Am I a comedy Jew?

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Go on, admit it. We all love a comedy Jew. When I say “we all”, that’s not quite true. My mother always hated Jack Rosenthal’s Bar Mitzvah Boy because she felt it offered a caricature of Jewish families: neurotic, overprotective, dominating mother; passive father just avoiding rows; interfering relatives and friends. She felt it was utterly unrealistic, so banned us from watching it in case we got ideas, while my father just told us to do what our mother told us. (OK, I need to admit that the last sentence isn’t true. It just struck me as funny. Oh, and I’ll catch hell from my mother if she reads it, which of course she will.)  

On the upside, we should be grateful for small small mercies. Once upon a time the role of the Jew in the arts was the grasping shyster: a Fagin, a Shylock. More recently he would be an oleaginous executive. It would never exactly be stated that the guy was Jewish but at some point he’d be referred to as Mr Feinstein. (Or, in the recent case of the Royal Court Theatre, Hershel Fink.)

Anyway, today my main irritation is the proliferation of comedy Jews. From Schitt’s Creek to Friday Night Dinner to The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, the neurotic and offensively over-the-top Jewish family is a go-to comedy staple, whenever we hebes occupy a prominent role in a programme. Woody Allen and Mel Brooks were there first, but it seemed fresher then — and movie running times reduce the number of hours you have to endure. 

To be clear, I do not discern any antisemitic intent here, and at least some of the writers must be Jewish, and perhaps even regard these portrayals as affectionate, though it is hard to see how. 

Anyway, the comedy Jews point was rammed home this week by Nobody Wants This, a new comedy about a non-Jewish sex podcaster dating a rabbi. Sweeping over the absurdities of the central premise, it was mostly an amiable show but included continuous doses of really unpleasant comedy Jews, notably a viciously overbearing mother and a staggeringly rude sister-in-law. 

It is enraging (though, in the show’s defence, the non-Jewish family is also demented, though less obnoxious). Those who do not know many Jewish people must think this is what our home life is like. A standard scene in any of these shows is everyone talking at once, often berating the main character who had let them down in some way with, “Your father can’t show his face at the golf club,” or “Your mother won’t come out of the bathroom.” The hapless hero can neither break free of or entirely stand up to these vampires, who are obsessed with appearances and status.

I tried to persist with Mrs Maisel for a while but am always defeated. Who wants to spend time with these people? Don’t you just want to slap them? Except clearly people do want to spend time with them. The shows were very successful. 

One possible explanation is that while non-Jews can just enjoy the caricature, there is just enough of a germ of reality for me to find it uncomfortable. 

Which begs the opening question which — yes, you got me — was sent in by me: could I actually be a comedy Jew? There are some worrying signs. I am loud. It is possible that I’m not always thrilled to give someone else the last word. My family can absolutely talk over each other at dinner. My mother always makes too much food and also wants to send us home with more.

On the other hand, we really don’t behave like this. We mostly hold orderly conversations. We are not obsessed by how this will be received at the golf club, since none of us can play — perhaps if there was a crazy golf club. No one ever uses the offensive term “shiksa”.

A less uncomfortable explanation is that the family dynamic has long offered a rich — if to me overdone — comic seam. What I can’t bear really is the rowing family and that the whiff of familiarity, however distorted, magnifies the discomfort. English or Wasp families get a different treatment often built around snobbery and simmering resentment but most others are openly overwrought. The Kumars at No 42 or the main family in Derry Girls have a number of the same maddening stereotypes, especially the dishcloth husband unable to stand up to anyone.

So maybe it’s all comedy families that are the problem. Or then again perhaps all families are comedy Jews.

Email Robert at [email protected]

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