@reglaargentum asked:

Hi! I’m currently writing a fanfiction about Harry Potter and one of my main characters is Jewish (for context, he’s 11yo) (also, I’m not Jewish). I researched when Chanukah began on 1972 (the year of the story) and he woud have been stuck at Hogwarts that time and away from his family, since canonly the school only follows the Christianity festivities for breaks. I had the idea that his friends could cheer him up by celebrating with him as much as they can - however, for how much I researched the festivity, I’m at loss with some things - mainly regarding if it would be something respectful to do or not and, if yes, what would be okay for them to do with and for him and what would not, since they’re not jewish children like him. For example I know eating in the kitchen the classical festivity foods would be okay, but what about, for example, lighting up a Menorah? And regarding precisely that, since I doubt there are Menorah around Hogwarts and they don’t know the Room of Necessity yet, what would be a solution? Or any other tips regarding the situation?  Thank you in advance for you answer and sorry for my english, it’s not my first language ^^

You’re off to a good start by looking up when Chanukah was in 1972 and wondering what your character would do for the holiday. Before you’re ready to write this fic, though, I need you to look up when Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Passover, and Shavuot fell in 1972. Chanukah is classified as a minor holiday on our calendar, meaning that while we love and value and cherish it and make a point of celebrating it, we aren’t forbidden to work during Chanukah, and rarely make a point of traveling to be with family then. The holidays I listed above? Those are the major holidays. Those are the days when your character would feel really bad about being away from family and even worse about not being around other Jewish people observing the holiday. 

If you’ve already looked them up, you’ve noticed that we have a dense cluster of major holidays at the time when a culturally-Christian school administration tends to be at its least sympathetic: the first two months of the school year. Well-meaning, culturally-Christian would-be allies find it easy to imagine feeling lonely or isolated during Chanukah, because that’s the time of year when they think a lot about whether they’re home or not. Consciously or not, culturally-Christian people have an instinctive sense that wintertime is the right time for the concepts of Big Holiday and Cultural Connection. They aren’t primed to feel sympathy for someone who is being forced to go to class on a major holiday, because the school isn’t willing to make allowances so early in the school year or so many in a row, or for someone who did get the day off but is missing lectures, falling behind on homework, and putting up with comments like “must be nice to think you’re special” while they sit alone in their room missing their grandmother’s cooking. 

To be Jewish in isolation in a culturally-Christian-dominated environment is to be always doing things at the “wrong time.” It’s a lot of being profoundly misunderstood by people who would like to think they would offer sympathy–and even would if they understood when it was needed. 

As far as Chanukah celebrations in 1972, it’s great for his friends to help him get candles for a menorah he surely would have brought from home or, if for some reason he didn’t, to help him improvise one out of what they can cobble together and hang out while they burn, to learn to play dreidel (and maybe even get into trouble for upping the stakes), and to help convince the house elves to make latkes and sufganiyot for dinner some night. Your character could make some lovely memories with his friends that way. It wouldn’t be a consolation for not going home to be with family because that’s the wrong time for that feeling. 

I would love to see supportive friends coming to the dawning understanding that their friend needs support in September and October and pitching in together to create a prayerful space for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, or slap together a rickety sukkah for sukkot–but maybe you’re writing this as part of a Christmas fic, and you’re not planning to show what happened two months earlier. 

In that case, the big emotional need your Jewish character is going to have is going to be a lot harder for their culturally-Christian classmates to be sympathetic for. Friends who were happy to help make Chanukah festive and even made space for Simchat Torah with their friend are now celebrating their own biggest holiday of the year together as a community, and the one person who isn’t celebrating is going to have a different kind of loneliness entirely, one that’s harder for their friends to help with. 

Frequently, well-meaning friends will try to help by including Jewish friend in their Christmas celebration, but that doesn’t address the emotional need of “I want it acknowledged that I have the right to not be celebrating this, but also I’m lonely while there’s no one around to not-celebrate with.” It’s a hard feeling to explain and a harder one to find sympathy for: it’s not that you wish your friends would include you, and it’s not that you wish your friends wouldn’t celebrate and enjoy their big holiday as much as you enjoyed yours three months earlier, so how can your friends be the ones to be there for you? 

