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Week 7 Update
Oct. 2nd, 2019 03:41 pmWeek 7 Draft
The Have Gun, Will Travel episode A Drop of Blood is surprisingly moving. I found it by accidental Wikipedia trolling- there is a greater tendency for Jewish actors to play Jewish characters, so sometimes I linkjump on imdb or wikipedia starting with a Jewish actor or director just to see what I can find. In this case I was linkjumping from an Italian actor who's frequently played Jewish characters, Alex Rocco, and I jumped from him to Jewish actor Milton Selzer, and I saw that he'd played a Rabbi on Have Gun, Will Travel and was curious.
The premise of the episode is that gunslinger Paladin has come to visit a Jewish friend of his, Nathan Shotness (!), whose daughter Rivka is getting married to a nice frum Jew. Nathan is being harassed by a criminal he testified against recently, who wants to disrupt his party; enter Paladin to save the day. But they don't want to stir too much trouble, since the neighbors aren't on their side and just want to stay neutral. And it's not Paladin's way to kill if he doesn't need to. So the final third of the episode consists of them trying to conduct the wedding under threat of violence, to ever growing suspense. Inside, Rivka and her chasan stand under the chuppah, while outside the outlaws are heckling with ever greater fury. They read the first two of the Sheva Brachos in Hebrew, and then a torch is hurled through the window. A pogrom is about to start, in the midst of this chasanah! But then Paladin decides he's waited long enough, he's endured enough, and so he steps in and sends the outlaws packing with the help of the chasan. And then they all dance!
The tension during the Sheva Brachos is incredible, and was incredibly scary; It's an amazing use of technical accuracy, too... all of the details of the wedding service are spot on. That accuracy helps tell the story. You have a great sense of who these characters are and how they're anchored in their thousands of years of tradition, and why this leads to the choices they make. And you also feel the ebbs and flows of the narrative built into a Jewish wedding and how they pull against the narrative of oppression happening outside. The blessings to God as a counterbalance to the harassment, a verbal reminder that God is on their side. But then the breaking of the glass, a reminder the other way, that Jewish life will always have hardships in it.
Earlier on in the episode, sitting at the dinner table, the chasan does a really nice exegesis of the first daf of Masechet Chullin. It's clear that putting this Serious Jewish Content in the vid was a point of passion for somebody among the creators of this episode- you don't go to that level of specificity in the non-plot related details of a midseason episode of a TV Western otherwise. And I find that incredibly powerful to watch, as someone who is also deeply invested in Talmudic exegesis and its intersections with the Western storytelling tradition. There are things in this vid, like Destination Wedding, where the appearance of Jews dancing is incidental and not a primary part of the story. Destination Wedding is also terrible. I am not attached to it at all. But there are a lot of things in this vid that I have a strong emotional attachment to, and that includes a lot of things that I only watched for the first time because I am making the vid. I'm really grateful for that, I'm really grateful that this project has exposed me to so much great art that speaks to me personally as a Jew. Have Gun, Will Travel is going to get the same half second in the vid as Destination Wedding, which hardly seems a fair tribute.
I don't have much else to say about this week- I was limited in progress by Rosh Hashanah. I've started adding cartoons in, I added a few other fandoms that were sort of not surprises, and I've started thinking a bit about some of the timeline rearrangement I'm going to do.
fandoms I have clipped
Caddyshack
Bruriah
The Good Fight
Life During Wartime
Destination Wedding (bad rip)
The Good Wife
The Women's Balcony
Northern Exposure (1.2, other episodes not yet clipped)
Barney's Version
The Sitter
How to Make it in America
Late Marriage
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
While We're Young
Seinfeld
Hello, Goodbye
This is the End
The Campaign for Camelot
On the Basis of Sex
Modern Romance
The Wonder Years
Hart of Dixie
Community (Annie)
Call Me By Your Name
One Small Hitch
High Maintenance (Derech)
Mean Girls
The OC
Russian Doll
The In-Laws
Parks and Recreation (Jean Ralphio in End of the World Party drumline)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Full Court Miracle
Mr and Mrs. Smith
Wonder Boys
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
Superstore
Runaways
Starsky and Hutch (original)
New York I Love You
An Emmy for Megan
Red Sea Diving Resort
The L Word (Jenny Schecter)
Andi Mack
[redacted]
Private Benjamin
The Birdcage
Caddyshack 2
Pinsky
Love, Simon
Big Mouth
The League
The Princess Diaries
Have Gun Will Travel
Marjorie Morningstar
An American Tail
Arthur the Aardvark
Rugrats
Burn Notice
Fandoms I know have Jewish dancing, but haven't yet clipped
The Pickle Recipe
Biloxi Blues
Love Comes Lately
Beverly Hills 90210 (David Silver)
Schitt's Creek (The Olive Branch)
The Year of Spectacular Men (bathroom scene)
The Crazy Ones (S1E19)
Falsettos
Plus One
The Simpsons
Unreal
Fandoms that might have Jewish dancing, but I haven't checked yet
Man Seeking Woman
Beauty and the Baker
Shtisel
Legends of Tomorrow
Thirtysomething
Being Erica
The Naked Brothers Band
Lanigan's Rabbi
The Spy
Jewtopia
An Awkward Sexual Adventure
Boynton Beach Club
Girlfriends
Red Oaks
Gravity Falls
Duck Tales
Difficult People
The Have Gun, Will Travel episode A Drop of Blood is surprisingly moving. I found it by accidental Wikipedia trolling- there is a greater tendency for Jewish actors to play Jewish characters, so sometimes I linkjump on imdb or wikipedia starting with a Jewish actor or director just to see what I can find. In this case I was linkjumping from an Italian actor who's frequently played Jewish characters, Alex Rocco, and I jumped from him to Jewish actor Milton Selzer, and I saw that he'd played a Rabbi on Have Gun, Will Travel and was curious.
