#the marvelous mrs maisel prime

[alltheshipsilove]

GIF by @taishaunas

times that Lenny Bruce (played by Luke Kirby) in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel had no business leaving me IN PHYSICAL PAIN

the eye contact, the posture, the dialogue: 10/10 THIS MAN DELIVERS

[leavemeslowly]

Maybe the most satisfying thing about Midge’s life is that she experienced different types of love from which it is difficult to choose the one. She loved Joel immaturely and later had to learn from it. She loved Susie truly and platonically. She also loved Lenny and that was her doomed love. I think all of these loves were great and life-defining. Also, they were beautifully encapsulated in the last scene.

[darklinaforever]

The best ships / romances are definitly on Amazon Prime Video !

[metaforadohomeminvisivel]

[devdas5z]

Rachel Bronsnahan in Hollywood Life Magazine

[licdracuyalli]

My Roman Empire :

[best-series-forever]

[wandamercer7]

The final showdown

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

When Hollywood erases Jews, also known as modern day “acceptable” antisemitism

Let’s start with some definitions.

Jews - Jewish people, either through religion and/or ethnicity. The reason for the “or” is because many Jews don’t practice Judaism, but they are still 100% as Jewish. And depending on who you ask (2 Jews 3 opinions), when a person converts in they join the tribe and become (for all intents and purposes) ethnically Jewish as well (their kids are ethnically Jewish). All that to say— Being Jewish does not automatically mean a purely religious affiliation.

Antisemitism - Jew hate. There is no hyphen in the word. It does not mean hate against other semantic people, because there are only semantic languages, not groups. This term was coined by the Nazis to make hating Jews sound fancy. If a Jew tells you something is antisemitic, believe them.

“Acceptable” - In this context, this means socially and culturally acceptable. Something that the wider world just goes with and accepts as normalized and just how things are. It doesn’t mean it is right or okay, it purely just means that it is what is accepted by mass amounts of people.

Now, let’s discuss what we know about Jewish actors on TV or in movies.

From the earliest eras of Hollywood, Jews were around. They were founding companies, writing songs, writing scripts, and if they could— acting.

Jewish actors of the time (and into present day) would more often than not have to change their names in order to not reveal their Jewishness. Let me repeat that— Jews were running some studios, but yet Jewish actors still had to pretend to not be Jewish in order to appeal to the audiences. So they did. And they do.

Long before Hollywood’s time, and stretching as far back as ancient theatre and even Shakespearean theatre, Jewish characters were played by someone “dressed Jewish.” Meaning large hooked nose pieces, sleazy clothing, basically the visual representation of antisemitic tropes. This was the Jewish representation happening for centuries. Pure hate live on stage. This happened with minstrel shows for Black characters and Asian characters too. Basically if you weren’t white, you were a stereotype.

This is still true today.

Look at any show/film that has Jewish characters in them. Here’s just a few.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The Goldbergs

Hollywood

Moon Knight

The Simpsons

New Girl

Transparent

Shiva Baby

These shows all contain stereotypes against Jews, use Jews are the punchline for jokes, only have Jewish characters for jokes, or just don’t include Jewish actors to even play those Jewish roles.

There’s a few things about this:

The Hollywood industry believes Jews only exist when they want them too. Such as for villain, victim, or vaudeville reasons. Example: The evil character is Jewish (that new teen movie I can’t remember the name of where the boy wears a Star of David and is the villain), the victim (every WW2 movie ever), the vaudeville clown (every time there’s a joke about the noses, the banks, the bagels, etc). Jews are so very rarely ever real people.

Not having Jewish actors playing Jewish roles is Jew-face, a term coined by Sarah Silverman. It started out meaning when non-Jewish actors put on a Jewish appearance to play Jewish, but now it just encompasses any non-Jew playing a Jew. Much like how blackface and yellowface and redface are.

Yes. Not casting Jews is a problem. Remember the first definition? It’s an ethnic group. You literally cannot play an ethnicity you are not a part of. It’s literally impossible. An actor cannot change their DNA (see the mention about converts and how they join the tribe therefore are included in any talk of Jewish ethnicity).

I repeat. An actor cannot play an ethnicity they are not. It is impossible. Any actor playing Jewish while not being Jewish themselves is literally erasing a minority ethnicity from the screen. That’s just a fact. Same way it would be if they cast a white actor to play hispanic or asian.

What actors who are cast in roles that are of a differing ethnicity to them do, is they (at the fault of the production) put on stereotypes to represent that ethnicity, because they want to show that this character is a certain way, but can’t do so because the actor is not. And we’re back at the ancient theatre history with actors in prosthetic noses begging for their pound of flesh.

And why is this acceptable to audiences?

Jews are a minority. Like .2% global, minority. There are about 24x as many people following Kim K on Instagram than there are Jews in the world. More people follow antisemites than there are Jews being recorded on census.

Since there are so few Jews in the world at all, people don’t realize that Jewish representation is lacking. Because it’s always lacking. You don’t see what’s not there, and then when there’s non-Jews playing Jews on TV or in movies, it just seems normal.

Most non-Jews (Christians) only view Jews as religion based followers, since that is what they know of their own religions. They are either religious or they have no religious affliction and therefore their ethnicity is wherever they or their parents are from. Their culture is (in the West) Christian-centric even if removed from religion. While Jews, even if not religious, are still Jewish.

So not having real Jews on screen erases an entire ethnic and religious group. But people are okay with it, because they don’t realize what is happening.

There are few explicitly Jewish characters at all, and yet of those roles, less than a quarter of them are played by actual Jewish actors. Of the shows listed above, less than a quarter are Jewish. In the larger Jewish cast shows there are an average of 2 Jewish actors per 10 Jewish characters. Otherwise there are no Jews portraying themselves.

