Abstract
Theatrical Liberalism: Jews and Popular Entertainment in America Andrea Most. New York: New York University Press, 2013.From the vaudeville stage to the cinema screen, we tend to assume American popular entertainment is unencumbered by religion: a free and easy realm reinvention. However, in Theatrical liberalism, Andrea Most argues for the Judaic dimensions of twentiethcentury popular entertainment.While historians have outlined the role of American Jews in establishing entertainment industries, Most argues the more radical proposition that American popular entertainment's celebration of the is a type of Jewish secularism. She seeks to identify and dissect the presence of, what she terms, theatrical within American popular culture, revealing its partial origins in Jewish faith. However, the project never fully convinces its reader because Most does not explore the personal beliefs of the cultural workers behind the scenes, making widespread claims about the influence of their faith ultimately unpersuasive.The most definitive summary notes that liberalism involves the embrace of theatricality as a viable social mode, the prioritizing of external action over internal intention, the celebration of self-fashioning as a uniquely American form of freedom, and the construction of a community based on obligations rather than rights (39-40). The author argues that liberalism arose as a distinctly American form during the turn of the twentieth century, which was enabled by the rise of entertainment industries and was concurrent with waves of Jewish immigration.For Most, the Judaic dimensions of liberalism are spiritual rather than ethnic. Although for centuries doctrinal reasons meant Jews lacked a distinct tradition, nevertheless, theatricality and reinvention have consistendy been read into some of the faith's central texts, as illustrated in Most's summary of the Genesis story of Jacob and Esau. Allegedly a product of this religious tradition, liberalism combined the salient features of Protestantism, liber alism, Judaic rituals and attitudes, and the inherent theatricality of a nation in formation (39). However, these other dimensions go underexplored. Most's discussion of liberalism feels imprecise and Protestant influences are largely overlooked.Chronological chapters reveal the transformation of liberalism through several case studies across the twentieth century. In her most convincing chapter, she analyses a range of Depression-era plays and films that celebrated the freedom of the theatrical, from the writing and adaptions of Edna Ferber's novels through to the backstage musicals of Warner Bros, and the freewheeling antics of Bugs Bunny. …
Published Version
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