I don’t know jack about the nuts and bolts of the American education machine, but I’d assume most of the major players and top administrators, the text book manufacturer big wigs, and the people setting the curriculum on a national level are old white dudes. I know most superintendents are male.
So they’re statisically over-represented to a similar extent left-handers are in the halls of power and pro baseball. BFD
That’s sounds sinister to me!
CMC fnord! Left hander, who’s neither in the Halls of Power or any kind of baseball.
LOL, thanks, Jack!
Comparing the list that’s shown at the link and this public list of upper management:
http://www.sonypictures.com/corp/management.html
I am thinking that Leah Weil and Hannah Minghella are going to come out of this affair with a raise.
In his great book The Pyramid Climbers, Vance Packard (Vance Packard - Wikipedia) commented extensively on how corporations were quite often exclusive to one religion or another. So you had Catholic companies, WASP companies, Jewish companies, etc. The strictness of the exclusion varied from company to company, but it was fairly prevalent back in the 60s when he wrote the book.
And if we look at the history of the US, we find that ethnic groups, being pushed out of one thing, found ways to be dominant in another. The despised Irish became cops in many cities, for example. African-Americans made up 100% of the porters on Pullman sleeping railroad cars (a pretty nice job) despite being horribly discriminated against in many other areas.
So it is disingenuous to say, “The Jooz control Hollywood!” They made up a huge percentage of the entertainers in Vaudeville (not a high-prestige job) and leveraged that in the movie-making business. And if you are going to talk about what Jews control, then you have to ask what WASPs control, and so on. Jewish people are nothing special in that regard.
A fair question to ask, as it would be of any ethnic group with a high percentage of members in any industry, is do Jews favor members of their own ethnic group in choosing people to be successful in that industry? I.e., nepotism, etc. People being people, there is probably some of that going on. Just as WASPs probably tend to favor WASPs (cf. careers of all descendents of Prescott Bush).
But of course there are ton of non-Jewish people at work at every level in Hollywood, and there always have been. So is there a conspiracy of some sort? In a word, no.
Another example comes to mind from the movie The Lost Weekend:
So you had two ethnic groups, Jewish and Irish, dominant in New York in the pawn broker trade. They both agreed to stay closed on each other’s holidays. At least, that was the case in the movie, which most likely reflected reality.
Right. It’s not exactly a conspiracy. Not one conspiracy, anyway, unless the conspiracy is, “Hey, give a job to someone from the Tribe, unless he’s a total jerk.”
It does mean that cultural biases in Hollywood management heavily reflect a certain kind of white Jewish subculture.
Is that worrying? Well, it’s not any worse than if Hollywood were run by Calvinists or Catholics on balance. In fact, it’s almost certainly better. It does mean that there are certain prejudices that pop up in USA media that are traceable to that. It’s not all bad, it just needs to be recognized.
Unfortunately, there is an understandable chip on some people’s shoulders about it.
Well OTOH each of them are most of all trying to produce what will sell. If dreck sells, you make the dreck that majority of people want.
But on the OTOH it is probably true that there have historically been a certain Jewish cultural sensibility and certain themes that have inculcated our mass media consciousness and become tropes as a result of the heavy Jewish influence. The characters were non-Jews generally, of course, but they were the issues coming to the minds of Jewish writers and directors. A bit more often the story of the outsider and the underdog for example, than if it was all WASP writers. Not sure if it applies as much now though.
Understandable? In like bigotry can be justified? Or that bigotry exist so it’s to be expected?
Understandable because there are assholes everywhere.
Understandable because it is human nature.
Thing is that the fear of those with that chip, that this group of “others” (with values that were perhaps somewhat different than the “us”) would “distort” the values of “our” society … probably did come to pass.
The stories of European Jewish mythologies and the humor sensibilities that emerged out of that culture, the stories of the golem, of the dybbuk, the Sholem Aleichem stories … these have become part of the core American mythology to no small degree as a result of that outsized influence and because those myths, stories and concerns were mined for material. We’ve discussed here before how Superman (as gentile as can be) was a manifestation of a Jewish fantasy of the era - an immigrant who makes it big and the desire to fit in, plus a good schmeer of the need for tikkun olam (to work towards perfecting the world, social justice). Yes it sold well, and Jews succeeded well, because it also meshed will with elements of American mythology and values that were already extant but not being marketed as much. But it did help those elements become more ascendent.
Of course human nature is to fear the outsized influence of a minority “other.”
