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The world is in an uproar because Bradley Cooper wore a
prosthetic nose to look more like Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” a film Cooper co-wrote
and produced. They say he wore “Jewface” and that doing so mirrors classic
antisemitic stereotypes. Also, they say, his own nose was sufficiently large
that it was unnecessary to make it bigger—that the prosthesis is exaggeratedly
large—larger than Bernstein’s. There’s more—and we’ll get to that—but to summarize:
the general consensus is that the wearing of the wannabe-Jewish shnoz by
Bradley Cooper is antisemitic, if not by intention, then by effect. Are they
right, or was he just doing what actors have always done, and using prosthetics
to “dress the part?”
Perhaps we should begin with prosthetics. Is it common for
actors to wear prosthetics to play a part? And is it sometimes inappropriate
for them to do so?
Ask google and you will be shown the photos of several contemporary actors, right off the bat, and not wearing the prosthetics in question.
You might also find the article with the blaring clickbait title, 40
Actors Made Unrecognizable in Prosthetic Makeup: From Emma Thompson to Jessica
Chastain (Photos). (One can almost hear the exclamation points.)
In the above photo dump piece, it’s easy to understand why the actors needed prosthetics for their film work. Mostly they were playing fantastical or mythical creatures, or even monsters, going all the way back to Boris Karloff in Frankenstein.
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But then there was Tilda Swinton in Suspira (2018) as the 82-year-old male psychoanalyst Dr. Josef Klemperer.
Why? Why did they need a woman to play a man. Couldn't they find a man to play the part? Was she wearing "manface?" I am, of course, making fun of anyone who would say this. The transformation of Swinton into the male Klemperer is astonishing, stunning. You would never know this is a woman playing a man. It's nothing like the outmoded practice of blackface.
You need prosthetics to play monsters, mythical creatures, or the opposite sex. But did Cooper really need to put on a nose to play Lenny Bernstein? Bernstein didn’t have THAT big a nose. And Cooper’s nose isn’t really that goyish.
Contrast and compare.
In a side by side comparison, it's hard to see the difference.
— Joel S. (@jh_swanson) August 15, 2023
This isn't about making a non-Jewish actor look more like Leonard Bernstein; it's about making a non-Jewish actor look more like a Jewish stereotype. https://t.co/WrYWuweosW pic.twitter.com/WxspPtHktj
So, on the one hand, there’s not that much difference between
the nose of the goy Bradley Cooper, and the nose of the Jew Lenny Bernstein.
On the other hand, Cooper perhaps does a disservice
to the Jewish people. The wearing of the nose to some seems like a caricature
of the Jewish people. Some seem to think that the nose, in fact, is right out
of the pages of Der Stürmer with its depictions of Jews as ugly creatures with
hooked noses. Those who protest against Cooper’s prosthesis don’t think this is
an image we should be reinforcing in viewers’ minds. Especially in a time of
rising antisemitism. Especially since Cooper’s own nose probably sufficed.
That is likely the reason Jewish socialite Lizzy Savetsky, who is active on Instagram on behalf of her people and the one Jewish State, said she felt triggered by the prosthesis and unpacked her feelings for us.
Some say Bradley Cooper didn't need the nose, he needed to do the work. He lacked talent, so he used a prop. For those in this camp, it’s not good enough to say that the prosthesis is a professional tool of the trade. Because from this point of view, Cooper isn't acting like a professional.
Actor, writer, and producer Tracy-Ann Oberman, suggested as much when she wrote on Instagram:
If Bradley Cooper green lights your film to play the Jewish composer Bernstein and you want him over a Jewish A-Lister who can equally play that role - then let Bradley Cooper’s acting be so magnificent and truthful that the character of Bernstein shines through what he already looks like.
If he needs to wear a prosthetic nose then that is, to me and many others, the equivalent of Black-Face or Yellow-Face.
I was sad to read about this when the murmurs began. I was flattered to have Helen Mirren play such an important and historic Jewish figure, because I admire Mirren’s work. Should I now be expected to protest her performance because of her faith?
(no dogs and Jews allowed)
Then again, isn’t acting all about playing someone else? Jonathan
Tobin thinks so (emphasis added):
The idea that only members of a minority group can portray the Jewish people has in recent years taken on the aspect of an unwritten law of the entertainment industry.
