Posted on 02/09/2016 10:09:21 AM PST by nickcarraway
his one went by so fast that most of us seem to have missed it. This past weekendâs Saturday Night Live had not one but two Jewish jokes. One was moderately funny, notable mainly for the fact that it came from the mouth of Senator Bernie Sanders, during a back-and-forth with his doppelganger Larry David. The other, delivered by Weekend Update fake news co-anchor Michael Che, was far more pointed and may just have crossed a line.
Hereâs Cheâs bit:
âOn his first visit to a U.S. mosque, President Obama called on U.S. television producers to create characters that are not related to issues of national security. Although, Mr. President, if you really want to reach TV producers, say it at a synagogue.â
That last phrase was delivered in a coy stage whisper, as if to signal that he knows heâs being naughty. You can watch the video here. It begins at 2:33 and runs 18 seconds. Was it bigoted? I posted it to Facebook and posed it as an open question. There were 20 responses from 13 different people. Of them, three thought it was offensive and six thought it was on the mark â âcourageous,â âedgyâ or simply âfunny.â The rest didnât express an opinion.
Some of the comments were eye-opening. On the pro side, one comment said: âIf a Jew said it, it would be OK. If a Black man says it, itâs courageous.â (Che is black.)
On the con side: âJews controlling Hollywood. What if the stereotype related to Jews controlling banks. Would you equivocate then?â (I think that was directed at me for posing it as an open question.)
And this: âEdgy? Courageous? When was the last time you heard him make a joke about blacks and watermelons? Answer: The next time will be the first.â
Hereâs the most interesting critique: âIt wasnât simply another gratuitous reference to the âJews control Hollywoodâ trope that could easily be identified as a âmetaâ commentary on such stereotypes. Rather, the joke was that Muslims are stereotyped on screen because itâs Jews making those decisions â i.e., not individual Jews in the industry, but a Jewish cabal controlling the industry with a âJewish agendaâ. For many seeing the bit, thatâs the extent of the joke â nudge nudge, wink wink, of COURSE Muslims canât get a fair shake in Hollywood. The recognition that the stereotyping of one minority is being explained with reference to the stereotyping of another may be too meta a leap for many (most?) viewers to take. The bit could have been saved with a device this Saturday Night Live Weekend Update cast has used on other occasions to tease out a deeper or subtler level of a joke (especially on sensitive issues). Namely, the other anchor â in this case Colin [Jost, who is white] â would explain the joke to the audience by calling out his colleague: âSo in other words, youâre explaining the stereotyping of Muslims on screen by referencing the age old stereotype that Jews control Hollywood.â To which Michael, fighting a smile, would reply Exactlyâ.â
Itâs a super-subtle analysis of the joke, but I think it gives the joke writers too much credit. More likely they were simply going for what they hoped would be a belly laugh by referring to the preponderance of Jews in the film and television industry. If you want to reach television producers, theyâre not sitting in mosques. Theyâre sitting in synagogues. Ha ha.
This may or may not be intended as a hint that Jews would be more prejudiced against Muslims than others would be. If it is meant that way, itâs probably not true. As much as the entertainment industry is disproportionately Jewish, itâs also true that Jews â especially Jews in California, and particularly those in the Industry â are disproportionately liberal. And therefore, probably less likely than others to be Islamophobic. Itâs true that some of the most visible anti-Muslim rhetoric in the national discourse comes from avowedly Jewish circles, but these tend to be Jewish circles that donât have much following among Jews at large. Particularly not in Hollywood. Itâs also true that Jews in the entertainment industry are among the least likely to show up in synagogue. If nothing else, therefore, the joke fails on a technicality of Jewish sociology. But thereâs a more basic problem with the back-and-forth. There are indeed large numbers of Jews in the entertainment industry. It might even be fair to say that Jews predominate. Thatâs certainly the impression of a great many people who work there. Most non-Jews in the industry donât seem to care one way or the other. But itâs generally understood that talking about it out loud is radioactive. Consider the uproar after the 2013 Oscar ceremonies, when host Seth MacFarlane did a crude âJews run Hollywoodâ bit that appalled the audience and won him widespread condemnation. (Hereâs that clip.)