Instead, maybe that moment can be a chance for a Jewish character to make a new friend or a new discovery. For house elves it’s a normal workday, perhaps, or maybe mermaids haven’t heard of evergreen trees, or maybe there’s one Buddhist kid he’s never hung out with before and they bond over how alienating the whole trees-and-tinsel extravaganza can get. Or maybe, spending some time alone to get a break from the overwhelming atmosphere, he makes a key discovery that moves forward the main plot. 

If the scope of your fic allows it, I strongly recommend looking up our more important holidays and their traditions and checking in again when you have a broader picture of how being away at school is working for your character during more important times than Chanukah. For a winter holiday fic though, you’re fine to have friends help make Chanukah special, but I recommend putting serious thought into what your Jewish character feels and does during Christmas.

-Meir

WWC NOTE

This answers questions about the relative importance of Chanukah compared with other Jewish holidays, and about celebrating Chanukah with gentile loved ones. We at WWC, including specifically the Jewish team, do not condone the TERF-ness (or racism, antisemitism, transphobia, or fatphobia) of JKR. We hope that the principles we used to answer this post will be useful for writers of other fandoms and for original fiction as well.

Anonymous asked:

hey there! do you mind i double-check a source with you?? i was doing some research on a Jewish/Muslim interfaith family and i found someone wrote an essay about their experiences, but i noticed something that i thought was kind of off. would a Jewish person say “the old testament” or “biblical” when referring to the overlapping stories in the torah and qur'an?? i don’t have any other reason to doubt what she’s saying other than that, but it is the internet, and anyone can lie on the internet.

I understand why that might make you concerned but because of assimilation some of us say things just because everyone else says things. I am extremely not Christian but it’s hard to train myself out of saying “Jesus!” when something makes me yelp, just because I live in the South. And it is important to me that I not do that. Your source might also be using words that their audience would best understand. But you are right to be cautious - one “tell” that you’re actually on a Christian blog is references to “Yeshua” .

–Shira

I wouldn’t use those terms, and I also don’t use “Hebrew bible,” which I see commonly, but as Shira said, your source might be trying to ensure that their audience understands. Try to find multiple sources to confirm information, always.

– Dierdra

@lymanjosh asked:

tl;dr: how to approach Jewish character as adoptive parent/patriarch of a family that ostensibly contains children from xtian backgrounds?

(this is about fandom but i take it fairly seriously and want to do it right!)

so i’m not jewish, and i portray/hc a (relatively important/main) character A as a Jewish man. character A is at the center of a large found-family network, and he has a number of children adopted + otherwise who come from a variety of backgrounds and who are variously headcanoned by other fandom members.

a lot of the time (mostly in a roleplay context, where other people have equal control over the storyline) i’ll be faced with the assumption that the family would operate by the xtian norms dominant in a us context (particularly regarding xmas.)

id like to push back against this, but i hesitate to portray character A as asking his children to share in his own customs; i don’t think it would be in character, since he is very very reserved + rarely speaks about his birth family in the source material, but even if that were something he did i don’t have much interest in writing about it, nor do i think it would be my place.

what’s a realistic way for this kind of family to navigate the holidays? i’ve done some reading about adoption of children from oppressed groups by white/gentile families, in which it’s generally best to preserve the child’s connection with their culture, but i’m not sure if it would be different in this context? i worry about implying that A has to let xtian norms into his home to some degree in order to properly parent his children. 

Hi! OK, so when I first read this ask I completely read it as Magneto and was all set to give a complex and thorough Magneto answer, and then I realized I was jumping to conclusions and asked and I was VERY wrong – this is Batman! Which is also awesome. I’m not as familiar with DC but I still enjoy this premise.

