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Bradley Cooper is facing criticism for performing in “Jewface” after the release of the trailer for his biopic of Leonard Bernstein, which revealed the facial prosthetics he employed for the role.
Bernstein, the son of Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants to the US, was a hugely talented conductor and composer, best known for writing the music for West Side Story as well as composing three symphonies and becoming music director of the New York Philharmonic. Cooper, who directs, co-writes and stars in Maestro, is not Jewish, and can be seen in the trailer with a noticeably prominent fake nose opposite Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre.
British actor and activist Tracy-Ann Obermann criticised Cooper on social media, writing: “If [Cooper] needs to wear a prosthetic nose then that is, to me and many others, the equivalent of Black-Face or Yellow-Face … if Bradley Cooper can’t [play the role] through the power or acting alone then don’t cast him – get a Jewish Actor.”
Obermann added, referencing Cooper’s performance on stage in 2014 as John Merrick in The Elephant Man: “Bradley Cooper managed to play the ELEPHANT MAN without a single prosthetic then he should be able to manage to play a Jewish man without one.”
The Hollywood Reporter’s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg called the prosthetics “problematic” when photos from the set emerged in May, and subsequently described the film as “ethnic cosplay”.
In a statement posted on social media, Bernstein’s children Jamie, Alexander, and Nina defended Cooper, saying: “It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of [Cooper’s] efforts … Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well.”
The controversy follows objections to the casting of Cillian Murphy as nuclear physicist J Robert Oppenheimer – again, a non-Jewish actor playing a notable Jewish figure – in the biopic directed by Christopher Nolan, with David Baddiel describing such casting as “complacent” and “doubl[ing] down” on “Jewish erasure”. Baddiel also criticised the casting of Helen Mirren as Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, writing in the Guardian that “over a period of extreme intensification of the progressive conversation about representation and inclusion and microaggression and what is and isn’t offensive to minorities, one minority – Jews – has been routinely neglected”.
Hollywood is so obsessed with always casting the same 10 actors for everything.
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I’m Jewish and I’m mildly offended by this. Is his nose size really going to be essential for immersion or something? This was not necessary but they did it anyways and are leaning into a tired stereotype about our appearance. Either cast a Jew or just own up to your casting choice. This just feels gross.
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I never saw “Darkest Hour” so I really can’t comment on that. To me, the whole “big nose” thing is just a negative stereotype that I’m tired of hearing about. So you stick a fake nose on someone and that just brings up all the negativity associated with it. And why? Because there’s no one Jewish available to play the part? Because they think the facial appearance is so crucial to the plot that the movie would bomb without it?
Hollywood has already had to be taught this lesson numerous times, but I guess they need it yet again. Stop painting white people so they “look the part” and just go cast someone who actually fits the role.
Bradley Cooper is credited as writer, director, and producer. He was probably never going to cast anyone but himself.
Sure, but that gets at the “Jewish erasure” piece mentioned by the article. You take a gentile white guy like Cooper, you put a subtle prosthetic on him to make him look more like the Jewish guy he’s portraying, and now what you’re doing is minimizing the physical characteristics that set Jewish people apart. What has the cultural effect of minimizing the Jewish identity, and folding it into the broader “white” mass identity. White Americans used to consider Irish and German folks as separate identities, and treated them much in the same way they treated other nonwhite folks.
Deemphasizing the differences between us is all well and good, except when the identity that is being minimized is still being oppressed today. Unfortunately, antisemitism is still alive and well in Amerikkka, which is why this is a problem.
Wait, so the way I’m reading this is that people are both upset by the stereotype, but also upset that the studio is not casting a stereotype?
That doesn’t make sense to me.
The way I’m reading that comment is that big noses are a Jewish stereotype, and since the studio decided to cast a white gentile and just stick a prosthetic nose on him, they’re leaning into that stereotype. They should’ve cast someone who was Jewish and also looked like the guy (as a whole… not only his nose).
But then would it not be a problem to cast a Jewish person based on their stereotypical appearance?
The whole point of acting is, well, that’s it’s acting. It’s all pretend. The photos from the movie show a Bradley Cooper that very much looks like Leonard Bernstein, which I thought was a good thing.
I think it’s a problem of white male dominance in Hollywood. They are creating a biopic on a Jewish person. The main actor should be Jewish. Full stop.
Representation matters.
I think you’re misunderstanding the meaning of stereotype. A stereotype is a simplification, a reduction of a person to a basic property or idea. Stereotypes often have their origin in reality, but they do not describe the whole individual. That’s why casting a generic white guy and sticking a prosthetic nose on his face to make him Jewish is strengthening a stereotype, while casting a Jewish person is not (even if this person happens to have a big nose themselves)
He looks nothing like Leonard Bernstein. The nose, the cheek bones, the ears, and the chin are all entirely different.
what, you don’t think Bradley Cooper is a National Treasure?!
I can’t imagine having enough time on my hands to be offended by things like this.
