From: barmar@alum.mit.edu   
      
   In article <1e71c8d2-1d94-4825-b095-8ab6239de558n@googlegroups.com>,   
    Robby Langostino  wrote:   
      
   > On Saturday, January 28, 1995 at 6:53:00 PM UTC-5, Martin Herbst wrote:   
   > > hello out there,   
   > > last night i have seen the movie spaceballs by mel brooks with a lot of   
   > > friends of mine.   
   > > so may question ist, what is the meaning of "schwartz"?   
   >   
   > I just watched Spaceballs again since it's release, now in 2021. Let's have   
   > another go-round after 26 years.   
      
   Wow, someone actually explaining why they necro'ed a thread.   
      
   >   
   > Mel Brooks' use of "schwartz" is clearly Yiddish, not German. What's been   
   > noted above in this thread is all true. Schwartz means 'black' and schwanz   
   > means 'dick' or 'cock'.  So it is curious that Brooks' uses schwartz as if he   
   > meant schwanz. Obviously schwartz rhymes with "force" so maybe that's all   
   > there is to it.  But I wonder if there's not a bit of a racial joke in this   
   > too. It quite common for Brook's generation (and certainly earlier   
   > generations) to refer to black people as "the schwartze".  (Please note, I'm   
   > not trying to perpetuate this, just to say this was a thing.)  Could it be   
   > Brooks was deliberately conflating schwartz and schwanz and making some kind   
   > of black dick joke?  What's even more curious is that no one involved in the   
   > production, Brooks or anyone else, seems to have discussed this in the press   
   > (or at least nothing searchable on the internet). He would have had to   
   > explain this to the cast, given it's such a recurring joke in the movie.   
   >   
   > Thoughts?   
      
   I thought it was clearly a play on the age-old stereotype that   
   schwartzes have big schwanzes.   
      
   BTW, even though I'm Jewish and heard occasional Yiddish from my parents   
   and grandparents, I didn't actually know what "schwartz" meant (other   
   than it being a common Jewish surname) until I heard Gabe Kaplan's   
   standup routine. The joke that sticks with me all these decades later is:   
      
   When I was growing up I thought "schwartz" meant "bomb", because   
   everyone said that one of them could destroy a neighborhood.   
      
   --   
   Barry Margolin   
   Arlington, MA   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)