why can't women on tv be jewish?!?!?!!?!? this is driving me insane!!!! i would assume from the name that julia louis-dreyfus IS jewish. why all the implications in the show that she is not??? also, i read on this newsgroup that "elaine" is based on carol leifer who is jewish! what's with this shiksa thing????
joHannA, jewish and proud lobbiest forPJWOTV (PROUD JEWISH WOMEN ON TV)
ps for [email]: "BO" is short for body odour.
pps. since there has been a recent thread on crazy (jewish) parents, i am curious to know what % of readership on the list is jewish? any figures?
The question should be : why there are not enough good women TV characters like Elaine played by talented actresses like JLD?
This is getting a little away from the Seinfeld line, but : In your opinion, does Linda "Coffee Talk" Richman's character played by Mike Myers on Saturday Night Live makes up for Julia playing non-Jewish Carol Liefer character?
No. the real question is why there are not enough good TV characters like Elaine played by talented performers like JLD? I haven't noticed that there are a whole lot more good male characters than female characters around. I've just noticed a general dearth of good performances.
i think that its great that so many men are responding to my original post here on a.t.s. and via private mail. however, all this sounds like AFTER the original discussion was initiated is a polite and generally pc response which actually blames me defacto for not being concerned with the "greater" issue: good roles for all women on tv.
well, who said that i was not???
i posted an issue equally important to me as the gender issue is.
I was responding to not your post, but to someone who posted something on the "greater" issue of why there are so few good women's roles on TV. And I responded to that because I don't feel the "greater" issue is a reasonable concern. There are plenty of good roles for women on TV.
There's not a show that I watch regularly or semi-regularly that does not have good at least one good role for women; most have several. Let's see. Seinfeld. Roseanne. Murphy Brown. Northern Exposure. The Simpsons. Married with Children. And there seem to be important roles for women on most of the shows that I don't watch; whether these are good roles or not I have no idea.
Of course, your original question still stands. None of these roles is for a Jewish woman. And most of the roles written for Jewish women haven't been so hot. So why *couldn't* Elaine have been Jewish?
: The fact is, we're living in Christian America, and most of the audience is not Jewish. How many shows where everyone is Jewish have been successful? Where Jewish characters are concerned, I can think of more failures than successes -- remember Jackie Mason's "Chicken Soup"? The only other current show with Jewish characters that I can think of is Northern Exposure, which has just the one, but that show is largely about the diversity of its characters anyway, so it isn't construed by the public so much as a show about Jews. Oh, wait, I just thought of another -- Love and War, or whatever it's called -- but I doubt it has much longer to last. Anyway, the reason Elaine couldn't be Jewish, then, is that Jerry already is, and that in itself is probably too much for the general audience to take. This is why they never even talk about his being Jewish, but only allude to it through characterizations of his family. Heck, I'd like to see more Jewish stuff on TV, but there aren't that many of us in the country, and the uneducated audience at large (not everyone, but a lot of people) have either a spoken or unspoken contempt for us. I've seen a survey that indicated that Jews are more disliked than Blacks are -- in America, today! The rise in the number of shows about Blacks is a response to their having become vocal about it. But if Jews did that, no one would listen -- there's no sympathy for us, because we're seen as having all the money anyway, and no one feels the need to appease us. And anyway, there are so few. I hope this doesn't start something I can't handle. -Mitch
mitch, thanks for your response. in general, i agree with your analysis.
however, i have some figures in the back of my head:
jews as % of pop. in usa: 2+/-
jews as % of entertain 60
-ment industry
(including producers, etc)
therefore, even if it weren't the most popular trend
initially, jews could "throw their weight about" and
make shows for their own. i could furter argue that
this would acclimate the 97%+/- of the no-jewish pop.
also, it was not the apathy of the non-jewish viewer, but the pressure of the jewish audience that cancelled CHICKEN SOUP. (i have a newspaper clipping -glad to forward to any takers- with a short blurb about the ADL, Bnai Brith, etc monitouring CS because it did not portray jewish people in a good light. below is a picture of joan rivers and an announcement about her new show. IMO, jr is the most obvious jewess on tv. she is also the worst example of the stereotype "jap" {the horror story is she loves just that image}: she revels in the cult of her- self, she talks about nothing but gossip {loshen ora}, sex {other peoples}, and shopping; and finally, she is such a witch that she appearantly drove her husband to suicide.....yet that is the jew that the goyim love, and we, as the jewish community, will go right on giving them that jew.
did someone say, "showers"?
sorry, mitch, but not only is jerry culturally jewish, but so too is george. in fact, didn't jason alexander make some comment about the "jewishness" of the george character being due to the fact that it is written by jews, based on a jewish guy, and played by a jew?
NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE:
there has been an off and on thread about whether or not george is jewish...even tho' he has an italian name. the solution has been that he is a jewish guy with some italian relative. i guess this means that the italian relative is not jewish.
FLASH: there are plenty of sephardim in this world. sephardim are the jews from the med. region: spain, turkey, greece, ITALY. and now, latin america, and places where "latins" went like the phillipeans (sp?) and colonized africa.
anyway, why wasn't the male character made a non- jew? you see, i only know that the elaine character is not because of a couple of references in the show.
the same could have been done wrt george.
also, as i stated originally, the elaine character is based on a female stand-up who happens to be jewish, carol leifer (sp?).
NOTE: i received an excellent piece of e-mail from someone in the group, would you mind if i posted that (you agreed with my orig. post/query) if i removed your name, etc?
the fact that jl-d does not play a jewish woman hits on, yes, mitch, anti-jewish feeling in the usa. ////-semitic???? BUT, it also shows that the very anti-jewish sentiment of which you wrote so well works hand in hand with the rather harsh gender bias in north america.
i, as i believe are you, am not surprised at any "anti-" sentiment....my heritage has prepared me for that. rather i am distraught at the passive role which the jewish community is taking in this by allowing other folks to dictate the terms of where we belong ....and how many of us there should be.
further, i am horrified that jewish men (and women?) have allowed this anti-jewish sentiment to work hand- in-hand with gender exclussion.
i believe that while women (not girls, not ladies, not hookers with hearts o' gold) are considered generally subversive, jewish women represent an ultimate fear. they are socially involved in and have power in their communities; they tend to be educated, and salaried; like their male counter- parts they are clever, know what to do with money, and, should generally be watched (':%*> -doyoualllikemynewhat? therefore, it is this that make the jewish female (unless she is particularily sexless {mom}, senile {grammy}, or totally neurotic/psychotic {that girl from 30-something..in her early films, barbra streisand, any jewess in a woody film}) most dangerous.
african-americans also constitute about 20% of the pop.
further, i would argue in a most non-bigot-intention, that blacks are to WASP america, non threatening because economically there is rampant disenfranchizement....
yes and no. see above
i hope that my comments make for lively discussion. they are certainly not meant to offend or hurt anyone.
if you are not interested in this topic, and have read this far anyway, please do not take the time to flame. rather, simply stick to the discussions that interest you. the good news is the group...the whole internet is big enough for everyone....even if real life always isn't (':)#~ -whataboutthishat?
But that isn't really my point. My point was that Jerry, while appearing Jewish, never talks about it. The word Jewish is never mentioned on the show. Yes, the characterizations of Jerry and George are Jewish-style (if you will), and it doesn't take much to conclude that of the two at least Jerry is Jewish. but the last thing they want to do is to say it, so as to avoid alienating the audience, as we discussed previously.
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Sure, anything's possible. But like Elaine, George can only be said to be based on a Jewish character. Yes, he does a lot of stuff reminiscent of Jewish people, but I have friends who are from very different backgrounds who, having grown up in a Jewish environment, do the same. When we met George's parents, there was very little to strike me as Jewish about them -- certainly not his father, who would have to be Italian anyway. (He didn't strike me as that either, but what can you do?) But yeah, there's no reason why he couldn't be a Sephardi. By the way, you mean "Phillipines."
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My guess is that the male character was a Jew because it's Jerry Seinfeld playing Jerry Seinfeld, and he'd never be able to get away from being a Jew without getting away from being funny. If you played yourself on TV, you'd have to be a Jew also, no?
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Hmm. I think the Jewish community at large (present company excluded, obviously) doesn't really give a darn. We're past the point of having to prove ourselves to White Christian America, for better or (more likely) for worse. This means that if there aren't enough Jews on TV, okay, we're well-represented in other entertainment, etc. for mainstream America. The Blacks, on the other hand, don't have this situation, and they are vocal because they feel they need to be, in this regard.