So the question becomes: how does Jewish Batman handle the holidays if Robin and whoever those other found-family kids are, are Christian. How do we give them a Christmas without having to “do” Christmas ourselves? If I were in Batman’s Bat Shoes here, I’d ask the kids what it was they wanted. In other words, what part of Christmas would they need in order to feel like they weren’t missing out. And then I’d find a way to make sure they were getting to experience it. If they wanted to go to Midnight Mass, I’d ask if (Christian?) Alfred was okay taking them, or Commissioner Gordon, or some other gentile character. If all they wanted was Christmas cookies and everyone baking as a family, I’d orchestrate that without feeling uncomfortable. If they wanted to watch a movie it would depend on how overtly Christian it was vs. something like A Muppet Christmas Carol. (Note: this is going to be a big “your mileage may vary” here because of our varying discomfort with having to participate in Christmas, so I am definitely not saying all of us are comfy with secular Christmas movies.) If they wanted a Christmas tree, remember this is Wayne Manor so there’s gonna be room for there to be a Christmas tree or even a whole Christmas room that doesn’t have to be my space or my room. If I’m Batman. (Did I really just type that sentence?

Batman is so Alone TM that this post makes me lonely for him to have other Jewish characters to do his own holidays with. But. The whole time I was in grad school I was in a situation where I was celebrating all my holidays with all gentiles, and I basically did my own thing and taught them what I was doing and why, and then had movie parties. Like for Passover we had a “deconstructed seder” where I made all the seder foods as party foods and watched Ten Commandments. That way I got to feel like I wasn’t missing out. That would be a sort of secular way that the BatFam could participate in stuff like Passover without having to actually sign up to practice a different religion.

–Shira

I only have a couple minor things to add. Firstly OP, definitely pay attention to the ‘mileage may vary’ point and, as we’ve mentioned before, listen  to many Jewish experiences of Christmas from those who engage to those who are neutral to people who have negative associations and memories about Christmas. The examples Shira gave all work, as long as they fit with Batman’s wider Jewish identity and you’re aware that whatever option you go with, many Jews will feel completely differently to your character and that’s OK too.

Similarly, Shira’s suggestions for Jewish holidays like Passover are great, but this would again depend on Batman’s denomination and personal preferences. An Orthodox seder still has plenty of room to make it your own, but with a lot more do’s and don'ts. For example, (this obviously didn’t happen in 2020 but) my dad usually heads down to the local Jewish retirement home on first night Passover and leads a kind of ‘highlights of the seder’ for the residents. All the songs they will remember from childhood, but shorter; all the food, but made a bit more palatable, as Shira also said; and all condensed into about 45 minutes. Your Batman might do something similar for his kids if they show interest in Passover. However, when my dad gets home he will still make sure he does seder night, even if he is by himself if the rest of the family are with my mum. It will depend on Batman’s denomination and beliefs as to whether he sees a condensed or modified seder as having fulfilled his religious obligation. 

–Shoshi

Periodically, I discuss the concept of cultural Christianity, the dangers of authors mucking with folklore that is not theirs, and what you have to guard against when you’re a part of a culturally Christian society.

And every time I do, like clockwork, Christians come in and say “but what about [non-Christian nation appropriating Christianity], hmmmmm????? That’s just as bad!”

So let’s talk about all of it.

Cultural Christianity

For starters: What is cultural Christianity?

Cultural Christianity is the fact the Western calendar is primarily built around two things: farming, and Christianity

Our dedicated time off that is mostly guaranteed to all workers are Christian holidays. Easter, Christmas, Good Friday. The time between Christmas and New Year is also prone to being off and this also in some dominions has Christian events.

And yes, I know that most of these holidays actually have pagan roots. Christianity co-opted them and thoroughly Christianized them, to the point their re-paganization only really started in the 1800s… by people who were also culturally Christian, and often wrote whole books on Christianity on top of their neo-pagan beliefs.

It’s how Christmas is considered a “neutral, secular” holiday, when it’s celebrating the birth of Christ. It’s how the concept of “other religions” exist, let alone the fact they have to ask for time off for their own holidays that count against their personal vacation time, when Christians often don’t have to do that. It’s how you see more churches than mosques or synagogues in the West by a very large factor.