The whole point of acting is people pretending to be someone other than themselves.
Tobin takes us through the history, how once white actors
played Indians and Asians, and how ridiculous they seemed. Today that just
doesn’t happen. And that is all to the good. As Tobin says, “That has saved us
from some embarrassing examples of whites engaging in ethnic stereotypes to
overcompensate for the difference between their own backgrounds and those of
their characters.”
Here is where things get tricky, because Jews are not all one color and many do not have features stereotypically associated with Jews, such as the unusual proboscis of Golda. So why is it that only a Jew can play a Jew? Smells a LOT like bigotry. Tobin blames it on identity politics [emphasis added]:
[Those] reasonable complaints have now brought us to a situation where identity politics has run amuck. While we are spared the spectacle of a white person using makeup to appear brown or black, the unwritten rules of Hollywood now tell us that no one but a transgender actor can play someone, regardless of race, who claims that identity. That’s something actor Scarlett Johansson, who has pretended to be all sorts of types of persons, including superheroes and ethnicities far removed from her own Jewish background, learned when she had to give up a transgender role after a storm on Twitter.
Tobin hints at the way Netflix insistently pushes anachronistic
fare on its paying audience, training us to think it is okay to have a “black
Anne Boleyn or the ahistorical foolishness in which, despite abundant evidence
to the contrary, British King George III’s wife Charlotte is portrayed as a
person of color in Netflix fare like ‘Bridgerton’ is treated as not merely
reasonable but necessary.”
It’s all a game, asserts Tobin:
That Jews should be playing this game is both appalling and slightly ridiculous. Indeed, the Jew who screamed the loudest about a previous “Jew face” controversy—comedian Sarah Silverman, who complained about the casting of the non-Jewish Kathryn Hahn to play Jewish comedian Joan Rivers—is a member of the cast of Cooper’s maestro film in which she plays Bernstein’s sister.
Going back to Tobin's point about the olden days of whites playing ethnic minorities, now we have non-Jews playing Jews. According to some, that's not the real problem, the problem is the ratio. From 'Oppenheimer,' 'Golda,' 'Maestro': Will the Real Jewish Actors Please Stand Up?:
A flurry of mainstream films released this year pivot on Jewish historical figures who impacted the world in ways impossible to ignore: Robert Oppenheimer, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Oppenheimer, is known to history as the “father of the atomic bomb.” Leonard Bernstein, played by Bradley Cooper in Netflix’s Maestro, which Cooper will also direct, is considered one of the 20th century’s most influential composers. And Golda Meir, played by Helen Mirren in Guy Nattiv’s Golda, served as Israel’s first — and, to date, only — female prime minister, shepherding the fledgling nation through the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
All of these individuals were Jewish. In their cinematic counterparts, none of them are played by Jews.
“The problem right now is the ratio,” says Jewish actor-writer Jonah Platt, who starred in Wicked on Broadway as well as Showtime’s Uncoupled, and will appear in upcoming Universal film The List.
“If we found ourselves in a place, eventually, of more balance, it would be a lot more palatable,” says Platt of the dearth of Jewish actors cast in Jewish roles. “But right now, we're at, like, zero. All of the major giant Jewish parts are played by non-Jews. We have this inherited fear that people are going to say all these nasty things about us if they think we're too powerful or think we're controlling things. We’re so afraid of these very old, ubiquitous and harmful tropes that we abandon our own identity, we don’t take up the space we have earned, we hide from our successes. Instead, we continue to totally hold back, to pull back and give ourselves less representation than we give to everybody else, out of fear.”
Perhaps the most ironic twist to this story is the fact that member of the tribe, Brokeback Mountain actor Jake Gyllenhaal lost the bid for the film to Cooper:
Actor and producer Jake Gyllenhaal, who has Jewish heritage, previously spoke of his disappointment upon losing a bid for the rights to a Bernstein film to Cooper, admitting he had been yearning to play “one of the most preeminent Jewish artists in America” for almost two decades..
“No one likes to admit this, but, we got beat at our own game,” he told Deadline in 2021.
“That’s basically what happened. There’s really nothing more to say about it than that. There’s always another project. Sticking your neck out, hoping to get to tell the stories you love and that have been in your heart for a very long time is something to be proud of.”
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