Who’s to blame for keeping Jewish women off the big screen? The answer: Jewish men, at least according to commenters on a Los Angeles Times blog.
Inspired by an October 20 article in the Jewish online journal Tablet, the L.A.Times blog “The Big Picture” riffed on the argument of the earlier piece, which suggests that male Jews in Hollywood kept their female counterparts out of the entertainment industry from the earliest days of film. Titled “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” the Tablet piece by Liel Leibovitz contends that Jewish men consistently chose “a parade of sexy, sultry shiksas” over Jewish actresses, partly to sublimate their own perceived foreignness and partly because “Jewish women… were simply too pure to lust after.”
Booby-trapped with minor provocations about Jews, gender politics and conceptions of “all-American” beauty, the accusation contains all the necessary components of an online controversy, which is exactly what it generated after getting picked up October 21 by the L.A. Times.
Judged both “fascinating” and “pretty persuasive” by L.A. Times reporter Patrick Goldstein, the argument generated dozens of comments during its first days online, with responses ranging from agreement to a lengthy list of well-known exceptions.
Goldstein suggested that Leibovitz widen his analysis to include black actresses in particular.
Perhaps the discussion shows how concerns about a lack of diversity among the female leads remains widespread.
Having lit a fuse with his blog, Goldstein couldn’t resist lightening the conversation with a comic tinge, and posted a clip of one of Hollywood’s most beloved shiksas — Diane Keaton — getting neurotic over a spider as the title character in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.”
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None of the people who make this claim that Jewish women are underrepresented in Hollywood seem to KNOW which actresses are Jewish or not. So they’re not actually qualified to write about it. At all.
The following of today’s actresses are Jewish, and of course there are others.
Ginnifer Goodwin, Amanda Bynes, Mila Kunis, Jennifer Jason Leigh (100% Jewish), Alicia Silverstone, Bar Refaeli, Gwyneth Paltrow (father was Jewish), Debra Messing, Nat Portman & the half-Jewish Scarlett Johansson, Debra Winger, Ashley Tisdale, Amanda Peet (her mother is Jewish), Jennifer Connelly (same as Peet), Alexa Davalos, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Melanie Laurent (from Inglourious Basterds), Alyson Hannigan (her mother is Jewish), Rachel Weisz, Ellen Barkin, Evan Rachel Wood, Goldie Hawn (her mother is Jewish) and her daughter Kate Hudson, Jami Gertz, Jamie Lee Curtis (half), Julianna Margulies, Margarita Levieva, Rashida Jones (raised in her mom’s Jewish faith; and her mom is actress Peggy Lipton, who’s 100% Jewish), Mia Kirshner, Selma Blair, Michelle Trachtenberg, The Arquette sisters and Rachel Bilson (half Jewish), Sara Paxton, Winona Ryder
Hollywood is definately anti-semitic toward Jewish women. While the actresses listed have Jewish heritage, most don't identify as Jewish and 99% only act in shiksa roles. Many Jewish actresses hide their Jewish identity because they know that they will be discriminated against. It's well-known in Hollywood that Jewish actresses must play down their Jewish heritage and only play Gentile women roles to be taken seriously.
Hollywood is run by secular Jewish men who are 90% intermarried. They hate Jewish women and worship very Aryan women. That is why all the movie roles have those kind of women depicted as being the ultimate beauties. One example is Judd Apatow. He and others like him have the same attitudes toward Jewish women as the nazis. Hollywood is run by Judenrats and won't change anytime soon.
As Steve put, there are lots of Jewish actresses, however, as HHJW puts it, they do tend to playdown their Jewishness and play shiksas in roles (rather nonSemitic looking Jewish women go further).
However, Hollywood doesn't hate Jewish women (much less anti-Semitic to them). Too many Jews throw this term around way to much.
In general, you will notice that the women is lighter then the man. Whether it is an ethnic (Jewish, Italian, Latino) male will be paired with a blonde. Look at black couples on tv. The women is 95% of the time lighter then the male. Take rap videos (if you can still find music videos), black rappers prefer redbone and high-yellow women.
In other words, while the swarthiness of the male lead (ethnic) maybe excepted more (the sexy Other), the woman still has to fit in the "All American" threshold.