There are very few places in the West that are not, on some level, culturally Christian. Some very insular communities might be able to escape a lot of the trappings of Christianity, but still. The government mandated days off are mostly Christian things. 

Cultural Christianity means everyone who was raised in a culturally Christian society has a Christian lens. They are aware of Christianity, its holidays, its general story, its values. 

This translates to them having to unlearn all of this and learn a whole new framework when they begin researching other folklore (Native religions, in my case, but this also applies to other religions such as Judaism and Islam) cause other folklore/religions do not have the same holidays, values, or even relationship to the deity in question.

Christian Appropriation

So in a non-Christian society, it is possible to appropriate Christianity. Because the same factors that have Christians appropriate everything else in the West are at play with a different dominant religion.

This mostly shows up in Japanese media. Japan has Shinto/Buddhism as a dominant religion, and you’ll often hear anime or manga artists say they simply picked Christian imagery because it looks cool.

And I agree this is disrespectful! It is really not fun to watch sacred imagery of your beliefs be used because “it looks cool” and I would love it if all appropriation of others’ beliefs ended.

But that often isn’t the focus of the posts getting these comments.

Derailment

This is twofold.

1- Very few places where Christianity isn’t the dominant religion exist.

Because Christian nations colonized most of the planet, there are a lot more culturally Christian places than you probably want to admit, if you’re the kind of person who pulls “but what about the appropriation.”. This includes a lot of Africa, a lot of Southeast Asia, a lot of Oceania, a lot of South America, basically all of North America, and basically all of Europe. 

You might disagree with how they practice Christianity, but they are still Christian. This means they are culturally Christian. Just not your culturally Christian.

But, as I mentioned in the previous section, appropriation can happen.
It just doesn’t happen much in the English speaking world, and I am speaking to the English speaking world. Specifically, the Western English speaking world, which is very much culturally Christian.

The places where Christianity isn’t the dominant religion, however, is mostly composed of non-white people, specifically Arab, South Asian, and East Asian. So these “but what about where Christianity is appropriated” often end up sounding like “why aren’t you persecuting people of colour”, which sounds like trying to justify racism against people over there to me.

2- You are trying to say you are as much of a victim as us, when you are not

If you live in the West, you are culturally Christian unless you have grown up very deeply entrenched in a non-Christian community.

You have grown up with a wide, wide, wide variety of Christian stories, Christian based stories, Christian values/worldviews-as-default told to you your whole life. Some of it has been terrible, some of it you disagree with, but by and large, every story has some infusion of Christianity to it. Some of the most popular fictional texts are deeply religious things, like the Chronicles of Narnia.

You have not had your religion forbidden from being practiced, to you personally.

You have only seen true appropriation in very recent times, because of the influx of non-Western media being imported.

You have not had your sacred places constantly, consistently infringed upon and destroyed for reasons like “an observatory” or “a pipeline” or “a dam” or “a mine”.

You may have dealt with misunderstandings and miscommunications but you have rarely had somebody fundamentally misunderstand what Christianity is (Jesus as lord and saviour, died for our sins, we should try to live a more godly life and a good life to get into Heaven and get eternal happiness).

Native people have not had any of those luxuries, and it has mostly been culturally Christian people who have taken what is ours and turned it into what they wanted it to be. 

We have Christian pagans (paganism was founded and codified in the Victorian era, so no, it’s not “ancient wisdom” but more Victorians—who were definitely culturally Christian—interpreting everything to prove Christianity as more universal than it was*) peddle dream catchers and calling themselves medicine people and burning sage to the point it’s endangered, all trying to claim they’re “following Native practices” when they’re not.

So when I’m speaking to somebody in the Western world, 95% of the time I will be speaking to somebody culturally Christian. 

*When you start to track the “studied ancient mysteries” things, you either find types like the Theosophical Society that wildly appropriated Hinduism and Buddhism to fit their own ends and often put in messiah figures into them to show how there’s a Christ everywhere on the planet, or you start to dive into people who took Christianized recordings of folklore who may or may not have sipped some “older religions are better for noble savages reason” juice.

