How Marvel Movies (Don't) Adapt Jewish Superheroes
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- Опубликовано: 12 июн 2022
- Moon Knight. Kitty Pryde. Scarlet Witch. The Thing. What do these characters have in common? Well, if you’ve only seen the films… you might not know.
The fifth Pillar of Garbage Patreon community video is an investigation into the characters of Jewish heritage Marvel has adapted in big-budget films, and how - by and large - these filmic versions efface the identity and heritage of their comic-book counterparts.
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Articles and resources:
comicsverse.com/kitty-pryde-j...
www.jewthink.org/2021/03/03/w...
www.thejc.com/life-and-culture/
all/'when-i-found-out-the-thing-was-jewish-it-blew-my-mind-'-1.519059?reloadTime=1654905600011
jewishcurrents.org/jack-kirby...
newvoices.org/2015/12/30/the-...
www.myjewishlearning.com/arti...
reformjudaism.org/reform-jewi...
#marvel #mcu #jewish 
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The problem i take with Moon Knights Jewish heiritage in the show is that it was so brief but its super important to his character for more than just representation, it's a major conflict in life considering he chooses Konshu over a god he doesn't hear from
Different canon thus different values.
I wold like to see a scene like this in S2. Maybe there’s a villain like Kingpin who finds out about Marc’s past and say something like, “You’ve pledged your life to this god that saved your life, but still believe in one that you’ve never seen.”
@@joseup_z
Honestly, I can't see that happening after they made Jake Lockley speak Spanish, which hints more of a Hispanic Heritage. Meaning they're more likely to be Christian than Jewish.
Since DID is more like a Fragmented Personality of the existing Person, chances are that.
I forgot he wore a Kippah, my bad
Yeah that show wasn't the best adaption of Moon Knight tbh. He's supposed to be street level not have magic regenerating throwing stars and fly.
@@GalazyProductions
After the release of the Show, so many people started Treating Moon Knight like he's 4 people using a Mechazoid called "Moon Knight".
Despite DID being displayed, I feel like they should've gone the whole season showing the struggles of DID instead of making the disability feel like it has no negative downsides while being easy to overcome.
So I agree with you for multiple reasonings
For me it depends on the character, I don’t care with kitty or Wanda, but magneto and Ben Grimm I care since Ben Grimm was a metaphor for his creators struggles with his own Jewish identity and magneto is a Holocaust survivor
But Wanda & Pietro (used to be) the children of holocaust survivors: Magneto and Magda. And Kitty is a great character to see the connective identity from the new generation. To her, the holocaust is a terrible thing that happened to her people in the past, but she has no personal ties to it or connection to it. Maybe a grandparent or great-grandparent was there and escaped through immigration and stuff. But she didn't personally experience it. But now she has to constantly fight a guy THAT WAS THERE. Having them have too discuss things would be so interesting
@@unigenius Wanda and Pietros father is still unknown in modern comics (unless it was revealed) so it could still be magneto
Wanda being Jewish is something important to her and her origin especially since she was introduced as magneto's daughter. For the mcu to introduce her as working with Nazi's is just disrespectful
@@kagenoo1084 I mean I think that could be interesting if she finds out she’s magnetos daughter
@@o.8.p149 exept weve already met her parents in the mcu in wandavision. so the idea of her realizing what her father went through cant even happen as a character moment
Magneto is hands down my favorite Jewish Marvel character. He has such a tragic backstory, a rich history in the comics, one of the most complex characters that has been seen as a hero and as a villain. When people suggested that they change Magneto’s backstory in the MCU I found that very offensive, & I’m not even Jewish. Magneto’s Jewish heritage is VERY Integral to the character & should not be erased.
I feel the same way. Changing his identity to anything else would be a mistake. It's such an extremely integral part of who he is and why it's impossible to dismiss him completely. And he is quite conceivably my favourite comic book character of all times because of it. Even though I am a lutheran born Swede.
After seeing "X-Men: First Class," I wondered, "Why is Magneto the bad guy?? He kills Nazis and defends his fellow mutants from oppression!"
@@darlalathan6143 well wanting to kill all humans and those who oppose him is villian as it gets
@@darlalathan6143 It's probably the pro genocide views he has towards humans
Yeah Magneto is the biggest hypocrite ever
Acknowledging Shadowcat's jewish and mutant identites and directly contrasting them with Magneto's would've made great storytelling
as a jewish person, the way the mcu treats wanda makes me so mad. this whole culture of jewish and romani erasure in superhero movies is so harmful and i can’t even put into words how angry making the maximoff twins work with hydra made me. i wrote about this for my school newspaper and i think i used a lot of the same sources that you use here lol. But i’m glad that people like you are talking about this and the harm that it causes! Great video! Sorry if I rambled a bit😅
It's disgusting how much they promote the Norse gods more than any other religion.
When did people fall under the impression that they were "working with" Hydra? They were literally experimented on and imprisoned BY Hydra.
@@vanillawafer1182 they applied for it tough. Like, they were volunteers, they weren’t forced to.
@wwtw Thor is a big character and thus they promote his mythos?
@@itsirrelephantman Thor is a big character and thus they promote his mythos?
So my mother grew up around and was raised by the generation of jews that the golden age comic book creators would be in, and what I gathered from her was just how closeted they were.
Everyone's names were changed, most chose not to teach thier kids Yiddish, there was this overwhelming mentality to keep your head down and not endanger yourself of your family with your jewishness.
Still, these comics written by a bunch or jews with anglicized pen names had more Jewish representation than the movies nowadays where there's far better legal protection against hate crimes and far less to fear.
I feel this lack of representation now isn't so much the need to make characters more Christian, but the wishy-washy place jews hold as a minority group. They're the poster child for genocide victims, but only in one of the many genocides they faced, forget the others, that would be redundant. But if they're not being killed in mass its not considered any struggle at all. Intergenerational trauma is talked about with Black stories, Hispanic stories, Asian stories, but nope, the jews are fine, nothing to question here. They're just a nerdy verity of rich white and privileged and that's all there is to it.
Exactly, and now with Jew-hate on the rise in America and all over the world, erasing us from pop-culture and belittling us is unforgivable. Slavery was, what, 150 years ago? And people still talk about it and racism, and address it in pop-culture (as they should). The Holocaust was like 75 years ago and 6 million annihilated Jews and their surviving families are ignored along with our generational trauma.
@@mworldxyz5631 not to mention our people were ousted from the middle east and parts of North Africa even more recently. But those populations weren't big enough for people to remember apparently. 😔
The stress we're under is very real. On one hand you can't go a week without someone on the news comparing something to the holocaust, and there's a massive blood libel cult running rampant in our country, and Christians are completely obsessed with our people's history and stories while simultaneously seeing us as the pre-conversion culture that needs to burn in hell, and they're always after us to convert us, especially when we're children or going through a tough time in our lives. They train us no to trust anyone by using thier children to go after us as children. And these are the people our families saw as the boogie man, cause we can't go a fucking century without being violently evicted from some country somewhere, but nooooo, most of us are white passing so obviously we're fine.
I've gotten onto antidepressants exclusively because antisemitism is so prevalent and it would set me off and I'd be too angry to function at work. Literally have to medicate myself to deal with this.
Yeah, David Baddiel calls Jews "Schrodinger's white": they're "white" or non-white depending on the politics of the people talking about them. The idea that Jews are somehow "privileged" even when 35% of them on the planet were murdered 80 years ago for being non-white is mindboggling.
@@WildWestSamurai it's sad, but true. And incredibly frustrating because of it.
As a Jew this is far closer to the truth in most things in this video, very well written and insightful!
Just wanted to say that it is incredibly rare to see a non-Jew be able to approach these issues so thoughtfully and tactfully. I greatly appreciate this effort, as many do not even take the time to address these issues.
This could be taken even further in the discussion about Jewish actors constantly being excluded from playing Jewish roles, but again, this video would have been much longer. Nonetheless, when we consider how both jewishness is written out of characters and how Jewish actors aren't included in these roles, we have an interesting dual-pronged problem.
Thanks again for your solid approach and consideration on this topic!
"issues'
@@connermitchell1663 what are you implying
No F(ing) way are you complaining about jewish representation in Hollywood. You have to be joking no way can you say such a sentence and be serious or you’re just extremely ignorant. Jews are vastly vastly over represented in Hollywood do you not realize that jews are only 2% of the population yet make up so much of Hollywood actors and executives. Do you know how many jews have taken roles of non jewish white people. Please the last thing on earth someone can complain about is jewish representation in Hollywood.
Chana he’s implying its a non issue I don’t think you realize how over represented jews are in Hollywood.
@@meep3035 not shocked this devolved immediately
One detail that gets overlooked about Moon Knight is that it came out around Passover time, and was about a Jewish guys trying to free himself from an Egyptian god. So even though there was only one scene that implies he's Jewish, a big theme of the story has to do with the Passover story which I think is really great
Now that I've seen how well they can handle religion as a part of regular life in "Ms. Marvel," it's more irritating that no Jewish character is seen actually practicing Judaism has made it to the screen. Heck, in "Agent Carter," they leaned on a couple of stereotypes to just imply that Howard Stark _might_ have been Jewish (lower East Side, garment industry, pushcarts), but didn't address the subject directly at all. Anna Jarvis was directly stated to be Jewish, but we don't see any actual practice. Then again, to be fair, we don't see the others practicing anything, either. It's not like we see Cap going to church, or Thor... well, I guess Thor wouldn't be worshipping himself, so that's probably fair. The only clear practice we've seen of Christianity was with Nightcrawler in X2. So far the only religion I've seen actually practiced on screen as a normal part of the character's visible community is the Islam of Ms. Marvel (and I'm grateful for it--seeing _any_ religion portrayed as a normal part of someone's life is kind of refreshing.)
ETA: Wait, there's one more. The fictional religion of Wakanda is shown as a part of Wakandan life.)
There is a funeral in a church in a want to say Age of Ultron or Civil War I can’t remember but it’s not that anything religious was said.
