so on the way to my weekly poker game, beststephi and I were listening to conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage and he was talking about the popularity of Jews in comedy. He specifically cited Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen and later Jerry Seinfeld stating that Jews become popular in comedy by being self-deprecating. His theory being that it is the base anti-semitism of the the population at large that causes people to laugh when a Jew makes fun of himself.
He went on to point out that all portrayals of Jews in the media are comedic and that the real tragedy was that the media never addresses the “Warrior Jew.” That is to say the strong powerful jew that kicks butt and takes names while chewing bubblegum. You know, the Jew that history is full of.
Part of me wants to say that he’s full of shit. The reason Lewis, Allen and Seinfeld were popular is because they were good comedians, and one of the great testmaents to successful comedy is the ability to be self-deprecating. Negro humor tends to be far far far more racially self-deprecating than Jewish humor (“Black people are more racist than white people, because we hate niggas too”). Maybe at essence it is hate that makes people laugh at these jokes, but I don’t think it is specific to the Jews.
That said, for every George Lopez, Chris Rock and Rodney Dangerfield there’s an Antonio Banderas, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson or a Keanu Reeves. But for the life of me I can’t actually think of any popular warrior jews in the media. Are there any? Or do people really think that the jew is only seen as the punchline to the great racial joke in Hollywood, even more so than any other race?
I’m obviously especially interested in what my jewish friends think here, but I’d like to know what other people think as well.
EDIT: The picture of ludimagist, Warrior Jew, though uploaded to Flickr by me, was originally taken by anukul. Credit where credit is due.
Moses in The Ten Commandments is the only real big one that gets played over and over that I can think of. There was a pretty badass Jewish kid from Brooklyn in the platoon in Saving Private Ryan as well, and there is plenty of theory that Superman is a cultural manifestation of the Jew in America.
But…
You are right. Off the top of my head I cannot think of a major Jewish hero who is readily identified as Jewish. This could be an assimilation thing. But then, Einstein once said something along the lines of “If my theory of relativity is proven correct, the French will say that I am a citizen of the world and the Germans will say I am a German. If it is not, the French will say that I am a German and the Germans will say that I am a Jew.” Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song” spells out a whole lot of Jewish stars, some of whom played some badass characters, though they aren’t popularly thought of as Jewish.
It’s really popular since the Cold War for Hollywood heroes to be fighting terrorists. No one has ever tried to explain away Arnold’s or Van Damme’s accents by declaring them Israeli commandos though. There have been some pretty badass Israeli film heros, but that’s really not PC to show these days.
A lot of anti-semitism is rooted in fear. I don’t know how much a Jewish hero would play into those fears. At the same time, the Jewish stereotype in America is not very action heroish. We had films like School Ties and whatnot, but those are extremes moreso than the norm.
On the comedy front I think you’re right. Good comedy is good comedy. On the hero side… there are problems.
Would you be ok with it if I link to this post on?
Oh, and thanks for making me the poster boy for this one 😉
Please, by all means pimp me out… I’d love to see some alternate takes from people I don’t know here. Besides, aren’t you the one who is always saying that I should be paid for this sort of thing? Maybe someone over there will want to donate to the cause.
Consider yourself pimped.
http://www.livejournal.com/community/weirdjews/1235757.html
thanx, muchly…
Re: Superman
I don’t know that I believe that Siegel and Shuster had anything that deep in mind when they created Superman, but they were both first generation sons of jewish immigrants, so one can’t deny that there was probably some natural cultural influence there, as writers are always wont to have.
Interestingly, the current Superman series, “Smallville” has several stories dealing with the religious overtones of the Superman mythos.
It’s sad to say that I have never seen Smallville. I hear good things, but I just never got around to it. Jewish religious overtones?
The theory as I heard it was that Superman is the son of a destryed homeland and scattered people who comes to a country where he is never going to be able to fully assimilate and yet adopts it as his own and protects it with his vastly superior abilities and is never fully appreciated.
This is the critics talking, not the writers. Though I read somewhere that this was a response to the Nazi concept of the superman (which they got from Neitzche).
not so much Jewish, but not specifically not either. Mostly it deals with Clark/Kal-El’s destiny to be a hero/savior. There’s a large mystical element added to the show. His coming was fortold in the prophecies to some group of Native American Indians, so they kind of worship him. There’s also these weird stones with heiroglyphics carved in them that they found in Egypt or somewhere that have something to do with the fortelling of the coming of Kal-El and the destruction of Krypton and such.
Also, there’s the obvious superman is a powerful being that fell out of the heavens, raised to be all that is good and humane and has miraculous powers and become the mesiah aspect that most religions have in some respect or another. Plus, if memory serves, he was basically crucified in the very first episode.
