Hollywood loves to stereotype Jews. There’s a long history of viewing Jewish men as weak, timid, un-masculine, neurotic, money mad, and intellectual. But a lawsuit by lawyer Martin H. Leaf for his client Sarah Deming highlights a recent attempt to change the caricature to a more historically anti-Semitic version.
The movie is Drive (2011) about a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman and discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong. The Jewish director is Nicolas Winding Refn, the screenplay writer is Iranian Hossein Amini from a book by James Sallis and staring Ryan Gosling. TheWeek.com reported that it received a 93 percent “fresh” rating from critics on RottenTomatoes.com, and 79 percent approval from the audience.
The pictures above are of Albert Brooks as Bernie Rose and Ron Perlman as Nino.
Bernie Rose is a Jewish crime boss who operates as a movie producer/loan shark/local gangster. He is quite calm for most of the film, but when he gets violent, it's absolutely brutal as he can lash out and kill within an instant. Nino (Izzy) is a hulking, ruthless thug and Bernie's partner in crime who owns Nino's pizza place.
The main story line is about Nino setting up a heist with the Driver. But the money belongs to the East Coast mob and Nino knows that the mob will come after him if they found out who stole their money. So the Driver will have to die. At the end of the movie, the Driver stabs Rose in the neck, leaving the dead body next to an open bag of cash. Nino emphasizes his being Jewish to justify his murderous plot, in part, because: “They called me a Kike, to my face.”
The legal action was brought under the Michigan Consumer Protection Act in the Sixth Judicial Circuit State of Michigan on October 14, 2011. The main contention is that the advertising and promotion showed the film DRIVE to be a high speed action driving film – which it was not. In addition, the film proved to differ from its promo by being an extremely graphically violent film.
Even more offensive to Sarah Deming was that the motion picture used gratuitous racism to depict members of the Jewish faith in a defamatory and dehumanizing manner, repeating old stereotypes that have historically lead to criminal violence against members of the Jewish faith.
The two Jewish characters, who were the antagonists in the film, are shown as uniformly and unambiguously evil. The movie uses historic false Jew hating stereotypes, including: Jews are murderous, Jews are dishonest, Jews scheme and conspire with each other to take advantage of and control gentiles for the Jewish schemers' benefit, Jews believe they are racially or otherwise superior to other groups, Jews corrupt the morals of Gentiles, and Jews are a threat to the physical safety of non-Jewish children.
In addition, the movie shows us one dimensional Jews, Jews who are physically grotesque, and wearing gold pinky rings, gold watch, and thick gold chains, that only a "senior citizen Jew stereotype" department could have come up with.
It is interesting that the two actors playing the role of Jews are actually Jews. Traditionally, Jewish actors were not given such roles. Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz) was too tough, so he played Italians. Henry Winkler, better known as the Fonz, played Italian for that role. Harvey Keitel played Italians.
The reaction of the two Jewish actors about their violent roles was quite positive.
Albert Brooks who plalyed Bernie said that “It gives me something that I've never played before. Which is a guy you really don't wanna fool around with.“For Nicolas Winding Refn, the Jewish director, this character was Lex Luthor, a supervillain who appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Ryan Gosling: I also didn't think he'd wanna play a character that was so violent and that's so dark. But he really wanted to play that character. I mean, his first day at work he called me. And he was like, Ryan, I think I killed somebody at my first day of work. I'm Bernie Rose. Watch out
Ron Perlman considered Nino to be a New York guy, sort of mid-level gangster, but not Italian, a Jewish guy, who kind of is an Italian wannabe. Nicolas Winding Refn (director): When I spoke to him he said: no, I always wanted to play this role. I said: what do you mean? I mean, you've done so many great films. He goes like: well, I always wanted to play a Jewish man who wants to be an Italian gangster. And I said: why? He said: because that's who I am.
Some might agree with these Jewish actors that this is a more refreshing stereotype, with Jews shown as strong and powerful, rather than being weak or victims. Unfortunately, many would say that this alternate version of Jews has gone too far in the other direction; its unbalanced characterization brings us back to more traditional stereotypes of Jews as found in the work of Shakespeare and Dickens.
Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice, has a main character Shylock who is a Jewish moneylender that lends money to his Christian rival, Antonio, setting the security at a pound of Antonio's flesh. When a bankrupt Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands the pound of flesh. Meanwhile, Shylock's daughter, Jessica, elopes with Antonio's friend Lorenzo and becomes a Christian, further fuelling Shylock's rage.
Charles Dickins introduces us to Fagin in the novel Oliver Twist, referred to in the preface of the novel as a "receiver of stolen goods," but referred to more frequently within the actual story as the "merry old gentleman" or simply the "Jew". Born in London, Fagin is described as "disgusting" to look at. He runs a gang of children whom he teaches to make their livings by pickpocketing and other criminal activities in exchange for a roof over their heads. He is a self-confessed miser who does very little to improve the squalid lives of the children he takes in and is finally hanged in a chapter that portrays him as being pitiful.
Adv. Martin H. Leaf and his client Sarah Deming have made the Jewish world aware of a trend to stereotype Jews as mean and cruel rather than meek and intellectual. This may be the preference of Jewish directors and Jewish actors in Hollywood, but if past precedents repeat it could do terrible damage to the Jewish community in years to come.
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