Week of Oct. 13-17

This week was a a continuation of the race and genocide topic from the previous week on the days of Fall Break in which we were not in class and then on Wednesday and Friday, we moved into Jews and the Movies and Media Stereotypes of Jews. This was the week I chose for my in-class leadership project, and I chose to focus on the film Jews, Movies and the American Dream (1998), and the reading by Martha Woodbury titled, "Media Stereotypes of Jews: From JAPs to MDs." This week jumped out at me as a good selection because it is something that I am very interested in to begin with and the content of this class only serves to enhance my interest and broaden the scope with which I am able to examine the issued at hand.

The film is a great biography feature of the Jewish Hollywood studio moguls. It shows how they started out in Eastern Europe and then all had to fight the establishment on the East Coast, eventually moving out west to California to make movies away from Edison's Producers' Trust. What is know thought of as the "American dream" was invented by the studios of the Hollywood moguls and it is a little bit ironic, as was mentioned in the film, that these Jewish men who moved West to escape the hierarchy of the East would be responsible for generations of aspirations and hopes and dreams. I will quote the movie indirectly, as it said something to the effect of, "They weren't allowed into the real America, so they created their own 'shadow' America. Then, ironically, this 'shadow' America became what Americans associate their nation identity with." 

In the reading, Woodbury examines media stereotypes of Jews and where they draw their historical background from. She talks about the following stereoptypes: the greedy Jew, the stubborn Jew, the Jewish woman (including the Jewish American Princess), the Jewish mother and Jewish men. She seeks to provide a basis for understanding the stereotypes in film and other types of media so that when we see them, we may be able to identify them and not digest them passively. The dangers of not talking or studying about media stereotyping of Jews far outweighs the dangers of talking about it, which include further perpetuating the sterotypes in some type of media, be it for study or examination, it is still helping to create a greater awareness which always means that some people might latch onto the negative aspects of the argument rather than the positive ones.