@@manyagaver1946 While I see what you're saying, most people have funerals in churches so that wouldn't count
I'm Jewish as well and I agree with all of this. I think one issue is that so many American Jews are quite secular. Even many Jewish actors and directors identify much more culturally if at all. What does daily religious life look like to a nonpracticing Jew? So the menorah in the background or a mezuzah on the front door like in Hawkeye does represent the lack of daily ritual. I think writers should find or create opportunities to include mention of a holiday or lifecycle events when plot relevant but I can't imagine including wrapping tefillin or shabbat kiddush as part of secular life.
I do agree with you and am Jewish myself. However I think you forgot the significant role that Catholicism played in Daredevil, especially season 3.
"Regular life"
Didn’t know that Wanda was meant to be Jewish- considering that, how the HELL did Marvel think that having the Maximoff’s side with Hydra was a good idea? At the very least, there could have been some mention about their conflicting ideals which ended up being ignored in favour of more immediate revenge? But nothing at all? Really? I guess it depends on whether or not this iteration of her character is Magneto’s daughter or not, but either way I should think it would have been a no-no to make her side with a Nazi science division even if it was briefly and under the influence of some severe and very fresh grief.
to be fair, the twins joined *shield,* not their fault the shield cell they joined was secretly hydra and lied and manipulated them. the effect on her of being used by nazis could have been explored, though
@@mel-burneswhere is that from?
What’s funny, is that in the comics Jews are erased as well! Wanda and Pietro are no longer Jewish, Kitty hasn’t been shown to be Jewish in at least 20 years, Ben wasn’t seen fully as Jewish by most fans until recently with his wedding, Sabra won’t appear in anything anymore, Iceman being Jewish is something that most people just plainly forget, Billy being Jewish is something really only hinted at during his wedding, Legion being Jewish is only stated on his Marvel page, Marc being the jewish is really only used as the basis for one or two storylines, Polaris being Jewish is something that writers either remember or don’t remember at all, and all the other Jews in the marvel universe are hoping that they aren’t next on the erase their Jewish identity block.
Ps. Kitty has said she’s Jewish within the last 20 years, but it’s so rarely said that it can sometimes be forgettable. Unlike in the 80s where it was unforgettable, because they showed she was Jewish, said she was Jewish, and made some decisions based on her Jewish heritage.
You have confirmed the impression that I got, that the characters' Jewishness is unimportant even in the comics. So by ignoring it in the movies, they're just following the example of the comics. I don't think it's fair to blame the films for any erasure if the original material never treated it as important.
Thats a lot of representation for how small of a minority they are. Stan lee never seemed to be keen on his characters to be jewish probably because he didn’t care he just seen them as human.
You've not been keeping up with Marauders if you think Katherine Pryde hasn't been shown to be Jewish recently. They've even brought back the star of david pendant, she wears it over her shirt now.
but that's fair, tbh, I don't really like Krakoa-Era X-men at all.
@@ExtBotany Same! I hate this X-men era!
As a huge fan of mutants and the X-Men I am shocked that I didn’t know Iceman and Legion were Jewish, and I also had no idea about how severely Kitty and Ben’s representation had been toned down in recent decades. Truly disappointing to see such regression in representation, especially since Billy and Bobby are both gay as well so it would expand on representation significantly.
So happy that you made this video. As a Jewish marvel fan I’ve always felt that the movies were trying to avoid anything that has to do with Judaism,but I always felt bad talking about it because I (like many Jews) “pass” as white…
I feel you, i feel the same about this and the erasures of Judaisim in marvel movies ( like with kitty pryde and ben grimm and espacialy wanda) is a disgrace
I mean aren't jews part of a white race?
There's a very good book on this phenomenon called "Jews Don't Count" by David Baddiel about how Jews "passing as white" is often used against them in a sort of modern antisemitism. Particularly among progressives who over and over and over again tend to act as if Jews aren't a marginalized group or, worse, are actually complicit in or even representative of white supremacy. The fact that any Jewish person should feel bad about pointing out how poor Jewish representation because Jews are "white" is complete and utter madness, considering 35% of all Jews on the planet were murdered for NOT being white.
@א i dont think that matters
This is something that confused and still confuses me: Judaism is a religion not an ethnecity. Judaism is something one can convert to which is vastly different from one's sexuality or ethnicity - which one can't chose. This is not to say that you are not allowed to be enraged by the lack of representation. You pass as white because you are probably of one of the "white" ethnicities which in turn gives you more privileges than for example an black christian.
I do not mean to say that prejudice against one religion is worse than another. As a white-passing atheist all religions are equally unfathomable to me and a personal choice and I get pissed when people (doesn't matter who) mixes religion with etnicity. You can chose not to believe in a belief system like Judaism you can't chose not to be black!
I feel like part of this is also the lack of the breadth of Jewish representation. Whenever I see it (although I’m no cinephile), it’s always Hanukkah, a hanukkiah, or something related to that holiday, or the star or david. It’s all so much for what is really such a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar. While I like celebrating it (especially since all my friends were getting Christmas presents around the same time), it has nowhere near the cultural importance of many other holidays and customs. The fact that it’s the only thing I see leads me to believe it’s shoehorned in there by people who want to check a box on the diversity checklist and be done with it. The fact that there were people sitting shiva in moon knight was huge for me; I didn’t think I’d see something that spiritual in media anytime soon. I think small revealing moments like that where it’s just part of the characters life is a great way to expand the practices being represented.
They’re 2% of the population make more money than most and are over represented in Hollywood
@The Red-Nosed
As a black guy, I'm feeling bad for thinking we're the only group misrepresented in media. I forgot how CRIMINALLY underrepresented Jewish culture is in media. But I'm also a Christian who's dabbled in studying Judaism, I've got a jaded idea on why y'all get it worst than us black folks.
With America being predominantly Christian, you know how prickly zealots are about celebrating other religions. Which is weird because Christianity wouldn't exist without Judaism. It's dumb, since they don't have to indulge representations in media, but apparently that's not an option.
But like us blacks, y'all are being treated like tokens so studios and corporations can go:"oh we're not racist, we swear."
also how do they show hunooka so much but never show sufganiot idk what's their name in English but those doughnuts they are so important they should be represented
Yes thank you so much as a fellow Jew I agree so much.
As a fellow Jewish man I completely agree. It’s part of the reason why I still love Rugrats Passover. It was, as far as I can tell, the only story for kids showing a holiday other than Chanukah. Seeing Shiva in MK was huge even if only those of us in the know got it. Of course when there’s a death there’s Shiva.
Adding on Kitty, let's not forget how in X-Men 2 there are several scenes and moments dedicated to exploring Nightcrawler's Catholic faith, in contrast to Kitty. Now, it must be clarified that Kitty is also a very absent character in the X-Men movies, but everyone can draw their own conclusions on this subject.
Good point!
Different studio (at the time)... Which also regularly tackled a different character's Jewish identity with much more regularity. Nightcrawler was a bigger feature in X2 than Shadowcat has ever come close in any movie. Nightcrawler's religion is like 83-89% of his character/stories. Nightcrawler's had almost no personality OUTSIDE of his religious beliefs. Also... You can't ignore pitch-ability in a sales/money dominated industry..."The devout catholic that looks like a demon" is an easy sell to any studio. Almost as easy as "the Holocaust survivor turned powerhouse fighting to keep history from repeating itself".
Lmao Kitty was so absent she was even written out of the story where she was the main character (Days of Future Past)
@@greenguy369 These are very good points, and I'm not going to lie, I think that the fact that he didn't appear much in the video made me forget about Magneto Lmao. But yes, the origins of the characters in the comics and the screen time they receive in the film can affect how the character's religious beliefs are reflected.
@@reicelestial2478 I think the most she appeared was in Last Stand, and the most important thing she did there was defeat "Juggernaut"
You can take this further now in WandaVision, one of the intros has Vision and the kids celebrating various Christian holidays. In terms of her Romani heritage too, they got flack for the "Sokovian fortune teller" outfit in the Halloween episode. I wonder if Hollywood realises how much prejudice Roma people face in the UK and Europe.
Its fine I think it's cool and don't want you're offense on my behalf thanks. The Roma self isolate and marry their children off at a young age. As an American perhaps it's harsh for me to say but my Gypsy cousins in Europe created those stereotypes for our favor the fortune teller thing was a scam on the out side European folks same as the orgin of the word Gypsy Egypt was the in thing when we got there so we lied. They weren't raised to be Jewish so why can't they be taken advantage of by Hydra and I imagine the reason they weren't Romani either is because they couldn't find actors of that background so they just made them from Liveria instead.
@@DMcPherson I am honestly not sure how to respond to this, sorry.
@@rhiannongreen2642 it's ok 👍 Just have a nice 4th of July and don't worry so much.
I dont think most of the prejudice towards gypsy's in the UK has anything to do with Roma people. Since gypsy is a recognised ethnicity in the UK and the majority of people who identify as such aren't actually Romani but instead are Irish/British travellers. But I agree the prejudice is ridiculous. I just think in UK if you asked them about travellers they wouldn't even think of Romani people but most likely Irish people.
@@mrhappyjuice I'm pretty sure they're just Romani people who perfer the term Gypsy my man. Like Tyson Fury. I get what you mean though Willy Nelson type stuff but in all reality I find that pretty endearing take it as a compliment. The problem with the current Romani villages is they themselves still have a distrust of outsiders and refuse to do business with them for the most part giving them no real way to increase the value of the community. You add the practice of arraigned marriages happening to kids as young as 12 of course they're gonna be poor.To me any depiction of our people that isn't out right negative should be seen as a win.
Okay so favorites would be Ben Grimm and Doc Sampson.
Fun fact: in comics The Thing (Ben Grimm) sends Marc Spector (Moon Knight) a Hanukkah card every year.
Neat fact, thanks for sharing!
Ben Grimm is known for having the heart in Marvel, he's such a class-act.
That's a cool little detail. Where has this been stated?
