1. The film opens with this statement: "In every living soul, a spirit cries for expression--perhaps this plaintive wailing song of Jazz is, after all, the misunderstood utterance of a prayer" Considering everything we've spoken of in class in reference to the Old and New World and everything that happened in the film, what are your thoughts about this proposition? Is the wail of the New World so different from that of the Old?
2. What did you think of the scene between Mary and Jack in his dressing room as he was applying his blackface makeup while deciding whether or not to miss his opening night performance in order to sing the Kol Nidre at the synagogue? How did that scene strike you? Also, what was the "cry of my race" that Jackie was referring to?
3.Does the recurring theme of crying seem at all significant to you? "The wail of Jazz" "The cry of my race" "the cry in his voice" etc...
4. This question I lifted from the reading, and while I think it was intended to be a rhetorical one, I thought it interesting enough to ask: In reference to the idea of blackface being a "mask for Jewish expressiveness, with one woe speaking through the voice of another" "What Jewish "woe" does the jazz singers blackface express?
5. What are your thoughts on this "sinister paradox" Rogin refers to in his essay:"Assimilation is achieved through the mask of the most segregated; the blackface that offers Jews mobility keeps the blacks fixed in place." Is this at all evident in the film?
6. Did the film strike you at all as being one-sided in its depiction of the conflict between Jewish Immigrant and America?
7.From the perspective of Cantor Rabinowitz, why do you think his reaction to his son's desire to sing "raggy-time songs" was such a visceral one? What did Jazz represent to him? What threat did he think it posed to him and his family's legacy?
8.In watching the film, did you, at any point find yourself taking sides? did you want Jackie to sing the Kol Nidre and abandon his show, or choose the show over his family's request?
9.Do you agree with Rogin that "Blacks may have seemed the most distinctively American people" and that "integral to that distinctiveness was their exclusion from the ethnic intermixture that defined the melting pot"? and, do you think this, in any way, tied into the appeal of blackface for performers and audiences alike?
10. Watching it through modern day eyes, did you find the films nonchalant treatment of blackface at all puzzling or disturbing?
11. The films main subject was the struggle between father and son, with the mother, stuck in the middle, attempting to placate both sides, an idea we've seen before, in "Bread Givers". Why is it, do you think, that when portraying a conflict between the old and new world, the patriarch is more often than not, the torch bearer for the old world, the child for the new, and the mother, stuck in the middle? Why is this the dynamic?
Uncle Sam - Strong Features
"Uncle Sam is a Man of Strong Features" (1898)
6. I realize that at the time the film was produced it certainly gave great voice to conflict within the Jewish American relationship, but I , as a modern day viewer, do not see it. If Jackie was to make a statement about the Jews treatment in America I missed it. The movie definitely had major immigration themes; old/new, abandonment/retainment, tradition/modernism, but I don’t see any American critisiscm. Many actors change their names today, the gentile girl accepts him, seemingly in the know of his ethnic origins, the LES community is close knit and unbothered. No I think this film does not seem too interested in calling out America on any mistreatments, which Rogin criticizes it omits, but does not seem the point. So the film is sort of one sided highlighting immigrant relations over prejudice, but I think that was the goal, not an accidental omission.
ReplyDelete7. I don't think it was the Jazz genre specifically that upset the Cantor. It was his son's disobedience, his break in tradition, his completely rebelling against the understood norm of generations past. I think if Jackie wanted to be a baker or cobbler it would have upset him just the same. Maybe the fact that he stayed within the musical field added to the force of the betrayal, as Jackie was taking his genetic talents and straying from the pack that granted them.
I wanted to respond to a particular quote in the text, the idea of which, Professor Davis has brought up twice now.
ReplyDelete"The moguls Americanized themselves by interpreting gentile dreams" (424)
I've often thought of black Americans to be mobilizing themselves in the same fashion, in a turn about sort of way. Most of American culture, All? of the music, was founded by black Americans, though they never had a chance to own it in an economic arena. I feel like all of the black American moguls are doing the same thing the Jews did the last century.
While they are taking back what once belonged to them- I'm talking about the entertainment industry- they are going about it in a very white way aka gentile. Black Americans are Americanizing or integrating at a much faster pace through interpretation of the mainstream aka "gentile dreams", which they then exploit for their own use.
Just something I've noticed. Throwing in a little orphan Annie (JayZ) to put a point across for a broader understanding.
10. Absolutely! My first reaction was shock at how random the act of performing in blackface seemed. For me, it changed my whole view of the movie and of the characters. However the fact that it was done so casually led me to believe that it was simply the norm back then. I’m assuming that the blackface scenes were not meant to define the movie nor are they attempting to make any deep statements about the voice of Jews in the world, as Rogan’s essay suggests. We could speculate about the meaning behind such an inclusion, but with no finite discussion about the absurdity of blackface in the movie, there are no grounds to assume that it’s anything more than a product of the times.
ReplyDelete11. I also noticed this pattern and I think it’s a very common formula in immigrant literature. The man is the head of the family and therefore is innately worldlier, while the traditional place of the woman is in the home. So, when a family is thrust into a whole new culture it is usually the man who resents it because he has to be exposed to the brash differentness of it all. This is in contrast to the children who are sheltered by school and the mother is only privy to information given to her by her family. They have a loyalty to their husbands, but tend to be sympathetic to their children simply because of mother instincts and closeness to her children. At an older age a man would be less willing to change his lifestyle and adopt a new culture while a child must do that to fit in. The patriarch has grown up in the old world while their kids have grown in the new world thus they will each cling to what they know. This mostly leaves the mother caught between sides, probably not wanting to assimilate either, but more than anything not wanting to ostracize her children for embracing their new life.
6)The films depictions of a Jewish immigrant and America didn't strike me as being one sided at all or biased at all. I thought it was a realistic portrayal of the value system of a Jewish immigrant to the United States at that time. I could empathize with the two conflicting values of an Old World idealed parent and the New World idealed younger generation. I thought that the film simply portrayed very well how different it was for an older generation to be living in a new country in comparison to their children. The film depicted very well how the difference in generations often clashed between their beliefs and values.
ReplyDelete10)Before our class discussion on why there was the blackface performance, I was puzzled by the choice of the blackface makeup. I didn't expect that. It might have even passed for a bit racist. However, after our class discussion, I do feel that it was simply because black performers at the time weren't able to sing jazz yet, much like how women in the old days weren't allowed to perform thus men acted and dressed up as women instead.
Chereene Ligno wrote:
ReplyDeleteIn response to question 11, I too noticed the common family dynamic in The Jazz Singer and Bread Givers. In most cases where there is a conflict that divides the family the patriarch tends to always represent tradition and the old world. I think the father is usually given this role because of society’s typical representation of the father figure. The father tends to always represent structure, and discipline. Whereas the immigrant father is concerned depicting him as a figure that is open to change, works against the typical male representation.
In both pieces we observed mothers that played the nurturing roles. Typical of the mother figure to be the caretaker, they are placed in the middle because they themselves have no real place to belong to. In Bread Givers and The Jazz Singer the women belong to the old world only on accounts of their husbands. The mother is supposed to be dedicated to her husband and her children, so in this dynamic she always falls in the middle. As for the young person’s connection to the new world, this is a representation of generational change. In both the movie and novel, the children embrace the new world because it is there current setting. It is hard for the young people to embrace a world they are no longer in. Unlike their parents, their lack of encounter with old world makes them the perfect spokes person for the new world.
This dynamic placed on each character focuses on gender roles and society.