Whitewashing in the Hell

Hollywood's guilty of harbouring many skeletons. Its most-recent one, sexual predation, has been the subject of scrutiny and backlash following Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement. However, it's its whitewashing, which goes back to the industry's inception, that regularly rears its ugly head. It's been criticized, chastised, deconstructed and apologized for as much as it's been defended and ignored, making it a routine punching bag. And while it's not as bad as it used to be, thanks to the globalization of film in the last 30-odd years, it hasn't gone away entirely.

I mention this in-light of a Vulture article about Annihilation. The article discusses the issue of whitewashing the, admittedly vague, character descriptions in the source material via actresses who are predominantly white. Or, more specifically, actresses who are Natalie Portman. It's an interesting piece, to say the least, and it's worth reading, but I'm stung by what it's insinuating about Portman and Jews as a whole.

I don't think E. Alex Jung, the author of the piece, is being malicious towards Jews. At least, not intentionally. But the underlying, subtle implications can lead to a terrible and blatantly-offensive misreading, one that reinforces negative stereotypes about the Jewish people as a whole. And that's somewhat concerning, such that I feel it's worth responding to.

What's whitewashing? It's the concept by which one culture or character's legacy is painted over or supplanted with another's, this being white people. This practice can extend to other areas as well, but since whitewashing's its most-common form, that's what's usually brought up. Especially since whitewashing has been the predominant form of cultural revisionism in art for centuries, completely ignoring the contributions of other groups. To be fair, sometimes what qualifies as whitewashing can be vague, especially when factoring in context, but the concept is pretty abhorrent and worthy of understanding in order to change it.

Which leads me to Jung's article. He's right to say that Annihilation's an example of whitewashing, even if it's unintentional. He's also right to say that casting Portman as an originally Oriental-Asian character is a form of whitewashing. But I take issue with Jung's assumption that Portman's, therefore, white. Because she's not.

Let me explain.

See, Natalie Portman's not even American. She's Israeli. Her birth name is Neta-Lee Hershlag. The decision to Anglicize her name, a common practice for foreign talent in Hollywood, was to help sell her to American audiences. It's especially common for Jews to adopt this, and is, itself, already an argument against Jews being inherently white.

This is important for why calling Jews "white" is a problem: because they still feel subtle pressure, like other minorities, to adapt in order to succeed. If Jews were really white, they wouldn't be adopting non-Jewish names. If Jews were really white, they wouldn't feel pressure to hide their Jewishness. That both of those still happen should already be a red flag, right?

Besides, Jews are a diverse people. Some are European. Some are Asian. Some are African. Some are Latino. Some are Middle Eastern. Some are Desi-Hindu. There's enough range in physical and ethnic appearance for them to not classify as "white". The only reason why most people don't know this is a lack of exposure and representation.

Even ignoring the diversity of skin colour, "white" Jews, the European ones, have only really been accepted into Western culture within the last 100 or so years. Even after The Enlightenment of the 18th-20th Centuries, in which Jews were slowly-integrated into European countries, long-standing discrimination, left-over from segregation and isolation, didn't fully go away. Rather, it morphed into modern-Antisemitism, a term coined in Germany in the 19th Century. Antisemitism continued to haunt the Jewish experience like an elephant in the room, eventually reaching its peak during WWII and The Third Reich.

Even today, Jews aren't fully part of white culture. They might benefit from a certain degree of white privilege, no doubt due to their resourcefulness and understanding of wealth and power, but it's recent, conditional and can be easily-revoked. If you want proof, simply ask a white supremacist or neo-Nazi what they think of Jews. At the same time, though, brace yourself for the answer.

This is why it offends me when Jews are lackadaisically clumped in with "white people". Even those Jews that aren't European, like Hank Azaria and Ben Kingsley. It ignores the difference in historical circumstances and is, honestly, somewhat Antisemitic. Yet instead of being the kind of Antisemitism that's open and blatant, it's the kind of Antisemitism that's more opaque and harder to read. This is the same Antisemitism that allows oppressed groups to adopt BDS as a platform, to delegitimize the Jewish experience, and to lump the occasional bad apples with the grander power structure that's oppressed them historically. It also robs Jews of their voices in the struggle for societal progress.

Which leads back to my issue with Vulture's article. I'm sure the filmmakers were unaware of their whitewashing, as the article states, but to assume it's okay to feed the long-standing misconception that Jews are white is equally frustrating. Because Jews don't need backhanded placating and lip-service from other minority groups. Good or bad, they need the respect they deserve.