@@strengthspeed19 sorry I can't remember the issue number but I'm like 93% sure it's a Moon Knight comic,
Also I'm pretty sure Ben Grimm invited Marc to his Bar mitzvah but can't remember if he attended
And Marc reacts with he needs more Jewish friends. LoL
Finally, someone's talking about Jewish representation
wanda, vision and their kids celebrate christmas and easter in a wandavison intro. they definitely could have made them celebrate hannukhah and pessach instead
Umm.. the only holiday I remember them "celebrating" is Halloween.
I look at it as she was living out her sitcom fantasy.
@@eMerseen it’s in the episode 4 intro
@@woobiefuntime well what’s that meant to mean, do you think jews fantasise about being christians ?
@@lioralila No...she was focused on the sitcoms I of the past in Wanda vision
As someone who is Jewish I have to say that you covered this extremly well. Great video. I do wan't to point out that in the scene in Moon Knight it is notable that he doesn't just take of his Yamuca but throws it to the ground, that is something that is really notable since it breaks rules of how they are meant to be treated since they are symoblic of faith. I thought Moon Knight had good representation and I agree with what you said about how no one would have a problem with it if things like Wanda (who is one of my favorite characters but she was handled agregiously) were handled better.
Appreciated this. Honestly, I'd go lighter on Wanda and harder on Kitty Pryde. At least (as you note) the movie version of Wanda is based on a retcon that isn't Magneto's daughter, because IP rights (and, Wanda isn't super heavy leaning into her Jewish identity in the comics even when she was his daughter). Pryde is - as you note - super Jewish in comics. She is almost never shown without wearing a Star of David necklace when out of uniform. It would have been so easy to at least do that. And, by the way, the character in that movie scene that she is interacting with, Bobby Drake (Iceman) is also Jewish in comics, going back to the 80's! Less a central part of his story, but still there. And, also not acknowledged in the movies.
Good notes - and I’m embarrassed to admit I hadn’t even realised about Iceman 😳
@@PillarofGarbage Check out the 1984 Iceman miniseries in which he talks about going to Hebrew School. And the Oct. 2017 Iceman #6 were he talks about dancing at his Bar Mitzvah. Its a real thing. But then again, when you started your video with the "name 1" question, suffice to say I could name more than a few!
@@PillarofGarbage I didn't know he was gay, either, until he was retconned!😆😅😂🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
Honestly, I only knew Kitty pride from I think her very brief appearance in Days of Future Past and was confused whenever people would say that they failed to represent her Judaism properly because, like, when would they have, she’s in the apocalypse and seen for 20 minutes. Honestly I wasn’t aware of her in other movies until this video right here which makes those people make a lot more sense.
Doesn’t Wanda lean into her Romani heritage more? (Haven’t read the comics but Ik she’s Romani too)
I think the decision to remove Jewish people from Marvel movies had something to do with not acknowledging the holocaust in ANY WAY during captain America so people wouldn’t feel bad.
Given what I’ve learned about customers and marketing, I can understand, but as a person with sense who saw what they tried to do with civil war: that’s ducking bullshit.
I've often thought "Captain America the First Avenger" should have been R-rated and like "Schindler's List" meets "Saving Private Ryan," to cover the Holocaust, because, Nazi villains in WWII.
Speaking as a descendent of holocaust survivors and on behalf of my grandparents who have relayed to me their thoughts, depictions of the holocaust should never been omitted especially if the reason is "it might offend people or make them feel bad". Thats the point. People NEED to feel bad when discussing it because we need to remember why it was bad. Humans abducting, experimenting on, torturing, and killing other humans. Some friends and neighbors would even sell each other out or stay silent altogether. These were HUMAN behaviors. There have been genocides with more headcounts and lasted longer...but that is what made this the one that was most terrifying. It's still a lot and in a much shorter amount of time. 6M in just 6 years. Thats over a million/year on average. No other genecide had this rate. It was systematic and efficient. This ended less than 80 years ago. Not even a 100 years. This was by definition mid-20th century. Survivors of it are still alive.
To remove it from movies because they might trigger people's sensitivities means that they should also remove them from tv and textbooks. And if they remove them from textbooks....you erase history and the mistakes and horrors from the past won't be learned from and will be guaranteed to be repeated. Technology today has significantly improved since then. If the holocaust happened again, there would be significantly more deaths in significantly last time compared to the original holocaust.
Captain america was written by 2 jews who were trying to escape the holocaust and one of them fought in the war while still writing captain america. Magneto could justify his motives as "if humans would do this to other humans just for being a different ethnicity, imagine how much worse they will act towards us mutants just for being a different species." Ironically, he would become the very genocidal ubermench oppressor that he was once hurt by
the same could apply for the erasure of Wanda's Romani heritage as the Roma also faced many of the same issues during that time.
@@000xyz I agree with you.
I’m a black man.
This is our life in a nutshell.
Hell, they are trying to censor history in Florida so white people won’t feel bad.
That would be awsome
As a Jewish marvel fan, I was initially quite happy with Moon Knight's representation of Marc's Judaism. But the more I think about it, the more I feel as if perhaps I was just satisfied because it is something and something is better than nothing. While it is definetly a step in the right direction, Jewish representation still isn't good enough because even in Moon Knight (as much as that scene was powerful), it was brief and within only the context of a religious funeral. Many like to minimise what it means to be Jewish in media and treat it as "just a religion" so it doesn't really matter to or impact said character outside of when practicing actual religion. However, Judaism is different than other religions in this aspect because being Jewish means an entire ethnic and cultural identity (that of course, includes religious belief but it's not limited to). For many Jews around the world, it defines a major part of who they are, even if they don't really connect with the religion part of being Jewish. If I were to see a Marvel character who is unequivocally Jewish, in the same way that Black Panther's culture and race is represented, or Ms. Marvel's Pakistani heritage and identity is portrayed, I would be so happy as I could see myself in that character.
The fact that Egyptian/Arab culture was more heavily represented than Jewish culture in Moon Knight, is quite disappointing. And don't get me wrong, I love Egyptian culture and think it's really cool, but we got so much of that and hardly anything about the identity of the actual main character. It could have been really interesting to have these two cultures bounce off of each other and have Marc Spector almost be like an alegory for Moses: a jewish man submitted into Egyptian culture by Konshu (minus all the slaves and plagues, of course).
Right - I'm sure seeing more intersection between the Jewish and the Egyptian in Moon Knight, given all the history there, would have been fascinating!
The way I interpreted it was that he is Jewish culturally but perhaps not practicing. In that case idk what they could have added to show case his Jewish heritage. I’d like ur opinion on that please
Another angle to potentially explore could also be more recent antisemitism in Egypt. Just a few decades ago nearly all Egyptian Jews were forced to flee due to rising antisemitism follow Israel’s formation.
@@hodannn I am an agnostic Jew, and my connection to religion is that of family tradition rather than religious belief. Still, my Jewish identity is an integral part of my every day life. There are many ways I display that identity and culture. Religiously is only one way you can go about that, so the show could have found many ways.
@@ShnoogleMan I am Israeli so personally, I would have loved to see something like that explored. But I understand that that would likely bridge into more controversial topics, something Disney would stay away from at all costs. Unfortunately, just bringing up Israel, even if they aren't even discussing the Middle East conflict, is bound to lead Disney into some hot waters. So, I don't expect to see something like that.
I don't take issue with the jewish representation in Moon Knight because we get layers of his Jewishness integrated into the show in a way that isn't ignored later. We get Marc saying "oy", the star of David necklace, the small showcases of judaism in the flashbacks, his brother's shiva, and ultimately his mother's shiva and the big trigger for alter switches. The scene with Marc outside his mother's shiva shows the conflict with his mother and with his own identity, as he angrily yanks his kippah from his head and bashes it in the ground, and then immediately picks it up and apologizes to it. It says so much about a grieving trauma survivor and a grieving jewish man.
From a character point of view, having those multiple affirmations that he's jewish and it matters to him allows you to see certain aspects through those jewish lenses (like his relationship to the afterlife).
One thing that's is very important to consider when trying to understand contemporary Jewish cultures is acknowledging the reality that antisemitism is a genuine concern when trying to communicate, represent, and portray the life of a jewish person in a predominantly non-Jewish society. I can't begin to make assumptions about what the motives are or considerations made when presenting jewish characters in fiction and downplaying their jewish identity, but it is undoubtedly a real concern of social backlash existing when it is perceived jewish people are trying to greater influence society in some sort of cultural way. It's a deeper conversation with more details that should be addressed and explored but its good such conversations are being had to discuss them, so thanks for that.
No one should have to care for the concerns of paranoid schizos.
Naturally. It's unfortunate that millennia worth of antisemitic attitudes have rooted themselves deep into the culture and psychology of most societies.
@@baranpourtahmaseb-sasi1421 I’ve observed these freaks from a safe distance. They’re not just hateful. They’re legit insane and each is one tantrum away from being a mass shooter. Alt right terrorism is not a “social backlash”. It’s a mental health crisis.
@@yakuzajoe indeed
@@baranpourtahmaseb-sasi1421 also Israel bombing Palestine but go off
I think with Wanda, I would love to see this become part of her future story (Lizzie is contracted for more movies, past MOM) I think it would be nice to see her discover her heritage (I know Lizzie isn’t ethnically Jewish). I’d love to see her horrified by her history in the MCU when she realises she worked with Hydra as a Jewish and Romani woman. But I’m glad she wasn’t written as Jewish when working with Hydra, because that would have been more incentive than removing her heritage entirely.
why do you call her lizzie as if she were some six year old niece of yours
I think that would work with just Wanda's Jewish Identity but not her Romani Identity, cause well Lizzie can't exactly make herself a Romani woman.
So the good part is that it's a good way to start bringing in her Jewish Identity but it's not going to bring in her Romani Identity to the MCU.
