# This writer claims there are virtually no female Jewish lead roles outside of Holocaust films- True? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 23, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437 "2010-05-23T04:30:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/41 "2010-05-24T00:29:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, so how often in non-historical movies is the ethnicity of the main characters made explicit? Thinking back on the movies I’ve seen recently, I can’t really tell you the ethnicity of any of the main characters. > [@elfkin477](#): > > Frankly, I can’t think of many recent non-historical movies where any character of either gender was explicitly any particular religion. Are there a lot of movies about Catholics, Protestants, and/or Mormons I’ve been missing? A Serious Man. ETA Nevermind, just realized that both of these posts said “Non-historical” and A Serious Man takes place in the 60’s. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/42 "2010-05-24T00:30:34Z")
> [@kidneyfailure](#): > > Of course, neither Karen nor her mom are “leads.” Lorraine Bracco (Karen) is the lead actress in the film—Maybe she didn’t have as much screen time as Robert De Niro or Joe Pesci, but I can’t imagine not counting her as a lead in Goodfellas. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/43 "2010-05-24T00:34:11Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > Lorraine Bracco (Karen) is the lead actress in the film—Maybe she didn’t have as much screen time as Robert De Niro or Joe Pesci, but I can’t imagine not counting her as a lead in Goodfellas. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for that movie. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/44 "2010-05-24T01:45:46Z")
Not quite within the Oughts, but see [_The Governess_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Governess) (1998). ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/45 "2010-05-24T09:55:43Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Again, we’re not talking about religion in this thread, we’re talking about ethnicity. Religion has nothing to do with it. > [@Krokodil](#): > > A character can be identifiably Jewish even if a gentile plays him/her (Rhoda Morganstern, or John Turturro’s character in **Mo’ Better Blues** ), or identifiably goyish even if a Jew plays him/her (Zoolander, any Michael Landon character). Since characters seldom state their religious or ethnic self-identification, I think we can fall back on the idea of whether the audience is supposed to assume the character is Jewish. Film is full of such shorthand. See, I don’t get this. It seems to just be saying that they are complaining because there aren’t enough stereotypes. If someone doesn’t really “really Jew it up” as Ellis Dee puts it, there is no way of knowing that they are Jewish or not. Oh and I just thought of one movie of the past 10 years where the leading lady was a Jew: “Enemy at The Gates”. While not the protagonist, she was the second most important character in the movie. Now, the reason why I thought of that was because of the idea that people can identify Jewish characters by the way they act, even if they aren’t specified as such in the dialogue. Now maybe I’m dense, but if that character hadn’t been identified in the dialogue there is no way i would have known she was Jewish. For those who think that characters can be readily identified as Jewish without specifying it, what should I have seen that would make that character Jewish? ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/46 "2010-05-24T11:21:14Z")
Let’s see there are 13,155,000 Jews in the world. Of which 5.6 million live in Israel and 5.2 million live in the USA. It seems to me proportionally speaking there SHOULDN’T be many leads with Jews. Perhaps it’s not female Jews are under represented in the 00s but rather they were over represented in the past and that it just seem off, now that the field is correcting itself. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/47 "2010-05-24T13:02:34Z")
Aren’t we being a bit specific here? Jewish AND female. Personally I decry the lack of roles for left handed Fijian dwarves with a stutter and a glass eye. And its about bloody time that Hollywood addressed this issue. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/48 "2010-05-24T15:06:41Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > See, I don’t get this. It seems to just be saying that they are complaining because there aren’t enough stereotypes. If someone doesn’t really “really Jew it up” as Ellis Dee puts it, there is no way of knowing that they are Jewish or not. > > Oh and I just thought of one movie of the past 10 years where the leading lady was a Jew: “Enemy at The Gates”. While not the protagonist, she was the second most important character in the movie. > > Now, the reason why I thought of that was because of the idea that people can identify Jewish characters by the way they act, even if they aren’t specified as such in the dialogue. Now maybe I’m dense, but if that character hadn’t been identified in the dialogue there is no way i would have known she was Jewish. For those who think that characters can be readily identified as Jewish without specifying it, what should I have seen that would make that character Jewish? I wish I had my old Lenny Bruce autobio where he talks at length about what makes some things in the culture Jewish and others goyish. Peppering dialogue with Yiddish terms, being a snob about using brown mustard instead of mayo on a corned beef sandwich (or about using Miracle Whip instead of mayo in tuna salad), gushing about the pure joy of an egg cream, championing the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen or Billy Joel decades after their respective primes, owning numerous Allan Sherman albums on vinyl, ranting about the injustices suffered by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg or Jonathan Pollard… There are lots of cultural clues that a character is Jewish. A really bad way to do it was in **Casino** , where everybody kept reminding the audience that Robert DeNiro’s character was supposed to be Jewish even though he acted like the same Italian hood he’s played in innumerable prior movies. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/49 "2010-05-24T15:17:16Z")
There’s also a Yiddish cadence to dialogue for Jewish characters, like “For this, I gave up tennis?” instead of 'i gave up tennis for this?" A schmaltzy, borscht-belt sensibility not generally applied to gentile characters. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/50 "2010-05-24T17:16:34Z")
