Carol WaradyAug 17, 2023
People are talking about the Leonard Bernstein biopic. Mostly it’s about the prosthetic nose Leonard Bernstein is wearing in it. I have a question which is not about the nose. Obviously only a Black person should play a black person. Same goes for an Asian or a Latino or a Native American. That does not however appear to apply to Jews. Is that double standard fair?
Show threadScott 🇮🇱🇺🇦 WILL NOT COMPLY

@carolw That's the question. The comedian Sarah Silverman has raised the same issue; she referred to the practice of hiring non-Jews to play #Jews as "#Jewface".

Myself, I think acting is acting, and you aren't the person you're portraying, so why do you have to be just like them? That goes for races, ethnicities, gender, etc. There are lines, but finding them isn't as simple as asking if the actor is of the same lineage as the character.

That said: there's the question in the case of Bernstein of whether the nose is there to make Cooper resemble the great composer/conductor, or if it was added merely to signal his Jewish ethnicity. The latter would be a pretty solid (and quite literal) example of "Jewface".

Aug 17, 2023 at 4:49pmWeb
Show threadCarol WaradyAug 17, 2023
@escott I think the double standard is that Jews are seen as white and not as a separate ethnicity. While that doesn’t hold up in real life we are talking about Hollywood.
Show threadSerge from BabkaAug 17, 2023

@escott @carolw

I think there's a lot more complexity. Obviously we don't want to say that only Jews can play Jews ever. At the same time, when there are movements of awareness that go beyond physical description to ethnicity, or even things like sexual orientation, and then Jews are omitted, then we have to wonder why that is.

Sarah Silverman's point wasn't that Jews can only play Jews, but that Jews being omitted from the discussion was a form of antisemitism.

Show threadlittlemiao Aug 17, 2023
@serge @escott @carolw I agree. All else being equal it shouldn’t be a problem for non-Jews to play Jews, but it is a big problem when so many major roles of Jewish characters are not played by Jews. I’m curious if any statistical analysis has been done but the disparity seems pretty stark. I’m just a causal movie-watcher so my impression could be off. It is very disappointing especially in this case when it seems a Jewish actor was originally very involved with the project.
Show threadHilaryAug 17, 2023

@serge @escott @carolw

Yes I agree. It's about complexity. I am strongly opposed to rhetoric along the lines of "only X can play X". For example, here in the UK there has been magnificent colour-blind (and occasionally at least partly gender-blind) casting of Shakespeare.

But when a specific identity is central to a role, then it's often a problem if the actor doesn't share that identity.

And wearing a prosthetic nose to play a Jewish character? Um, just no.

Show threadScott 🇮🇱🇺🇦 WILL NOT COMPLYAug 18, 2023

@serge @carolw Yes, that's exactly it. The laughable and transparent non-troversy about Gal Gadot in the role of Cleopatra is a great example. Gadot was born and raised in the Middle East, where her family has lived for generations. Cleopatra was a descendant of Ptolemy, a Macedonian whose service to Alexander the Great led him to become the ruler of Egypt.

In other words: Cleopatra was about as Egyptian as I am. Modern Egyptians are largely of African descent, but Egyptians of her time were genetically closer to the Israelites. And yet, somehow Gal Gadot, a descendant of those Israelites, isn't "Egyptian" enough for the role. Hmmm.

As usual, #Jews are excluded from the panoply of ethnicities entitled to their own identity, just as they are uniquely denied the right to self-determination in their historical homeland.

Meanwhile, Bernstein's family have nothing but praise for Cooper and his portrayal of Lenny, so that's good enough for me.