Great video! I’m both religious and ethnically jewish along with being an alt style girl… see where i’m going with this lol. Ok wanda so, I’ve been very upset with her representation. She is a character I heavily relate to, along with matching most physical features she has. I grew up never seeing a character who looked like me because I didn’t have the blonde, small nose, blue eyes placed on most disney princesses or heroines. When I saw Wanda, I saw me. My dad told me she was Jewish and the sheer joy I felt was amazing.
I watched Age of Ultron when I was 8-10 years old. I was so excited to see a character who looks like me and shared my culture… and then… yeah know how that went.
I was super excited when I saw Moonknights kippah… just to see it ripped off his head in around 5 minutes. After watching Ms Marvel, I realize how much more they could have done with the Judaism of both these characters.
I adore Harley Quinn and the show on HBO and I am very pleased with how open she is about her Judaism!
All in all, Marvel could do way better -_-
Thank you for this video! The lack of Jewish representation has been very difficult. Not only in superhero films, but in studios casting non-Jewish actors to portray Jewish characters. I have also been very upset with the rumors of marvel perhaps casting a black actor to play magneto and skipping his Holocaust roots altogether. I’m all for representation, but it shouldn’t be done for one marginalized group at the expense of another
An extension of MCU Wanda, my favourite Marvel character is Billy Kaplan-Altman, an explicitly gay and Jewish character, created by a gay Jewish man. He was Wanda's son along with Tommy, but were reincarnated into different bodies and new parents. Billy's parents Jeff and Rebecca Kaplan are Jewish like Wanda, and Billy mentions it several times in the 17 years he's been created. Him being Jewish is as important to him as being gay. And I just fear the MCU is going to erase that by skipping over the Kaplans, and just having him be Wanda's son, who had her Jewish identity erased.
They already had him and Tommy celebrate Christmas and Easter in Wandavision during a montage...
Great points to bring up!
As a Jew I absolutely love this video. This has irked me for so long, thank you for putting this together. The respect you have for the Jewish people is so clear to me in the amount of research and care you've put into this video.
Great video. I've watched this several times in the past couple of days. I think the people who says that Jewish erasure is not problematic in the MCU don't realize that Marvel comics along with superheroes in general are Jewish art form and reflects Jewish culture. Characters like Spider-Man and the X men who deal with social ostracization are symbolic to anti Semitism. Things like superhero secret identities are also reflective of American Jewish assimilation. Funny enough, secret identities and xenophobia are missing from alot of the MCU and those characters are rebranded a para military response teams and mercenaries for hire ( Avengers, GOTG) I think it's an important conversation to have.
Most religious backgrounds aren't made a part of many characters. I think you get like, one line from Captain America about "Only one God" in the MCU. And besides like... Daredevil, whose religion is part of his character. Marvel doesn't put any character's religion as a part of their story telling.
It'd get kind of weird bringing any kind of magical belief system into a comic book world where literal Gods *DO* exist and the Christian/Jewish/Muslim gods seem strangely absent. Then you'd have to raise the question of "If they're there, do they not care? Are they not all powerful? Are they even real?"
That does tend to be the issue with Abrahamic religions. They fall apart if their one true God isn't all powerful and all knowing, while things like the Greek and Norse pantheons are rife with flawed, relatable gods who can actually have stories written about them specifically.
Of course this is ignoring the existence of the One Above All, who is indeed all knowing, all powerful, and pretty much the closest thing that Marvel can get to an accurate depiction of the God of Abrahamic faiths. Including his utter lack of direct intervention in anything and preference for letting mortals sort things out themselves.
This video brought me to your channel and, being Jewish and felling like it was underrepresented in the MCU, this video really amazed me. You just earned yourself a subscriber, great channel.
Thank you so much!
I wonder if another reason is due to the fear of certain audience reactions. Whenever a character is introduced as being gay, a very vocal part of the community screams "woke culture". Similar with movies with a Black lead character, as well as the increase in female leads in the MCU. Because Judaism isn't viewed as the standard, they don't shine much of a light on it with certain characters to make the product appear more "relevant" to everyone.
Another issue I find is how they always pat themselves on the back for a job well done whenever they do present a more progressive scene. I'm just thinking back to how Endgame prided itself on introducing the first gay character in the MCU, and it was just a side character played by one of the Russo brothers. In essence, they walk a mile and act like they ran a marathon before jumping into the big CGI action sequence.
I don't have a big personal stance or connection to this subject because I'm not impacted by it directly. I don't think it's the end of the world or that the MCU is actually evil. While there are issues, there's an equal amount of effort being put into genuine representation that goes beyond just checking a box. I think the thing that hinders these kind of aspects getting more attention and story relevance is due to the stories themselves. These movies are trapped in the MCU formula that makes certain character moments difficult to include, especially when the focus of the movie isn't on it. It's easier to shine a light on these aspects when it's in a smaller character story than a big plot story.
People aren't upset about there being gays or blacks. People are upset when they swap the race of characters that are already established. If they show certain characters as being Jew, it is not a problem, provided that the original comic character was also Jewish.
As a Jewish guy, no this is not erasure. I was not mad that Moon Knight didn’t tackle Marc’s religion beyond those two shiva scenes.
I’d be interested in hearing an update once you’ve finished the video :)
@@PillarofGarbage hey i am also Jewish, i finished the video. its a good video but i dont agree its erasure, in every other place their Jewish identify was sacrificed for the sake of the story. moon knight seems to indicate change heading forward, i thought how his Jewishness was used was perfect, any more and it might have felt forced.
@@ShadowHawkzx what about Ben Grimm?
@@ShadowHawkzx I think we’re more or less on the same page (especially about Moon Knight!)
I wanted partially to frame the essay around the idea of erasure, because that’s one of the terms I see getting thrown around lots when topics like Marvel’s Jewish representation get discussed online, and try to nuance it beyond this term a little. That’s what I tried to do around 11:46 and the section leading up to it - and the general conclusion I came to was that these examples might fail as representation, but they probably don’t quite constitute ‘erasure’ (except for Wanda).
Appreciate the feedback either way!
@@PillarofGarbage the video is great, your point on the pre-mcu stuff is spot on, but most of the pre-mcu was partly embarrassed about 50% of the elements they adopted from the books.
love your videos FYI, the EMH once are the amazing love to see that show getting love.
It's also interesting to note that in general whenever we're represented in Media it's almost always reform or conservative none of the "orthodox" groups.
I understand that by numbers they make up the vast majority. But I think part of this is also to do with the fact that once you get to the Orthodox levels it starts to affect almost if not all aspects of your life. Minor things like needing to pray three times a day with at least 9 other people. The laws of kosher. (which from a scene setup probably would mean not being able to eat with anyone else unless bringing their own food) too many more.
The point is is once you get to that level you can't just add a few scenes and then sweep it under the rug for the rest of the film.
Do you think it would even be worth it to attempt? Because Orthodox Judiasm is so complex it's almost impossible that an accurate representation would be achieved
@@rachel9876 You're probably right.
But it would be interesting to see the attempt made. Especially considering how different it is from it's closest relatives.
Fun fact they're actually commandments for the general public to know the rules for the high priest so they can call them out on it if needed.
Thanks for the video! So many times when we Jews talk about these issues reactions vary from "you people are always victims, right?! except you actually run Hollywood" to "other group have it worse, stop complaining". I think you did an honest research into the subject and I'm definitely going to share this with my friends. I would add that, as a Jew, it seems like the underlying message is that our ethnicity is ok as a background story but not as something to show publicly in our every day interactions... It is something that should stay somewhat hidden to make others more comfortable. This video, therefore is very validating! Congrats
I feel like a massive place where we can see Jewish people being erased from the MCU is the treatment of WWII. Where were the Jewish people? There's an argument that could be made that there was no Holocaust in the MCU, or if there was, that it didn't target Jewish people.
Right up until the scene in Moonknight, I've been saying "there are no Jews in the MCU".
This isn't the main point of the video, of course, but honestly, when you called Elliot Page by his correct name, I felt a little sigh of relief, and a little safer with this channel. Not that you've done or said anything to indicate otherwise, but there's so much transphobia out there, that knowing this channel is a place that respects trans people's names and pronouns -- it feels really good, knowing there's a RUclipsr making content about comics and related media who does that.
Pillar of Garbage says trans rights
queerly beloved Some people don't even know she switched. Not everything is an attack, some people don't even know. So don't take it as transphobia all the time. I know it's pretty hard not to though so I get it.
@@leafyishereisdumbnameakath4259
*he
*transitioned
@@leafyishereisdumbnameakath4259 the irony of you knowingly misgendering him after claiming some people come across as transphobic by accident since they dont know he transitioned
Why did he pick fucking Elliot tho. ET GO HOME. Is all I can think about. And that flick sucked.
It's unfortunate that the moon knight didn't actually consult someone who knows anything about Jewish mourning. A Jewish custom is to tear the garments that you wear in grief. It could have been given Oscar Isaac something true to Judaism and would have given him an even more visceral scene.
Yes! I laughed out loud when I saw them all wearing suits and sitting on chairs. :) They clearly didnt talk to anyone who knows anything about Judaism.
@@shayndlgreen3356 I mean not everybody celebrates it or goes through it the same way
Well I don’t know if celebrate is really the right word to describe shiva but ok. Also, I think this is part of the problem - most Jews don’t know anything about Judaism.
They wore black suits!! DO SOME RACERCH ABOUT JUDAISM! I don't want to make assumptions about people however when I saw that the direct of MOON KNIGHT is Egyptian I was hmmm..
Gotta say(I'm Jewish by the way) that I always found comparing superman to Jesus quite offensive, the charcter was created as a metaphor for the Jewish immigration story and has so much of the Jewish identity in him that comparing him to the Christian mashiah is kind of offensive, same goes for people who want magneto black for me, scarlet witch and quicksilver is actually an intersecting case since I like the idea that she was created by nazis experiment(since the nazis did experimented on Jews during the holocaust) but her working for hydra was kind of problematic maybe you can go around it or something I don't know
I always thought that if Superman was inspired by any legend, myth, etc, it was 'The golem of Prague'
@@MadameTamma Superman is based more on the story of Moshe "Moses".