Out of the timeline for the OP, but what about _A Stranger Among Us_ (1992)? Melanie Griffith goes undercover in a Hassidic community to solve a murder. I think Griffith’s character was supposed to be a lapsed/agnostic Jew. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Greenjeans](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.greenjeans/32/551_2.png) [@Mr.Greenjeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Greenjeans)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/51 "2010-05-24T17:25:15Z")
Don’t forget Marilyn Hack’s nearly Oscar-nominated performance in Home For Purim. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/52 "2010-05-24T17:57:37Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Personally I decry the lack of roles for left handed Fijian dwarves with a stutter and a glass eye. What, Yoda wasn’t close enough? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/53 "2010-05-24T19:21:00Z")
Enchanted. Giselle is pretty obviously the white and white bread fantasy princess. But Nancy, who is the one who actually gets to be the princess in the end, seems pretty ethnically Jewish…although maybe its just that she’s a stereotypical New Yorker. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/54 "2010-05-24T19:35:23Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > Out of the timeline for the OP, but what about _A Stranger Among Us_ (1992)? Melanie Griffith goes undercover in a Hassidic community to solve a murder. I think Griffith’s character was supposed to be a lapsed/agnostic Jew. Real convincing casting there.:rolleyes: Not that it would’ve necessarily made much difference in the quality of the movie, but why they didn’t cast Ellen Barkin in that role I’ll never know. ---
**Author:** ![LunarPlexus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LunarPlexus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LunarPlexus)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/55 "2010-05-24T23:01:08Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think the female lead in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist was Jewish (although I think she was attending a Catholic school). Yup. I watched this last night and that’s the movie I came in to mention. Loved it, by the way. It even sort of figured into the plot somewhat, so it was a germaine Jewish role. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/56 "2010-05-24T23:20:18Z")
As others have said, in most movies you’re not told what religion a character is unless it’s a plot point. In a movie about the Holocaust, being Jewish is a plot point. In non-Holocaust movies, it usually isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/57 "2010-05-24T23:24:53Z")
How about **A Price Above Rubies**? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/58 "2010-05-25T01:22:49Z")
There is, I’ve noticed, a taboo in movies and tv, which is to have a “just incidentally” Jewish female lead. They really are off limits most of the time as romantic interests, heroines or “girls next door.” The reason surely is that it’s not Jews as such who have such disproportional influence in entertainment; it is, more specifically, Jewish _men_. More specifically, it seems to be ethnically Jewish men who grew up in certain parts of the country and who have a fairly traditional - ie: stereotypical - attitude toward women of their own ethnicity. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/59 "2010-05-25T04:57:04Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > I wish I had my old Lenny Bruce autobio where he talks at length about what makes some things in the culture Jewish and others goyish. Peppering dialogue with Yiddish terms, being a snob about using brown mustard instead of mayo on a corned beef sandwich (or about using Miracle Whip instead of mayo in tuna salad), gushing about the pure joy of an egg cream, championing the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen or Billy Joel decades after their respective primes, owning numerous Allan Sherman albums on vinyl, ranting about the injustices suffered by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg or Jonathan Pollard… There are lots of cultural clues that a character is Jewish. Yeah, I get that, at leats osme of it. Thought I have to confess that I doubt many gentiles qould know whether Jew uses mustard or mayonnaisse on corned beef sandwiches. (Which is it, out of interest?) But to me that is “really Jewing it up”. It’s the equivalent of having an Italian wear loud suits, or or having an gay man with an in depth knowledge of broadway musicals. To me it’s a real cheap gimmick that a hinges on stereotypes. The thing is that most Jews in the real world aren’t like that, at least in my experience. Middle aged and older maybe, but younger Jews just aren’t that stereotyped. In most cases they are just indistinguishable, ordinary people. My question is how should Hollywood should portray/I should identify a character who just happens to be Jewish. A character who is Jewish the same way that another character might be Italian. You said we are talking about ethnicity here, rather than religion. But any random female lead could be Jewish or Italian by ancestry. Unless they are deliberately stereotyped there is just no way to know that. To go back to my example of “Enemy at the Gates”, there was a character who happened to be ethnically Jewish but could just as easily have been ethnically Italian. How exactly would we know this? My position is that we wouldn’t and shouldn’t. In very, very few cases is a character’s ethnicity in any way relevant. Complaining about the dearth of ethnically Jewish female leads is silly, since they greatly outnumber the number of ethnically Italian female leads, and there are far more Italians than Jews. The truth is that any lead may be Jewish or Italian for all we know. It just isn’t relevant for 99% of characters. The idea that we must keep reminding the audience that a character is of ethnicity X is just racist silliness. ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437/60 "2010-05-25T05:43:22Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Yeah, I get that, at leats osme of it. Thought I have to confess that I doubt many gentiles qould know whether Jew uses mustard or mayonnaisse on corned beef sandwiches. (Which is it, out of interest?) Mustard. I didn’t quote the rest of your post, but I think it’s spot-on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-writer-claims-there-are-virtually-no-female-jewish-lead-roles-outside-of-holocaust-films-true/540437.md?page=4)