My friend’s mother and her friends have a yearly award which they bestow on one Jewish celebrity. The title? Most embarrassing Jew. And they’re not talking some Marx brothers pie in the face slapstick humor. They’re talking about a Jew whose actions are so cringe-worthy that the fact that the two of you are associated with the same cultural traditions is embarrassing. Former awardees include: Bernie Madoff.
So what can Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief whose sexual exploits have been tabloid fodder over the past year, learn from the Marx brothers? Yesterday the man once considered a viable candidate for the French presidency was arrested as prosecutors investigated him for ‘aggregated pimping’. Cue: facepalm. Though prostitution is not illegal in France, profiting from the prostitution of another human being, colloquially known as ‘pimping’, is. The problem with being a minority, and a highly visible one at that, is that your actions, whether fairly or not, are reflected upon an entire body of people. And Strauss-Kahn’s sexual predilections, whether in his multitude of internationally spread alleged rape cases, or these new charges, definitely reflect badly on the Jewish people at large. Even if just on a trivial of shattering the cultural perception of the ‘Nice Jewish Boy’ that has spawned its own calendar.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. This post is about the Marx brothers. Sort of. Legendary Jewish comedians the Marx brothers kept their shenanigans to the stage. Had they behaved the way that the did on film in public, perhaps they would have been another embarrassment to Jewish mothers everywhere. However, they knew what Strauss-Kahn clearly does not: shenanigans are best kept to the realm of entertainment. And off the stage, you don’t make a spectacle of yourself. Besides, what would your mother say?