I was wondering that. How does the OP know which execs are Jewish?
Generally speaking, the more important exceptional skill and talent is to market success, the costlier discrimination is.
I think the high wages paid to movie stars are more for the positive associations they bring from other films, rather than for their superior talent. Discrimination probably pays a big part in giving certain people a part, but if Jewishness was a non-issue, they’d still be nepotism or casting-couching so it isn’t necessarily the worse kind of discrimination.
As for management, I kind of see why foreign films are much cheaper to produce and often more creative. I suspect welcoming more gentiles and outsiders would improve the quality and range of Hollywood films.
I don’t remember putting religion on the back of a headshot, nor do I remember a space for that on the SAG application. And very non-Jewish looking blondes just do terribly in Hollywood.
No one knows what is going to sell. If anyone did, they’d make a gigantic fortune. But one indicator if what the audience wants is what they wanted before. That goes for topics as well as actors. How did they break into those other films? Perhaps by superior talent, where talent is defined by what is right for the part.
And a certain charisma which casting directors and agents recognize.
As for foreign films, they tend not to be CGI extravaganzas, and thus are cheaper. More creative? We see a tiny fraction of the films produced. They tend to be better, true. Yet if you walk around Europe you’ll see posters for the same movies that you see here, so those audiences tend to agree with US audiences.
Now, while there are a hundred relatives of known actors who never go anywhere near a casting director for every one who gets into the business, a lot of casting is done based on who gets seen. Mostly that is through the normal process, but if a casting director sees a relative at a shoot or in the office who fits what they want, they might circumvent the normal practice. Another advantage is that they are guaranteed to be no problems, since they probably know how to behave. I got asked if I wanted to audition for a role during one call I took my daughter to, and my younger daughter got asked if she was interested. Anyhow some parts of acting ability are genetic, I’m sure.
I’m reminded of how Darryl Zanuck was partly inspired to make the movie Gentleman’s Agreement because people kept thinking he was Jewish.
I’m guessing the OP just saw the names Pascal and Rudin and is making assumptions that fit his/her preconceptions.
Lynton, Pascal, Mosko, Belgrad, Erlicht, Kaplan, Osher, Weiser, Bersch, Van Amburg.
You’re right WTF was I thinking? They’re obviously Episcopalians.
Jews swinging the big timber in Hollywood is only just and right as they practically created the American film industry as we know it today. As this previously referenced article upthreadillustrates this is pretty much the lay of the land.
My question had to do with the silly pretense that this was not the case. As others noted the offensive element here was “control” and as was discussed upthread, and as the emails aptly illustrated the Jewish movie executives and players aren’t cooperating and “controlling” anything as their main tussles seem to be with each other.
So then you’re admitting that there was nothing in the e-mails to make you think that many of the Sony Executives were Jewish you just assumed based on their names they were.
Sort of like people just assumed Darryl Zanuck was Jewish and discriminated against him.
Beyond they, I’ll admit that yes there are some names that would strike me as “Jewish sounding names” like Goldberg, Greenberg, or Silverman, but “Pascal”, “Lynton”, “Belgrad”? :dubious:
Sorry dude, but the people you mention may or may not be Jewish but those names are hardly all that conclusive.
Sure you can’t tell someone religion by their last name, but you can sometimes make a pretty good guess.
We are talking about a population that is supposed to be around 3% - it’s either much higher than that in Hollywood - or even more interesting would be that something in Hollywood attracts people with Jewish names - who either aren’t Jewish - or convert.
I don’t think it would be going out on a limb to say if 9/20 execs had Mohammed as a first name to wonder why Hollywood has so many Muslims.
I’m not super great at the “guess the ethnicity” of the last name, but some are easier than others - and with De Luca - it seemed sure to be Italian - which it is, but his Wikipedia pages says his mom is/was Jewish.
Of course:
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So what - I’m not aware of any major stories about discrimination based on not being Jewish in Hollywood. Of course discrimination takes place by every group.
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I’m not saying the OP intended it this way, but the OP seems to suggest something nefarious is going on here by stating “sony email hack seems to show…” As if this information was being kept under wraps by Sony and now is being exposed. I think these are they type of allegations that fuel conspiracy stories.
It isn’t like they are hiding their management team:
I’ve been aware for a long time that a disproportionate number of Actors, Comics, and Hollywood Studio heads are Jewish. The Three Stooges, Marx Brothers, many,many actors.
It doesn’t concern me. But is impossible not to notice that a tiny ethnic group has such a big presence.