The premise of the episode is that gunslinger Paladin has come to visit a Jewish friend of his, Nathan Shotness (!), whose daughter Rivka is getting married to a nice frum Jew. Nathan is being harassed by a criminal he testified against recently, who wants to disrupt his party; enter Paladin to save the day. But they don't want to stir too much trouble, since the neighbors aren't on their side and just want to stay neutral. And it's not Paladin's way to kill if he doesn't need to. So the final third of the episode consists of them trying to conduct the wedding under threat of violence, to ever growing suspense. Inside, Rivka and her chasan stand under the chuppah, while outside the outlaws are heckling with ever greater fury. They read the first two of the Sheva Brachos in Hebrew, and then a torch is hurled through the window. A pogrom is about to start, in the midst of this chasanah! But then Paladin decides he's waited long enough, he's endured enough, and so he steps in and sends the outlaws packing with the help of the chasan. And then they all dance!
The tension during the Sheva Brachos is incredible, and was incredibly scary; It's an amazing use of technical accuracy, too... all of the details of the wedding service are spot on. That accuracy helps tell the story. You have a great sense of who these characters are and how they're anchored in their thousands of years of tradition, and why this leads to the choices they make. And you also feel the ebbs and flows of the narrative built into a Jewish wedding and how they pull against the narrative of oppression happening outside. The blessings to God as a counterbalance to the harassment, a verbal reminder that God is on their side. But then the breaking of the glass, a reminder the other way, that Jewish life will always have hardships in it.
Earlier on in the episode, sitting at the dinner table, the chasan does a really nice exegesis of the first daf of Masechet Chullin. It's clear that putting this Serious Jewish Content in the vid was a point of passion for somebody among the creators of this episode- you don't go to that level of specificity in the non-plot related details of a midseason episode of a TV Western otherwise. And I find that incredibly powerful to watch, as someone who is also deeply invested in Talmudic exegesis and its intersections with the Western storytelling tradition. There are things in this vid, like Destination Wedding, where the appearance of Jews dancing is incidental and not a primary part of the story. Destination Wedding is also terrible. I am not attached to it at all. But there are a lot of things in this vid that I have a strong emotional attachment to, and that includes a lot of things that I only watched for the first time because I am making the vid. I'm really grateful for that, I'm really grateful that this project has exposed me to so much great art that speaks to me personally as a Jew. Have Gun, Will Travel is going to get the same half second in the vid as Destination Wedding, which hardly seems a fair tribute.
I don't have much else to say about this week- I was limited in progress by Rosh Hashanah. I've started adding cartoons in, I added a few other fandoms that were sort of not surprises, and I've started thinking a bit about some of the timeline rearrangement I'm going to do.
fandoms I have clipped
Caddyshack
Bruriah
The Good Fight
Life During Wartime
Destination Wedding (bad rip)
The Good Wife
The Women's Balcony
Northern Exposure (1.2, other episodes not yet clipped)
Barney's Version
The Sitter
How to Make it in America
Late Marriage
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
While We're Young
Seinfeld
Hello, Goodbye
This is the End
The Campaign for Camelot
On the Basis of Sex
Modern Romance
The Wonder Years
Hart of Dixie
Community (Annie)
Call Me By Your Name
One Small Hitch
High Maintenance (Derech)
Mean Girls
The OC
Russian Doll
The In-Laws
Parks and Recreation (Jean Ralphio in End of the World Party drumline)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Full Court Miracle
Mr and Mrs. Smith
Wonder Boys
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
Superstore
Runaways
Starsky and Hutch (original)
New York I Love You
An Emmy for Megan
Red Sea Diving Resort
The L Word (Jenny Schecter)
Andi Mack
[redacted]
Private Benjamin
The Birdcage
Caddyshack 2
Pinsky
Love, Simon
Big Mouth
The League
The Princess Diaries
Have Gun Will Travel
Marjorie Morningstar
An American Tail
Arthur the Aardvark
Rugrats
Burn Notice
Fandoms I know have Jewish dancing, but haven't yet clipped
The Pickle Recipe
Biloxi Blues
Love Comes Lately
Beverly Hills 90210 (David Silver)
Schitt's Creek (The Olive Branch)
The Year of Spectacular Men (bathroom scene)
The Crazy Ones (S1E19)
Falsettos
Plus One
The Simpsons
Unreal
Fandoms that might have Jewish dancing, but I haven't checked yet
Man Seeking Woman
Beauty and the Baker
Shtisel
Legends of Tomorrow
Thirtysomething
Being Erica
The Naked Brothers Band
Lanigan's Rabbi
The Spy
Jewtopia
An Awkward Sexual Adventure
Boynton Beach Club
Girlfriends
Red Oaks
Gravity Falls
Duck Tales
Difficult People