We need to talk about ‘Jewface'

I do not advocate that only Jewish actors should play Jewish roles. Such an approach is reductive, insensitive to the acting profession, and could lead to the dangerous perception that Jewish actors should only play Jewish roles.

Some roles might be better suited to a Jewish performer, depending on the actor and the role. The success of a performance is subjective, as audiences will respond differently to a character depending on their experience as a viewer.

A comment by playwright Patrick Marber in the Jewish Chronicle in January 2022 resonated with me. He defended casting according to talent rather than ethnicity, with the qualification
“I don’t like it when someone plays a Jew and gets it wrong”. This is a key phrase to untangle. What does it mean to get it wrong?

To state the obvious, Jewishness is not necessarily perceptible — Jewish people do not look, sound, or behave a particular way. To suggest so is offensive.

Many of us have been told, “But you don’t look Jewish” an expression of prejudice likely inspired by stereotypical representations. A thorny issue for casting and acting is how to perform Jewishness: are there “markers” that can be emulated?

There is a double-edged sensitivity, as it is offensive to suggest that Jewishness is visible in someone’s appearance, but the idea that Jewish people can “pass” or move in society imperceptibly also carries negative connotations, that Jews are slippery or uncomplicatedly “white”.

It may be useful to others if we can easily be marked out (hence the yellow stars), but thankfully we now have a choice whether to show outward expressions of Jewish practice, such as through ritual or clothing.

Lipman explained her stance in the Guardian, arguing that when ethnicity drives the role, an actor of the same ethnicity embodies the character best.

This is especially tricky when a real person is represented, a case in point being On the Basis of Sex, the 2018 biopic of Ruth Bader Ginsburg starring British, non-Jewish Felicity Jones in the lead.

The casting and script are indicative of how the film situated feminism at the forefront of Bader Ginsburg’s life, with her Jewish heritage in the background. Lipman posits that the public outcry about casting is “especially so from most Jewish people — the ones who can really see the difference the casting makes — but who prefer to keep their heads well below the parapet”.

The expression “the ones who can really see” hints towards the ineffable, echoing Marber’s comment about getting it wrong. Is there something irreplicable emoted by Jewish actors in Jewish roles?

Dustin Hoffman, when auditioning for the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, could not understand how to play a part initially offered to Robert Redford. Jewish director Mike Nichols told Hoffman that Benjamin was Jewish “on the inside”, and from there a career-defining performance emerged.

What can it mean to be Jewish on the inside, when there is nothing in a script to suggest a character is Jewish on the “outside”?

Although Hoffman later built a reputation as a versatile actor, as Benjamin he embodied a kind of Jewishness that met traditional American stereotypes of the 1960s familiar to audiences: he is short, dark, large-nosed, nervous, intellectual. Jewishness is often acted by playing into stereotypes and consolidating prejudice through repeating familiar tropes.

There is a particular problem with comedy, as Jewishness — in stereotypical Ashkenazi manifestations — continues to be the butt of the joke. This is so even in productions led by Jewish writers.

A line can be traced from Woody Allen to The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, to You People, a controversial new race comedy from actor-writer Jonah Hill. Many viewers enjoy watching familiar character-types, but increasingly, audiences wish for more variety and less Ashkenazi-centric representations.

Writer-director Gary Sinyor (who is Sephardi, of Egyptian heritage) recalls receiving casting tapes for the forthcoming second series of his comedy Hapless, from Jewish actors putting on Yiddish accents and shrugging with exaggerated hand gestures to play Jewish roles: Better, in Sinyor’s opinion, to cast the role credibly, irrespective of religious background.

Stereotypical performances bear traces of previous depictions. Eddie Marsan is a non-Jewish actor often cast as Jewish characters (Sixty Six, Ridley Road, Back to Black) who reaffirm a stereotype that has been replicated on screen over decades.

Jack Rosenthal’s television play Bar Mitzvah Boy (1976) staged a specific place, time and kind of Jewish culture, but its huge success has led to it being the model for almost all consequent fictional representations of British Jewish lives (notably Friday Night Dinner).

It created the shorthand by which screen and stage now speak, which does not reflect our complexity today. We have a nostalgic representational realm that replicates itself; a postmodern situation in which the copy has replaced the authentic.

Actors should avoid repeating negative stereotypes, but the language of representation requires signs and symbols which audiences recognise.

Creative teams draw on tropes already in the public consciousness that require little explanation, such as using traditional Jewish surnames or placing a mistaken seven-branch Menorah on a mantelpiece. Jewish characters are frequently written as lawyers or psychiatrists, perpetuating prejudice about class and privilege.

The real diversity of Jewish experience is not visible on screen and stage. Production teams should be consciously asking how they can make Jewish elements of script and performance accurate and sensitive.

Can we shift new representations away from repeating out-dated tropes and towards reflecting a diverse reality? A reality in which a British Jewish person’s first language is Farsi; or they work in a supermarket; or they’re black?

Representation is essentially a question of identity and how it is communicated.
Should non-Jewish actors play Jewish roles? It depends. Let’s work towards creating positive representations of today’s vibrant Jewish life.

Dr Julia Wagner is the founder of Casting Jewish. juliawagnerfilm.com