I know in the comics, Magneto was a gypsy (which doesn’t rule out being Jewish). I refuse to see the movie, so I don’t know if they altered or clarified this fact.
TheeGrumpy,
Magneto has never been identified as a Gypsy in the comics and probably never will be. 2 reasons for this:
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In the movie and the comics, he was a prisoner at Auschwitz as a child. Jews were sent there, but Gypsies were sent elsewhere (according to a rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe FAQ; I don’t know this as a fact).
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Dr. Doom was a Gypsy, and it would be pretty bad to have Marvels two main villains both be Gypsies.
His wife Magda may have been a Gypsy and his children were raised by Gypsies, but Magneto wasn’t.
I know you didn’t mean anything by it carnivorousplant, but that’s somewhat offensive. I no longer consider myself Jewish, but I know my family would prefer not to be compared to a race of greedy, unscrupulous, opportunists, even a fictional one.
cainxinth, I am Jewish.
A southern Jew? How do you like that. I still think it was insulting to Jews.
cainxinth,
I ,Jewish as well, also always wondered if the Ferenghi were a play on Jewish stereotypes. Think the Jewish equivilent of Jar-Jar and Stepinfetchit. I just never would’ve wondered it out loud!
Several posters have nailed this one. The question is based on a faulty premise. It equates a religious orientation with race. To be “identifiably Jewish” in a movie requires going out of the way to label a character as such and playing to some Jewish streotype. To be identifiably Black in a movie, the actor just needs to be at least biracial. Well, at least have some “Black features”.
That said, if you want to play the bias game, compare races to races, and religions to religions.
Compare the ratio of Black heros to Black villians, to the ratio of White heros to White villians. The losers are native Americans here; hard to overcome decades of bad Westerns.
And for Jews compare the ratio of identified Jewish heros to villlians vs identified Lutherans, or Catholic heros to villians. Religious orientation just isn’t made a point in many villians’ personas. Jews might get a nod on the hero scale, because there have been a few movies made with Jewish themes, from the POV of a Jewish protagonist. (Depends on how you define hero, too. Think Woody Allen movies.) The ones who come out on the short stick of this comparison, methinks, is the Muslims … many more identified Muslim villians to heros. (I watch rebroadcasts of Back to the Future and cringe.)
I apologize.
Now you can apologize for “Southern Jew”. 
What about the junk dealer in The Phantom Menace?
Perhaps Karl Stromberg from The Spy Who Loved Me, but that’s just going by his last name.
I didn’t mean it as an insult. You’re just the first southern Jewish person I’ve met, outside of Flordia of course.
Gee, there’s even a Lubavitcher Rabbi here.
Nice to meet you.
I can’t dispute the truth of this, I just wonder if anyone would be making this point if the original post had asked about identifiably Jewish heroes instead of villains?
I don’t see how this applies. If we were asking about Jewish heroes, we would be looking for characters who were identifiably Jewish, not characters played by Jewish actors.
Unless you think that people would be claiming that Captain Kirk and Indiana Jones[sup]*[/sup] are Jewish because of the actors who play them.
[sup]*Harrison Ford’s mother was Jewish[/sup]
And Mr. Spock!
SpoilerVirgin,
I am, in fact, asking about Jewish characters (specifically villains), not Jewish actors. I apologize that this was not made clear in previous posts.
While I’m vaguely sympathetic to the “How can you tell they’re Jewish, not Methodist?” argument, it’s somewhat irrelevant to what I’m asking. There are characters whose ethnic identity is relevant to their characterization, and it is these characters I’m asking about.
I’m sure there are interesting films to be made about the tortured Methodist soul or the conflicted Unitarian identity, but they’re for another thread.
Why? I don’t see how that’s offensive. I mean, they were supposed to be Libyan terrorists. There was a lot of terrorisms in the 70s/80s…ergo, they were the perfect enemy. Anyway, Biff was white, so there.
Also, what about Watto from the new Star Wars movies? Although that one really does cross over from normal character to blatantly offensive stereotype…
BTW- I never realized Oswald Cobblepot in “Batman Returns” could have been construed aa Jewish…
<< How is Cobblepot supposed to be a Jewish name?!? >>
It was originally Cobblepotberg, but got changed at Ellis Island by an insensitive immigration official.
Which is just back to my earlier statement, that a comparison of black villains to Jewish villians is idiotic, since there’s no way of telling whether a particular villain Jewish or not.
Krokodil responds to that:
But you started by comparing to black villians. Do you discount villians who may be black, but their racial identity is irrelevant to their characterization? The fact is that such is almost impossible to find. The only exception I can think of is Darth Vader, who is voiced by a black actor, and who wears all black, but his racial identity is not black. Does he count as a black villain?
It seems to me the whole question is meaningless. We’ve named Jewish characters who are villains, we’ve named Jewish actors who play villains, and it’s lunacy (as well as racism) to argue that there’s a dearth of such on the grounds that “Hollywood is controlled by the Jews.”
<< How is Cobblepot supposed to be a Jewish name?!? >>
It was originally Cobblepotberg, but got changed at Ellis Island by an insensitive immigration official.
Which is just back to my earlier statement, that a comparison of black villains to Jewish villians is idiotic, since there’s no way of telling whether a particular villain Jewish or not. Names of characters are irrelevant – many “Jewish” names are German or Russian or Polish names, and you can find non-Jewish Rosenbergs, for instance, or Cohans or …
Krokodil responds that:
But you started by comparing to black villians. Do you only count black villians whose racial identity is relevant to their characterization? The fact is that merely being a black actor means they are playing a black villian.
The only exception I can think of is Darth Vader, who is voiced by a black actor, and who wears all black, but his racial identity is not black. Does he count as a black villain?
It seems to me the whole question is meaningless. We’ve named Jewish characters who are villains, we’ve named Jewish actors who play villains, and it’s lunacy (as well as racism) to argue that there’s a dearth of such on the grounds that “Hollywood is controlled by the Jews.”
Hollywood is controlled by Liberals, according to Rush Limbaugh.