Noah Berlatsky
By Noah Berlatsky
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Film & TV Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman Is White — Let’s Not Pretend Otherwise
Wonder Woman is, shockingly, the first film in our current decade-plus superhero moment to feature a female lead. But while the film is pioneering in terms of gender representation, in other respects it is not especially innovative. The film does include some black Amazons, and a couple of people of color, but the headline characters…
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Culture Why ScarJo’s Whitewashed ‘Ghost’ Is A Jewish Assimilation Parable
“When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then can we find peace,” Chief Daisuke Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano) declares in the new 2017 live action reboot of the classic Japanese anime “Ghost in the Shell.” It’s an ironic moral for a film that is already infamous for its whitewashed casting. If the film really…
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Culture Is This Comic Book Holocaust Survivor Being Turned Into A Nazi?
Generally, it’s bad form to suggest Holocaust survivors are Nazis. And yet, Marvel comics appears prepared to do just that. On a recent cover, Magneto, the X-Men supervillain, is depicted as belonging to the evil Nazi-analog organization Hydra. Magneto is canonically a Holocaust survivor. His experience at Auschwitz led him to lose faith in humanity;…
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Culture Why Aren’t There More Jewish Superheroes?
‘Marvel, Please Cast an Asian-American as Iron Fist,” Keith Chow wrote at the Nerds of Color site three years ago when Netflix first announced plans for the series, which debuts March 17. Marvel didn’t listen; Finn Jones, who is white, plays the title role in “Iron Fist.” This is disappointing, but not exactly unexpected. The…
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Opinion GamerGate Can Teach Us About Anti-Semitic Attacks
The FBI recently arrested Juan Thompson in connection with eight bomb threats made against Jewish Community Centers. Thompson, a journalist previously fired from The Intercept for fabricating quotes, allegedly made the threats in his ex-girlfriend’s name to harass and intimidate her. Some on the right, who have scoffed at the idea that Trump’s rise has…
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