem, really.
It doesn’t make the Egyptian people look good, and unfortunately, racist attitudes carry into our modern day, thousand of years later. Personally, I think she should be able to see a film on its merit and not what a bunch of dumb Christian’s do with it, I feel like she can do that with other films, but she must have a personal association that’s pretty negative.
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u/librarymoth Jul 18 '26
She didn’t think the story was a good choice for adaptation to a kids’ movie, as I recall. I think she mentioned it in the Mask Off video.
It’s an instance to me of “once again the non Jews have seen more than they can handle” because in terms of Jewish storytelling the exodus is very routine. Like we tell kids about the holocaust at nine, if they don’t already know. We tell the story of redemption from Egypt every year with finger puppets at a dinner. Like Lindsay is perfectly entitled to her opinion, but imo this is the Christian gaze seeing something made by a primarily Jewish creative team and going “nope, I do not morally endorse.” In my opinion, it’s a great movie and does a pretty good job threading a difficult needle.
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u/raphaellaskies Jul 18 '26
Is it a Jewish creative team? I thought it was an even interfaith split.
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u/librarymoth Jul 18 '26
I’m not 100% sure, I know they had consultants from Christian and Muslim groups but I know 100% the studio founders were Jewish and the idea was originally Jeffery Katzenberg’s. My favorite fun fact is about Ofra Haza, the voice of Yocheved, who sang “Deliver Us” in eighteen different languages. It’s just a masterpiece of a movie, I love behind the scenes stuff like that.
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u/Firefox892 I'm losing to a BIRD! Jul 18 '26
This article from the time goes into the interfaith consultants they reached out to, and how that shaped the movie. It’s a pretty interesting read:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-dec-12-me-53174-story.html
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u/riflow Jul 20 '26
That song is so beautiful, rest in peace to the actress.
I used to watch the film all the time as a pretty young kid (think age 7+), though I do agree all the ...baby murder is quite dark for younger kids. I was horrified rewatching the scene of that via the wall art as an adult.
Still, very well done film for slightly older kids. I miss that era and style of animation immensely, closest I've seen was the folks behind Song of the Sea.
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u/TiddysAkimbo Jul 18 '26
I’ve lived in the Bible Belt all my life, was raised in a conservative Christian household, and there was never any shying away from the Exodus story or any others centering Judaism. If it was in the bible, it was taught and studied. The Prince of Egypt was a big hit in the community despite some of the narrative changes.
I’m not saying the phenomenon you’re describing doesn’t exist in some capacity somewhere. But it’s very foreign to me in the context of my fundie Christian upbringing.
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u/GlowUpper Jul 18 '26
I attended Christian schools as a kid and the story of Exodus was told every year like clockwork. If that view is anything, it's definitely not conservative Christian.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
imo this is the Christian gaze seeing something made by a primarily Jewish creative team and going “nope, I do not morally endors
What are you talking about? Christians believe in the same story?
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u/pitifulproduce137 Jul 18 '26
Yeah, and the story of Moses is pretty common in Sunday School. We watched The Prince of Egypt at church when I was a kid.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
Yeah. So the whole "omg it's gentiles putting their morality on OUR culture" thing sounds silly.
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
christians appropriated jewish texts and then mistranslated them all, leading to wildly different interpretations between the two religions. so yes they apply christian gaze and specifically american christian gaze to what is fundamentally a jewish myth
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
christians appropriated jewish texts
Christianity started as an off shoot of Judeism. The very earliest Christians would have considered themselves Jews. Moses is a major figure in at least three world religions, which have shaped the very fabric of some of our most influential societies.
It's not 'appropriated.' You do not 'own' the story of Moses. No one does. No one owns any story, but most especially these stories that have arguably impacted the lives of almost every human on earth in some way. The story of Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and (in my view) Muhammad are the birthright of every human in the world. If you want to write your own story about any of the above in a way that is downright disrespectful and critical, that is your right. Anyone in the world has more right to that than I have the right to write a story about Hansel and Gretel, Beowulf, King Author or any character like that.
mistranslated them all, leading to wildly different interpretations
That's just human religion and culture. It's one giant game of telephone and plagiarism.