It’s very often racist and pulling from records written down by missionaries who had a vested interest in modifying the folklore in question, or from people who’d already been Christianized, so its validity is questionable.

Beginning to Unlearn

If you want to learn more about cultural Christianity and how to be more respectful of non-Christian belief systems, take a look at the this post and the folklore tag in general. Those are great starting places for you to do deeper research into whatever marginalized belief you’re looking to use.

I’d also suggest earnestly learning about other belief structures’ customs, challenging your assumptions of what is neutral and universal and the proper way of doing things. You might find a lot of surprising things that you weren’t expecting, even just looking at Abrahamic religions.

In the end

When I’m speaking to somebody who wants to use Native folklore, I’m going to assume they’re culturally Christian and educate them accordingly.

I am having a conversation to Christians about the appropriation of Native culture and how not to do that.

I am not going to suddenly change topics to make Christians comfortable by proving that I’m a champion for them, because frankly, they shouldn’t be dangling respecting Natives if only they interrupt themselves to prove they’re properly educated on Christian issues. Because that demand is once again centring Christianity above Native people.

I am talking about Native issues, not Christian issues.

I do not accept derailments that are thinly veiled racism or persecution complexes based off “what if”s that have not actually happened in the West. I acknowledge they happen elsewhere, and that’s tragic. I am not the person to talk about those details. I’d rather pass the mic to Christians in the area and let them speak. They are not Western Christians’ shields to use as they will. They have a voice, as well.

I am not going to coddle people who feel that Christian values are diminishing from society because we need room for more than just Christian values and Christianity does not have a monopoly on being a good person.

I am talking about Christians appropriating Native American beliefs.

And if that makes you uncomfortable, to hear Western Christians have protection, insert their own dogma into too much, and have unlearning to do—without being able to tack on a story about how no, really, you’re a victim in the West—then you have more unlearning to do. I’ve given places to start learning above.

We are talking about Native issues right now.

And I will not stop calling Christians out for their religious-based colonialism.

~ Lesya

Hello!

I have two questions regarding previous answers you gave. Those questions are not argumentative but strictly stem from the motivation to understand the points you made and to gather information. If I say something problematic I apologize because I don’t intend to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

(Also I’m not a Native Speaker so I hope my way of phrasing is not too odd/incorrect.)

The questions concern the representation of religion in fictional, respectively, fantasy work.

My first question refers to the answer you gave in response to the wendigo ask. You stated that it is offensive to use mythical creatures from a religion that is still practised and alive at present day.

I wondered if the reasons for this are the oppressive dynamics of our Western society that lead to the fact that non-Christian believe systems are heavily discrimminated against* (and on top of that entails the consequence that Native Americans are in constant danger of their religions becoming extinct) or if it is a stance that religion should be inviolable in general out of being respectful.

* (I don’t know whether atheism or Christianity hold the general believe supremacy in the West but I am aware that when it comes to religion alone we definitely live in a Christian supremacy.)

This question occured to me because, being Christian myself, I often see how popular media uses elements (or whole stories) from the Christian faith; sometimes also not depicted in relation to Christianity (or at least “blasphemically” for some Christians’ taste). Examples would be the general use of angels/demons* as mythical creatures in popular imagery (e.g. gothic pictures) or fantasy stories (devil villain in the Power Puff Girls, angels as fantasy creatures/‘heaven’ as fantasy place in novels, games or pen and paper), Dan Brown’s thrillers that build on biblical stories (and are considered blasphemic by some Christians) or The Matrix using Jesus as inspiration for Neo.

*(I know that angels are elements of other religions as well and that Christianity adapted them from Jewish scriptures to begin with but I feel as if in the public eye angels are linked to the Bible and as thus mostly reference angels as Christian angels.)