Baby put into a basket by parents to escape being killed, growing up in a culture that wasn't his own until later return to his roots.
Even Supergirl in some retelling sent to watch over him. Might be based on Miriam (his older sister) watching his baskets as it floated down the Nile.
It was created to be a role model for jewish immegrators, the name itself Kal-El is based on the words Kol-El in hebrew meaning God's voice
@@generalkenobi3717 the El itself is aldo the ending for every one of God's angels by the way
How would that be offensive? Yes, Jesus is the Christian messiah as you say, but he wasn't a Christian, he was a Jew. His parents were Jewish, his followers were Jewish. Christianity as a separate identity from Judaism is something that comes afterward. I think the it's very dangerous to take Christ's Jewish ancestry away from him as anti-Semites want to portray Jews as the people who killed their savior and very desperately want to forget that Jesus himself was Jewish. It would be very hard to hate the Jewish people if you knew your lord and savior was one of them.
the guilty marc Spector felt for feeling like he betrayed his faith is one of my favorite parts of the character, so I was a bit disappointed when that part of his character wasn't really focused on (but I am glad at least it was still kinda there and I still liked the show overall)
it also felt like a pretty dick move, I am not Jewish so I can't speak for them, but even as a catholic I can say I was personally pretty pissed when the daredevil movie from 2003 basically ignored Matt's faith (at least the daredevil movie made up for that so I do admit we were lucky)
I feel like Hollywood tries to avoid focusing on the spiritual aspects of characters, in general, to try to avoid any controversy with the general public, which is a shame since a character's faith can lead to fascinating arcs (but of course, minority religions are a hundred times more neglected, which I think makes their inclusion even more necessary and interesting when it happens)
Character is Jewish: *shows small item
Character is gay: *shows gay kissing, gay discrimination, talks about being gay constantly
Interesting that Wanda is in the thumbnail...considering that Comics!Scarlet Witch is only half-Jewish (ethnically) and has never been shown as a follower of Judaism in the 616 universe. She is more often described in relation to her matrilineal Romani heritage. She wasn't raised by her Jewish biological parent and her adoptive parents happened to be Romani like her biological mother (implicitly) was. This was, of course, before the 2010s retcon that made her and Quicksilver no longer Magneto's long-lost children (nor mutants). Now it's canon that her birth mother was definitely Romani, and her bio father has yet to be revealed.
It was so sad that the MCU ignored Wanda and Pietro's 'Romani' and 'Jewish' heritage
@@tatianaoliveira2191 but it had no importantancs to the plot
Jewish person here, no such thing as “half Jewish.” You’re either Jewish or you’re not. Wanda and Pietro are Jewish in the comics. Erasing that is not okay
@@lindsayschmidt2177 How are they Jewish if Magneto (who was supposed to be their father) was the one who was Jewish? I thought to be Jewish you had to have a Jewish mom...
And btw, _ethnically_ speaking, there *are* people who consider themselves "half-Jewish"
Ultimately, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are not Jewish at all, by *your* definition, because they are not followers of Judaism and the only parent of theirs whose ethnicity we know for a fact is their Romani birth mother.
Magneto is no longer their biological father in canon (for stupid executive reasons, but it is what it is). Magento didn't raise them AT ALL, so they aren't "culturally" Jewish either.
They are the biological children of a Romani woman and an unknown man, and they were raised by adoptive Romani parents.
P.S. ... not sure why you're telling me that erasing a character's heritage is not okay. I don't believe I said it was...
@@tatianaoliveira2191 It would have been nice to see. But by the time they appeared in the MCU, Marvel comics had already erased their established parentage (Magneto and his deceased wife Magda) and had yet to reveal who their biological parents actually were, so technically we didn't know what their heritage was now supposed to be. It's since been confirmed that their "newly established" birth mother was indeed Romani.
This is all thanks to Disney (the owner of Marvel Comics since like 2010) childishly giving the middle finger to 20th Century Fox, who at the time owned the film rights to all Marvel's mutant characters. Disney didn't like that, since Marvel Studios (which Disney also owns) wanted Wanda and Pietro all to themselves - they had the rights to use them as Avengers but not as mutants.
As a general viewer and an American Jew, I really liked hearing your perspective! And your analysis of the shiva scene in Moon Knight legit made me reconsider the way the show tackles that subject!
I do have one note. I definitely agree that the Ben Grimm bar scene is a missed opportunity to really explore Ben Grimm’s spirituality (there really is nothing more Jewish than wondering if and/or why God is making you suffer), but I don’t think Ben saying the word “God” is as big a mistake as you suggest. Yes, a lot of people write “G-d” instead of “God” in English, and a lot of Jews (especially western conservative and Orthodox Jews) prefer words like “Hashem” or “Adonai,” but those are rather recent phenomena and aren’t universally accepted. The English word “God” is not God’s true name and there’s no technically no specific rule in the Torah forbidding someone from saying it, and I’ve never met a Jew who was completely unwilling to voice the word “God.” It’s more of a general superstition and I wouldn’t overthink it or anything, let alone suggest that it’s some kind of betrayal of Ben Grimm’s Jewish identity. Still, it is an interesting point
I also think it’s really interesting to discuss the ways Jewishness manifests in superhero media without actually including Jewish characters. The way, like you mentioned at the end, that characters like Spider-Man and Superman often evoke themes and narratives common in Jewish history, culture, religion, etc. despite not being depicted as Jewish themselves
I'd honestly never really noticed this, though watching your video I do notice a lot of of what you point out when I think back on the films in retrospect. I don't necessarily find it as distressing that you seem to, but you're definitely right that there is an issue here that should be getting addressed in a public forum in a broader ways, I applaud you for trying to contribute to starting that conversation.
Also, it's generally pronounced Shiv-ah rather than Sheev-ah. But great essay overall
Thank you! And I shall adjust my pronunciation accordingly!
@@PillarofGarbage I think it's an accent thing, actually. I, a Jewish woman, pronounce it Sheev-ah
Something of note with Kitty, it would have been interesting to include a moment or something between Kitty and Magneto. As a Holocaust survivor and at least slightly better representation of a Jewish man than Kitty or Ben were in their films, this could have been a reason that Kitty might be drawn to Erik. Magneto faced the horrors of genocide for being different.
I was thinking the same thing. She could even try sway magneto and fail by citing torah scriptures about seeing the best in all humankind...or something like that. And he would be like "you don't know prejudice like i did"...like he would write her off as a generational gap
Great analysis, Marc Spector's religion is an essecial aspect of the character, before and after he became Moon Knight, it's even related to his DID, as he suffered trauma from being attacked by his father's friend after discovering he was involved in antisemitist practices (his father was a rabi), and in the hospital he received Khonshu's first visits.
There's also a small controversy involving the Maximoff's romani ethnicity, mostly represented in the comic book scripts rather than the pencils, which affected their representation in movies.
Can you suggest what I should search for to learn more about the Maximoff controversy?
@@PillarofGarbage
I had some problems with this comment because it seems that RUclips can't let too many links to be posted, or something, but I hope what I found is useful to you.
Erik Ojo's *WandaVision and Whitewashing* (RUclips video)
Gavia Baker-Whitelaw's *The complicated history of Marvel whitewashing Scarlet Witch*
Jessica Reidy's *As a Romani witch, I can't stand 'WandaVision'*
Melanie Covert's *Notorious but Invisible: How Romani Media Portrayals Invalidate Romani Identity and Existence In Mainstream Society*
Katia McClain's *"It's nowhere special": Representations of Eastern Europe in Avengers: Age of Ultron*
A’Yanna Solomon's *Examining the Use of the G-slur, “Roma” and “Romani” in Comic Books and Fan Fiction Works*
WikiZero's Scarlet Witch publication history, it's very complete.
To be honest, for the most part I'm ignorant about the exact adressing of the romani identity in comics about the Maximoff's, but I know Busiek did it his Avenger's run, and there's Robinson and Del Rey's Scarlet Witch (2016) and Saladin Ahmed's Quick Silver: No Surender (2018). Everything I mentioned is available online.
@@PillarofGarbage idk what exactly they are talking about but the comics have some problems with portraying them as exotic and fetishising, and there has been controversy over their skin colour, as in most they are given pale white skin and only a few have them with darker skin. The artists generally try to make them pale
My fave is Ragman. He was featured with The Flash early on. Rory is a Jewish Superhero who gets his power from mystical Jewish artifact called THE SUIT OF SOULS which was a long cloak originally created to protect the Jewish communities ever since the time of Abraham.
The Suit of Souls has been in rotation since 1812 BCE with many weaers. It gave Rory the ability to summon the forces of all souls who wore it, increasing his strength, agility, and durability. Was really cool!
Off the top of my head my favorite Jewish superhero character from an adaptation is Shadowcat in x men evolution, but it’s been a while since that show came out so idk if that would count
As a Jewish person and also being raised unorthodox I took moon knight’s representation to be realistic (Initially).
I only “feel” jewish when it’s necessary. At a wedding I’m jewish, at a funeral I’m jewish.
I liked that Marc has the Star of David around his neck but you can’t tell and that when he loses himself he channels his anger at the religious garments he’s supposed to wear when expected to honor an abusive family member.
The word shiva coming up gave me chills. I’ve grown to expect nothing more than “oy vey”s and casual jokes poking at generational trauma yet staying pg as if the rating would drop at a well rounded background story.
I grew up unorthodox in Israel too, being “casually jewish” is something a lot of us do. Is this good representation? No. Probably not. It does feel like erasure when taking into account the character is American too. It also feels like erasure because SO MUCH BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT WERE REMOVED THAT IF I HADN’T WATCHED AN EASTER EGG TIK TOK I WOULD’VE THOUGHT THE CHARACTER WAS EGYPTIAN.
I’d say Marc was as jewish in moon knight as Loki was gender fluid in Loki.
WOOOO THE YIKES RETURNS!