Interesting take. Again, I don’t know that I buy the war and Nazi’s as a direct impetus for the Superman character. Action Comics #1 (the “first” appearance of Superman) was published in 1938, but they supposedly first created the character for short stories and comic strips back in 1933. Obviously these dates are coincident with the earlier stages of the holocaust, but to the best of my knowledge (and I could have missed it) neither Siegel nor Shuster ever claimed any direct influence from the War or their religion on the creation of Superman. Any they were both rather outspoken individuals. They did eventually send the character of superman off to war to fight the nazis however. And I think its highly unlikely that Shuster and Siegel were unaware of the political climate even back in 1933, so I’m sure there was some influence. I just don’t think it was that direct. Siegel is on record saying the biggest influences on the character were Tarzan, Popeye, Doc Savage, Jon Carter or Mars and a contemporary novel called Gladiator.
But critics will be what they will be. I wish I knew where the article that Max, my mom and I were reading about The Great Gatsby being a novel about passing (a negro living among the white folk as a white man).
I wish I knew where the article that Max, my mom and I were reading about The Great Gatsby being a novel about passing (a negro living among the white folk as a white man).
This touches on that:
Gatsby’s Pristine Dream: The Diminishment of the Self-Made Man in the Tribal Twenties
Jeffrey Louis Decker
NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 28, No. 1. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 52-71.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0029-5132%28199423%2928%3A1%3C52%3AGPDTDO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
It was the first thing to come up when I put Gatsby, Passing, and Negro into a JStor search.
apparently I am not allowed to access jstor.org. Is it a subscription thing? Or maybe I need to be at your university?
You need to be logged in to a library that has a subscription (which is manageable for you I think), or just search for the citation on it’s own.
that explains it… actually, I’m pretty much never in libraries… oh to be a grad student… oh the adventures I would have…
Disclaimer: not Jewish
The only “warrior” Jews I can think of are those from real life. David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Uzi Narkiss, Chaim Bar-Lev. And of course, Col. Ilan Ramon. On the other hand, I’d be willing to bet that very few of your readers will know any of those names (well, probably Ben-Gurion, but not the others).
As for Hollywood, I can’t think of a single one.
well, very few of the not-Jew readers would know those names. And how could you forget Joseph Trumpledor, the famous one-armed man?
well, ok, the famous Israeli fighting machine one-armed man.
as opposed to all the other famous jewish one armed men?
I should have specified that.
Indeed, I did forget Trumpledor – my apologies. I’ve also been banging my head trying to remember the name of the IAF pilot who became an ace on his first day as a combat pilot during the Six-Day war.
Off topic slightly, but what denotes “becoming an ace?”
Five confirmed kills.
ah… gotcha. Thanx.
Wikipedia has a list of all the the war-aces. Does this help?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_ace#Arab-Israeli_Wars
Wikipedia is fast becoming the only website that I care about anymore lately. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I used to amuse myself by reading through the Funk & Wagnalls.
Fun Fact: There was not one single black family in America during the 1970s that did not own a set of Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedias. Many families were missing a volume or two from the set, so you could learn everything except for stuff starting with R or something, but every family had one.
Strange – for some reason my response to you from this morning is gone…
Anyway, what I said was that the list on Wiki is far from complete. There were many more than 3 IAF aces in all of the Arab-Israeli wars – the IAF had a shoot-down ratio of over 70:1. Goria Epstein, however, I should have mentioned, since he is the top “modern” ace of the world (where “modern” means all planes shot down are jets).
hmmm… never got email about it. that’s weird. Maybe there was an LJ server hiccup or something.
Anyway, that’s the great thing about wikipedia. All you have to do is register an account there and you can correct the page. Go for it.
No, more than likely I wrote out the whole thing, then quite Safari before hitting “post comment”. Wouldn’t be the first time.
As for correcting that page – I’m in grad school. I don’t have time to do the research necessary to get it right. Well, assuming I want to pass my classes. 🙂
In fact, what the hell am I doing reading LJ?
Because I’m totally as educational as any silly old classes… tell your professor that you couldn’t study because you were discussing the deep meaningful cultural nuances of the jewish warrior in the media. I’m sure he’ll be impressed.
I confess, I certainly didn’t know them. I guess I’m culturally ignorant. You know, for an asiatic black man with a degree in cultural studies…
Israeli Badasses
The sad state of higher education today.
Moshe Dayan was one of the greatest generals of modern times.
Ben Gurion was the first Prime Minister and handled some pretty serious wars.
Uzi, the man has a pretty serious gun named after him, think about it.
Re: Israeli Badasses
I take it back… I have heard of Ben Gurion. Maybe some of the others too… ask me when I’m awake.
That was basically Savage’s point. He can think of real life examples of pipe-hitting jews, but none from Hollywood. I was unable to provide counterexample, and hence my post.
As for not being Jewish, gentile opinions are welcome too. I was trying to make that clear in the post.