Imagine if this were any other ethnicity. Can you imagine the outcry? Hollywood did. That’s why ScarJo is no longer playing Asian roles, and why they’ve stopped tanning white actors for West Side Story. Yet not even a month ago they announced that Daisy Edgar-Jones (not-Jewish) would be playing Carole King (very Jewish) in her biopic. Where is the outcry from the non-Jews?

I often think about this moment from Hollywood. Patti LuPone portraying Avis (a Jewish Hollywood icon who is fictional but based on real people). Patti, Italian like many famous Jew-face actors are, says this:

Ironic, huh? “Nobody thought a Jewish girl could be a movie star. Nobody thought they were pretty” said by a non-Jewish actress, playing a Jewish role. Seems some people still don’t think Jewish girls could be movie stars.

So again I ask, why is Jew-erasure in the form of not casting Jews as Jews acceptable in society? Why is this form of antisemitism okay?

Because it’s all we’ve known. Because people don’t consider Jews a minority ethnicity the same way they do other groups. Because there are too few Jews to complain about it. Because contrary to belief, Jews don’t run Hollywood. Because nobody thinks Jewish girls are pretty. Because Jews can only serve a Jewish plot, and if a character doesn’t have to be Jewish, it’s erased.

Canon and non-fictional Jews can’t just be erased when you want them to be if it doesn’t fit with your ideas.

Jew-erasure is Jew-hate is antisemitism.

Erasing Jewishness from the screen is erasure. Is hatred. Is antisemitism.

Many just are so used to it, that it doesn’t raise any hairs. But reminder, blackface was common into the 50s and is a disgusting practice. Them taping the corner of actor’s eyes to play Asian, or tanning them to play indigenous, used to be common too. But not anymore. Things change, rightfully so. So why can’t it change for Jews too?

As always, ask questions if you have any. I’m planning on doing another post about this with some additional thoughts at a later date, but my computer is dead so figured I’d get some out now.

Here’s a list of shows with good Jewish rep:

Schitts Creek (Kids are both half-Jewish, Johnny is Sephardic). Made and stars Jewish actors (Eugene and Dan and Sarah, since they explicitly have the characters as both Jewish and Christian I’m giving them a break with Annie). They are normal people doing normal Schitts Creek thangs.

House. Stars Lisa Edelstein as Jewish Lisa Cuddy. There’s only episode that really digs into her being Jewish when it talks about her mom converting to Judaism, but it’s not handled badly. Lisa is just a regular person, her Jewishness is never outwardly a focus, but you know it’s there.

9-1-1 Lone Star. Ronen Rubinstein and Lisa Edelstein. Ronen as TK, Lisa as his mom. In season 1, TK wasn’t explicitly any religion/known ethnicity. But when Lisa was introduced, she came in as a Jewish character and so TK became one too. It was never heavy handed and only really came up a handful of times. All pretty tasteful. Both Ronen and Lisa are Jewish.

Okay nobody is reading this any longer so that’s it for now. Bye!

[cryptidsmoocher]

THESE PORTFOLIO WIPS R FLOPPING BUT IDGAF IM HAVING SO MUCH FUN

[angelesinhalos]

Things about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel final season : Joel telling Midge to talk about him on TV and proudly telling people that she’s his ex-wife, Midge telling her friends the same thing that Lenny Bruce told her in the pilot, Susie ending up in that gigantic gorgeous house living her best life, and of course, the “MIKE!” shot

[alltheshipsilove]

are they popular? cause if not they really should be

psa to go watch Marvelous Mrs. Maisel which is about an aspiring comic. it’s not a new show or anything but it’s wonderful.

introducing Lenny and Midge: intense eye contact, quick wit and multiple seasons long arc

as a side note, the main character Midge, is a very well-written character and the main plot is well done

thank you to @million-tears for the GIFs

[leavemeslowly]

the writing choices this season are mostly extremely questionable… i really like some parts of the show like scenes around the Gordon Ford show, but other than that there is not much to keep my attention. last season there was mei and the whole waldorf struggle, but now… the garbage musical? time jumps? no comedy? like come on! this show can do much better!

[atlasshrugd]

luke kirby and james dean are the same type

[lovepollution]

Luke Kirby plays six degrees of separation for Prime Video [x]

[a-member-of-minuteswithmandm]

Midge Maisel is a complicated character to me. I don't think I'll forgive her for what she did to Shy Baldwin, and I think her self centeredness is infuriating but I guess I want her to be happy so yayy Season 6 haha. It was no surprise to me that Esther and Ethan didn't enjoy her as a mother

Susie deserved everything and more for how hardworking and loyal she was. Literally no one hustled more than she did! I'm so happy she got her happily ever after

I guess Joel and Midge end up happy? I'm just glad that Mei had an abortion instead of tying herself to his loser ass. Honestly Joel and Midge deserve each other so it's for the best. Gordon Ford was hilarious and clearly Midge wasn't interested in being with him that way, Lenny Bruce has a tragic ending, and Benjamin straight up just deserved better so why not!

As for the side characters - Abe Weissman will forever be my favorite. He is probably the funniest person in the entire show. His interactions with Ethan and Esther this season cracked me all the way up. Plus his growth in recognising how unfair he had been to Midge growing up, brought me to tears! Rose was good to but have less to say about her.

Zelda's husband was my favorite this season's imply for telling Zelda to free herself from the Weisman chains!

Overall it was a great season but I'm still side eyeing all of Midge and Susan's big falling out. You can listen to more of our thoughts on YouTube! Lets us know what you think in the comments