But on a more serious note since this is a serious topic. I'm not Jewish, but you talking on this is super interesting, and I learned a lot here. Thank you for covering this the best you can.
On a side note, one of my favorite X-Men storylines in the comics has them fight a vampire.
The X-Men find out at one point that the vampire’s “kryptonite” is faith. One X-Men member brings a cross but it’s ultimately ineffective.
After realizing this, Kitty Pride pulls out her Star of David and is able to use it to weaken and then take down the vampire!
Moon Knight skimming over that aspect of the character is an part of an inherent flaw with the story that it chose to tell imo. Opting for a supernatural Indiana Jones goose chase with character moments than a character-driven series where the happenings of the plot are background to the deep-dive into Marc's psychology and background.
Yeah, I think this is a good example of the phenomenon I mention midway through - not every character detail is going to get space in every narrative. At least it made room for it toward the end, in a pretty interesting (to me, at least) way!
@@PillarofGarbage Yeah, I do understand that in the story we got in Moon Knight, it probably didn't have much breathing room and that's fair imo. But at the same time, that's why I also wished they just went with a different, more character-driven story all together.
Moon Knight skimming over his Jewishness is definitely a proper adaptation: It only has two issues where it's focused on in the original run, and I don't remember it being even brought up before or after.
@@TheDanishGuyReviews That may be true (I wouldn't know) however it being an adaptation also means that they can emphasize aspects that may have been only touched upon in the source material. Similarly to what I heard happened with the Egyptian mythology in the show where in the comics, Marc was made Moon Knight in Egypt by Konshu, a member of the Egyptian pantheon, but the comics never emphasized Egypt or Egyptian characters as much the show has done.
@@themadtitan7603 Moon Knight is very much a character driven story. The adventure aspects got very neglected. Most of the story centres around DID, Steven and Marc, both of them coming to terms with each other and sharing their life together. It was explored well in the constraints they had.
Very little time for sure.
I know MCU Moon Knight’s representation was small, but WOW I was so excited to see what we had. I felt weird being so happy to see an actual Shiva seen, even though it’s sad.
When Marc threw down his Yalmuke and then picked it up apologizing, I felt that so much. We aren’t supposed to allow those to touch the ground, it’s supposed to be incredibly disrespectful.
Magneto is my favourite. It feels like his is the most historically and personally relevant. People know about the tragedy of the holocaust and Magneto acts as the sinister echo of such a major tragedy.
Thanks for another excellent video. As a follow-up, might be worth exploring Michael Chabon's THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY - one of the best explorations out there of the Jewish origins of superhero comics. Even comes complete with its own golem. Think about it for part two, if there is a part two...
I feel when you involve religion to a character you have to find a way for it to work or seem important. Take daredevil we see how his faith affects him and so on, but if you told me Wanda jewish during the movies or showed it at most I would think “alright? What will they do with this” and based on what we have seen in the movies she has been involved with it wouldn’t have affected her in anyway and that’s the case other than with what you said about hydra. Many characters in the mcu, you rarely see them having morale dilemmas other than in civil war? But other than that they never delve too deep into morality main reason why I don’t think religion would affect them much.
I am a Muslim and religious but I don’t care if Muslims were inserted into shows or not unless they did something with the character relating to their religion that isn’t just saying “oh I am X” then they never bring it up or have it actually affect them.
As I reread my comment I apologize for the grammatical mistakes I had a headache while writing it.
This.
Have you seen Young Justice's last season?
@@YoureRightIThink nope, honestly I stopped after Wally’s death, mainly because it is difficult to access in my country.
@@mounibj4586 oh well I ask because there's two Muslim characters in the next two seasons
@@YoureRightIThink ah alright, I remember seeing a few clips about one of them and discussions, but isn’t she dead technically and just a mother box that took the body of. I do appreciate one thing about them not making her ditch the hijab and just making her say it feels natural or normal I forget what they said in the clip and not make it seem as if it is oppressing or weird or something along those lines. But I didn’t know there was another Muslim character.
Being a Jew as soon as I saw this video I clicked on it and I very much agree they don’t adapt Jewish heiritage good In film.
Main main problem with Jewish nods in film is that it’s brief its mentioned once and that’s it. there’s only one moment and then they don’t mention it again that’s my main problem with moon knights jewish heritage in the show one moment and then doesn’t say or do anything Jewish related
It's always funny to me how the only Jewish trait that Hollywood is aware of is Hanukkah. Most Jewish people don't hold a menora in their house outside of Hanukkah.
If the Thing, Kitty Pryde, and Magneto aren't clearly Jewish I'm going to riot because it is so ingrained in their character, Thing and Magneto probably will be, but Kitty might not be as it probably won't be seen as essential to her character.
@Xyon 21 Fair enough.
It's funny and sad how one representation can be more important than another. While one films or preojects can be centered around character's ethnos, other's might think of it like an unimportant trait.
This is a weird question. I actually couldn't tell you the faith or heritage of many Marvel Characters. But I'd say Magneto is my favorite Jewish Character.
I made it to 00:01:49 & had to comment: 1. Just earned a new subscriber; 2. Respect you even putting this topic in to be voted for; 3. Appreciate the disclaimer & approach, thus far, as an American Jew.
EDIT: Great watch. Nicely done. I think you handled the topic quite well. A lot of what you said is what I'm sure a lot of us are feeling and thinking -- I know I'm sure tired of Magneto being the only live-action representation of my people, no matter how much I relate to him.
Thank you for your work in creating this. I used it as a resource for an essay I wrote on the Jewish background of superheroes, and it was incredibly helpful.
Glad I could help!
it’s kinda dumb to say that mcu wanda couldn’t be jewish just because her dad couldn’t be magneto. magneto is not the only jewish person in the world
I appreciate this; you captured a lot of what I've been feeling. One minor correction and a comment.
Regarding Ben in the bar, most modern Jews are perfectly comfortable saying "God." That scene alone did not trouble me at all.
Regarding Moon Knight, no it's not enough. Literally all we got was one scene. You could swap the whole thing with "funeral" and it changes nothing. To be a fan of these movies for over a decade and then be told "Here you go... Here's your representation!" is worse than nothing. Especially when it was immediately followed by Ms Marvel where her religion is inseparable from the plot and character. (To be clear, I am happy about that. Other shows/movies should aspire to the same level of representation) And preceded by Black Panther being such a cultural event that churches were bussing kids in to see it.
I'm kind of used to that level of representation by now. I've accepted that I will have to watch the background closely and read the footnotes to find the Jewish characters. But I'm not going to give the studios credit for clearing that ground-level bar anymore.
As an indian hindu I do feel bad for jewish representation . Even hinduism , buddhism , jainism , sikhism arent represented .Marvel should add diversity by showing all religions not just christianity and islam
I'm you called out how DOFP gave Kitty Pryde's storyline to Wolverine (again) rather than giving us the chance to flesh out another X-Men and present them in the lead role.
Moon Knight. His relationship with his beliefs is very intriguing when done well and given importance. Sad to see the TV Show forget about it.
Then again, I can't think of any MCU product taking the characters religion seriously. Maybe Ms. Marvel is different but I haven't watched it yet so I can't say. Hopefully they take the fact that she is Muslim seriously and not use it for cheap jokes or surface-level commentary, but I'm not expecting much...
Daredevil being a catholic is a huge part of his character
Except every actor and director is Jewish people. Jon Favreau, Joe Russo, Mark Ruffalo, Paul Rudd, Sebastian Stan, Natalie Portman, taika wattiti, Timothe Chalamet, Miles Teller, all jewish. Even Bob Iger of Disney is Jewish.
As my Jewish client told me, “Jews don’t need representation in movies and media, we already are the media”
First of all, I want to thank you for this thoughtful video and the research you've done! As a Jewish woman, this means a lot to me.
I wanted to add about the whole saying "God" in Jewish culture - it really depends on how religious you are, instead of how culturally Jewish.. Of course, if he were to say Hashem instead of God, that would be a breakthrough for me, but this is not such a huge issue for me personally (as a cultural non-religious Jew). The MCU could definitely make Wanda a Romani-Jew even without connecting her to Magnito, the fact that they didn't is really insulting.. And they could have at least let Kitty wear her Magen David necklace... And about Moon Knight, well, let's just compare it now to Ms. Marvel... 4 episodes and it's ALL about her heritage - because it's IMPORTANT. Moon Knight's Jewish heritage is SUPER important to his character, but they chose to not focus on it... For a world and society where everything is represented, I don't see myself culturally represented, and it's even more crucial these days with Anti-Jew hate on the rise...
As the person who suggested this, I have a few things to say:
1) as a whole, this was a really great video. Just want to make that clear up front.
2) Often, confirmation of Judaism tends to be in the form of a menorah/celebration of Hanukkah, which is kind of frustrating because of Hanukkah’s (false) reputation as the kind of “Jewish Christmas”-essentially it’s a lazy shorthand that reduces Jewish culture to the thing a Christian majority would most recognize as Jewish.
3) Spider-Man-or rather, Peter Parker-is very much considered Jewish by a lot of people. He even uses Yiddish slang and his neighborhood in the original neighborhood is known for being predominantly Jewish.
4) I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Christ allegories that have become so common to attribute to superheroes. In particular the “Jesus on the cross” imagery tends to be used quite a bit.
5) I might’ve included that Elliot Page has come out as transmasc, so that you would be clearly acknowledging that using pronounce she/her wasn’t meant to be ignoring his pronouns and identity
Had no idea about the lazy ‘Jewish Christmas’ trope - thanks for sharing! Re: Spider-Man, it’s such an interesting and complex issue that I didn’t think pushing it into the video this one ended up being would have been the right place for it. It could definitely be it’s own video one day though!
and Re: Elliot, do you just mean that I should have been clear in that section that the ‘she/her’ pronouns referred to character he played?
@@PillarofGarbage well you explicitly cited him as a *non*-jewish character so I felt I needed to mention that he is pretty clearly coded Jewish.
