As I’ve been pointing out since October 7th, a key choice is coming up: as American Jews come to slowly realize that Diversity Inclusion Equity works against them because they are always classified in American quota-counting schemes as white (such as the #OscarsSoWhite whoop-tee-doo), will Jews respond by turning against DIE in general or will they demand instead that Jews be on top of the DIE Pyramid of Diversity Pokemon Points?
One of the dumbest groups of high-achieving Jews has now weighed in on this question:
From CNN:
Major Hollywood stars press Academy to include Jews in representation and inclusion standards
By Elizabeth Wagmeister, CNN
Updated 3:19 PM EST, Wed January 10, 2024Some top stars in Hollywood are among those calling for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—the body behind the Academy Awards—to immediately add Jews to the organization’s inclusion and diversity standards and are criticizing the group for the oversight.
Actors including Tiffany Haddish, Josh Gad, David Schwimmer, Debra Messing, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Ginnifer Goodwin, Iliza Shlesinger, Julianna Margulies and Mayim Bialik are among the nearly 300 Hollywood figures who signed an open letter to the Academy this week, demanding that Jews be recognized as an underrepresented group.
Really? Jews are about 2% of the U.S. population and 0.2% of the world population. I don’t know which figure to use for calculating if Jews are underrepresented in the Oscars, but… it doesn’t matter. I can safely say that Jews are not underrepresented at the Academy Awards.
“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,” reads the letter obtained by CNN. “The absence of Jews from ‘under-represented’ groupings implies that Jews are over-represented in films, which is simply untrue.”
It’s not just untrue, it’s simply untrue. How do we know? We are movie actors so we are good with numbers.
CUT! Where’s the writer? He needs to punch that line up so it’s more powerful.
OK, take two:
We are movie actors so we are simply good with numbers.
In 2020, as part of its new diversity initiatives, the Academy unveiled new standards that requires [sic] films to submit confidential inclusion data to be considered for best picture. The upcoming 2024 Oscars are the first year that a film submitting for best picture will need to meet those inclusion standards.
At the time, the Academy said it identified “underrepresented groups” as including women, LGBTQ+, people with cognitive or physical disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as racial or ethnic groups.
What about People of Homeliness? Why do you have to be as good of an actor as Steve Buscemi to be a movie star if you look like Steve Buscemi? Huh? If John Goodman looked like Brad Pitt, how big a star would he have been?
The “underrepresented racial or ethnic groups” outlined in the Academy’s standards are Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, Black/African American, Indigenous/Native American/Alaskan Native, Middle Eastern/North African and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
The omission of Jews in the list of protected groups “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,” the letter asserts.
The letter was organized by the advocacy group Jew in the City’s Hollywood Bureau for Jewish Representation. The founder and executive director of the group, Allison Josephs, tells CNN: “Jews are a very misunderstood group, which means that while other communities have benefited from diversity, inclusion and authentic storytelling, Jews have been left out. Jews have historically stood with other marginalized groups, but unfortunately have not stood up for themselves, but this letter shows that something is changing. Top voices in Hollywood have been galvanized to demand equal treatment as a protected class, and I think this could move the needle.”
Actors, directors, producers, agents, screenwriters and Hollywood executives signed the letter, including “Friends” creator Marta Kauffman, producer Greg Berlanti, activist Noa Tishby and comedian Michael Rapaport.
“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,” the letter continues. …
From the letter:
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. …
Never forget all those Dark Age Italian and French women who founded the Ashkenazi race by raping Jewish men in Provence!
Systemic racism against Jews in the United States included segregation, redlining
Who can forget when FDR redlined Jews out of Beverly Hills?
, quotas, and gatekeeping, and was the motivation for the founders of Hollywood to start an industry where antisemitism wouldn’t harm them.
And that’s the only reason anybody ever goes into the movie business: it’s definitely not fun or high-paying.
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.”
If you look at a still from Everything Everywhere All At Once, you can see at a glance why it’s so anti-Semitic:
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.
I suspect this is what really gets the Jewish actor-actresses goats: How come Irishman Cillian Murphy gets to play Robert Oppenheimer and one-fourth Jewish Robert Downey Jr. play Lewis Strauss? Why are there more part-Jewish stars like Scarlett Johansson than full Jewish stars?
While there have always been Jews working in the industry, the industry has only accommodated a certain type of Jew: the toned-down Jew.
Can't load tweet https://youtu.be/VN54kkl_nTI: Sorry, that page does not exist
But what do the Coen Brothers know about the history of Hollywood?
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.
Do they really want to have an official count of how many Jews are employed on each movie?
Smarter Jews than these have kicked questions like that around for generations, and their organizations have consistently come to the conclusion that, while they often count with pride the number of Jews in prestigious posts, they do not want any official numbers for gentiles to reference.
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.
In other words, some of us should have gotten paid as Jewish consultants to give ethnic sensitivity notes to Christopher Nolan on his Oppenheimer screenplay.
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.
