The Jews in Hollywood: Altering Image through Religious Movies

Witriani Witriani

doi:10.24167/celt.v19i2.519

Abstract

This article discusses the altering image of American Jews in Hollywood movies. Coming to America during the great migration, mostly from Eastern Europe, this Azkenazic Jews then contributed to the building and transformation of the Hollywood movies as a world icon. Though quite dominant, Jews are quite careful in this industry. Anti-Semitism, the World War and the Great Depression are some of the things that make Jews uncomfortable about being in the spotlight or talking about their identity among the Christian audience of the movies. However, the condition changed after the Second World War and the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Jews and Judaism later appeared in various representations, which does not only change their image in Hollywood, but also the acceptance of American society broadly. Focusing on the movie, Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1959) as the object of research, the study explores how Jewish people represent themselves through films produced, including the negotiations and changes made as part of the American Jews. Using the theory of Stuart Hall’s Politics of Representation and Critical Discourse Analysis from Fairclough and Leuween as an approach, this work focuses on the analysis of text and images as a sign that represents the Jews and Judaism in the movie. Related to movie as a media construction, the filmmakers are able to reconstruct Jews in different image. Through the movie, the represented Jews are found to have conveyed various messages to the audience about their cultural and religious identity.

Highlights

One of the Jews’ strength in America is their involvement in media and film
By applying the representation theory and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as an approach, the analysis explore the social practice and intended messages which constitute the ideology behind the scene, especially the religious discourse which is represented through the movie
In John Tillich terms, it is an area of culture that involves basic beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality, our purpose in the world, and meaning in it (Leyden, 2003). For this reason, depicting a religion or religious idea in the movies is always interesting for the producers or the film industry because it is close to the audience or society that it represents

Summary

Introduction

One of the Jews’ strength in America is their involvement in media and film. The majority of the film industry founders were the Jews. Neal Gabler (1988) maintains that there were many major and minor Jewish characters in Hollywood. The most prominent are Adolf Zukor, who was instrumental in creating Paramount; Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal; William Fox of Fox Pictures, which later merged with the 20th Century; Louis B. Mayer, who built MGM; Harry and Jack Warner of Warner Brothers; and Harry Cohn of Columbia. Each contributed to building a Hollywood entertainment industry that remained at the center of cultural production throughout the first half of the twentieth century

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Conclusion