That’s because you haven’t seen The Hebrew Hammer
actually, I am aware of the film. But no, I haven’t seen it.
Actually, I haven’t either. I actually told JE no when he wanted to rent it. However, it’s just what came to mind with the talk of a “Warrior Jew”, so I felt the need to post it.
I’ll have to watch that and Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter the same night sometime… you know, I want to stay impartial and all.
I think it still supports your point, if in an indirect way. Since it’s a comedy that seems to be based on the absurdity of this “warrior Jew” it still reinforces, well, the absurdity of it, as well as continuing the self-depricatingness of jewish humor (if we accept that it’s only funny because it’s absurd).
Then, there’s also Sameer’s secret to comedy: other people’s pain. Self-depricating commedians take advantage of the fact that their pain is not someone elses pain to the audience.
that’s kind of my point. Humor is funny because we enjoy laughing at other people’s pain. Savage argues that the French love laughing at Lewis because they hate jews and he’s a stupid Jew. He argues the same about Allen and (he admits to a lesser extent) Seinfeld.
“Look at that Jew, he’s lame. I’m so much better than that”
I honestly don’t think the Jewishness of it comes into effect. Certainly Woody Allen hypes up the jewish stereotype in his comedy, but I don’t think he does any more so than George Lopez or Chris Rock hype up their racial stereotypes. Or for that matter, than say Chris Farley or Artie Lange do their being fat. You write what you know.
What about “Nin-Jew”?
that one, I am not familiar with…
hammer
Yes the Hammer rocks! Good stuff
I saw a piece by David Gelernter in the Los Angeles Times in which he said essentially the same thing, claiming that the French like Jerry Lewis because they enjoy seeing a Jew make a fool of himself.
I think Gelernter’s full of it.
As an opposing Jewish voice, I’d like to suggest Lewis Black. Now there’s a take-no-prisoners comic. Can you imagine the Jerry Lewis Black Telethon? Just think about it.
Yeah, I just got done addressing the claim about the French liking Jerry Lewis because they’re anti-semitic above. I don’t buy it. Unlike say, Woody Allen, I don’t really see the jewishness playing into Jerry’s act at all. It was always much more that he’s an idiot, race, religion and creed aside.
Yeah, I like Lewis Black a lot. His rants on the Daily Show remind me much of my ranting and raving here.
I wonder about the comedian warrior idea.
Jon Stewart doesn’t so much do the self depreciation thing, and is pretty direct in his attacks on the forces of foolishness.
sure he does… just not as much as say a Conan O’Brien. His self-deprecation mostly centers around his pretenses that his show sucks and his lack of belief in himself as a journalist.
Also, Stewart is pretty know for making jew jokes on his show, relying on stereotypes and making fun of holidays and customs. He’s obviously far less jew-centric than Woody Allen, but I’d say he’s more so than Seinfeld, and certainly Jerry Lewis.
Also, I’m not sure how to tie it in just now, but its worth noting that he doesn’t use his real last name (Leibowitz). Presumedly, because its too ethnic, but I don’t really know that.
I don’t know if this falls under your rubric, but what about the wrestler Goldberg?
Duh… I can’t believe I didn’t think of him. Yeah, he would in fact count. He’s actually done a couple movies in addition to wrestling (and being a football player before that). But I don’t think he’s had a starring role. He’s the first one that anyone has come up with though. I’m thinking its still kinda a lopsided distribution though.
Dude, everyone knows that the Israeli Special Forces are comprised of the world biggest badasses. Seriously. Everyone knows not to fuck with them. I remember that at least as early as high school. Wolverine trained with them.
yeah, I’m aware of that. But I can’t think of any portrayal of them that way in a movie or anything like that. Wesley Snipes mentions that they’re badass in Passenger 57, but you never see any of them, its just a throwaway comment.
Yes, but no one ever tries to explain Van Damme’s or Arnold’s accent away by saying they are Israeli. I mean there was a movie where he was a Canadian Mountie or something, but never an Israeli.
hmmm… I kind of expect that if they tried to pass one of their accents off as “typical” israeli there would be much media outrage. Just guessing.
There’s also a theory that the Marx brothers represented the different kinds of Jew, from different eras. Groucho being the modern era (well, for his time) Jew, and I think Chico being the banker Jew… I don’t remember too well, it was in a novel I read, and I can’t even remember the name of the novel now.
Hmmm…. ok, that’s pretty interesting. I’d like to read that book.
Not film, but there’s an interesting discussion of Jewish Warriors in Orson Scott Card’s “Enders Game” where in his universe it is widely believed that Jewish students have some innate skill for leadership in combat.
Of course, the one overtly Jewish character in the book is also described as being in a position where he specifically does NOT have much conscious ability.
yeah, I think the written word treats jews with a bit more respect and power than the video medium. However, I’m at a loss for a plausible rational for why.