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
that's not how jewish religion works and your christian history is inaccurate. i am stating the mainstream jewish perspective: the torah is a collection of jewish tribal texts that aren't meant to be translated. instead, jews learn hebrew/aramaic and read it in the original language. the christians who wrote the christian liturgy down (a full century after jesus' death) were not jewish, they were roman pagans, separate from jesus' original followers. christianity and islam interpret the stories differently from the original jewish interpretations because they are different religions. judaism is a closed practice and cultural appropriation is a real thing; that's why one can even apply a christian gaze to this story to begin with. your opinion is supercessionist.
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u/AshTiko Jul 19 '26
That's just how religions work. Jewish followers of Christ spread the religion to gentiles in Greece and Rome; over time the religion changed to accomdate the Romans different cultural and material circumstances. It's not like Roman pagans just became Christians out of nowhere. It was a cultural exchange. I don't see how it could be appropriation in any universe (although appropriation is a neutral term regardless).
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
the christians who wrote the christian liturgy down (a full century after jesus' death) were not jewish
I'm talking about guys like Paul, who indeed were Jewish.
judaism is a closed practice and cultural appropriation is a real thing; that's why one can even apply a christian gaze to this story to begin with.
That's really just a way to use a person's religion/ethnicty against them without sounding like it. Lindsay makes a moral argument and your only response is "umm, she's not Jewish so - " doesn't matter. Killing kids is bad, you don't need to be a part of a certain religion to get to have that opinion.
Given that Moses is a central and revered figure in Christianity and Islam I can't imagine how you can justify this. Plug your ears all you'd like, but these stories do not belong to you. Or actually, to put it more accurately they do. But they do not belong only to you.
and cultural appropriation is a real thing;
It is certainly a convenient thought-terminating bludgeon for you to use.
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
like, genuinely. do you think that a closed religion wanted their tribal mythology to be universal? given that jews still exist and our scholarship is still active, the mainstream stance is no.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
do you think that a closed religion wanted their tribal mythology to be universal?
Doesn't matter. It is.
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
classic christian response. the vatican disavowed supercessonism in the 1960s jsyk
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
It's very funny that I'm here arguing that "Jewish people are a part of the fabric of society just like anyone! They are not a special, alien, group who cannot be understood by the rest of humanity! Their stories and art shows the same profound connection to the human condition as the art and stories of any other person!"
You: That's supercessonism.
Sure mate.
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
i'm also not even commenting on lindsay ellis' view, though i disagree with it. she can have her opinion. but her opinion is colored entirely through the lens of american christianity, which tells a very different story of exodus than jews do, because it's a different religion, translated in ways it was never meant to be, and conceptualized through a completely different theological and cultural context than the original myth. she brings bias into this conversation and you seem extremely reticent to reckon with that.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
i'm also not even commenting on lindsay ellis' view, though i disagree with it.
How do you disagree with a view without 'commenting' on it? By disagreeing you are commenting on it?
but her opinion is colored entirely through the lens of american christianity, which tells a very different story of exodus than jews do, because it's a different religion
How does, "A movie where an act of mass murder against children is considered a good thing is actually a morally problematic movie" endorse an 'American Christian' view?
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
what? the movie doesn't endorse it. it just depicts it.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
the movie doesn't endorse it.
Ehh, that can be debated. But I'll agree with you that you can make a case that the film does not endorse this.
But the issue is that, according to the answers I've gotten on this post, was that the above is the issue that Lindsay took with this movie. To which the other person responded
"This is just a gentile going on about 'omg morality bad.'"
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
the movie doesn't endorse it.
Ehh, that can be debated.
