Juliana Margulies, Greg Berlanti, Mayim Bialik Among 260 Signatories of Letter to Film Academy Critiquing Jewish Exclusion from Diversity Standards
by stars_doulikedem
Juliana Margulies, Greg Berlanti, Mayim Bialik Among 260 Signatories of Letter to Film Academy Critiquing Jewish Exclusion from Diversity Standards
by stars_doulikedem
41 comments
Here’s the full letter they signed:
> Dear Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:
>
> We write as actors, directors, producers, executives, agents, screenwriters, and other industry professionals. While we applaud the Academy’s efforts to increase diverse and authentic storytelling, an inclusion effort that excludes Jews is both steeped in and misunderstands antisemitism. It erases Jewish peoplehood and perpetuates myths of Jewish whiteness, power, and that racism against Jews is not a major issue or that it’s a thing of the past.
>
> While many mistakenly believe that Judaism is only a religion, Jews are actually an ethnic group, with varied spiritual practices that not all observe. Jews are an indigenous people to the Middle East with a continuous presence there for over 3000 years. This is not negated by the fact that Jews, like all marginalized groups, have white-passing members. Their colonization and exile led to millennia of persecution, and many Jews still carry the DNA of their foremothers’ oppressors. Antisemitic incidents are at an all-time high, with an increase of 400% since October 7 – and Jews were already the most attacked minority group in the US per capita, according to the FBI 2022 hate crimes report. Online vitriol has also taken Jew-hatred to a new level. Cutting down perceived Jewish power has been an excuse for abusing Jews for centuries, most notably during the Spanish Inquisition and 1930s Germany.
>
> Systemic racism against Jews in the United States included segregation, redlining, quotas, and gatekeeping, and was the motivation for the founders of Hollywood to start an industry where antisemitism wouldn’t harm them. Unfortunately, many of these founders had internalized shame and self-loathing, which meant that Jews in Hollywood often changed their names and told stories about Jews with caricatures, tropes, appropriation, and self-erasure. The first talkie film, The Jazz Singer, was about a Jew leaving the ways of his people. This dynamic is alive today, in films released as recently as this year. One of last year’s Oscar winners, Everything Everywhere All At Once, cast a Jewish woman to play a stereotypical “Jewish American Princess” called “Big Nose.”
>
> The absence of Jews from “under-represented” groupings implies that Jews are over-represented in films, which is simply untrue. There are very few films about Jews, aside from ones about the Holocaust. Moreover, when Jewish characters are featured, they are often played by non-Jews, a rare practice for other marginalized groups. While there have always been Jews working in the industry, the industry has only accommodated a certain type of Jew: the toned-down Jew. A more flagrantly looking or observing Jew has never had a home in Hollywood. Even with today’s increased standards of inclusion and diversity, that Jew continues to not be welcome.
>
> Jewish people being excluded from the Motion Picture Academy’s Representation and Inclusion Standards is discriminating against a protected class by invalidating their historic and genetic identity. This must be addressed immediately by including Jews in these standards. In addition, we’d like to propose further changes to the Representation and Inclusion Standards. When films use writers and consultants with expertise, pride, and cultural competency, when casting is done authentically, when film sets are set up to truly accommodate a diverse group of people, then a space of accommodation, inclusion and authenticity is created. These modifications would benefit everyone. A space like this has never existed for Jews in Hollywood, and the Motion Picture Academy has an opportunity to combat Jew-hatred by creating a framework for nuanced and authentic representation.
>
> There is a duty for the entertainment world to do its part in disseminating whole and human depictions of Jews, to increase understanding and empathy in viewers in these dangerous times. We ask the Motion Picture Academy leadership to do its part in advancing a just cause that has been ignored for too long.
I guess this letter contradicts them running the show.
[removed]
Which is ironic since the President of the Academy is Jewish himself
Jewish people literally founded Hollywood. The Warner Bros were Jewish. The most successful director in Hollywood is Jewish. How are Jews underrepresented?
I’m literally Jewish myself and see no problem with this.
So now you’ll have casting directors telling a “toned-down” Jewish actor that they need to up the Jewishness, really go wild and Jew it up if they want this part? I don’t think that’s what they want either.
All of your favorite celebrities who spend their time malding on Twitter about how Israel should be able to nuke Gaza from orbit have decided they are the victims of discrimination now
I mean they probably should be in the list, but also doesn’t Hollywood have disproportionately more Jewish people working on films than say the ratio of Jewish people in America or possibly globally?
Globally Jewish people are 0.2% of the world. I feel like Hollywood has to be much higher than this.
My point is they seem to be getting work just fine on films. Excluding any recent racism that’s cropped up due to Israel/Hamas war.
I honestly had to do a double take to make sure this wasn’t an OnIon article.
Nobody should ever be selected for a role based on anything more than their talent, experience and the artistic vision of the person in charge of making the film. The fact that you would potentially be forced to fill a role in a film with someone you didn’t want, based solely on filling some sort of ridiculous diversity quota is absolutely preposterous.
