This is by J.J. Goldberg writing in The Jewish Daily Forward.
That someone called Goldberg could write this is worth a glance, that he could say "Maybe something is bubbling in America’s subconscious that we need to think about" might make us stop and listen, but that he should end with the words "He's right. We need to talk."...well, if I didn't know better I might even think there's some hope.
Dream on, Paul.
Is the Jewish Swindler Ready for His Close-Up?
That someone called Goldberg could write this is worth a glance, that he could say "Maybe something is bubbling in America’s subconscious that we need to think about" might make us stop and listen, but that he should end with the words "He's right. We need to talk."...well, if I didn't know better I might even think there's some hope.
Dream on, Paul.
Is the Jewish Swindler Ready for His Close-Up?
The Changing Image of the Tribe in Hollywood
By J.J. Goldberg
Published February 07, 2014,
This year’s Oscar nominations are stirring angst in certain corners of the Internet, because of something that looks suspiciously like a new trend: movies about Jewish con men.
Granted, it’s just a couple of movies. Hollywood makes all kinds. Everyone knows they’re fake. That’s why it’s called the Dream Factory. Sure, some movies try to talk seriously about big issues. But not the movies we’re discussing.
One, “American Hustle,” is essentially an old-fashioned caper flick, sort of updating “The Sting.” The other, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is a black comedy about debauched excess, part “Bachelor Party,” part “The Doors.” In both films the con men end up looking more like charming rogues than evil wizards. If even Jewish evil wizards are made out to be likable and sold as charming to American audiences, the only danger these films pose is to prevent Americans from making sound judgments about the criminals in their midst.
And yet, a line has been crossed. Yes, Hollywood makes movies about all sorts of things, including Jewish gangsters and fools. But it hasn’t made movies about crooked Jewish financiers. That’s too close to the classic anti-Semitic trope. True stories about real life Jewish criminals in high finance are anti Semitic tropes?! Should we wonder if this term was invented to describe similar true stories?
Well, no longer. Now, suddenly, two of the year’s most celebrated movies are about Jewish swindlers. This, writes critic Naomi Pfefferman of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, is “the cinematic season of Bad Jews.”
What’s more uncomfortable, they’re both about real people. Would it be better for the Jews and less discomfitting to Goldberg if the movies were entirely made up? “The Wolf of Wall Street” is based on a memoir by the very real Jordan Belfort, who recruited a small army, he wrote, of “the most savage young Jews anywhere on Long Island” to man his crooked brokerage. “American Hustle” is a fictionalized version of Abscam, the 1970s FBI sting run by another real Jewish con man, Mel Weinberg. This stuff isn’t made up.
A Jew was running a government covert op designed to make the Arab lobby look bad. Would the FBI allow an Arab to run a covert op against AIPAC?
True, neither film features a villain on the scale of Bernie Madoff. For his story, watch a third Oscar nominee, “Blue Jasmine,” loosely built around a Madoff-type swindler played by Alec Baldwin. Its characters aren’t Jewish. But, hey, it’s made by Woody Allen. Enough said.
Is Hollywood trying to tell us something? Not consciously. It’s merely doing what Hollywood does, producing entertainment that mirrors the zeitgeist. It’s a sort of national Rorschach test, absorbing America’s subconscious thoughts and bouncing them back in high definition.
Right now America is thinking about the unending financial crisis. And when we think about the crisis, we encounter names like Lehman, Goldman and Sachs. Like Fuld, Blankfein and Greenberg. We taught ourselves and our neighbors (the goys?!) years ago not to notice when names like those surface in these situations. Noticing can spawn ugly thoughts.
The question is, how much longer can we expect folks not to notice? Maybe that’s what these movies are saying. Maybe something is bubbling in America’s subconscious that we need to think about.
.... Our protective layers of innocence, victimhood and vulnerability have been successively peeled away. A blogger at Jewlicious.com captured a widespread feeling about the 2014 nominees in a post headlined “Noble Arabs, Con-Men Jews Score Oscar Nods.”
But complaining is no longer enough. As L.A. Jewish Journal editor Rob Eshman argued in a gutsy December 31 essay, it’s time for the Jewish community to start examining itself. “Are the Belforts and Madoffs unnatural mutations,” he wrote, “or are they inevitable outgrowths of attitudes that have taken root in our communities?”
“We are blessed to be living at a time of unparalleled Jewish power and wealth, and it makes us so uneasy, we prefer to talk about everything but,” Eshman wrote. “…We are enjoying unprecedented wealth as millions struggle on minimum wages, facing hunger, unemployment, benefit cuts, homelessness. We look to our rabbis and institutions for guidance, but too many of them are afraid to upset the wealthy donors upon whom they are dependent. So we talk instead about Israel, about Swarthmore, and our communities become breeding grounds for the next Madoff, the next Belfort.”
He’s right. We need to talk.