So just watched Gentleman's Agreement on TCM. It's a 1947 film in which Gregory Peck plays a writer on a magazine who decides to pretend to be Jewish in order to expose the anti-Semitism of the time that excluded Jews from certain neighborhoods, hotels, jobs, club, and subjected them to insults and stereotyping.
The film is clunky, objectionable, and flawed - for a lot of reasons. Hollywood apparently believed that the film had to have a non-Jewish character experience anti-Semitism for it to resonate with the audience. There's the fact that two years after World War II - in a film about anti-Semitism in America - there's not one mention of the six million Jews who were just murdered in Europe. Not a mention of the camps - of the virulent form of anti-Semitism that allowed those murders. The anti-Semitism depicted is humiliating and disturbing, but there's no hint that it's dangerous - that this kind of prejudice lays the foundation for genocide. There's also the fact that the film doesn't have any element or discussion of Jewish culture or Jewish history - just the idea that Jews pray in synagogues instead of churches. There's a lot of discussion of Jews being the subject of prejudice, but nothing to celebrate the richness of Jewish life.
Then there's the fact that the movies is incredibly dated, to the extent that it's almost painful to watch. It's preachy rather than dramatic. There's stilted dialogue: characters say "gosh" and "gee whiz" and other slang of the day that is just laughable. There's the smart, funny career woman who is great as a best friend, but passed over as a love interest for a soft, whinny, very traditional and incredibly boring woman, quite apart from the fact that she's a closet anti-Semite. Finally there's the phony tacked-on happy ending - where the society woman and closet anti-Semite realizes that she has been enabling anti-Semitism, does something that shows how she's really not as anti-Semitic as she's been depicted through the film, and gets the fake-Jewish guy after all.
Nevertheless, there are some interesting moments that are relevant to today. The theme - that it's not the overt anti-Semites, the ones yelling kike or denying Jews entry to hotels that are the real problem - it's the polite and educated liberals who disapprove of anti-Semitism but go along with it, keeping their mouths shut at anti-Semitic jokes but continuing to go to hotels that exclude Jews, living in areas that don't allow Jews to rent - that hits home today.
In today's world, while anti-Semitism exists and Jews are still attacked, it's not on the level that it was in 1947. It's hard for many Jews to realize just how bad it was for us in this country not that long ago. Still, we Jews - or at least we white Jews (yes, there are Jews of color)- share in the privilege of the white world. We can hide our identities - people who don't want to be known as Jewish can change their names, join a church - and blend in - unless of course, the new Nazis take over and start tracing Jewish lineage so they can kill all of us with at least two Jewish grandparents. But the central theme of the film remains true: that the real obstacle to equality for marginalized people (people of color who don't have the luxury of "passing" that Jews can enjoy) is not the overt racism practiced by the KKK or their ilk, but the polite and quiet people who would never dream of using a racist taunt, but are enjoying the benefits of a racist system - and don't flip over the table when someone tells a racist joke, excludes people of color, or stereotypes someone based on their race.
The one Jewish character depicted in the film said that anti-Semitism isn't a Jewish problem, it's a Christian problem. The same is true of racism - it's a white problem.
The film is clunky, objectionable, and flawed - for a lot of reasons. Hollywood apparently believed that the film had to have a non-Jewish character experience anti-Semitism for it to resonate with the audience. There's the fact that two years after World War II - in a film about anti-Semitism in America - there's not one mention of the six million Jews who were just murdered in Europe. Not a mention of the camps - of the virulent form of anti-Semitism that allowed those murders. The anti-Semitism depicted is humiliating and disturbing, but there's no hint that it's dangerous - that this kind of prejudice lays the foundation for genocide. There's also the fact that the film doesn't have any element or discussion of Jewish culture or Jewish history - just the idea that Jews pray in synagogues instead of churches. There's a lot of discussion of Jews being the subject of prejudice, but nothing to celebrate the richness of Jewish life.
Then there's the fact that the movies is incredibly dated, to the extent that it's almost painful to watch. It's preachy rather than dramatic. There's stilted dialogue: characters say "gosh" and "gee whiz" and other slang of the day that is just laughable. There's the smart, funny career woman who is great as a best friend, but passed over as a love interest for a soft, whinny, very traditional and incredibly boring woman, quite apart from the fact that she's a closet anti-Semite. Finally there's the phony tacked-on happy ending - where the society woman and closet anti-Semite realizes that she has been enabling anti-Semitism, does something that shows how she's really not as anti-Semitic as she's been depicted through the film, and gets the fake-Jewish guy after all.
Nevertheless, there are some interesting moments that are relevant to today. The theme - that it's not the overt anti-Semites, the ones yelling kike or denying Jews entry to hotels that are the real problem - it's the polite and educated liberals who disapprove of anti-Semitism but go along with it, keeping their mouths shut at anti-Semitic jokes but continuing to go to hotels that exclude Jews, living in areas that don't allow Jews to rent - that hits home today.
In today's world, while anti-Semitism exists and Jews are still attacked, it's not on the level that it was in 1947. It's hard for many Jews to realize just how bad it was for us in this country not that long ago. Still, we Jews - or at least we white Jews (yes, there are Jews of color)- share in the privilege of the white world. We can hide our identities - people who don't want to be known as Jewish can change their names, join a church - and blend in - unless of course, the new Nazis take over and start tracing Jewish lineage so they can kill all of us with at least two Jewish grandparents. But the central theme of the film remains true: that the real obstacle to equality for marginalized people (people of color who don't have the luxury of "passing" that Jews can enjoy) is not the overt racism practiced by the KKK or their ilk, but the polite and quiet people who would never dream of using a racist taunt, but are enjoying the benefits of a racist system - and don't flip over the table when someone tells a racist joke, excludes people of color, or stereotypes someone based on their race.
The one Jewish character depicted in the film said that anti-Semitism isn't a Jewish problem, it's a Christian problem. The same is true of racism - it's a white problem.
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