Jurgan writes...

Warning: This is going to deal with some heavy topics (specifically antisemitism), but I was encouraged to ask for your opinions. Please do not take this as accusatory, I'm just a long-time fan who's been thinking about some serious issues over the last few years.

When I watched Gargoyles as a kid, there was a villainous organization called the “Alu Minadi.” I later learned it was correctly spelled “Illuminati,” and that it was a staple of all sorts of genre fiction about secret societies, where it was largely interchangeable with the Freemasons. It was also commonly used as a metonym for any sort of behind the scenes string-pullers, what Angel would call “The Powers that Be.” All well and good, until I was reading an article about Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind series. I found out he believed the Illuminati was a real, very dangerous thing. I learned that they were sort of a real group that disbanded centuries ago, but many people believe they still operate in secret. Worst of all, they are almost always at least implied to be Jewish.

I was horrified to realize that Nazi rhetoric about an international conspiracy of Jewish puppetmasters was so prevalent in popular discourse. Over the last few years I've seen more and more conspiracy theories enter the mainstream, and if you scratch the surface of any of them, there's almost always antisemitism underneath. Even truly absurd ideas like “the lizard people” are often just “wink and nod” references to supposed Jewish conspiracies. The biggest right now is Qanon, which claims powerful people do all sorts of depraved things with kidnapped children. This is, of course, just a modern reworking of the ancient “blood libel.” Many of its adherents go beyond coded messages and outright say Jews (or possibly “Zionists”) are behind it all. So now whenever I hear anyone talking about “the Illuminati,” even as a joke, my antisemitism radar pops up. Sadly, it's usually right.

All that said, what am I to do with shows I love that rely on such conspiracies? Of course, I'm not accusing you of antisemitism (I can think of several reasons that'd be ridiculous, starting with your own ethnoreligious identity), but I didn't know anything about you or any of the other creators when I first saw the show. There is some irony that the character obsessed with the Illuminati is himself Jewish, though I didn't know “Bluestone” was a Jewish name at the time. Where I eventually came down is that Gargoyles has such clear anti-racist themes that it's hard to imagine anyone taking an antisemitic message from it. On my recent rewatch, I noticed the punks in M.I.A. were basically reciting Brexit talking points about immigrants ruining England, 20 years before Brexit was a thing. “Golem” puts Jewish characters in the heroic roles and opens with what I now recognize as a pogrom. Also, the characters we see involved with the Illuminati do not appear to be Jewish. Malone is presumably Italian (though I suspect his wife was Jewish), the upper leadership in the comics are mostly from Arthurian legend so probably a mix of Christianity and paganism, Shari is Arabic, and Thailog is... Thailog. And they partner with a clear KKK analog, which I doubt any Jewish organization would do. Still, people do often take perverse readings of shows. I've seen people read white supremacist messages into My Little Pony of all things. And on rare occasions I've even seen people say that Gargoyles was trying to tell the truth about the “real Illuminati.”

This all ties in to a bigger question of how much responsibility creators and artists have for the audience's interpretation. There are shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad that clearly condemn their villain protagonists, yet some fans still admire these “antiheroes.” Alan Moore has said fans tell him they identify with Rorschach, at which point he wishes he were somewhere else. I myself am worried the “sex trafficking” plotline in my unpublished novel might contribute to harmful ideas. Sex trafficking is real, to an extent, but its reality is nothing like popular beliefs, and those beliefs were part of both the 80's Satanic Panic and its modern iteration, Qanon. These questions are enough to make me (more) neurotic.

I don't exactly know what I'm asking here, just getting out some thoughts I've been kicking around. I guess the question is: what do you think your responsibility is when making a show that mostly children watch? I know you were very concerned with your portrayal of gun safety in “Deadly Force” and managed to do it in a way that “concerned parents” groups praised. There was also the need to avoid “imitable” violence, hence Duncan getting killed by a magic glowing electricity bomb. Are there any similar conversations that take place around how conspiracy theories are presented? In the 90's, conspiracy theories existed, but they were more fringe. Today, they are much more mainstream, and you're making a show whose villains are “The Light,” which is just an English translation of “Illuminati.” Even without the antisemitic baggage the name “Illuminati” has, I still worry about giving people more reason to be paranoid. I don't know how I would approach something like that, so I guess I'm tossing the question to you. Thank you for reading and for whatever response you have.