Network television shows have long played upon various Jewish stereotypes. Several of these conventions were alive and well in prominent 1990s television situation comedies, or “sitcoms,” such as Will and Grace and The Nanny. Both shows frequently invoked stereotypes about Jewish women in relation to culture and religion. Characters rarely accessed their Jewish heritage outside of the conventional manner—unless it was a gag about hogging the bagels, one might never know they were Jewish. By imbuing their characters with these negative qualities so often associated with Jews, the shows’ writers reinforced these stereotypes for future generations.
In NBC’s Will and Grace, Grace rarely ever engages with her Jewish identity except to fulfill stereotypes. The only times she really views herself as “Jewish” are when she herself invokes Jewish conventions. Grace’s Hanukkah is shopping with her overbearing mother, which she dreads: more precisely, she demonstrates her ignorance of tradition by saying, “The holidays are all about…misery and…obligation…and the Maccabees riding an elephant, or whatever the hell Hanukkah is about.”
Will and Grace made a living exploiting Jewish stereotypes. Grace frequently pines after the ideal male, a Jewish doctor. Eventually, she marries one, Leo Markus, who, just after Karen decries the stereotype that “certain religious groups are cheap,” exclaims over a penny he found on the floor. Grace further fulfills “J.A.P.” conventions: she revels in how much her intern adores her, constantly consumes Will’s food and never cooks, and loves to shop at big-name stores like Barney’s. Grace does devote much time to her friends—hence the series name—but, as an individual, she is a prime definition of the “J.A.P.” By constantly associating main characters with these Jewish stereotypes, Will and Grace reinforced them into the American imagination and the minds of viewers.
Will and Grace also propagates the stereotypes of the “Jewish-American mother.” As Joyce Antler notes in You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother, Grace’s mother, Bobbi Adler, “fits snugly into the pushy, interfering, overcritical Jewish mother caricature” (Antler 184). She often meddles in her daughter’s love life, trying to set Grace up on date: at one point, she even says, “Honey, just tell me what you want me to criticize, and I’ll do it.”
The Nanny also invoked similar stereotypes about Jewish women. Like Grace, Fran Fine (played by Fran Drescher) demonstrates a lack of interaction with her heritage beyond fulfilling stereotypes about Jewish women. She is always searching for a man to complete her, whether she is flirting with her boss, Mr. Sheffield, or trying to snag a man, even offering to “help out” Mr. Sheffield by personally delivering a package to John F. Kennedy, Jr. Like Grace, Fran encapsulates the “J.A.P.” desire to get married to a “nice Jewish man” by exclaiming, “I don’t want to be happy. I want to be married.”
Fran flaunts her figure in tight, tacky clothing and loves shopping. As Riv-Ellen Prell noted in Fighting to Become Americans, the “J.A.P.” is obsessed with shopping (Prell 188). Whether clad head-to-toe in fake leopard print or wearing a bright jumpsuit, Fran uses her clothes as an outward manifestation of her brash personality. Fran is also a shopaholic, dragging her youngest charge, Gracie, to a sale at Loehmann’s and teaching her to manipulate other shoppers out of clothes she wants.
Like Will and Grace, The Nanny provided “J.A.P.” Fran with a stereotypically “Jewish-American mother,” Sylvia Fine. Sylvia “nags her offspring to death, particularly about landing a man” and “is always obsessing over food” (Antler 66). She frequents the kitchen at Mr. Sheffield’s home to coax free food out of Niles, the butler, and can often be found in the house’s kitchen, scarfing down treats. She is “invariably dressed in glitz, miniskirts, and open blouses that a woman of her age and shape would best avoid” (Antler 66). Sylvia mocks Fran’s profession as a nanny and her marital status, making her daughter feel guilty about being a single woman in her mid-30s without a husband or children. Other than a few incidents, though, a deep discussion on Jewish issues is unfortunately lacking in the rest of the series.
For the lead females and their mothers in The Nanny and Will and Grace, Judaism becomes less than an ethnicity or a religion. Indeed, it becomes a cultural system for individuals to exploit to justify bad behavior, like stealing free food. By portraying Grace and Fran as “J.A.P.”s and their mothers as “J.A.M”s, both sitcoms give tacit approval to the idea that these depictions of Jewish women are correct. If such shows ever become the cultural model for what Americans perceptions of Jewish women, the future of Jewish womanhood might be in grave danger.
This post is excerpted from Carly’s article in the upcoming fall 2011 issue of Sanctum, Columbia University’s undergraduate journal of religion. Carly is the publication’s editor-in-chief.
Carly Silver is a senior at Barnard College, Columbia University, majoring in religion and minoring in ancient studies. Originally from Weston, Connecticut, she is currently trying to pay for college by playing the ponies at a Tri-State area racetrack. Her column, Twenty Thousand Leagues From Hillel, appears here on alternating Fridays.
