New Jews?: Race and American Jewish Identity in 21st-Century Film

Abstract

David. L. Reznik, New Jews?: Race and American Identity in 21st Century Film. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2013. 208pp. 38.95$ (Paperback) 174.95$ (Hardback)In New Jews? : Race and American Identity in 21st-Century Film, David L. Reznik addresses emerging question of potentially novel American racialized characterizations in 21st century Hollywood film. Reznik's investigation unfolds according to his qualitative content analysis of fifty-three American films exploring one hundred and twenty-five characters. The characters display varying degrees of four historically represented American stereotypes: the meddling matriarch, the neurotic nebbish, the pampered princess, and the scheming scumbag. Analyzing Hollywood (qualified as budgets exceeding ten million dollars) and Indie films that were released from 2001 to 2009, New Jews? examines film characters who self identify as being or whose appearance, behavior, and dialogue seem to fit one of these four racialized American identities.Divided into seven chapters, Reznik immediately addresses in Preface and Introduction necessity of considering as a racial minority in United States. For subsequent analyses found throughout New Jews?, reader must be critical of common misconceptions that contemporary United States is and should also recognize that American cannot be reduced to classifications as White. Reznik suggests that race in film is analyzed through a postracial lens and this creates a blindspot in film studies. Also, American stereotypes have been a neglected area of concern in postmillennial film scholarship. New Jews? rejects arguments that postmodern Jew embraces her racialized identity and that racist character traits of codependency, deceit, impotence, and materialism, no longer exist (2). The central argument of New Jews? is that instead of original American racializations permeating 21st century American cinema, characterizations remain consistent with historical racist stereotypes. Yet, despite character stagnation, the meddling matriarch, the neurotic nebbish, the pampered princess, and the scheming scumbag are represented as fluid, and include alterations from previous stereotypes concerning age groups, gender, sexualities, and social classes.In Chapter Two, Reznik grounds his research by providing Anti-Semitic and assimilatory history of American racialization. Race has consistently contributed to social construction of identity. Throughout European history, suffered racialized anti-Semitic violence and this led to forced assimilation. were deemed religiously and biologically inferior. With Enlightenment came concerns about bodies and psyche. Political projects aspiring to answer Jewish question, ultimately contributed to mass ghetto-ization, expulsion, and extermination of Jews (17). Reznik describes three waves of immigration into what would become New York City. were considered infectious and untrustworthy. They were scapegoated, and were economically and politically crippled. Paradoxically, American were othered, but were also to simultaneously assimilate. The contradictory process neutralized immigrants and contributed to their passivity. The racialization of American identity historically parallels representations in movies. families struggled to fit into WASP societies, and so did American filmmakers. The result was cinematic representations of negative stereotypes, for example, pawnbroker. Other cinematic efforts of assimilation strove to depict characters hiding their Jewishness, for instance, actors receiving rhinoplasties. 1970s film changed latter process and characters embraced their identity, but with it also racist stereotypes.Chapter Three examines the meddling matriarch. …