Amanda Peet is my favorite actress to rise above the stereotypes. This woman can’t be typecast, and is a high caliber of female lead. Drama, Comedy, Serious, Sexy … she can do it all. She just went into it head first… damn the conventions. Personally, I think Natalie Portman is just as defiant to typecasting and of as great artistic diversity as Amanda Peet or more. Nat just might be a little more believable as an actress… they are both damn sexy women. I just think Natalie hasn’t quite found her role.
This writer claims there are virtually no female Jewish lead roles outside of Holocaust films- True?
The schlemiel/schnook isn’t exactly a Hollywood invention (although few dispute that Hollywood is a Jewish invention), but Jews who try not to “act” Jewish are, within the community, maligned as assimilators; this is not a welcomed thing in most ethnic groups.
<SLAPS Quercus alba With A Wet Trout>
Never say that again!!
I saw Heights because the cable guide listed Elizabeth Banks as the lead, and Dummy for both Adrien Brody and Milla Jovovich. Dummy has been mentioned a few times here on the boards. Looking at the IMDb page for Defiance, I’d like to see it for Alexa Davalos. It should be in cable rotation right now, though it sounds familiar so I might have missed it. Suzie Gold has such a bad title I have no interest in even looking it up on IMDb.
I was frankly surprised at the signal to noise ratio of that list. I figured that like most keyword searches on IMDb, most of the entries would come up as completely obscure never-aired never-released straight-to-DVD-in-Asia type projects. From what I’ve seen at least 4 of the 5 are actual, honest to god feature films.
Kristin Stewart’s character in Adventureland was Jewish, at least ethnically – her stepmother wore a wig and she said her father met her at temple.
Sorry, I responded to what I read and not what was said. Never mind.
In the movie Saved! one of the main characters is a Jewish female. Also in the movie 50 First Dates they have a Jewish wedding so it can be assumed that if Drew Barrymore’s character wasn’t originally Jewish that she converted.
That article’s crazy. Everyone knows that Details announced that Jewesses are now allowed to be attractive.
There are quite a few examples here, and while it’s true that any character’s religion or ethnicity can be left out if it’s not relevant, I do think you see it more with male, Jewish characters – and the WASPS they fall for – than female ones.
That’s gotta mean something. And if (as you suggest) it goes against a wider trend in society, it must say something about who’s making the creative decisions.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I think this a the sort of approach that works without having to perpetuate stereotypes or anything like that. Details about a character can come out naturally that indicate a character is Jewish without necessarily coming out and saying it. (Not to say that coming out and saying it isn’t sometimes something that happens in real life.)
IIRC Lenny Bruce died in 1966. Jonathan Pollard’s being caught for spying for Israel happened in 1985.
From the linked article:
Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis macking on each other? I’m so there. And it’s directed by Darren Aronofsky? Holy crap, greatest movie ever. heh.
Yes, and since I couldn’t find my copy of How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, I simply started naming other stuff that could indicate Judaic content.
Some more I thought of. These do not all apply by themselves, but combine 2 or 3 of them may create a vibe.
- dropping NYC-area placenames into dialog
- giving characters stereotypically Jewish names - not just old favorites like Seymour or Roz, but more fashionable ones like Seth or Rebecca
- gratuitous kvetching or neurotic behaviors eg: talking about one’s digestion, helicopter parenting, obsession with anything trivial
- gratuitous nebbish behaviors eg: big glasses, tinny voice, freaking out over animals, nature, or machinery
- occupational tip-offs eg: retailing, clothing, law, medicine, arts/entertainment, media)
- political tip-offs eg: stereotypical activist behavior
- speech tip-offs eg: using also in place of too; frequent rhetorical questions; singsong recitals (“I went to the mall-to-the-carwash-to-the-drugstore…”); many many more
You don’t mess with the Zohan
And on a smaller scale, I think there was a cable movie called The Hebrew Hammer which had sort of a similiar protagonist (Super Jew beating up bad guys)
It’s not a movie, it’s a TV show, but Lea Michele plays an explicitly Jewish character in Glee, which is extremely non-Holocaust in tone.
How do they establish her Jewishness - is it stereotypical? It’s a comedy, so stereotypes work (sadly).
That strikes me as weird, because only Reform Jews have temples, and no Reform Jew would wear a wig.
pbbth, Reform rabbis will perform interfaith marriages, no conversion necessary. (I think they have to agree to raise their children Jewish.)
It is sometimes used in stereotypical ways (it’s a musical comedy, so her basic existence in the theatre world is a stereotype, although she’s a bit of a JAP, too) but the writers also make a point of comparing her to Barbara Streisand, and Rachel talks about it fairly often.
Now that I think about it, another Jewish character on the show is particularly non-stereotypical. Puck is athletic, popular, a bit of a bully, does poorly academically, and sleeps around. The only way in which Puck is stereotypical is his Jewish mother who disapproves of his dating goys.
It is explicitly stated. She also references Streisand as a role model.
What is more interesting is Puck. Until we learned that he was Jewish, the only identifiably Jewish male was the side character Jacob Ben Israel who is both nerdy and creepy.
My speculation: Someone got uncomfortable with how far they had gone with Jacob. They needed to balance him out. The solution. Make the hunky but brutish Puck Jewish. He breaks all the stereotypes and they get a few jokes out of it.