Comedian Sarah Silverman says Hollywood has a tendency to cast non-Jewish actors and actresses for Jewish roles.
Silverman, 50, called the practice “Jewface” on an episode of her podcast Thursday. She pointed to Catholic actress Kathryn Hahn being cast to play the late Joan Rivers, who was Jewish, in an upcoming show. She also cited Felicity Jones playing former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, among other examples.
“There’s this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being,” Silverman said. “One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile playing Joan Rivers correctly would be doing what is actually called ‘Jewface.’”
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“It’s defined as when a non-Jew portrays a Jew with the Jewishness front and center, often with makeup or changing of features, big fake nose, all the New York-y or Yiddish-y inflection,” she added. “And in a time when the importance of representation is seen as so essential and so front and center, why does ours constantly get breached even today in the thick of it?”
Silverman argued female Jewish characters who are “courageous or [deserve] love” are “never played by a Jew.”
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She also pointed to common antisemitic themes such as “Jews run Hollywood” and “Jews are rich” as tropes that render “people very righteously unsympathetic toward Jews.”
