#nice jewish character showdown final round

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REMINDER -- NICE in Nice Jewish Character Showdown is not an evaluation of personality, but in quality of representation! Who do you see yourself in more?

[Image description: a graphic showing Spock from Star Trek, Kermit the Frog, and the logo for Welcome to Night Vale (representative of Cecil Palmer), with text overlayed with a semitransparent background. The text reads "Nice Jewish Character Showdown 2023: Final Round" End ID.]

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Brackets I am running:

Jewish Holiday Tournament (voting in round 3)

Shtetl Swag Competition (accepting submissions)

Ultimate Mushroom Showdown (accepting submissions)

Tanakh Sexyman (finished)

Jewish brackets I am not running but you should follow:

Tanakh Sexywoman (semifinals complete)

Nice Jewish Characters Showdown (round 2 complete)

Jewish Guys Competition (accepting submissions)

Some other brackets I'm following:

Nonbiney Swag Competition (voting in finals)

Ultimate Historical Figures Battle (round 1 complete)

Weird Girls Showdown (voting in round 1)

Wizard Tournament (voting in round 1)

Little Guys Showdown (voting in round 1)

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The votes are in, and we have a winner for the 2023 Nice Jewish Character Showdown! Let's go through the results together (and make sure you read the whole post! There's some important stuff at the bottom):

Sorry CecilSweep fans! The mysterious narrator of Welcome to Night Vale placed third this year. Of note: he was the highest ranking textually canon Jewish character for 2023, and was personally responsible for eliminating Data (TNG) and The Addams Family, amongst others.

The somewhat unexpected juggernaut of the 2023 competition, Kermit the Frog was the highest scoring of the original competitors. He seemed unstoppable through the competition, knocking out plenty of crowd favorites, including George Costanza and Rebecca Bunch.

Making a return in our redemption round, the two time competitor and 2023 champion of the Nice Jewish Character Showdown is Spock, from Star Trek! After being defeated last year by Peter Parker in the semifinals, he was able to earn a spot in 2023 by beating Fran Fine, Steven Universe, and Rebecca Bunch directly. Oh, and here's the interview that quote is from!

Thank you to everyone who voted in the competition this year, and stay tuned, because this is an annual event! This competition WILL run again in 2024, and (while I'm making no promises), some characters will be eligible for re-nomination. I'll let you know when the bracket is being made. In the meantime, feel free to tag me in any content about these Jewish icons, send other Jewish tournaments my way, etc.! I know I fell behind on character analysis posts, those will come out eventually.

In the meantime, this is NJCS, signing off.

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do you guys hear a school bus in the distance?

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no. it can't be.

FINAL ROUND: BOSS FIGHT

MS FRIZZLE VERSUS SPOCK

TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY MARCH 1ST, LIVE AT 10AM EST. 24H ONLY.

WHO WALKS AWAY WITH THE CROWN?

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Three will enter. One will leave.

Will it be: - Spock, the Original Space Jew, who brought 🖖🏻 to the wider cultural context? (Who also joined us late in the competition through the redemption round, having lost in the 2022 semifinals to Peter Parker?) - Cecil Palmer, the last Textually Canon Jew in the competition, the mystery man from the mystery sands? - or Kermit The Frog, entertainment industry icon with nerves of kugel, nominated as a representative of the Muppets as a whole and also because of the Great Frog Plague Debate?

Who is... the Nicest Jewish Character (2023)?

The final poll will go live TONIGHT, 6PM EST. It'll run for a week to give everyone a chance to vote.

Reminder, you can always tag this acct in Jewish content about these characters! I'd love to see it.

Running this tournament has been really fun, a good distraction from post-grad limbo, and (as it was last year), a good opportunity to promote a positive Jewish experience online, which we can always use more of. It's not just where we see our stories, it's where we see them done with quality, care, and kindness. That's what being a Nice Jewish Character means -- not necessarily nice as in kind, nice as in substantial. Nice as in "oh, I see myself in this narrative, that's pretty nice." These characters thrive off of the Jewish people behind the scenes who fought to make them authentic, and the fans who have pieced together the narrative threads, the people who have made media Jewish just by their consumption of it.

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Nice Jewish Character Showdown -- Round Two Analysis

We're so back. Happy Jewish-American Heritage Month! Here are the characters that got eliminated in Round Two -- and since it's been a minute, I'm linking the polls to the contestant names.

James Wilson Status: Canon Jew Mazel tov to Wilson for making it to round two, a definite improvement from last year. In the past year I’ve actually started watching ‘House’ cause of y’all, so I think this counts as a win. And his initials literally being J.E.W. is fucking iconic.

Libby Stein-Torres Status: Canon Jew I’m so glad that the legacy of iconic Disney Channel Jewish Rep continues into the modern era. What a bop.

Fox Mulder Status: Pretty Much Canon Jew “Scully, you’re gonna wanna see this.”

Sidney Prescott Status: Transitive Jew There’s something so inherently Jewish already about the final girl narrative, especially when it’s one portrayed by a Jewish actor. Especially in the ‘Scream’ franchise, where so much of the narrative revolves around not knowing who you can trust, who’s your friend and who’s your enemy. Might be a bit melodramatic, eh. At least the transitive property can apply here, thank you Neve for this absolutely iconic line — “I am a practicing Catholic, but my lineage is Jewish, so if someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I say yes”

Bugs Bunny Status: Transitive Jew Remember how Bugs once literally saved Mel Blanc’s life when he was in a coma? What a wonderful relationship between creation and creator. We could technically expand the Transitive Property out to the rest of Blanc’s character catalogue, but there’s something so right about identifying Bugs Bunny as the representative for the Mel Blanc set.

Percy Jackson Status: Interpretive Jew This one’s a bit of a brainchild, so stick with me. Is it transitive from the (underappreciated) performance of the ICONIC Logan Lerman? Yes. Is it because of all the world-saving trauma he went through at such a young age? Yes. Is it because of the iconic motif of water in Judaism? YES. Is it the way Percy always gets blamed for trouble, even stuff he had nothing to do with? Yes. But most importantly, the chutzpah. The way he, and his friends, talk back to the Greek Pantheon. The way they question authority, and the way he in particular paves his way against the fate chosen for him. Constantly fighting for a better world, even if it’s gonna put him in more danger by pissing off some powerful people. I could talk about this for hours, so pull up a chair and start listening to the Lightning Thief musical, there WILL be an essay portion to this quiz.

Seymour Krelborn Status: Canon Jew Have you EVER seen a more nebbish horror musical male lead than Seymour?

Sharpay Evans Status: Transitive Jew Once you find out Ashley Tisdale’s Jewish, the Jewish American Princess vibes radiating off of Sharpay Evans become impossible to ignore. You just KNOW she grew up in the same Hebrew School class as Troy (another Transitive Property Jew thanks to the ICONIC Zac Efron!)