Personally (but again I’m aware that my religion is not endangered) I’m not bothered by this if it’s not used to mock (not as in criticize but downright slander) Christianity. I view those things purely as fantasy that I uncouple from my actual belief and enjoy as mere fantasy entertainment. Also where I’m from (not the US) the general credo is that due to freedom of speech everyone is allowed to use any (public) property, no matter which iology it stems from to express their own thoughts. People entertain the idea that offending others does not necessarily equal being problematic and that it is their right to produce offending material in the context of free speech. (I’m sorry that I’m so detailed about this but I don’t know if it is similar in the US or not. I know of shows like The Simpsons or Southpark but at the same time it seems to me that simultaneously the Christian influence is much bigger in the US.)

To get back at my actual question: Would it as thus be problematic if people use Christian elements as they commonly do (often ommitting/ignoring the significance it holds in the Christian faith) in your eyes because you advocate to not offend religions in general or would it be ok in the context of free speech because Christian is not oppressed?

Also, consequently would that mean that if no religion was oppressed in our society and they were treated as Christianity commonly is today by entertainment media, it would not be problematic from a social justice perspective? (I know this question is hypothetical but want to understand the systematics behind your answer.)

—

My second question refers to something mod Shira often stated, namely that she doesn’t like it when people code something or someone as Jewish. She’d prefer if people used actuall Jewish people and Judaism instead.

My question is whether this is a general sentiment regarding the representation of religion or if it relates to something specifically rooted in Judaism (or specific problems Jewish people face).

Her answer surprised me because in the fantasy stories I have read religions have never been directly portrayed as a real world religion (say, a middle-earth themed world but people actually worship Jesus). I have only seen people making allusions to real religions by mimicking their stories and mythology and I had not only seen it for Christianity but also for other believe systems. So for some reason I always thought if you write a fantasy story that’s the way to go with religion.

I think I understand her veto if you refer to fantasy stories set up in our actual world but I wonder if it is the same for self-made worlds and if so, what the reason is. And as inititially said I also wonder whether her point should be applied to other religions as well (especially when writing fiction/fantasy in a real world setting) or if it has to do with something specifically Jewish.

Thank you very much for your time and again, sorry that my submission became so long.

Have a good day!

difficultly Blue

——-

“I also wonder whether her point should be applied to other religions as well (especially when writing fiction/fantasy in a real world setting) or if it has to do with something specifically Jewish.”

Specifically Jewish.

My frequent posts against gentile writers using coding to make characters Jew-ISH without making them Jewish are intended for a narrow reading, about Jewishness specifically, not about coding in general or even religious coding in general. All I’m trying to do is make it so that Jewish people can see ourselves in fictional characters that were constructed to share our practices, customs, beliefs, and phenotypes, without people slapping us on the wrist the way they do with slash fans saying “no! you’re just reading into things!” In other words, it’s a side effect of being a minority, first of all, and second of all a minority that in many circumstances can either pass or “plausibly pass.”

The problem with Jewish coding is that some gentiles will be all too quick to point to the lack of canonicity of explicit Jewishness as proof that the characters in question aren’t really Jewish, and that those of us finding representation in them (or disliking Christmas art of them) should shut up. People are all too ready to write fanfic about Magneto celebrating Christmas and he’s literally described as Jewish. So, that’s why explicit representation is important–can you imagine how much more prevalent that would get if his Jewishness was only coded, not overt?

Gentilewashing Jewish characters is easy to pull off because while we’re often genetically distinct it’s also not like there’s one way to look Jewish. I have “the nose” and full-bodied hair but I also have blonde hair and blue eyes. And there are plenty of us who are sorta “very light brown” with brown eyes and black, full-bodied hair but we’re certainly by no means the only demographic who looks like that, by a long shot!

Christianity is the dominant religious and in many senses cultural force in America, where I live. Therefore, when people stick Christian elements into books not explicitly labeled as Christian, there’s not an overwhelming voice of majority insisting those details are imagined and invalid. It’s that kind of plausible deniability I’m trying to avoid by speaking against “coded” Jewish characters (written by gentiles, anyway.)