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I can see that.
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: I can see that too. I'm glad to have this discussion, joHanna, or however it is you capitalize your name.
I have to agree with Johanna. It's not so much that there aren't Jewish characters all over television-- and yes, there could be more, done better, not so damned stereotyped-- but that they tend to be male. Thus, George and Jerry are safe, Elaine is not. Joel on Northern Exposure is OK, but not Maggie. Jay Thomas' character on Love & War, but none of the female characters. Silverberg on Murphy Brown, but not Murphy herself. I could go find a TV schedule and go on, but you get the idea.
And, while I hate to admit it, I think it comes down to this: if such a high percentage of the entertainment industry is Jewish, then it is very possible that this dearth of Jewish women roles is partly because of what the public will want to see--- sigh--- but also because of auto-anti-Semitism aimed at our Jewish women.
because i am very interested in this subject (!go figure!), i would ap- preciate if you would continue the dis- cussion re "auto-anti-semitism toward jewish women".
i am reminded of a couple more bits of info: -african american women are, IMO justafiably, angry that they face triple prejudice (as af-ams, as women, and from the men within thier own community).
-the northern irish feel that their crisis is generally ignored by the world because they are Western, live in a first/second world country, and are white (the contention being that "white" removes all obsticles to social justice, but those internal).
is this the situation in which jewish women find themselves?
what are jewish men thinking? i mean to say that all these shows with cute (subjective) WASP girl (definitively)friends are stereotypical (ie, just reflecting what's going on in the real world).
since i am not a jewish man, i am anxious to hear what you all feel toward jewish women and why.
again, let's keep this flame free. i understand that this is not a topic of interest to everyone. you are wel- come to proceed to the next post. and i do appreciate the time it takes to decide that you dislike this subject. and,....lets keep all newsgroups open to all range of discussion!
Johanna, though I have seen bias against jews and jewishness, my experience has been that the depth of what you decribe does not saturate the society to such a dire extent. It may be that our different experiences occur because of different circles. I am non-jewish but grew up in a jewish/non-jewish neighborhood and when I was in my teens, hung around with a jewish crowd and was generally assumed to be jewish myself. The prejudice I saw was not significant, only marginal (actually, if I can be blunt, there was just as much prejudice from jewish against non-jewish). I am sure there are other locals where this may have been different.
As far as TV land goes, it does drift towards WASP scenarios but geez, what do you expect from a waspish nation. This sounds like someone moving to Brazil and complaining about the dirth of english speaking TV programs? The absence of jewish programs on TV is merely a general lack of interest in any minorities. Where are the Lithuanian, Polish, Italian, French centered TV shows? The American culture reduces all *exotic* cultural differences into stereotypes just as a good hamburger becomes a big mac. But it has been pointed out that prejudice against cultural differences is not patented in the U.S. In fact, with all of our airing of our internal problems, a case can be made for our nation being the most tolerant compared to most other nations. Tales from Europe, Africa and the East show monstrous prejudice tolerated with nonchalance. They think we are crazy for allowing those who would call attention to such issues free to do so.
And I have to question your assumption that JLD was prevented from playing her character as jewish.
Though, this may well be the case, isn't it also possible that
1) JLD may have decided that she couldn't play the part as well
if she had to cast it as jewish. And persuaded the writer/
producers that this was best for the show?
2) the writers/producers may have felt that to acquire balance,
a non-jewish Elaine was better paired against jewish
George and Jerry?
Either of these explanations is just as likely as that prejudice played a part in this character choice. it may have merely been a structural problem or JLD deciding that she didn't have the chutzpah to be convincing as a JAP or even that she wanted a larger range to her repetior than to be limited to just being jewish.
hmmmm, I think this whole discussion kinda went a little too far. The group alt.tv.seinfeld!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No flames please, I'd just rather read about seinfeld info rather than statistics of the % of Jews in entertainment
Hmm I'd also say that a majority of the NorthAmerican entertainment industry is made up of Canadians. (take Alex Trebec. Canadian. BUT he spends all his time memorizing those boring old US presidents..8^)
Also a large majority of the N.A. entertainment industry is homosexual. but homophobia/avoidence is still rampant.
Therefore it is the target audience that makes the decisions, not the creators...IMHO... ;^)