I want to start this post by saying that I absolutely love the actress Kathryn Hahn. I have absolutely nothing against her and she is hereby formally invited to all of my Shabbos dinners.
She’s even married to a Jew, so she’s an honorary member of the tribe.
She’s played a rabbi. She’s about to play a character named Phyllis Shapiro on The Shrink Next Door. And now, she’s playing Joan Rivers.
But she’s not a Jew. And she keeps getting cast in Jewish roles.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. Felicity Jones starred as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex. Helen Mirren is going to portray Golda Meir. Rachel Brosnahan has been playing (the fictional, but Jewish) Midge Maisel for years. There are so many non-Jewish women playing Jewish roles that it’s hard to keep track.
So it wasn’t surprising to me that Jews noticed the casting decision.
New York Times columnist Jason Zinoman tweeted about it. Time published an article by Lilith editor Sarah Seltzer about it. A Canadian entertainment news show posted about it.
The comments went something like this:
“Jews are a majority in Hollywood… Jewish actors and directors get so many jobs”
“Umm are Jewish actors unrepresented and marginalized in Hollywood…?”
And, of course:
“The people who control Hollywood are complaining that their people don’t have a place in Hollywood”
And then there were the less blatantly antisemitic comments that conceded that, yes, it was a little weird, but it’s not like snubbing a person of color. After all, we love Kathryn Hahn!
So famous Jewish women don’t have to be played by Jewish women. Got it.
But can Jewish women play non-Jewish women?
As it turns out, the answer is also no!
Last fall, news reports circulated that Gal Gadot, the very famous and very beautiful Israeli actress, was going to play Cleopatra.
And as you might have imagined, people absolutely lost their shit.
Charges of whitewashing followed. And, many of the usual suspects pointed out that Gadot was an extra evil white person because she is Israeli.
If we’re going to dig into it, Cleopatra was mixed race, if not entirely of Macedonian descent. Her family had been in Egypt for at least 250 years prior to her birth, however, so she was pretty Egyptian! Because if you’re in a place for long enough, you become “from” that place! (Kind of like how if your family has lived in a place for six generations, you become “from” that place)
But I understand the desire to want to see yourself represented in media. If Egyptians feel salty about Gadot’s casting, I get it. I sympathize.
So… if we’re keeping score, Jewish women don’t have to play Jewish women… but they also definitely shouldn’t play non-Jewish women, especially if those women are definitely or maybe people of color.
Ok, so what if a Jewish actress just wants to show up and host a game show as herself?
Also no!
If you’ve been following the Jeopardy! hosting debacle, you’ll know that Mayim Bialik (also known as Blossom forever and always in my heart) will be a new host of the famed gameshow.
This is a problem, you see, because as Gawker put it, “Jeopardy! needs… a comedian, instead of a pro-Israel wet blanket like Bialik.”
The Daily Beast’s Tirhakah Love was similarly dismayed, saying that Bialik was a Zionist and that Zionism is “an articulation of white supremacy.”
So Bialik is pro-Israel (whatever that means, but that’s for another day). She’s also Modern Orthodox, a demographic hardly ever portrayed in American media! She’s also a PhD! And she wore bucket hats in the 1990s!I thought we liked representation!
But she’s not welcome. Because she’s Jewish and feels an affinity towards Israel, which is a perfectly normal thing for a Jewish person to feel.
I guess we can always play fictional characters?