Bradley Cooper and 'Jewface'

[Shimto]

His biopic of Leonard Bernstein, and the release of the trailer show BC wearing a prosthetic nose to play Bernstein.

Leonard Bernstein's family have issued a warm, supportive and beautiful statement supporting BC's commitment to the role and rejecting the criticism.

I was really surprised to see the prosthetic. I understand the cries of Jewface. I think BC is an intelligent, talented actor and producer. My initial reaction was 'what was he thinking?' while also finding the family's statement so heartfelt.

Sorry if there's another thread - my quick search didn't find one. I guess my AIBU is whether BC was right or wrong here - I've been pondering it today.

Start a thread? Or join the one running at the moment. I've just commented on it myself.

Missed point there PP.
OP If the family were happy why isn't that enough?

Because the family don't represent all Jewish people? Their statement really was lovely, but I also hear the Jewish actors and journalists/etc speaking about their disappointment in BC and his decision to wear a prosthetic nose to play a Jewish man, which I give equal weight to.

Anyway - I started the thread too late - I've going to have to turn in, but I'll catch up with the comments in the morning.

I found this when I looked it up.

‘Bernstein’s three children — Jamie, Alexander and Nina Bernstein — on Wednesday issued a statement supporting Cooper, saying they were “touched to the core to witness the depth of (Cooper’s) commitment, his loving embrace of our father’s music and the sheer open-hearted joy he brought to his exploration.”

“It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of his efforts,” the statement said. “It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose. 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 Bernstein children added that “strident complaints about this issue strike us above all as disingenuous attempts to bring a successful person down a notch — a practice we observed perpetrated all too often on our father.”

YABU

He is doing his job, trying to look like the actual person he is portraying.

You are talking about something quite different - portraying a stereotyped image with certain supposedly characteristic features, often exaggerated or made grotesque for laughs or degrade the group.

LB looks like LB, and an actor portraying him is going to try and imitate that in a variety of ways. Clothing, accent, mannerisms, make up.

@Shimto The family don’t represent all Jewish people, but they are Jewish people and are also, obviously, the family of the man being portrayed. If they don’t take offence, why should you? Are you yourself Jewish and trying to highlight this because of that? If so, that would give you a point here.

If you voted yabu, why are Jewish actors and media people speaking out (not the family)? Are they just being a bit silly about it all?

If it's all a big nothing, why is it not a big nothing to the Jewish people who find it an issue?

That's just an opinion though
.
I wouldn't personally see that as a good yardstick at all when it comes to biopics etc because prosthetics etc are often used to make the likeness as close as possible.

If the character wasn't Jewish but had a big nose then a prosthetic would also have been used.

In a kids play props might be used so that the audience can quickly understand what part a person is trying to play or the props/costumes etc are also often used to inspire laughs, They're not used to make the child look close to the person they're trying to play, no one is watching a kids play getting absorbed in the story imagining they're actually the character that they're playing, but in a biopic that's one of the aims.

So any actor who uses a prosthetic nose to look more like the person they are playing is fine to use it unless the character is Jewish and then they can’t?

Is that your argument? Sounds like you have a problem if you are applying different standards to actors who play Jewish people.

Is it like blackface? Surely that’s a matter of degree? They’ve selected an actor who looks quite similar to the character and have changed one aspect of his appearance, which is obviously commonly done, regardless of whether the character being played is Jewish or not.

The point about blackface is nuanced because there are many reasons why is is considered unacceptable for a white person to play a black character. Are you suggesting that only Jewish people should play Jewish characters? Because that would be the equivalent.

Surely this would be an issue if it was a fictional character - but not when an actor is trying to achieve a genuine resemblance?

So for example, if BC had been asked to play a Jewish man and they added a large nose prosthetic, I can completely understand a claim of “Jewface”. Because it would add nothing to a fictional role and would be unnecessary, instead playing into the stereotyping of Jewish people.

But in this case he was trying to look more like an actual person. And that person happens to have a larger nose. The prosthetic has nothing to do with Jewishness, it’s a reflection on the actual person’s appearance and trying to create a likeness.

