Too Jewish?

[eveningblue]

Something that has always interested me (and that came up in this discussion of Jewish characters played by non-Jewish seeming actors) is this notion of a tv show seeming "too Jewish" by Hollywood standards. rydra_wrong explains this phenomenon here:

Neal Gabler's An Empire Of Their Own: How The Jews Invented Hollywood argues that this is precisely why

Comments

[skywaterblue]

Josh Lyman from the West Wing is a Jewish character played by a WASP. On the other hand, Toby Ziegler is a Jewish character played by a Jew, and one of the frissons of their relationship is that they stick up for each other in the White House (as Jews), but Toby himself is fairly condescending to Josh because he's 'not Jewish enough' for Toby's standards.

Really though, everything Aaron Sorkin's ever written qualifies as this.

Re: the mod hat returneth

[shayheyred]

This stuff is tricky, no? My kudos to all for being sensible.

[darkrosetiger]

I thought it was fascinating when Jason Isaacs was on West Wing, cockblocking Josh over Donna (especially amusing, since Jason's said he's basically a Josh/Donna shipper). Jason's character was supposed to be Irish--and there's a whole post in there about Jewish actors who never play Jewish characters--and he and Josh were arguing about Israeli government policy. Watching that, and knowing that Brad Whitford is a WASP, and that Jason's Jewish and most of his family lives in Israel was kind of surreal.

[skywaterblue]

I try and block out that that arc ever happened, because there's a lot of dumb fucked up shit in it. (Like Leo and Bartlet having shabbat with the Israeli PM and his wife, but Josh and Toby are nowhere to be found in that scene.)

In fact, there are only two really great bits in that story that are worth watching: the bit where Josh blows up at Jason Issac's Colin character, and adds the line about 'sisters getting blown up on buses', which is a nice bit of complex psychology. The other is Josh and Toby throwing a football around and realizing that after both of their sorta-girlfriends almost died they've completely traded places.

[darkrosetiger]

Coming in without having seen a single episode of the show before, I was all with the "WTF?" because nothing made any sense.

Jason--or as TWOP called him, "Colin Malfoy, Hot Photographer"--looked really, really good, though, and that's why I was there. It made me happy in my pants when I got to hear him speaking Arabic and Hebrew; that hit me hard in my competency kink.

[aecamadi]

I'm just realizing that was Jason Isaacs. I really need to get TWW on DVD.

[ola_sw]

Really though, everything Aaron Sorkin's ever written qualifies as this.

Exactly, and while Sports Night is generally described as the out dated, less eloquent early version of the same ideas we see in The West Wing, it seems to me it did a better job on all matters concerning secular American Jews.

Between big things like Dan, Jeremy and the Seder there are also small things like Bobbi Bernstein or the "my people, your people" with Issac.

Two of the main cast characters are Jewish and one is played by a Jew - Joshua Malina as Jeremy and the other- Josh Charles as Dan by a WASP.

[mamadeb]

Josh Charles is Jewish.