Jewtopia features Tom Arnold as a gynecologist. That could be the review right there; any further commentary seems superfluous. Yet I will go on because in truth, I have a lot more to say, or at least vent, about this movie.
Its central plot concerns the unlikely friendship between Christian O’Connell (Ivan Sergei) and Adam Lipschitz (Joel David Moore). Christian is a military brat, which naturally means he dresses in fatigues even though the other kids make fun of him, calling him G.I. Joe. The only kid who doesn’t laugh is Adam, who tells him he likes G.I. Joes, before proceeding to pick his nose, examine the treasure, then eat it. Thus begins a beau– friendship. They go over each other’s houses—Adam’s is really Jewish (read: loud and likes Chinese food), Christian’s is really goyish (read: hunting, America, and NASCAR). They cease being friends after a practical joke gone awry (it involves poop. In the first eleven minutes of this film, no less than three people get feces on them. This is especially impressive when you consider the first three minutes are an animated title sequence).
Later, at graduation, a really JAP-y Jewish girl (as all young Jewish women are imagined to be in this movie) rejects Christian’s marriage proposal because he’s not Jewish. Several years later, he meets Alison Marks (Jennifer Love Hewitt) at a Temple mixer he sneaks into. Determined to not let this relationship end like his last, he enlists Adam to be his Hebrew Hitch. Adam, however, is embroiled in a Jewish relationship dilemma of his own, engaged to baby-hungry, über-bitch gynecologist Hannah Daniels (Jamie-Lynn Sigler), who, we will graphically learn, is actually the scion of a family of gynecologists, headed by Tom Arnold. In the end, Alison is shocked to discover Christian has lied to her face, poisoned her rabbi father, conned her mother, and made an utter mockery of her tradition. He explains he did it all because he loves her and hopes to marry her so that he’ll never have to make another decision again as long as he lives. Of course she says yes. Shortly afterward, Adam marries his Mongolian therapist with an inexplicable British accent (Elaine Tan) because she actually lets him talk.
It is all arguably the greatest case in favor of Jewish self-loathing ever committed to film. In the scene when Adam is telling his family why he loves his therapist more than his ex-fiancée, his mother freaks out, laying the classic guilt-trip on him about abandoning “his religion” after so many have died for it. To me this begs the question: What, then, is his religion exactly?
The film offers several explicit answers to that, thanks in large part to the advice Adam gives Christian. In Jewtopia, Jews are:
- Complainers
- Salmon lovers
- Never satisfied
- Big nosed
- Rich
- Bridge players (the absence of mahjong in this film is inexcusable)
- Lovers of Asian food and women
- Psychologically dependent on their mothers (men)
- Insufferably bitchy (women)
- Complainers
- Spastic
- Asthmatic
- Backseat drivers
- Yiddish speakers
- Closet racists
- Complainers
And yes, this is what the movie thinks American Jewish religion consists of, not just culture, since they are conflated in the minds of every character, including the film’s only even vaguely religious figure, Alison’s dad, Rabbi Schlomo Marks (Paul Rosenthal).
No one can deny many American Jews do/are many of the things listed, that’s why they became stereotypes to begin with. The problem is that Jewtopia does not parody these things, it merely makes a superficial pastiche of them. In a parody, these stereotypes would be mined for new depth, like what Woody Allen did in his best roles, or else mocked to make fools of those who believe them, like what Dave Chappelle did for African-American stereotypes in Chappelle’s Show. Here, however, American Jewish stereotypes are embraced, even endorsed, with a seeming take-away message of How can we not want to marry non-Jews? Look at us!
In their seeming awareness of the problems with their portrayals, the producers also include offensive stereotypes of Hispanics, African-Americans, West Indians, gays, gentile women, and probably more that I missed, and they suffer the same problem as their Jewish counterparts. They think they are a South Park-esque parody of everything, but they are really just being ignorant. It reminded me of something my Intro to Popular Culture professor said when we were studying the Roger Moore-era James Bond movie Live and Let Die. This movie contains many West Indian and black stereotypes and features a big, dumb Cajun cop in a supporting role. My professor said the cop character was probably created so that no one could accuse the producers of racism since look—we’re making fun of white people too! But just as it backfired then, so it does now.
I would also argue that the producers must have been aware of just how unfunny most of the script is, which is why they felt it necessary to insert some form of scatological humor into almost every scene. Besides all the poop jokes, this movie also contains more vagina-related humor than anything else I’ve ever seen. Even after giving it thought, I must admit the vagina motif’s deeper significance to the plot is still lost on me.
The take-away message of the movie seems to be that only gentiles would be dumb enough to want anything to do with Jews, and it provides a stellar justification for anyone looking to walk out on this people. As for me, all it made me want to do walk out on was this movie. Walk out of this movie and into the world as a proud Jew, so I could begin trying to undo the toxic self-image it perpetrates.
Derek M. Kwait graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and is editor in chief of New Voices.