JTA publisher (and former Forward managing editor) Ami Eden put together a brief, light-hearted clip at the time that explains what, in his view, distinguishes an offensive Hollywood-Jews joke from an acceptable one. Iâm not sure I agree with his conclusions (even though he cites me as an authority, for reasons Iâll explain in a moment), but itâs well worth a watch to see the sorts of things that get said around Tinseltown. Here it is:
Any serious discussion of Jews and Hollywood must begin with the fact that the film industry was literally invented by Jews, as Neal Gabler recounted in his 1988 bestseller, âAn Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood.â It was a gaggle of Jewish immigrant entrepreneurs who saw the commercial possibilities in what had been a novelty gadget, Edisonâs movie camera, and turned it into multibillion-dollar industry. The same thing had happened a generation earlier when a group of Jewish entrepreneurs saw the commercial possibilities in Isaac Singerâs sewing machine and turned it into a multibillion-dollar industry of ready-to-wear clothes. Just as a couple of Jewish entrepreneurs, David Sarnoff and William Paley, saw the commercial possibilities in a military gadget, Marconiâs radio transmitter, and created the broadcast industry.
For decades, nearly every studio head in Hollywood was Jewish. The major exceptions were Darryl Zanuck (at 20th Century Fox) and Walt Disney. And Disneyâs studio was considered a minor player until it was taken over from Waltâs children in a hostile bid in 1984 by Waltâs nephew Roy E. Disney and a mostly Jewish group of executives headed by Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. They built it into the major force it is today.
The preponderance of Jews in the entertainment industry has always been a touchy subject because of the industryâs enormous impact on the national consciousness. It was a hugely controversial topic in the 1930s, when groups of Christian conservatives accused the Jewish-run industry of corrupting American morals. It remains a popular image among hard-core anti-Semites to this day. Try googling âJewsâ and âHollywoodâ and see what comes up. (While youâre at it, look at who runs Google.)
The problem is that anti-Semites believe that âthe Jewsâ run Hollywood, meaning thereâs some sort of organized Jewish cabal that sets the agenda for Americaâs public culture. Of course, thatâs untrue. Jewish executives in Hollywood are generally unreceptive to pressures from the organized Jewish community. The trick is in the word âthe.â Whenever you add the word âtheâ to the name of a group, you turn it into a description of an organized operation. For example, the French went into Mali to stop the Islamist takeover. Not 60 million French individuals, but French troops, wearing the French uniform, paid for by French tax dollars, dispatched by the government that the French people elected. The French. Similarly, the Chinese are playing a dangerous game with the Americans in the South China Sea. The North Koreans are working on ballistic missiles.
Koreans predominate in dry cleaning in New York City, but The Koreans donât. Thereâs no guiding hand, no organized group setting policy. Itâs a sociological or demographic observation, not a political one. One might argue that The Jews play a major role in getting foreign aid through Congress, despite its unpopularity, because lobbying and advocacy organizations acting in the name of the Jewish community and paid for by Jewish charity dollars push hard and effectively on the issue. Thatâs a political observation. But The Jews do not run Hollywood.
Fair enough. Do Jews run Hollywood? Twenty years ago, Marlon Brando was on âLarry King Live,â complaining about the poor image of blacks on screen. And, he said, âHollywood is run by Jews. Itâs owned by Jews. And they should have greater sensitivity about people who are suffering.â (Hereâs the clip â courtesy of some anti-Semitic fringe group, of course.) He was immediately condemned as an anti-Semite, and promptly apologized in tears for what he supposed was an inexplicable mental lapse.
But it wasnât really a lapse. He didnât say âthe Jewsâ control Hollywood. He said âJewsâ do. He was arguing that given the large number of Jews in leadership roles in the film industry â and given the liberal traditions and sensitivity to historic injustice that are so common among Jews â he would have expected greater sensitivity on this sore issue.
As it happens, just a year earlier a huge battle had taken place in Hollywood, after the Bronfman family bought Universal Pictures and its parent company, MCA. At issue was whether the studioâs top executives, chairman Lew Wasserman and president Sidney Sheinberg, would keep their jobs in the takeover. In the middle of the months-long hubbub, the New York Times ran a useful chart on the front page of its Business section, showing the top 10 studios in Hollywood and the two top executives at each. Of the 20 persons named, one was a gentile. I checked.