And yeah, for Kitty Pride that’s exactly what i meant.
I think the spiderman Yiddish this is more of a new Yorker part, I don't how the US at all so but from other media that what I take to mean, and I'm a Jewish in the land of Israel
Number 4 is an interesting one. Especially since the one that people go to, the Snyder Superman, is more like a Moses allegory.
Benjamin J Grimm is my favorite hero of all time and for the longest time I had no idea he was Jewish and besides ragman from DC that’s about it I didn’t even know moon knight was Jewish
I remember Wolverine making the sign of the cross with his claws to deter Dracula but he was brushed aside as not being a true Christian. When he went to grab Kitty Pryde he was burned by her Star of David necklace because she was a true believer. Far more references in the comics than in the MCU.
The older Peter Parker in spider man into the spider verse had a Jewish wedding. I just kinda thought that was neat.
I like Legion! They changed him to Roma in the show, but I always saw them as a sister ethnic group. A lot of shared history, so I wasn’t too disappointed.
I also see them that way, being a diasporic group and all. But I feel like people are very pro Roma right now and are increasingly becoming anti Jew, so I felt like it was a bit of an erasure. After all, while the nazis for sure hated and killed Romas, their number one enemy and biggest target was us, Jews. So I felt like they erased his Israeli origin and removed the Jewish experience from his Holocaust story because they thought their show would be less controversial to modern viewers if they “hid the Jew”. I was still happy to see a Holocaust story get on-screen representation though…
I'll say Magneto is my favorite Jewish character from Marvel comics in recent adaptations on the metric of being Jewish because out of all the recent ones I can think of he's the only character I can think of that has his faith being a major part of his character. And honestly I'd wish I could say there were more Jewish characters in adaptations that have their faith be an influence, especially since with Magneto standing alone it makes it the only Jewish Marvel character that comes to mind for a lot of people is the Holocaust survivor kind of trapping representation of the Jewish experience in that one moment.
If they had made the insane sorceress a Romani in this day and age it absolutely would have been called problematic by people saying its not the intention its the impact.
I am an Orthodox Jew and I generally HATE seeing Jewish representation in Hollywood. Part of the problem is that most Jews actually know very little about Judaism and so they’re happy to just see a menorah and think that’s what Judaism is about. Chanukah is actually the most minor holiday, it’s actually not even really a holiday.
1. Wanda is not Jewish. (I think) I haven’t read the comics so i dont know anything about Wanda’s mother, but just having a Jewish father doesn’t make you Jewish. So, I really dont care that they haven’t shown Wanda being Jewish in any way. Unless her mother is Jewish.
2. Moonknight’s “representation” was so bad as to be laughable and downright insulting. When Feige announced their first Jewish Superhero, I rolled my eyes. I assumed it would be a menorah in the background kinda thing, but oh no it was so much worse. First of all, they never actually say that he’s Jewish. Second, the only scenes of him “being Jewish” are scenes of trauma and abuse. Third, they made so many mistakes it actually made me laugh. (I laughed out loud during the Shiva scene) I dont care about the actor not being Jewish (best actor should get the role) but the show actually had more Egyptian representation than Jewish! Last, the scene with the Yarmulka was so offensive! If they had coupled that scene with ANY positive Jewish scenes, I might have been OK with it. Can you imagine if there was a scene in Ms. Marvel with her throwing her hijab on the floor and stepping on it?
I knew it was bad when even secular Jews were complaining about it :)
Finally, they had a Jewish character enslaved to an Egyptian god and it aired on Pesach (Passover) and they NEVER MENTIONED IT!!!!!!!!
I’m really worried about what they do with Magneto, that is the only Jewish character that I would care if they took away their “Judaism.” Honestly, I wish they would keep the Judaism out of their characters. If you can’t do it right - dont do it.
Sorry for the rant :)
Everything that you said is soo true!!! When I saw that the DIRECTOR is EGYPTIAN I was hmm interesting....
I was excited when I heard moon knight (mark) is Jewish and not just Jewish but he's not WHITE! I'm Ethiopian Jewish woman I can only dream about the day I'll see in media black not Ashkenazi jews. lol
as a jewish person
the avoiding of saying God while it is a thing its not always ther if not berly ther for most jews(atleast in israel)
for example "elohim ishmor" which means "God will protect" is a common phrase in israel when something schocking or worrying is happening
what is completly forbidden is to say God true name "yehova"
Bruh, literally all super hero stories are just stories of Golem...
A very thoughtful and other wise well handled analysis about this topic. Would really like to hear this guy’s take on the MCU’s interpretation of Sabra when she makes her debut in Captain America New World Order.
see- now this is just my opinion. Moon Knight was a great show. I loved it. 1) About the whole throwing-a-kippah-to-the-ground thing, now, im not jewish, but i feel like sometimes, grief is greater than religion, and that's justified by the way he immediately picks it up from the ground and apologises to it.
2) the original moon knights origin story stems from antisemitism, he became a superhero because his hate stemmed from watching his father struggle with VERY antisemitic people around him. I feel like in this day and age, showing something like that in a show would cause a hell lot of controversies (the first comic came out in 1975, almost five decades ago) so the writers mightve chosen to just write it out, so as to avoid those controversies. it was also done in dune. Plus, we did get a lot of little details about marc being jewish though, and let's hope that it will be explored more if the show gets another season.
3) to people saying that oscar shouldnt have been cast, hes played A LOT of different ethnicities before, plus another jewish guy in scenes from a marriage. it really doesnt matter what ethnicity the actor is of, as long as they act well. it does come with its exceptions, though, just like everything else does.
if you guys can look past this, then its ok. if you cant, then thats ok too! everyone has their own opinions and everyone should respect that. what i said above was simply my opinion, but you guys are allowed to disagree, obviously. i love the show with my entire heart and i genuinely hope it gets another season. Peace :)
Another example of this would be David Haller in the Legion TV Show, were despite them having a good opportunity to link it into how he has become perceived by society due to his unknown mutation, I do not believe they acknowledge it once.
it's nice to see Moon knight's religion being represented on screen, and if we are honest this is most likely the most we will get because eve Marc considers himself a non-practicing jewish
What a wonderfully made video! I am new to Marvel comics as well as the MCU, but I have known of comics deep history being tied with Jews. Thank you for making this video, and all the work you put into it. Your research is great!
Many of the comments already encompass my feelings about the topics brought up in the video, but I would like to add another Jewish perspective, for fun.
When it comes to adaptations and the representation of Jewish people and Judaism, it has always been funny to me that the first and almost only holiday that is represented is Hanukkah. Hanukkah (also spelled Chanukkah, and 100+ more ways) is not considered a super important holiday. For reasons though, I will say every Jew is different. But for the most part, holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are more important, or more holy. I would love to see a film that isnt necessarily focused on a character's Judaism for a plotline, but rather something that is continuous and every changing, maybe something where a character's Jewish identity can draw parallels with holidays and the teachings from Judaism.
It's funny to me that media likes to portray Jews in a very straight lined way, when in reality we are all different. The cultures from Ashkenazi to Sephardic to Ethiopian Jews and beyond are so different and vast.
When it comes to Moon Knight, I adored the show. The representation was small, but to me, it meant the world (almost). Before anything, I will say, not every jewish person is necessarily Jewish in a religious content. Judaism is multifaced, there are even religious Jews who do not believe in G-d. But I feel, given the content of Moon Knight's origin story, he most likely grew up within a household that placed importance on the teachings of Judaism. The kippahs, the shiva, all of it was great to see on screen, as heart wrenching as it is. And I'm not mad the series alone, but as you put it, upset with the context it exists in. If we are to see a future Moon Knight protect, I would like to see it dive more into the origin, with Marc's dad being a rabbi and facing antisemitism. So much of Jewish history is filled with pain and fear, and if we were to see Marc maybe struggle with what he was, who he is, many questions concerning the self, I think that would be cool, considering one of the many important teachings of Judaism concerns with question and curiosity. We are taught to question and engage, even to question G-d.
In all, adaptations of Marvel have not done well, and have even contributed to harm, which can be seen with Wanda. As we move forward, I hope to see better representation all around. I want to see Jewishness in all the ways it can be seen. I wanna see the sedar plate, even if its just a background item.
Once again, thank you so much for your research and this beautifully made video
"G-d"?
@@legometaworld2728 Yeah. When I refer to the jewish G-d, I prefer put the hyphen in place of the ‘o’, like a sign of respect
@@lovecatmeow7054 Sorry, I wasn't aware.
I was thinking Magneto and Spider-Man, until I googled it and realized it's just ITSV's Peter Parker and that made me kinda sad. This was a great video, and I think the thing for me is we need characters to be more able to speak as themselves and not presented always as the everyman voice these movies use to homogenize the narrative. Surely the point of bringing LGBT and religious and different ethnicity characters in shows should be to introduce people to world views, experiences and points of view beyond their own? How can they do that if their experiences with love, faith, persecution, history etc. don't actually change how they interact with - as you mentioned just as an example - how they feel about being enslaved by a deceitful Egyptian deity in exchange for their life?
As some other commenters mention, what you tend to get instead is Hannukah represented as some kind of Jewish Xmas replacement 'What're you doing for Christmas?' conversation thing, menorah as set dressing and maybe someone wearing a yamaka, and that's all better than nothing but it's all skin deep, like Loki's bisexual reveal. It adds precious little when it doesn't seem to effect anything of the personal trials they experience or their interactions with the world, instead defaulting to this vanilla character that anyone in the audience can project themselves onto, and from whom they learn very little beyond the obvious.
I feel like it would have been relatively easy for a child in the street to point at the Thing and cry 'look, mama, a golem!' and to acknowledge Ben's faith that way, but one can't help but suspect studio involvement in the waspification, since a lot of movies during that era were very heavily similar in the same way. Especially with comic book movies, nobody was taking any risks over potentially turning off the general audience, no matter how bigoted that audience were. But you begin to get a feeling, especially after the recent Lightyear thing, that maybe Disney is beginning to realize it can do whatever the fuck it likes and still make bank even if they get review bombed to death, and I both hope that's the case and find it mildly terrifying but ymmv.