A lot of those names also don’t think what’s happening in Palestine is genocide
[removed]
These on-screen diversity standards need to scrapped. I am about as liberal as it gets, and I think this whole idea is really stupid.
Why didn’t you get the part dear? I wasn’t Jewish or asexual enough.
When are the Jews gonna finally catch a break in Hollywood?!?
[removed]
Yeah jews are definitely underrepresented in the mainstream entertainment industry
Really. Does that mean that Jewish representation in the industry will be reduced to the Jewish proportion of society, they should be careful asking for this.
Yeah, “people pretending to be other people needing to be more authentic,” just sounds like a way to try and lock down parts for you and your homies…and then bitch about discrimination if you can’t get a part that isn’t in your category.
Who you are as a person shouldn’t qualify you for some gender/ethnic union. That’s legit pitting your group vs “the other.” That kind of thing is bad.
Isn’t there like, a fucking massive over-representation of them in Hollywood (and media in general)?
Imagine being so anti-Israel that you can’t bother to even read an article before posting anti-semetic shit on a Reddit article. Welcome to Reddit 2024 I guess 🤷♂️
White, liberal Jews are overrepresented in positions of power in HW, if this is seeking to expand inclusion to orthodox Jews and other less seen identities within Judaism, fair enough. Inclusion should include everybody.
In terms of their wanting to ban non Jews playing Jews – Jews play non Jews all the time. I doubt most Jewish actors want to be limited to Jewish roles only. If you ban non Jews from playing Jews, Jews will then be banned from playing non Jews. That doesn’t sound like a wise or fair position.
Yes we have a plethora of Palestinian representation in Hollywood. It needs to stop. /s
Cuz everyone can agree that Hollywood lacks Jewish representation
A lot of these comments are proving their point. Yes you’ve all seen plenty of Jewish actors on screen but how many Jewish stories have you seen? How many where the Jewish character is more than a token Jew to make light of our religion? Seems people are OK with Jews being there as long as their story isn’t being told in the way they would prefer, or at all.
I think what they are saying is that ethnically jewish characters are underrepresented in Hollywood. This doesn’t appear to be the case in evening TV. But I don’t watch much TV.
And while there are *many* Jewish actors in Hollywood, the most successful ones are usually only part jewish, e.g., Gweneth Paltrow, Zach Effron, Robert Downey Jr., Ryan Gosling, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Penn, Rachel Weisz, Andrew Garfield, Phoebe Cates, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Newman. Actors who can easily pass as the European ideal of beauty. You very rarely see a major jewish actor cast as an ethnically jewish character in a large budget role. And this is ironic, because jews created or co-created most of the major characters of the MCU and and the DCU.
And as the article points out, a lot of this is due to the fact that jews often don’t view themselves as attractive or marketable. Ideal beauty is usually a European Male or European female. I’m half-jewish myself, FWIW.
I think they have a point. But. This is also true for many other groups: Asians, Latinos, Born Again Christians, Muslims, LGBTQ . White males and Black males, the two types of men who dominate pro-sports, seem to have a monopoly on the brave, handsome male hero roles. And obviously this is only fairly recent for black males.
This helps explain why “Friends” thought they were diverse in the 90’s with an all white cast.
this reads like a the onion article
On first glance I thought this would be an article about the most zealous and vocal Zionists in Hollywood (based on the social media presences of a lot of these celebrities)
Well it’s nice that after Juliana Margulies was forced to apologize for being horribly racist to black people and incredibly homophobic during her anti-palestine rant, she can go back to centering the conversation around herself.
I’m not Jewish. What are thoughts of Bradley Cooper playing Bernstein. With a prosthetic nose at that? 👀
Amy Sherman Paladino signed this?! Um, what? If this was important to her I can think of one giant casting decision she could have made differently.
And no Slovenians!!
How tf are Jewish people underrepresented in media?! Lol
Hollywood did explicitly list racial groups in their recent decision to institute quota system on Hollywood productions so the request isn’t as far fetched as it sounds since they simply are asking to join that list. Should be interesting to see what other groups ask to join the list. As of right now under that system they are caucasian.
And before attack, it’s a literal quota system. Productions are required to have 50% cast/crew from the under presented list behind and in front of the camera if they want to qualify for rewards and other things.
So Mr Weinstein wasn’t Jewish?
Unfortunately, three-fifths of the people in that photo are racist lunatics.
[removed]
I mean, I don’t know, this is ridiculous. Jewish stories are told often by Hollywood, for longer than any other minority group. Example: Yentl, Fiddler on the Roof, Funny Girl, The Way We Were, Annie Hall, An American Tail, Dirty Dancing, Once Upon a Time in America, Wet Hot American Summer, any Adam Sandler movie, Waltz with Bashir, Munich, Private Parts, School Ties, Armageddon Time, the Fabelmans, and that’s not even starting on TV or talking about the Holocaust. These are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Growing up, you know how many Hispanic stories I saw in the movie theater? Or even actors?
Didn’t Juliana Margulies just attack black people, unwarranted, in the media a few weeks ago? She needs to sit her ass down somewhere.
Counting jewish people for “diversity” opens a can of worms no one wants to open