Today, two decades after Brandoâs gaffe, talking about Jews running Hollywood is more common than ever, as Ami Eden notes. Ironically, itâs less true than ever. The top six or seven studios (down from 10 through mergers and decline) have a smaller proportion of Jewish executives than they did back then. By my count, the senior positions â from corporate CEO down to studio chief â seem to have declined from 90% Jewish to about half. Looking further down to positions like production executives, thereâs even more diversity.
Thereâs an interesting discussion thread on the Quora website in which readers, apparently including a number of industry people, weigh in on whether or not Hollywood is controlled by individuals who are Jewish. One reader points out that the most important measure of control in Hollywood is the ability to âgreenlightâ a project by oneâs personal say-so, and that belongs to a select group that includes studio executives, A-list actors and powerful directors and screenwriters. And there the list includes more non-Jews than Jews â think Ben Affleck, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
So if itâs less true, why is it so much more openly bandied about? I think there are several reasons. One is that Jews today are widely considered to be part of the American elite rather than the downtrodden outsiders they once were. One-tenth of the Senate. One-third of the Supreme Court. And with that easy access, combined with the growing distance of the Holocaust, comes a widespread sense that Jews are no longer a vulnerable group needing or deserving protection. Thatâs why watermelon jokes are not OK but Jewish Hollywood jokes seem to be. Jewish comics poke fun in public â think Jon Stewart and Sarah Silverman â in ways that earlier generations of Jewish comics did not, unless they were doing it in private, meaning at Grossingerâs. Good manners â some call it political correctness â dictates that you not tread on the sensitivities of the vulnerable. The powerful are fair game.
There are other factors in the growing acceptability of these Jewish jokes, including a sea-change in the Jewish role in American public life in the decade since the Iraq War. But thatâs a topic for another day.
By the way, the Bernie Sanders joke on Saturday Night Live can be seen here, beginning at 2:11. The set-up: Larry David is a rich passenger on the Titanic who objects to women and children getting first access to the lifeboats. Sanders shows up in workerâs garb and says heâs tired of the one percent getting preferential treatment. David asks him who he is. Sanders: I am Bernie Sanderswitzky. But weâre gonna change it when we get to America so it doesnât sound quite so Jewish.
no comment.
The top six or seven studios (down from 10 through mergers and decline) have a smaller proportion of Jewish executives than they did back then. By my count, the senior positions from corporate CEO down to studio chief seem to have declined from 90% Jewish to about half.
Judging by how blah most movies and tv shows and music are today, I say we need to have more Jewish execs in charge! : )
This reminds me of the story about someone questioning a Star Trek fan about why there’s no Muslims in any of the episodes. The fan’s response : “There are no Muslims because it’s set in the future silly...”
Holy heck, Che does seem a bit racist against whites, but both jokes were funny. Hollywood is Jewish. Come on. I was born there, grew up in its shadow; I’m Jewish. It’s Jewish. And the joke is funny. Oy vey.
And yeah, my grandfather changed his name when he came here too... He never admitted it was to make it less Jewish... But it probably was. He did survive having everything stolen from him because he was Jewish. And attempted murder for the same. Can you blame him? So Sanderswitzsky did the same thing!
SNL went to hell after 1980. I haven’t watched a single episode since then.
How do you know there are no Muslims?
A lot of gentiles changed their names to. I guess just to make them more pronounceable or ‘normal.’
I don't blame you. But it's still worthwhile to catch their spoofs of the Democratic debates on YouTube. They are particularly unkind to Hillary. Good fun there. By the way, here's one featuring Hillary. They landed a couple of solid punches there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdNYXMQoy8
Yes, the American branch of the Hitler family changed its name after World War II. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/nyregion/24patchogue.html?_r=0
Of course,there was that thread yesterday which discussed whether or not Hitler had Jewish blood. So maybe that isn’t the best example.
Hitler had a lot of Jewish blood on his hands.
A BIT racist? I have found Che to be occasionally funny, but now no longer bother to check out his performances due to his constant anti-white comments and tone.
The part that I thought was interesting was Bernie saying, “Yuge!” at least 3 times.
Because none of the characters were beheaded.
It looks like Che doesn’t do skits. Just his anchoring. And he is so blatantly anti white that if the jokes were reversed the KKK would recruit him on the spot.
There is no way that white on black racism comes even 30% in America to black on white racism.
Also, what kind of family name is Che? What if he is so stupid he chose it as his stage name, thinking of Che Guevara??
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