Yid Vid: Adam Sandler as Mossad-Agent-Turned-Hairdresser
So Sandler has made a film in which he plays a crack Mossad agent who decides to move to New York to be a hairdresser.
Weird? Yes. Profound? Maybe.
Sandler, in my humble opinion, perfectly captured the zeitgeist of American Jewry in “50 First Dates,” the film in which he wooed an amnesiac Drew Barrymore. (I’d explain how, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise ending.) From watching the trailer for his upcoming film, “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” it seems like Sandler’s summed up the mood of a certain segment of the Israeli populace (i.e. life is hard in Israel, much better to be a hairdresser in New York).
JTA’s Ami Eden (from whom I filched this video) seems to see a certain parallel with Steven Spielberg’s “Munich.” In my view, the parallels go deeper than the cloak-and-dagger stuff. In both films, the protagonists flee to New York, and, for both, their previous line of work follows them across the Atlantic. But I doubt Sandler’s latest will spark much in the way of Jewish communal controversy. (Although we’ll have to wait and see what Leon Wieseltier thinks.)
In any case, there are no Jewish profundities lurking beneath the surface of my favorite Adam Sandler film, “Happy Gilmore.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