You could argue that it adds nothing to the role. But that same argument would apply to every single other actor who wears a prosthetic to look more like the real life person they’re portraying. Sure, they could do it without prosthetics but a greater likeness delivers a more complete performance. That’s what’s happened here.

Antisemitism is real and needs to have a light shone on it - but that’s not a fair accusation here.

There has been a shift in recent years away from being able to separate the actor from the role and allowing acting to be ‘taking on a role’.

From my observation it has included gay/non gay portrayals, disability portrayals and now we are seeing it to include race/religion.

It has pros and it has cons…it makes more opportunities for a diverse range of actors and it prevents actors from acting outside their experience. Which is the opposite of acting.

Wearing a prosthetic to make you look more like a real person is very different to wearing one for a fictional role that just plays on tropes/stereotypes.
I have heard some people claim a Jewish actor should have played him.
This is getting silly now
It's acting, anyone can play anyone.
Literally, if it's a school play and you have limited cast then yes a young black girl can play an old Irish man....but in movies some sort of resemblance or key attributes makes it more believable and draws the viewer in so physical appearance becomes much more important.....not your religion or other "unseen" things.

We do .

It is called Drag.

I think there is a difference between wearing a prosthetic to portray a fictional Jewish character and wearing one to resemble an actual person who is Jewish.

I don’t think it’s the same as blackface because not all Jewish people have prominent noses. And not all people with prominent noses are Jewish. I don’t think the family has to speak for all Jewish people. They are speaking for themselves and what they believe their father would have thought. And that’s enough.

@IamSTARVING Which seems to be perfectly acceptable. More's the pity.
How many women do blackface, or jewface?
Men are criticised after the fact there. But drag is popular, wont go away any time soon. Men there too. Its beyond tedious.

Yabu

Cillian Murphy lost a load of weight to look more like Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was Jewish. Murphy is not. There was no outrage about him changing his physical appearance to look more like the person he was playing.

Nicole Kidman used a prosthetic nose to look more like Virginia Woolf. No outrage.

There is no doubt that Bernstein had a prominent nose. Had Leonard Bernstein not been Jewish and Cooper had worn a prosthetic no-one would have batted an eyelid. This is outrage for the sake of outrage.

It’s odd because if you Google Leonard Bernstein his nose is a lot more prominent that the photo on the left here. It’s almost as though that photo at that angle has been picked on purpose to try and inflame this issue.

While the family don’t speak for all Jewish people, BC isn’t playing all Jewish people. BC is playing a particular person who did have a prominent nose. in these situations whose word is more important? LB was a father.

I am not sure how I feel about it, personally, tbh. But I am not sure that I agree that because LB was Jewish, the whole Jewish community get more say in his appearance than his actual family.

It would be different if BC wasn’t playing a particular person but was just playing a fictional Jewish man.

I’m baffled by this - the prosthetic looks long and pointy, which doesn’t look like LB’s nose.

I'm baffled about a black actor playing Anne Boleyn. Are we going for realism or not?
Lots of things are baffling.
An actor trying to resemble the person they are playing in a film about that persons life is one of the least baffling.

The prosthetic is not very good. It is a bad representation of Leonard Bernstein's nose and so it looks jarring. The prosthetic looks comically bad which makes it seem almost like it is not trying to be a copy of Bernstein's nose but is a representation of the stereotype of a Jewish nose instead.
I think Bernstein's family have been very gracious about this. But I would not be happy with this prosthetic as it is distractingly bad.

He has the support of the family surely that's the main thing?

However....I didn't know who this guy was and seeing that pic above I can't understand why the nose was added anyway?

All these people trying to be politically correct by being offended by everything are the people being racist, stereotyping, and grouping people into boxes according to their race/heritage which is incredibly harmful. He is an actor. Actors need to look and act like the character they are portraying otherwise the performance doesn’t work. This whole thing is ridiculous.

This proves the point so well 👏🏻

It just seems extraordinarily crass. A big nose has always been an anti semitic trope so I don't understand why no one involved in the making of this film said "Hey guys, how about we lose the nose?"