Media Representation Matters and a Prosthetic Schnoz Stinks to Me

“When someone with the authority of a teacher describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.”

This often-quoted statement by poet Adrienne Rich focuses on the concept of “representation” in school curriculum, and hints at the reasons why accurate portrayals of every group, and in particular underrepresented and marginalized groups, is so important to their sense of belonging or isolation, their self-esteem, and the ways it impacts their developmental identity trajectory.

This concept of “representation” and its impact on groups of individuals considered “different” or outside the dominant mainstream is multiplied many times over on the macro level in media.

From a very early age, I was particularly drawn to music. The music I favored was not, however, preferred by my peers, for I fell in love with what many call “Classical music,” though it covers several styles and periods.

Beginning in the late 1950s through the 1960s and into the early 1970s, whenever I could, I watched the CBS TV broadcasts of the “Young People’s Concerts” narrated and conducted by my favorite television personality, the great Leonard Bernstein.

Clear and precise in his teaching and conducting style, he epitomized for me the qualities of a great educator: knowledge of his subject matter communicated with passion and combined with a pedagogical style geared particularly for his intended learners. He articulated a love of music making it accessible to younger people & generations.

Most importantly, though, in my development identity process as a queer Jew, Leonard Bernstein presented to me a model and a guide of an unapologetic and unrestrained representation of a passionate and exuberant Jewish man.

Though I often heard comments that his physical “mannerisms” and speech patterns were “over the top,” his joy of music and of life itself was contagious and affirming for me. I was happy to learn eventually that he was gay or bisexual.

Though his life and image have been captured in the documentary film form, the TV streaming company, Netflix, is due to release the dramatized “Maestro” this fall, first in theaters and then on TV.

Producers could have chosen from a significant array of talented world-class Jewish actors. Since Bradley Cooper with Steven Spielberg bought the music rights to the film in 2018, however, and Cooper wrote and directed the film, he cast himself as its star.

While Cooper has certainly shown that he is a competent verging on brilliant actor, the fact that he is not Jewish detracts from and problematizes the potential for and depth of “representation.” To add further insult, pre-screening publicity pictures and the film’s trailer show Cooper wearing a prosthetic nose.

Notwithstanding members of Leonard Bernstein’s family in support of the film’s casting, the plastic schnoz makes him look like nothing more than Bradley Cooper with a silly-looking nose approaching that of a circus clown.

Cooper’s image resembles the antisemitic caricatures from the 18^th century onward depicting the evil bulbous-nosed Jewish bankers often representing members of the Rothchild family, with their hands grabbing into and covering the globe.

I find it truly offensive that in 2023, non-Jewish actors are still playing Jewish film characters. This sends the social message that the public does not wish to see actual Jews on screen, and that Jewish actors are either undesirable or lack talent. (There goes the antisemitic trope that Jews own Hollywood!)

Jews, however, are certainly not the only members of communities who have been underrepresented and misrepresented in the classroom and in the media, and whose social images have been subverted.

Blackface—when people darken their skin with shoe polish, greasepaint, or burnt cork or wood and exaggerate their lips and other facial features–has been the mainstay of U.S. popular culture since soon after the Civil War. It dates back centuries to European theatrical productions, most notably to Shakespeare’s “Othello.” It is founded in racism.

“It’s an assertion of power and control,” says David Leonard , a professor of comparative ethnic studies and American studies at Washington State University. “It allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalize violence and Jim Crow segregation.”

The white man, William H. West (1853-1902), a U.S. blackface performer and minstrel troupe owner, hired both black people and white blackface performers. In his “Big Minstrel Jubilee” at the end of the 19^th century, he featured white blackface performers Billy Van, who called himself “The Monologue Comedian” and Carroll Johnson, known as “The Artistic Comedian,” to the applause of the largely white audience.

Beginning as a radio program in 1928 through the 1940s, the characters on “Amos and Andy” were played by white actors Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. It was not until 1951, when “Amos and Andy” hit the small screen that they were replaced by black actors.

White actors often played Latinx characters as well in film. For example, in the original 1961 film version of the 1957 Broadway stage play, “West Side Story,” Rita Moreno was the only cast member of Latinx background, though fully one-half of the roles were written for Puerto Rican characters. Even so, Moreno and her white “Puerto Rican” cast were mandated to wear skin darkening makeup.

Steven Spielberg, in his 2021 remark of the musical by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein, cast twenty actors/singers/dancers who are Puerto Rican or descendants of Puerto Ricans, including a reprise by Rito Moreno, who at 89 years old played a different role in this version.

White actors have performed Asians on film in racist stereotypes. One of the most offensive is the white actor, Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in Truman Capote’s film version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” replete with darkened skin and oversized buck teeth.

White British actor, Peter Sellers, played Indian actor Hrundi V. Bakshi in the 1968 film “The Party,” and Sir Alec Guiness (a.k.a. Obi-Wan Kenobi, “Star Wars”) performed as Indian Professor Narayan Bodbole, in the film adaptation of E. M. Forster’s “Passage to India.”

While the Motion Picture Production Code, often named the Hayes Code after its instigator, Will H. Hays, a Presbyterian elder and president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, banned any depiction of homosexuality and other representations that industry censors deemed as not “presentable” and “safe” for the public at large from the early 1930s to the late 1960s, when LGBTQ characters did appear on the screen, often heterosexual cisgender actors filled the roles.

On the small and large screen alike, this has been especially the case of transgender representation in film. “Ugly Betty” performer, Rebecca Romijn played trans woman, Alexis Meade; Scarlett Johansson plays trans man, Dante “Tex” Gill in “Rub and Tug”; Jeffrey Tambor plays trans woman Deborah Pfeffer in the TV series “Transparent”; Jared Leto as trans woman Rayon in “Dallas Buyers Club”; Felicity Huffman as a trans man, Kevin Zegers, in the film “Transamerica”; John Lithgow as trans women, Roberta Muldoon, in “The World According to Garp,” Hillary Swank depicts a trans man, Brandon Teena, in “Boys Don’t Cry,” and the list goes on.

I understand that the role of actors often requires them to undergo physical and/or vocal transformations to ensure a more accurate and authentic depiction of their characters.

Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Winston Churchill in “The Darkest Hour” and Brenden Frazer’s in “The Whale” would have been laughed off the screen and would not have been considered for what turned out to be their Academy Award winning performances had it not been for their prosthetic bodily metamorphoses.

Yes, Leonard Bernstein sported a prominent nose. When, however, embodied by a non-Jewish actor, it falls into the realm of parody, caricature, misrepresentation, and yes, antisemitism (a form of racism).

When released, Bradley Cooper’s vanity project, “Maestro,” will undoubtedly garner some positive reviews and will propel Cooper further into the galaxy of stars. Mazel tov!

This, however, begs a critical question: Why has the entertainment media industry not yet given equitable and just representation to minoritized groups and communities?

The film’s possible success raises a crucial point in equitable media representation: A positive and accurate representation of an individual or group is not enough. Those who perform and represent these individuals and groups truly matter. The social identities of actors performing these representations truly matters.

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This Post is republished on Medium.

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