Romantic comedies = Jewish. Why?

[commasense]

@iamthewalrus(:3=

I’ve always figured that it was because Jewish people are overrepresented in the film business compared to the general population, and people tend to write what they know.

Many romantic comedies involve the two main characters coming from different social, economic, or ethnic backgrounds, and having to overcome the culture shock and familial expectations of their own tribe to come together. That doesn’t have to be Jewish, but if the writers are Jewish, it easily could be.

You seem to be accepting the premise of the OP that there are lots of Jewish romantic comedies, where many of us are having a hard time thinking of more than a handful.

Would you or Colophon care to provide more examples of all these Jewish romcoms?

[Beware_of_Doug]

Then again, the discussion might develop in a new (and even more interesting) direction if we weren’t obligated to stick to the premise of the OP.

[iamthewalrus_3]

@commasense

You seem to be accepting the premise of the OP that there are lots of Jewish romantic comedies, where many of us are having a hard time thinking of more than a handful.

Would you or Colophon care to provide more examples of all these Jewish romcoms?

My impression is that Jewish characters tend to be overrepresented in film and television in general, and my post was a partial explanation for that. I don’t know that it’s specifically true of romcoms. Actually, I don’t know that it’s true at all. I have the impression that it is, though.

[Jackmannii]

@iamthewalrus(:3=

My impression is that Jewish characters tend to be overrepresented in film and television in general, and my post was a partial explanation for that. I don’t know that it’s specifically true of romcoms. Actually, I don’t know that it’s true at all. I have the impression that it is, though.

This is exactly the kind of post that explains why I come to the Dope, to be educated. Or maybe not.

Helena Bonham Carter

Is she related to Jimmy Carter? And if so, did they star in an incestuous Jewish romantic comedy?

Forgive my ignorance, but I used to live in Kentucky.

[VernWinterbottom]

My two cents here is that although we may only be thinking of a a handfull of “Jewish” Romantic Comedies: Annie Hall, Manhattan, When Harry Met Sally, etc., the ones that come to mind are both very, very memorable and have influenced other movies in the genre.

I think that with several decades of output from Woody Allen and Neil Simon, in particular, to look back on, as well as the general comedy contributions by Mel Brooks, the Reiners, etc. certainly a great many light and/or romantic comedies have Jewish undercurrents whether or not the characters are overtly Jewish.

[Wendell_Wagner]

I decided to be really thorough about testing the claim of the OP. I took the list linked to in post #3 of the highest-grossing romantic comedies since 1978. I went through the first 40 on that list. I decided to eliminate three of them since I didn’t want to confuse my understanding by worrying about non-American movies. I eliminated number 8 on the list also because the male lead is not romantically interested in the female lead. They end up romantically linked with different people. I’ve listed below what the ethnic origin of the hero(ine) and love interest of each of those movies are (numbering the same as in the list linked to in post #3):

1. Greek heroine, WASP love interest
2. WASP hero, WASP love interest
3. Black hero, Hispanic love interest
4. WASP heroine, WASP love interest
5. Jewish hero, WASP love interest
6. WASP hero, WASP heroine
7. WASP hero, WASP love interest
8. Hero not interested in main female character
9. Black hero, Black love interest
10. WASP heroine, WASP love interest
11. WASP heroine, WASP love interest, anti-romantic comedy
12. WASP hero, WASP love interest
13. WASP hero, WASP love interest
14. WASP hero, WASP love interest
15. Jewish hero, WASP love interest
16. Eastern European hero, WASP love interest
17. Not American
18. WASP hero, WASP love interest
19. WASP heroine, WASP love interest
20. Not American, anti-romantic comedy
21. Black hero, Black love interest
22. WASP hero, Italian heroine
23. Hispanic heroine, WASP love interest
24. WASP hero, WASP love interest
25. WASP heroine, WASP love interest
26. Jewish hero, WASP heroine
27. WASP heroine, WASP love interest
28. Jewish hero, WASP love interest
29. Eastern European heroine, WASP love interest
30. Italian heroine, Italian love interest
31. WASP hero, WASP love interest
32. WASP heroine, WASP love interest
33. WASP hero, WASP love interest
34. Not American
35. WASP hero, WASP love interest
36. WASP hero, WASP love interest
37. WASP hero, WASP love interest
38. Black hero, Black love interest
39. WASP hero, WASP love interest
40. WASP hero, WASP love interest

I’m using WASP here as shorthand. What I really mean is something vaguely Northern European. The ethnic ancestry might not be British actually. It might be Irish, German, Swedish, or whatever, but it’s not Jewish, black, Hispanic, Greek, Italian, or Eastern European (and I don’t really know or care about their religious background). I’m going by what the character is supposed to be, not the actor. There are several clear cases on this list of a Jewish actor playing a WASP character.

There are several things to be noted here. I would have assumed that the main character would nearly always be male. In fact, ten of these 36 films have a female lead. It’s also interesting that most of these films have both a WASP main character and a WASP love interest. In the cases where the ethnic ancestry of the two differs, it’s nearly always a main character with a more exotic ethnic ancestry falling in love with a less exotic love interest. Romantic comedies are wish-fulfillment fantasies, and (yes, I’m sorry to say this, but it’s true) in American wish fulfillments the person is frequently trying to find someone with a less exotic ancestry. There may be a few romantic comedies out there with a WASP hero or heroine falling in love with a black or Jewish or Italian person, but such films aren’t the most popular ones.

I’ve flagged a couple of these films as anti-romantic comedies. This is a special category that I’ve noticed. (It’s not a perfect name, but it’s all I can come up with.) In these films, the main character and his or her love interest do not end up together at the end, even though otherwise the film fits the form of a romantic comedy. Because this list only goes back to 1978, it doesn’t include two of the best examples of anti-romantic comedies, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and Play It Again, Sam. There aren’t really very many actors who followed Allen’s lead in playing Jewish lead characters in romantic comedies. Ben Stiller always does (although he is actually only half-Jewish by ancestry). Billy Crystal and Adam Sandler often do.