I have only seen people making allusions to real religions by mimicking their stories and mythology and I had not only seen it for Christianity but also for other believe systems. So for some reason I always thought if you write a fantasy story that’s the way to go with religion.

Well, there’s definitely explicitly Christian fantasy out there, so the rules are probably more lax than you think they are :P (We may be talking at cross-purposes, though.)

–Shira

——-

Christianity is a whole different beast because it’s in a dominant religious position, therefore examples of it are everywhere and it’s not at risk of being misconstrued. You can research it and most sources are actual legitimate sources, without pop culture taking over. Not to mention how works with Christian monsters very often (in the West, at least) have the protagonist subscribe on one level or another to a Christian belief system, therefore the work basically ends up Christian without anybody realizing, because it’s so ubiquitous.

Meanwhile for marginalized religions, it ends up being “Othered monster, Christian protagonist” (because of the ubiquitous nature of Christianity, characters are often Christian even if they aren’t admittedly Christian), so you have some nasty colonialist undertones. It implies that these Othered religions are evil and the only thing that can defeat them is Christianity, which is incredibly insensitive considering these monsters have their own ways of being defeated in their own religions.

My rule of thumb tends to be: if you can search it and get mostly primary, within-community authority sources, it’s fine to mess with. But if you search it and mostly get various media wikis instead of any from-community sources, you need to be careful.

As an aside, this only applies to the Western world and the religious mixups of different areas will be different, so they have different leniencies.

~Mod Lesya

——-

I’d like to address a few specific points of you question:

Personally (but again I’m aware that my religion is not endangered) I’m not bothered by this if it’s not used to mock (not as in criticize but downright slander) Christianity. I view those things purely as fantasy that I uncouple from my actual belief and enjoy as mere fantasy entertainment. Also where I’m from (not the US) the general credo is that due to freedom of speech everyone is allowed to use any (public) property, no matter which iology it stems from to express their own thoughts. People entertain the idea that offending others does not necessarily equal being problematic and that it is their right to produce offending material in the context of free speech.

The problem is that other religions are not usually afforded this courtesy.  The Chronicles of Narnia is my go-to exemplar of how bad this can get.  The god Tash of the Calormens is basically Satan, or pure evil, and he and Calormen society are depicted as some sort of weird Islamic/Hindu/Proto-Semitic hybrid. Narnia is explicitly Christian fantasy but written for mass audience and while you can argue that this is just C.S. Lewis being a man of his times, it’s regarded as a fantasy classic that left an imprint on books to come, and that fantasy classic shows the non-Christian belief (which is at once not reflecting a real world religion and coded as many different ones—quite a feat) as wholly evil and false, to the point that Aslan (i.e. fantasy lion Jesus) says that all good-hearted Calormens are actually worshipping him (Jesus) and that all bad-hearted Narnians are actually worshipping Tash (not-Jesus).

I’m personally not opposed to religious-coding in secondary-world fantasy, but when non-Christians see something that looks kinda like our culture or religious background, we get wary, because nominal Christians can console themselves over pseudo-Christianity in fantasy by resting on Christianity’s privileged status and knowing that most readers/viewers will see that any evil done by pseudo-Christianity should not be taken as applied to real-world Christians, but non-Christians don’t have so much history of benign depictions to look back on.

It is possible to disagree, even vehemently, with the tenets of a religion (as I do, with many parts of all of them), and still take steps to not portray its adherents as overwhelmingly villainous or “stupid”.

Also, consequently would that mean that if no religion was oppressed in our society and they were treated as Christianity commonly is today by entertainment media, it would not be problematic from a social justice perspective?

Possibly, but I challenge you to show me a world where this would in fact be the case.  Christianity occupies a privileged position in western society and media, even as overall religiosity declines.  If all religions were treated as Christianity is, they would all be privileged, and that’s not logistically possible.  Were all religions equal, they would all have to be subject to equal levels of exaltation, value-neutral use of various decoupled elements, and, as you say, slander—all depictions subject to equal toleration.  Humans being humans and beliefs being the powerful motivators for human behaviors that they are, this would be to say the least, difficult.

–Nik