Adam Garfinkle wrote a book called Jewcentricity bashing people for thinking that Jews are at the center of everything. My problem with the theme is that I was raised with just that attitude, as a Jew. We're smarter, our ideas have changed the world, etc. Danielle Berrin is guilty of same, at Jewish Journal of LA:
During a week in which the so-called Jewish domination of the media was being bandied about thanks to Oliver Stone, I’m reminded of the following quip my editor Rob Eshman made three summers ago, the year “Mad Men” made its television debut:
“When they say Jews control Hollywood, I always think to myself: Thank God.”
He wrote that in a 2007 profile of “Mad Men” creator Matt Weiner, in which he touted the show as a shining example of why Jews should dominate Hollywood. It made sense, after all, he wrote, “it is Jews whose style and whose themes have dominated the entertainment media for much of the past century.” ...
The great thing about Hollywood is that it’s a place where these opposing tensions can play out, where it’s hard to distinguish between the Jewish writer and his non-Jewish character. Which is not so much Jewish domination as it is Jewishly inspired...
[In Mad Men] Judaism’s moral precedent is there, even in a show that isn’t ostensibly Jewish.
‘mad men’, a favorite of mine, is really deserving of analysis, but to say that it is not ostensibly ‘jewish’ is misleading.
a question on the broader topic though: why isn’t rob eshman holding up adam sandler as an example of the benefits of a jewish-dominated media, or howie mandel? and, yes, that is a rhetorical question. or, more generally, the puerile, unimaginative writing that is the rule, not the exception, in movies and television?
Betty: “You people are so vulgar.”
From Mad Men.
Hollywood films are mirrors of the tastes and concerns of those who vote at the box office, very calculated and tailored money machines. The great classic films were more about a greater vision, more “art.”
i think this is the quote, citizen.
Jimmy Barrett: What do you think happened between the two of them?
Betty Draper: Excuse me?
Jimmy: Oh, come on. Look at them.
Betty: I don’t like what you’re saying.
Jimmy: All I know is, I know her, and you know him, and there they are, and they don’t care where we are.
Betty: Stop it.
Jimmy: Hold on.
Betty: Let me go!
Jimmy: I don’t like it any more than you do.
Betty: You people are ugly and crude.
Jimmy:What people? You mean comedians?
I know of a college teacher who has taught that line is to show how prevalent anti-semitism was back in the day of kool cigarette smoking.
Two comments. The first is that I think that the influence of the entertainment media is underrated. When we think of “media control” we tend to think of the news media. Yet it is the entertainment media which is infinitetly more significant when it comes to creating the social mythology within which “news” is evaluated, and which promulgates the stereotypes which buttress empire. War and wariors, heroes and villains, violence in general, etc. The second is the extent to which elite Jews have become so thoroughly entrenched in the capitalist aristocracy. A unique place where arrogance is so common as to seem normal.
Lots of truth to what you say, Keith. Compare the stereotypes changing over the decades in just one niche: teen movies. Who and what is taken down or raised up?
Phil -
Isn’t this web site an example of Jewcentricity? I’ve often wondered why a universalist like yourself, so averse to all forms of ethnocentrism, focuses so fiercely on one ethnic group.
When you hate fascism do you focus on Walt Disney?
Here’s another article on the character Don Draper–it doesn’t appear to focus in a similar vein on his “outsider” quality, or maybe it does–and makes one wonder who are the “outsiders” these days, and are they even faintly jewish:
link to newsweek.com
So has Hollywood been a net plus or a net loss for our culture? How about the porn industry? Is the box office the best poll? Our system of campaign financing: same question. And has free speech been curbed or expanded, net?
So has Hollywood been a net plus or a net loss for our culture? How about the porn industry?
uh, let me think. . . . net losses, both.