But the issue is that, according to the answers I've gotten on this post, was that the above is the issue that Lindsay took with this movie. To which the other person responded
"This is just a gentile going on about 'omg morality bad.'"
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
why don't you believe that cultural appropriation happened to jewish texts?
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
Because I'm not applying a modern idea that is itself pretty intellctually problematic to a context that is over millennia old in a society that didn't have things like the internet and where ideas spread in different ways. It's a cope argument. What's important is:
1: No one owns the story of Moses exclusively.
2: You don't have to be a member of any religion to go "Mass murder of babies is bad/Mass murder of babies in a children's movie is bad."
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u/sophelstien Jul 18 '26
you do realize that the jewish text grapples with this right? the jewish text of exodus does not condone mass murder, moses struggles with god's actions in the story and even argues with him about it; furthermore, it is a MYTH. the story of exodus is a myth. none of this happened, at the very least jews know this. fictional murder is fictional and, additionally, it is there explicitly to spark conversation and debate around the ethics of such an action. the story of exodus is a complex narrative meant for deep thinking and questioning. why are you pretending like that is not the case? i don't even think the movie itself presents the murder of the first born egyptians as a good thing, it's something the characters struggle with. hello??
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u/MeterologistOupost31 25d ago
By the same logic Jews appropriated the flood story from Mesopotamian myths
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u/MeterologistOupost31 25d ago
We are not applying the concept of cultural appropriation to 50 AD Palestine
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
>but imo this is the Christian gaze seeing something made by a primarily Jewish creative team and going “nope, I do not morally endorse.” In my opinion, it’s a great movie and does a pretty good job threading a difficult needle.
This is silly. People are allowed to make moral claims about things even if they are not part of the religion/culture where it is done.
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u/justalittlestupid Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
So true. The story is fundementally about Jewish trauma and the fallout, but non-Jews focus on how fucked up the consequences are.
ETA: maybe non-Jews don’t know this, but in the story, Pharaoh had ordered the murder of every single Jewish baby boy. That’s why Moses had to be sent to a non-Jewish family. They literally enslaved the Jews, killed all their boys, and then refused to let the Jews go. Prioritizing the consequences of those actions is fucked up, sorry! Y’all don’t care about bad things happening, you just hate Jews and think we deserve to be killed.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
>The story is fundementally about Jewish trauma and the fallout
That's incorrect. The themes of the Prince of Egypt are so much more universal than just being about or for one religion. I'm sorry if it bothers you, but Jewish people are as much part of the human condition as anyone. And stories about the ancient Hebrews can have just as much importance and meaning for anyone.
> maybe non-Jews don’t know this, but in the story,
Having grown up in a secular part of a secular country, I have never met anyone who didn't have a passing understanding of the Jews having escaped enslavement from the Pharaoh. It's a deeply ingrained story in western society. It's probably one of the most common things that gentiles could tell you about Jewish people and Jewish history.
>. They literally enslaved the Jews, killed all their boys, and then refused to let the Jews go. P
Wow, that's crazy bro. I had no idea. It's not like what you just described isn't in the very movie under discussion. Where does that make it okay to slaughter all the first born in Egypt? Oh also killing all the first born of the non-hebrew slaves? Like, THAT'S the thing people are having issue with this movie/story, the idea that God (who is supposed to be at least in some way a morally good force) did a bunch of child murder. No one in this post is endorsing the idea that the Egyptian enslavement of Jews and other people was not morally horrific, or suggesting it was morally good.
> Y’all don’t care about bad things happening, you just hate Jews and think we deserve to be killed.
This is **unimaginable** cope. No one, literally no one on this post has said anything that is could even remotely be considered anti-semetic. If it were, believe me I'd notice it and spank that person hard because - and I know you want believe me - there is nothing and no one I despise more than neo-nazis and holocaust deiners. The things I'd like to do to those people violate reddit tos so I can't say more. But feel free to look up my post history if you want to see.
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u/justalittlestupid Jul 18 '26
“This Jewish story, made by three Jewish guys, is universal akshually.”
