Sarah Silverman Calls Out Hollywood’s ‘Jewface’ Problem Of Casting Non-Jews As Jewish Characters

On a recent episode of The Sarah Silverman Podcast, host Sarah Silverman discussed Jewish representation in Hollywood, specifically how non-Jewish actors and actresses are frequently cast as Jewish characters. “There’s this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being,” she said, adding, “One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile playing Joan Rivers correctly would be doing what is actually called Jewface.”

Silverman is referring to Kathryn Hahn, not a Jew, being cast as legendary comedian Joan Rivers, a Jew, for a Showtime series. She continued, “It’s defined as when a non-Jew portrays a Jew with the Jewishness front and center, often with makeup or changing of features, big fake nose, all the New York-y or Yiddish-y inflection. And in a time when the importance of representation is seen as so essential and so front and center, why does ours constantly get breached even today in the thick of it” Silverman pointed out other recent examples of Jewface, include Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex and Rachel Brosnahan in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

The School of Rock actress pointed out common anti-Semitic tropes that so often get thrown around like “Jews run Hollywood,” “Jews are rich,” and “Jews are powerful,” which she said then “renders people very righteously unsympathetic toward Jews.”

“I wish they would realize that that is by design,” she said.

Silverman doesn’t have an answer for “how to fix this,” but “representation f*cking matters, so it has to also finally matter for Jews as well. Especially Jewish women.” You can watch a live taping of The Sarah Silverman Podcast above.