JEWS AGONISING ABOUT JEWS PLAYING OR NOT PLAYING JEWISH PARTS AND NON-JEWISH PARTS

Authentic representation of Hitler?

by Daniel Barge

@AffirmativeRight

The Idiot Word Factory known as "the Media" never shuts the fuck up. There are always more words to be thrown on the heaving pile.

The latest piece of page-filling stodge comes from Jews jumping on the racial-representation-in-films-and-TV-roles bandwagon, with former Jewish comedian David Baddiel responding -- in 1800 words, no less -- to aging Jewish actress Maureen Lipman's suggestion that only Jews should play Jewish roles (except when they're playing non-Jewish roles, of course).

The subtext here seems to be that Lipman wants to pip the popular non-Jewish actress Helen Mirren for the meaty role of Golda Meir in an upcoming film project, although it seems too late for that now as the film appears to be in post-production. 

Baddiel writes in support of his fellow Jew (and his recent book) from deep inside the bowels of Anti-Semitic Britain:

"...I’m aware that Lipman (like Sarah Silverman, who said something very similar as regards the castings of Kathryn Hahn as Joan Rivers and Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg) has read my book Jews Don’t Count. It’s a polemic expressing my opinion that, over a period of extreme intensification of the progressive conversation about representation and inclusion and microaggression and what is and isn’t offensive to minorities, one minority – Jews – has been routinely neglected.

In the book, some time is devoted to the issue of casting. In terms of this conversation, casting is most directly an employment issue, a correction against previous traditions that have meant less work for minority actors. But it is also – and I would say, at its core more so – about respect. There is something disrespectful, this argument runs, about casting an able-bodied actor in a disabled part, or a cis actor in a trans part, and so on. The deaf actor Marlee Matlin expressed this well when she said: “Deaf is not a costume."

He then mentions some roles where Jews have been represented by non-Jews:

The Netflix animation BoJack Horseman is a stone-cold masterpiece, but the show’s creator, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, has apologised profusely because an Vietnamese American character in it, Diane Nguyen, is voiced by the not-Vietnamese at all Alison Brie. In BoJack Horseman, there is another character called Lenny Turteltaub. He’s a turtle, but a very Jewish one, a very Jewish Hollywood producer stereotype, and he’s played by JK Simmons, who is not Jewish. There has been no outcry about that, and Waksberg has seen no need to get anguished about it. This is true across the board: Jewish is the minority that you can cast with actors not of that minority, and hardly, until very recently, hear a whisper of concern. What you can hear, still, if you do raise the issue, is an extremely vehement reaction.

Yes, it's literally a double standard against Jews!!! Not against Whites in general, who constantly hear about formerly White roles being handed over, usually to Black actors.

It’s odd, then, that so many Jewish parts are not cast with Jewish actors, even when the characters and storylines are very Jewish indeed. Why, if there are so many Jews in showbiz, is Gary Oldman cast as Herman Mankiewicz, or Rachel Brosnahan as Mrs Maisel? Why did the makers of recent BBC drama Ridley Road, about antisemitism in London after the war, have to scrabble around, after I pointed out the lack of Jews in the cast, saying that the female actor playing the main character had just discovered that she had one Jewish grandfather? Why are the four main characters of the only recognisably Jewish sitcom on British TV, Friday Night Dinner, all played by non-Jews, apart from Tom Rosenthal who has said publicly that he doesn’t consider himself Jewish? If there are so many Jewish actors, they must all be quite shit, as they really aren’t getting the Jewish jobs.

I know what you're thinking: people like Lipman and Baddiel are just trying to up their bidding price and get dibs on more work. They are certainly not saying they don't want to be offered non-Jewish parts. 

Lipman and Baddiel hustling for roles?

But, no, it's a little more complex than that. Apparently doing Jewish parts is not just about acting, it's also about "truly knowing" and surviving "2,000 years of persecution," wouldn't you know:

"...this issue is not really about who gets the work. It’s about the idea that minority experience should be expressed by those who truly know it, rather than caricatured by those who don’t. It would be an interesting conclusion, given 2,000 years of persecution, that the representation of Jewish identity doesn’t deserve this complexity."

Yes, it's definitely not about who gets the work, although it would certainly funnel the work in certain very specific directions. 

But possibly the real reason Lipman doesn't get the work is because she's always kvetching, while someone like Helen Mirren just gets on with her craft. And maybe Baddiel didn't get the part of Lenny Turteltaub, if that's what he was really after, because he is now just a humourless prat writing for the Guardian trying to shill a book that I suspect is not selling too well.

But, hey, let's go deeper: Maybe they don't get the parts they want exactly because of reverse racism in favour of Jews. 

After all, anyone making a film or TV series with a Jewish character in it wants to present that character in the best and most sympathetic light possible.

Sadly that often means choosing the actors and actresses who appeal to the aesthetic tastes of the mass audience, which, being overwhelmingly non-Jewish, creates an unfortunate aesthetic bias in favour of non-Jewish actors. Cue Charlton Heston as "feisty young Jewish rebel" Ben Hur as a timeless representation of this:

The other guy is Welsh, I kid ye not!

This tendency also has a reverse side that undoubtedly benefits Jewish actors. 

Sometimes Hollywood makes an "evil" character more unsympathetic by actually choosing to cast a Jew in a non-Jewish role. Even more shocking they even do this with Nazi characters. And worse than this, many of these decisions are actually made by Jewish directors and producers.

Over to an article in the Jewish Telegraph Agency:

For decades, Jews have played Nazis on the small and silver screens, including — startlingly, amazingly — during the height of the Holocaust.

The article then lists the following examples:

• The Three Stooges in “You Nazty Spy!” (1940)
• Jack Benny in “To Be or Not To Be” (1942)
• Conrad Veidt in “Casablanca” (1942) (Note: Veidt was not Jewish)
• Ludwig Donath in “The Strange Death of Hitler” (1943)
• Luther Adler as Hitler in “The Magic” and “The Desert Fox” (1951)
• Otto Preminger in “Stalag 17” (1953)
• Basically all the Nazis on “Hogan’s Heroes” (1965 to 1971)
• Anton Diffring in “Where Eagles Dare” (1968), “Operating Daybreak” (1975)., “The Winds of War.” (1983), and “The Silver Nemesis” (1988)
• Peter Sellers in “Dr. Strangelove” (1964) (Note: Sellers' mother was Jewish)
• Mel Brooks in “To Be or Not to Be” (1983)
• Steven Berkoff in “War and Remembrance” (1988-89)
• Joel Grey in “The Empty Mirror” (1997)
• Harvey Keitel in “The Grey Zone” (2001)

Now let's have another look at Baddiel's brilliant argument in favour of Jews getting Jewish roles:

"...this issue is not really about who gets the work. It’s about the idea that minority experience should be expressed by those who truly know it, rather than caricatured by those who don’t."

Does anyone see the problem here?