I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about Jewish representation in film and on TV for a long while, and I guess I’m finally at the point where I want to write down some of them.
It wasn’t immediately obvious to me, but something that I’ve come to notice over the years is that Jewish representation in the US (and to whatever degree I got to see Jewish rep in film and TV from other countries, such as the UK) falls into one of two categories (when it even exists):
The “positive” Jewish rep: This is when a Jewish character is the one we’re rooting for, usually a protagonist or a part of the main cast. They’re generally likable. The most notable thing about this is that they are never too Jewish. They don’t use Jewish terms too often, Jewish tradition isn’t too present in their lives, they are not guided nor shaped by Jewish thought and values. The degree to which the audience is even aware the character is Jewish may vary: it can be more present or it can be something people aren’t aware of almost at all in canon. IMO Jake Peralta from Brooklyn 99 is on the “more present” end of this spectrum, while Rachel Green from Friends is someone that I learned just a couple of years ago was meant to be Jewish. From an interview with one of the Jewish show creators. You can argue that it’s implied on screen that she’s Jewish, but why is it never said? Why isn’t it present in any way? We meet her parents, we meet both of her sisters. We see her almost getting married in s1, getting drunk married in the s5 finale. We see her talking about her dream wedding to Ross (who’s also Jewish) and nothing in her description in any way relates to any Jewish traditions she’d like the ceremony to include. We also see her make the decision to have a child with Ross, and again there’s not a single word expressed related to possibly wanting to educate the kid as a Jew, wanting to pass on to Emma Jewish traditions, etc.
The “negative” Jewish rep: This is when either the character itself is Jewish and in some way repulsive or reprehensible, or the situation the character is in is repulsive or reprehensible. Unlike with the “positive” Jewish rep, you can’t miss the Jewish identity/context in the “negative” version. If we’re talking about the character itself being repulsive or reprehensible, the spectrum runs between being utterly annoying and nerdy (many times the annoyance and repulsion other characters feel towards this Jewish character is treated as a comic relief), to downright creepy or even worse. In these cases, the character will be very explicitly Jewish, for example they will use Jewish terms a lot, they will reference Jewish traditions quite often, and they will sometimes even have very explicitly Jewish names. More often than not, they will also be played by a Jewish actor (usually with a more stereotypical “Jewish look.” For example, on Glee, Diana Agron and Lea Michele are both Jewish, but it’s Lea who’s cast as Rachel, the explicitly Jewish character who starts out being incredibly annoying and overbearing, even immoral at times during s1, while Diana is cast as the WASP cheerleader Quinn. On the same theme, actors are more “known” to be Jewish when they play comedic characters than when they are romantic leads. Comedic actors like Andy Samberg, Larry David and David Schwimmer are more often known as being Jewish than people like Harrison Ford. And I can’t think of a single explicitly canonically Jewish character that Ford has played).
If it’s the situation that’s repulsive or reprehensible, we’re usually talking about one of two scenarios: either we’re following a character in the ultra-orthodox community where being Jewish is depicted as being oppressed by one’s own people, or we’re watching a story from the Holocaust, when being Jewish proved to be exceptionally dangerous.
I wanna make it clear, none of these is problematic in itself. Jews are just like everyone else, no better and no worse, so some Jews will be less connected to their Jewish identity. Some Jews will be annoying, or even creepy. Some Jews will very much suffer within their ultra-orthodox communities and will feel oppressed by them. And representing the Holocaust is absolutely vital. It’s the fact that there’s nothing else, nothing between being hardly-Jewish and being very-Jewish-but-it’s-bad-news, that’s the problem. Where are the characters who are proudly Jewish and who find it important to be, who actively engage in being Jewish, who are enriched by being Jewish, and we still cheer for them? The ones whose weddings are held under a Hupa? The ones for whom their Jewish values matter and shape their decisions? The ones who enjoy Jewish food and Jewish culture? Who love celebrating Jewish holidays and find pleasure in getting to know Jewish history? The ones for whom being Jewish isn’t just a throwaway joke about embarrassing stuff that happened at their bar/bat mitzvah? Where are the Jews who talk about it being important to them (not to their “outdated / narrow-minded” parents) to pass on their Jewish heritage to their kids? Without becoming a caricature or the target for mockery? (and not just in one episode out of 235 over the course of ten seasons...) There’s so many Jews like that in real life. People who occupy this huge spectrum of Jewish existence and experience. Why do they hardly exist on our screens?
And maybe this will sound a bit self-contradicting, but... why do we almost never hear about antisemitism outside of the Holocaust and Nazis? I know, I know, this would seem to easily fit into the “negative” Jewish representation, and yet I’m bringing it out because it seems like such a glaring omission to me that I have to wonder about it. If we don’t represent this, it makes it seem as if antisemitism had died at the end of WWII. It didn’t. By erasing current antisemitism in its many different forms, there’s an implication that unlike other minorities, Jews aren’t that impacted by bias against them. But antisemitism is on the rise globally. This trend isn’t even new. That does impact Jews. But you wouldn’t know it from watching Jews on screen. Which also deprives us from seeing Jews being empowered by fighting back against current antisemitism, who look this hatred straight in the eyes and choose their Jewish identity. Narratives about the Holocaust are often stripped of that because the magnitude of destruction was so great, that simply staying alive is the triumph. We hardly see the triumph over anti-Jewish hate that comes from lovingly embracing one’s own identity, history, community and values. Think about the sense of triumph delivered by telling the story of a girl overcoming sexist obstacles and learning to be proud of who she is. We miss out on that with Jewish characters, in addition to missing out on telling the real stories of current Jewish lives and the hardships they face for being Jewish. When I guide Jewish families in our Holocaust museum, you have no idea how many stories about contemporary antisemitism I hear. For better and for worse, this is a significant part of the Jewish experience of many, it should be represented, and it isn’t.
Whether people (audiences and creators alike) realize it or not, I think the sum of all the parts that have been making up this Jewish representation for decades is, “It’s okay that you’re a Jew. Just don’t be too Jewish.” That’s not real acceptance. It’s equivalent to telling gay people it’s fine to be gay, as long as they’re not being gay in public. It’s the same as having people of Latin American descent in a movie or a show, without giving any real presence or meaning to their culture (other than making quinceañera jokes). And when it comes to this issue with Jewish rep, it goes unnoticed. I think that’s unintentionally harmful. And because it’s so unnoticed, it also goes unchecked. Which is a part of the problem, we can’t make something better when we’re not even aware it is currently wrong.
