Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody will scare you into voting

Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody continue to be quarantine’s favorite Jewish parents — at least on Twitter.

When they’re not being quizzed about internet slang by their son, playing trivia games or singing snatches of commercial jingles, they’re demonstrating how to phone bank all from their home in Arizona.

The two are civic-minded, but they’re also actors, so they have been known to let their emotions get the better of them. A new ad pushing out the vote plays on their considerable passion for informative laughs. Mandy begins with stentorian narration, spelling out the high stakes of the November 3 election as ominous music drones behind him amid scenes of chaos and stills of establishment Republicans.

Then, Grody corrects course, urging a more moderate tone. She suggests that the political temperature is too hot these days, and gently tells viewers to vote for senators and local candidates as well

“I understand Biden may not be everyone’s ideal candidate, but you know what? He is human and decent and kind, and guess what? People voted for him, so that’s democracy,” Grody says.

Naturally the litany of issues — from the Supreme Court and immigration and finally racial justice and climate change — get her to lose her cool.

“Everybody needs to help everybody get out the vote in any way they can, cause come November, whatever the outcome, this is just the beginning,” Grody said. “We are gonna have to fight for these issues for a very long time and we can’t do anything unless we vote!”

The message comes through loud and clear. To the point where the word “vote” is still ringing in my ears.

Ted Cruz, a massive fan of “The Princess Bride,” may continue to fume over the fact that Inigo Montoya himself is a vocal Democrat. But if you share the Patinkins’ politics, you may be tickled by the video, and completely won over by Patinkins’ description of Grody as his “glorious AF wife.”

I guess he learned some of that internet slang after all.

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.