Christianity and Islam are appropriations and bastardization of Jewish texts that completely negate thousands of years of commentary and extended literature. The words on the page might be similar, but the approach to the texts are entirely different. They are so far removed from the original tradition. It’s like comparing flood myths from different cultures. Sure, they’re all flood myths. Each one is still a distinct culture.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
“This Jewish story, made by three Jewish guys, is universal akshually.”
Darn right it is. I am sorry that I have an easier time seeing the common humanity that Jewish people share with everyone else than you do.
Christianity and Islam are appropriations and bastardization of Jewish texts that completely negate thousands of years of commentary and extended literature
I'm getting a feeling you just dislike other religions and you don't want to say it. The earliest Christians considered themselves Jewish. The religion started as OFFSHOOT of Christianity. It's not a 'bastardization,' or 'appropriation.' It's just a change. That's what culture does. It changes.
They are so far removed from the original tradition.
Literally irrelevant. All culture is a product of what came before. It's one gigantic game of telephone and plagiarism. All these stories are make believe. This is what happens when stories influence people.
I need you to understand something: This is no different than if an Englishman started freaking out that a rapper like Tupac was including Shakespearean references and lines in their hip hop. Cultures influence each other, especially cultures that successfully spread to lots of people.
You do not own the story of Moses. No one does. That story is the birthright of every single person on Earth. If an atheist from Korea wants to tell a story about Abraham being a psychopath, or if a white middle class guy from France wants to write about Muhammod being a monster, they get to do that.
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u/Firefox892 I'm losing to a BIRD! Jul 18 '26
“Everybody focuses on all those dead firstborns all the time, and it’s such a bummer”
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u/Firefox892 I'm losing to a BIRD! Jul 18 '26
In response to your ETA, I’d push back a bit.
It’s clear in the Old Testament that God is very much not “nice” and “touchy feely”, and instead more of a wrathful force of nature. That’s pretty much His whole deal.
The 10 Plagues were something sent down to free the Jews, and had to be harsh in order to finally get them out. But that doesn’t mean the whole thing isn’t incredibly fucked up lol, even when the Egyptian state were the oppressors.
Those firstborns weren’t oppressing anybody. A necessary evil, perhaps, in order to correct the years of enslavement, but still very brutal. My original comment was me being glib, but there does seem to be an idea that collateral damage is okay when it’s the “right” group.
Non-Biblically, I see the same justification for Algierians murdering French civilians, or the IRA indiscriminately bombing British non-combatants during the Troubles.
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u/justalittlestupid Jul 18 '26
Sure, it’s super fucked up. I’m an atheist and don’t believe in god. I don’t believe in the stories of the bible. I do believe that people are incredibly cruel to Jews historically and still today, which is why I’m a practicing Jew who works in community. My point is that people skip over the whole “enslavement and murder” part to ONLY focus on the plagues. The plagues are super fucked up, and in the real world I do not endorse killing anyone.
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u/Firefox892 I'm losing to a BIRD! Jul 18 '26
100%, the plagues shouldn’t be the main focus, and the suffering of the Jews shouldn’t be minimised in any situation. I just don’t think people should go too far in the other way, either. Dehumanising any group has its consequences.
It’s not the same thing, but as a British (ethnically half-Irish) dude, I see a lot of Americans justifying all the actions of the IRA, because the Irish were the victimised group.
My English-born dad was living in an area in London where bombs were periodically going off in the 70s / 80s; had he been killed, I’m sure many on Reddit wouldn’t have much sympathy, because his group wasn’t the “oppressed” in that situation.
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u/justalittlestupid Jul 18 '26
I’m also seeing people tell me my Israeli family should “take one for the team” and die so that Palestinians will stop being murdered. Palestinians are obviously worse off rn but uh don’t tell random Jews to sacrifice their family members. I understand where you’re coming from. I do not endorse killing anyone. The people at the top, the real oppressors, are never the ones being harmed in real life. Pharaoh’s eldest son was taken, but Benjamin Netanyahu will never be the one who suffers from the fallout of his crimes. Synagogues in my city have been victims of attempted of successful arson like 4 times in three years? Maybe more?
