So people are saying that Ruby Rose doesn’t identify as a lesbian (she’s very gay as far as I know) and isn’t Jewish so therefore shouldn’t play Batwoman. What the actual fuck. Can people please stop being offended just for the sake of being offended. Sure, whitewashing is an issue in Hollywood, and it’s something that needs to change. But, NEWSFLASH, someone’s religion doesn’t dictate whether or not they can play a character of that religion.
This whole being offended by something because you feel like you should be offended is ridiculous. Actors are actors, they play a part. It doesn’t matter if they have the same religious background as that character, it doesn’t matter if they share the same sexuality of that character. They’re actors, they pretend, that’s literally their job.
I’m not Jewish so it’s not my place to comment on this but maybe @tikkunolamorgtfo or @fromchaostocosmos could weigh in?
@unaligned-valkyrie, this is not simply an issue of “religion.” The Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group, i.e. “an ethnic group whose members are also unified by a common religious background.” Note the word “also” in that description—because unlike with Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc. you can be ethnically Jewish without practicing Judaism as a religion. We’re demanding accurate cultural representation for our ethnic group, and the ability to be the centre of our own narratives.
This isn’t “being offended for the sake of being offended.” Most Jewish characters are not presently played by Jews, which denies us the right to be present and visible in our own stories. I have never seen an adaptation of Anne Frank with a Jewish actress playing the role. Films about anti-semitism often star gentile actors. The message is that our culture and history is only important insofar as it can be commodified and used to entertain gentiles, but that we’re still not actually welcome when it comes to taking part in the sharing of our own narratives.
Also, while we’re on the subject of acting and the co-opting of Jewish stories for non-Jewish audiences, like…do y’all realise that Jewish people can tell when somebody playing a Jew isn’t Jewish about 98% of the time and that it ruins the film/show/play for us? Yeah, it’s an actor’s job to act, but I’ve seen precious few gentiles do Jewish convincingly. You butcher our languages, our mannerisms, and our general cultural outlook the majority of the time, either completely missing what defines us or reducing us to base stereotypes.
Sure, you can’t tell; you’re a gentile. Somebody saying “Oh I’m Jewish, this is my menorah!” is probably enough for you to buy the performance hook, line, and sinker. But us? WE CAN TELL, and sorry, but a piece of media featuring a Jewish character in a way where the person portraying them obviously doesn’t understand Jews is fucking alienating, and again: WE DESERVE NOT TO BE ALIENATED FROM STORIES THAT ARE ABOUT US.
Like FFS we’re a tiny group that’s been shat upon for 2,000 years, can’t you guys just let us have a little bit of joy once in a while?
we want to play our roles. i want to see a jewish lesbian character on tv and know that the actress has similar experiences to the character because she’s jewish and a lesbian. i want to go ‘hey, that actress has similar experiences to me!’ people hate me for not being straight, sure, but they also hate me, probably more so!, for being jewish. the two are deeply entwined and influence each other.
you can’t separate kate’s jewish identity from her lesbian identity. her jewishness is a key component.
we deserve to have iconically jewish characters played by jewish actors. we deserve to see ourselves in our stories.
I see now that the wording of my original post was wrong, and I am completely open to being educated. The ‘offended about being offended’ part wasn’t actually about the religious side of it, that was more to do with the sexuality. Yes, you should want to see yourselves in stories, and I obviously have no issue with that at all, but attacking the actress for being cast in the role (which people have to the point that she has quit twitter) isn’t the right way to go about it.
Like I said, I’m open to being educated about things that I can’t know about as I’m not Jewish, so I’m learning on that point.
Thank you for listening.
I mean, you *could* know that being Jewish is as much about ethnicity as about religion without being Jewish… but most Americans don’t. This is at least partly due to a successful effort in the U.S. by Reform Judaism, a movement that started in 19th-century Germany, to reframe Judaism as a religion like any other. They wanted Jews in Germany to be considered “Germans of the Mosaic faith.” We all know how well that went over in Germany… or maybe we don’t, if we think the Holocaust was a matter of religious rather than racial hatred.
In the 19th and even the mid-20th century, it made sense for Jews to try to be seen as just another flavor of white people, entitled to the same religious toleration that was enshrined in the First Amendment because of Europe’s wars between different denominations of Christianity. In the age of identity politics, when people are increasingly reckoning with the history of racism in the modern world, that story about what it means to be Jewish obscures important facets of our history. It also dangerously obscures the importance of antisemitism in the worldview of white supremacists active now in the United States. If you don’t realize that antisemitism is a kind of racism, not a kind of religious prejudice, then it makes no sense. Why are white supremacists always going on about power being concentrated in the hands of Jews, if Jews are mostly just white people who happen to have a different religion? (Other than that stuff about Jews promoting multiculturalism, which would seem kinda random if you don’t realize that they don’t consider Jews to be white.)
In the past, I haven’t much minded non-Jewish actors being cast as Jewish characters. Sir Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender as Magneto is hardly an insult. And most Americans can’t tell the difference. But apparently we do need to start insisting on the ethnic dimension of Jewish identity. I look pretty white, for most purposes, but I’ve been identified as Jewish by non-Jews I’ve never met on the basis of facial features. That wouldn’t happen if Judaism was just another religion.
Loki is the Philosopher King 