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So the little mermaid can be black, but a white guy can’t play a Jewish guy?
Did everyone forget that acting is just a very elaborate game of pretend?
Who cares who the actor is as long as they do the story justice 😤
What color are mermaids in real life?
Mermaids exist in folklore around the world, so I guess they can be any color (except for purple - to hell with purple people)
I think the proper equivalent would be if a white actress wore blackface. As far as I know, being mermaid isn’t a religion or any particular color. This is not good for them to do.
I’m fine with whatever color people want to pretend to be, as long as it serves the story and isn’t disrespectful.
If it serves no purpose other than being a stereotypical caricature, we can all agree that is wrong, but if you are portraying an actual Jewish person it’s not wrong to look similar as a way to lend a little authenticity to the story.
Casting a white actor and then putting them in blackface so they can play a black person is inherently disrespectful. The history of blackface is too racist and disgusting, that to choose that over simply casting a black person would be wildly out of line.
Ehh, that’s kind of a disingenuous comparison, no?
I’m willing to bet most Jewish people in the West would probably be referred to as “white” if they were being picked out of a crowd, so it’s not a huge leap for a white actor (a very popular actor who definitely sells tickets) to wear a small prosthetic to look like the real-life person he’s trying to portray.
Definitely not the same thing as completely painting yourself to appear to be a different race.
Making everyone who has white skin “white” is the very kind of ethnic erasure that people are arguing against. “white” is not a thing, it is not an ethnicity, it is not a single people. “white” is a construct invented long ago to justify a lot of terrible things. It is a consistently changing window on who is and isn’t allowed membership. “whiteness” erases all it touches. “whiteness” is why so many “white” people are confused and frustrated about their identities. It’s really just bad all around.
I was using the term “white” strictly in visual terms. I personally think race is a dumb concept, as it all boils down to where in the world your ancestors were from, and nobody gets a say in that.
As you pointed out, white is an ever changing idea and is decided on by the ones who are bullying. We’re not bullied like that, so how would we even know what they experience?
Another angle that I think you’re missing is that it doesn’t really matter what you think. What matters is how people of the represented race feel about it. In this case, many Jewish people feel it’s racist, just like blackface is seen as racist.
Nobody will be offended by prosthetics/makeup to play an orc, elf, or blue alien, but a lot of people will be offended by prosthetics/makeup to play a different race.
I’m generally in favour of casting the actor who can best get the non-physical elements right, like the character’s way of thinking and being in the world. So for any single example I’m open to arguments why that person was the right choice.
BUT there’s a larger issue also at play in which roles Jews are cast in. Generally speaking Jews get to play Jews when it’s a negative stereotype - think the loud, shrill, NYC Jewish woman trope, but when it’s a more positive character, those roles generally go to non-Jews. That’s the real problem.
Yikes! They gave Bradley Cooper an even bigger nose than Leonard Bernstein. Is this some kind of antisemitic attack on Jake Gyllenhaal for not taking a pay cut to play the part?
If feel like this is more a studio scandal than a Cooper scandal. They did the casting and approved the prosthetic. I’m disappointed the actor gets the heat and the institution isn’t mentioned.
If you want to get angry at Bradley, his relationship with 21 year old Suki Waterhouse was super gross. The studio holds no blame for that mess.
Cooper is credited as writer, director, and producer on the movie. I don’t think you can put this on the studio.
That definitely changes things. Out of curiosity, I looked up what other movies he directed and produced.
He produced and starred in American Sniper, which was incidentally also kind of a political disaster. The nose prosthetic reminds me of the American Sniper fake baby hilarity. Bradley put the blame on the director, but the director makes it sound like it was a monetary and not an artistic choice. That would put the responsibility on the shoulders of the producer.
Why was his consensual relationship with another adult “super gross”?
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Bradley Cooper is facing criticism for performing in “Jewface” after the release of the trailer for his biopic of Leonard Bernstein, which revealed the facial prosthetics he employed for the role.
Cooper, who directs, co-writes and stars in Maestro, is not Jewish, and can be seen in the trailer with a noticeably prominent fake nose opposite Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre.
The Hollywood Reporter’s chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg called the prosthetics “problematic” when photos from the set emerged in May, and subsequently described the film as “ethnic cosplay”.
In a statement posted on social media, Bernstein’s children Jamie, Alexander, and Nina defended Cooper, saying: “It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of [Cooper’s] efforts … Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that.
The controversy follows objections to the casting of Cillian Murphy as nuclear physicist J Robert Oppenheimer – again, a non-Jewish actor playing a notable Jewish figure – in the biopic directed by Christopher Nolan, with David Baddiel describing such casting as “complacent” and “doubl[ing] down” on “Jewish erasure”.
Baddiel also criticised the casting of Helen Mirren as Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, writing in the Guardian that “over a period of extreme intensification of the progressive conversation about representation and inclusion and microaggression and what is and isn’t offensive to minorities, one minority – Jews – has been routinely neglected”.
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