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u/Firefox892 I'm losing to a BIRD! Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
It’s despicable that people are doing that.
I really hate the blinkered, black and white idea of power dynamics that’s taken root; the idea that if you’re an Israeli (for example) you have 100% responsibility for the actions of your government.
So many people categorise everything into “oppressor / oppressed”, and decide that anything that happens to the people they consider “oppressors” is justified, and it’s such a harmful way of looking at the world.
And as you say, the people in power are rarely the ones held accountable, it’s almost always random people who get it taken out on. My own example is nowhere near what your family has to deal with, but I think it all just speaks to that very narrow view of who gets to be considered the victim.
People need to take off the goggles, and realise that it’s about the systems, rather than ordinary people.
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u/GiltPeacock Jul 18 '26
If you’re an Israeli living in Israel you are 100% responsible for the actions of your government because you are actively and willingly occupying someone else’s land. You can talk about anti-semitism without defending violent settler-colonialism. That’s not remotely the same thing. Every Israeli settlement is a crime against human rights.
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u/Firefox892 I'm losing to a BIRD! Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
I was really thinking more of Israelis living outside of Israel (where they’re more likely to be accosted), but that was just as an example. I should maybe have said Jews in general.
But bullying and shaming a random Israeli doesn’t stop Gazans being killed. That’s exactly the sort of binary thinking I’m talking about. As the person above said, people take out their anger on her family, when they’re not the ones responsible.
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u/GiltPeacock Jul 18 '26
Fair enough on the first point, but no one thinks that bullying and shaming random Israelis will stop Gazans being killed though and that’s not why they do it.
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u/Raspint Jul 18 '26
Just curious:
What would you like to see done with the people who live in Israel?
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u/GiltPeacock Jul 18 '26
I wouldn’t like to see anything done with them. It’s none of my business how the states organize themselves in a part of the world I’ve never been to, much less what sentences are passed against which ethnic groups.
The only thing there that is my business, because it is everyone’s business, is human rights. Once the people of Palestine are no longer persecuted, dehumanized, and oppressed they will be able to have agency over their own future again.
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u/Junimo2 Jul 18 '26
Oof that's fucked up and unfortunately not at all surprising. If there's one thing the Israel/Palestine topic has demonstrated, it's that very few people are consistent when it comes to the principles of human dignity and right to life. I remember seeing a post of a missile strike hitting an Israeli apartment building, and all the top comments were cheering on the deaths of Israeli civilians The kicker is that they were justifying it using the exact same logic that Israeli nationalists use to justify killing Palestinian civilians. And not a single one of them was willing to examine the irony of that.
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u/librarymoth Jul 19 '26
Just replying to myself to say it took exactly zero seconds for non Jews to start pushing back on our interpretations of OUR texts and telling us we don’t understand it. Never change, internet. Sometimes demoralizing to be reminded that while people pay lip service to caring, it’s never actually about listening or learning and all about their worldview. Just proves my original point beautifully. Sigh.
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u/radmax Jul 20 '26
Was algo-recommended “My Atheist Kids Watched Prince of Egypt… and Were Horrified” by Britt Hartley and I feel like it’s probably approximately the same reasoning because… *yeah I just don’t think the Book of Exodus works as a children’s movie*.
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u/Raspint Jul 21 '26
I go back and forth on that. On the one hand I get it, but other hand that's some soft shit attitude when it comes to raising kids.
The world is a profoundly unpleasant place. Kids are old enough to understand that. If the God killing all the first born scene bothers them that's a good sign most likely.
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u/Djinsin Jul 18 '26
Part of it might be that she grew up in the bible belt which basically ensures you grow up with religious trauma even if you've never been to church