Incidentally speaking of waspification fun fact there's a whole tag on AO3 for Jewish Bucky Barnes, because the character the MCU's version was partially based on (Arnie Roth) was jewish (and gay) in the comics, but they made a distinct point of stamping his dog tags P for Protestant in the MCU so. That's fun.
Before this video ballooned in length I was planning to include a Bucky/Arnie Roth section! I think there's interesting things to explore in more 'fringe' cases like this and Spider-Man, where the situation's less binary than the characters I focused on in this video.
@@PillarofGarbage Definitely! I think you might have ended up going back over some of the same material, because again you've got a Jewish man enslaved by HYDRA and yikes. Very much damned if you do, damned if you don't. It was a great video exactly how it was, though. The perfect length :)
There's definitely a corporate feeling to the way they walk the line of bland relatability in all of these properties, and it's only disappointing in that I know there's so much more they could explore if they dug into the meat of it. It's interesting to me how you've got a moving picture, and voices, expressions, and action shown in real time, and you still can't somehow transmit as much nuance to the screen as there is on a static comic book page. I'm not a filmmaker so maybe it doesn't work, or it comes off a messy or something idk, but sometimes it does seem like a flimsy excuse not to be more brave, or at least of the desire not to reflect a world view too far from the projectable generic. Comics!Sam vs. TV!Sam comes to mind.
It's particularly novel to me that the characters with the most potential and fan popularity specifically because they're complex, interesting or representative, seem to be the ones watered down as much as they are, almost as if the execs don't quite grasp that their complexity is what makes them interesting. Hmm.
hey, can i just say, it's not actually just ITSV's Peter that's Jewish. though it may be considered closer to coding, in comics canon Peter uses Yiddish phrases, celebrates Hanukkah (and Shavout), and on tumblr one of the writers confirmed he was Jewish. Peter Parker is absolutely Jewish, in comics and Into the Spider-Verse, don't let anyone tell you otherwise :)
@@jamiesinfandom04 Point absolutely taken - I know a lot of readers view all (most?) Peters as Jewish, and that's not at all an interpretation I want to oppose, but I feel it's not quite the binary fact we see with other characters like Ben Grimm - since I believe the mainline 616 comics Peter, at least, is 'canonically' of a Protestant background.
There's certainly an amount of coding at work here, though, and to my knowledge, Spidey's not been overtly depicted as Christian (or from a Christian background) for a good while now - so at this point I think Peter's become something of a palimpsest, with different writers emphasising or de-emphasising different cultural codes depending on their own personal interpretations of the character. There's a lot of nuance here, and a lot of grey area - so I didn't really want to come down firmly on either side in the video because of just how slippery the Peter-Jewish identification is compared to other examples.
@@jamiesinfandom04 I agree but at the same time before that he seemed to be an atheist who time to time believed in god whether it be Jewish or Christian
The issue with Wanda that I found as a Roma person is, they tried to tie in her Romani heritage In WandaVision. In the Halloween episode, Wanda is dressed in her comic book outfit. The issue comes with their reasoning to why she is wearing that. "I'm a Sokovian Fortune Teller" is what Wanda says. Fortune telling is a stereotype of Romani people and concept art shows an even more obvious Romani "costume". But they don't flesh it out, they don't add anything or make her actually Romani. Instead, it feels like a white woman cosplaying as a Romani woman, something which is a real life issue with Roma people.
Also, the fact they "didn't have time" to add her heritage is understandable, what isn't is how they go with white actors afterwards. It feels like their ethnicity or race is just a character trait and not who they are, the default is white. Not to mention, said actress uses Romani slurs when referring to her.
I love Comic Book Wanda as she is a badass Romani woman when written right. I can't love MCU Wanda, an accent and a line isn't enough to represent my culture. My race is more than a character's "quirky flaw"
I'm sorry if I got heated, I just feel passionately. Love your videos, keep it up. I wish all the best.
Thank you for this video! This is super important & it's a shame how Marvel handels this topic.
6:17 At least they showed Kitty and her family lighting a menorah in "X Men: Evolution".
Edit: 7:29 Ups, you already mentioned that.
As someone who is Jewish themself, allow me to weigh in a little.
For starters, using American media to try and understand actual Jews is fraught with issues. Jewish representation in media is, when it actually happens, enormously stereotypical, and just like the experience of American blacks, there is a very concerning trend of Jews buying into their own stereotypes and living according to them. Despite how involved Jewish individuals are in American media, they don’t really do the Jewish community many favors.
Secondly, I actually *groan* every time a menorah pops up to signify someone is Jewish, because it is the laziest and most surface-level thing someone could do to signify Jewish heritage.
I am often left asking “What do they do on Shabbat? How observant are they? Do they experience any self-conflict with their Jewish identity? How do feel about the horrendous anti-semitism that is literally everywhere on the internet? How do they feel about the situation with Israel, and do they have any issues with it?”
You know, real things I’d like to see Jewish characters explored with. If doing such would get in the way of the story, then simple, don’t make the character Jewish. It’s just tokenism if they just happen to be a Jew but nothing about being a Jew is explored.
Then again, most American Jews are so highly assimilated in mainstream American culture that even most Jews I say are not entirely sure what it means to be Jewish.
That could be an interesting angle for a character as well. So much potential, so rarely explored.
i would love to hear what you wanted to say about Bucky and Peter! With Peter, I'm not sure but i think i've heard sth abt in the past; and with Bucky I'm assuming you'd have talked about Arnie Roth? Either way, i now need to hear more :D
This is kind of a weak position to take, but I have long considered the film iterations of comic book characters to be "incomplete" at best, "fake/AU" at worst. There's no way all the complex character beats, brewed over decades by dozens of minds, can be adequately explored in ~100 minutes by a studio trying to make money off the general audience, so I let a lot of issues slide... comics just force you to learn how to let stuff go. (I might lose my mind if one of my beloved faves was casually shown entering a home with a mezuzah or some shit though ngl)
Oh, and before I forget to mention: Some Jews say/write God, so it's not exceptionally strange to hear Ben's drunken lamentation, lol. We live in a nuanced world - which is, perhaps, part of why the MCU's general flatness rankles.
Well, the MCU is literally AU. Every time a version of something Marvel is made, which is in a different medium than comic books, they're set in an alternate universe according to Marvel.
Yeah, that God one I get. It’s like how, based on how orthodox a person is, their attitude towards Eruv lines would be influenced.
hey gang, I’m not gonna be super active in the comments just to begin with because I’m frantically trying to fix my ✨ c o m p l e t e l y d e a d ✨ PC
Of course in looking up this issue I find one of your videos, rock on man you’re awesome
Hey hey! First, I’d like to thank you for putting the time into making this video and others that deal with the Jewish community in relation to pop culture-they’re not common, at least based on my experience. Further, I think these videos are top notch, I obviously well researched, and are nicely balanced between multiple perspectives. You bring to light issues concerning the Jewish community while clearly articulating that Judaism isn’t monolithic.
On a personal note, I used to take the view that representational issues where secondary to to the opportunities modern American society offered to our community. I’m the son & grandson of holocaust survivors who came to America in the 1950’s, started families, built businesses, & prospered. While not a universal experience Jews generally have been very successful in the United States, at least economically. However, after watching large crowds of seemingly middle class Americans chanting “Jews will not replace us” on television, having said people defended by a sitting president, and living thru a massive uptick in violence and harassment against the Jewish community I’ve realized how important representation of us in media actually is.
I’ve written a long post already and don’t want to write a novella on your page but just wanted to convey how important I think videos like yours are, that they’re a mitzvah, and that they’re appreciated.
Take care!!
I think Kitty Pride is Jewish?
For me, being a Jew, it just makes me sad to see/hear this stuff. I never read comics but I always admired the xmen and watched the mcu movies. My favorite characters growing up were Kitty Pryde, Ice Man, and other Jewish characters like Wanda because I could relate to them. Realizing that Wanda in the mcu not being portrayed as Jewish, or really any avenger or hero nowadays is depressing. Idk many heroes so if one of them are Jewish, that’s cool, but as far as I’m aware, none,,, are.
I said this before :
Marvel does the same thing with the movies as they did with the comics they erases the Judaism because they fear it won't sell to the mainstream
I once a read an article that theorized that originally Spider-Man/Peter Parker was a jewish character but his faith had been erased for the mainstream but if you pay attention to how he is written, he is basically a Schlemiel who happens to be a super-hero (in the same way that the characters of Franz Kafka aren't canonically jewish but are written like characters out of a jewish comedy). And when you you watch the movies by Sam Raimi (who's Jewish) it translates this very well and the movies made after him erases the Schlemiel part of the character, so in some ways the current cinematic version of Spider-Man is also Jewish erasure.
Bruh he adresses us jews so nicely i feel so special😭
It's possible that now that they have magneto they could go ahead and say she was raised a Christian by hydra even tho her parents were jewish and upon meeting magneto (kinda hoping that she does find out magneto's her dad) starts to delve into her jewish heritage and figure out her relation to it. I doubt it'll happen but it's a nice thought for how they could fix it a little. They'd have to make this stuff pretty clear tho. A full scene or even section of whatever script it's in. One can hope.
As far as I know, Nazi Germany and therefore Hydra was passively anti-theistic and anti-Christianity, so I don't think that would work. Nice try, though.
In case anyone wonders if in this day and age with so many Jewish people working in the media industry, if film still feels audiences would be less accepting of a Jewish character:
In a 2008 interview, actor Zach Braff stated that while he feels "most at home when I’m playing a Jewish character", the writers for Scrubs chose to imply that Dorian was Christian because the show needed "to appeal to the most massive audience possible" out of concern that some people might not watch a show featuring a Jewish main character.”
It is sad that Stan Lee was a jewish man but Marvel Studios seems so reluctant to let characters be openly Jewish.