seekingferret | (no subject)

The Ms. Marvel Disney+ show is two episodes in and it's great! If you liked the comics, you'll love the way they're adapting the visual style into a live action show, and the characters are great and complicated and fun.

But it's also kind of a punch in the nose how much the show is about Kamala and her cultural background. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's great. Muslims dance in this show! And there are lots of different kinds of Muslims representing a diversity of viewpoints and attitudes and senses of identity and approaches to American life.

But "Jews danced" in Hawkeye in the sense that a character danced whose never-appearing sister had a mezuzah on her apartment door, with no acknowledgment in dialogue of any Jewish identity. And "Jews danced" in Moon Knight in the sense that the alter-ego of a Jewish character, whose Jewish identity is acknowledged in the observance of shiva for his brother and a Star of David necklace but not in any way in the dialogue, briefly dances. The alter-ego might be considered Jewish, but he never says anything to indicate such an identification.

And Ms. Marvel shows how possible it is to tell stories in the MCU where religious and ethnic identity informs characters in rich, deep ways. And I love it, I've loved every minute of it so far, but also I keep watching and thinking why couldn't the Jews also get that? I'm sick of having to do all this work just to read the faintest glimmers of Jewish identity into the MCU.

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Hi! You don't know me; I saw this on /friendsfriends and I hadn't thought of it in connection to Moon Knight and Hawkeye and I was like, YEAH! Since I think this is valuable meta, would you allow me to link to it in

meta_warehouse?

Hi! Sure, you can share it.

Since you don't know me, this is not a new rant. I've been talking about the problem of Jews in the MCU for years. the menorah in Iron Man 3 ... Jews dancing in Endgame ... More on Jews dancing in Endgame ...

Thanks!

I didn't even realize there was a Jewish reference in Hawkeye. Can you elaborate on that please?

Kate and Clint hole up in Kate's aunt's apartment, which has a mezuzah on the door and a menorah on a shelf. c.f. https://twitter.com/TheyAreJett/status/1483262998781349888 This is Kate's mother's sister, so assuming these objects imply that Kate's aunt is Jewish, Eleanor is presumably also Jewish, and Kate would be Jewish per traditional matrilineal descent. That said, there is no other reference to Judaism in the show.

thank you!! I definitly missed that. Kind of odd too since Kate Bishop much as I love her hardly ever had any hints of being Jewish in the comics but I'll take what I can.

Yeah, I don't understand the logic behind it. Maybe it's just that Steinfeld is Jewish? There's some internet theories that a future MCU installment will reveal who Kate's aunt is and that her being Jewish will matter for that reveal, but who knows.

But it's the 'take what I can' of it that is frustrating to me. Dating back to the inception of the Silver Age, Marvel comics had real Jews in them, and were largely created by Jews. I talk at any opportunity about the issue of Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos where they liberate a concentration camp on their way to their actual mission. At every turn, the MCU tries to minimize the Jewish identity of the characters its adapting. We're still waiting for the MCU debut of Izzy Cohen and Arnold Roth and a number of other characters they could have used. I don't want 'take what I can get'. I want 'Jewish identity informed the storytelling at a meaningful level'.

It is very frustrating yes!! If we get some X-Men eventually, there's a couple of characters I will riot if they're not openly Jewish. I did take Moon Knight as some genuine progress at least.

Someday I will figure out how to make a Magneto&Kitty vid to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's "Remember That We Suffered"... in the meantime, this is my most Jewish Marvel fanvid: https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/250344.html

that is the best vid idea ever ♥ ♥ ♥

(Hi! Your Mixed Dancing vid was linked on

fancake, and then I started reading around your DW and here I am.)

I think the thing that I find frustrating about the Menorah Code is the fact that it is a code. It isn't exactly plausible deniability, but it's the use of a set of clues which will be noticed by a particular audience and can be ignored by everyone else. What's wrong with explicit Jewish content? The implication is that its inclusion would be somehow offensive to non-Jews or will make them uncomfortable (in the same way that some people are offended or uncomfortable if the timings work out and you can wish them a Happy Chanukah in response to their Merry Christmasses?)

The more I think about it, the more I dislike it.

Hi!

It's the treatment of Jewish identity as an easter egg rather than as the raw cloth of storytelling. It's not even about the fact that the clues are only noticeable to a certain audience, it's about the fact that the clues that are present are clues about the fact of identity, not clues about observance or theology or ethics or social perspective. There are meaningful Jewish narratives that I love where nobody ever says that someone is Jewish, but the Jewishness informs the storytelling, and I'm fine with the Jewishness being subtextual there. This is something much shallower than that.

And I don't know the reason for it, but it's a pattern that suggests intention to me. Any time they faced a storytelling choice where the obvious choice was to show Jewish characters, they made a less obvious choice. So you're right, it starts to make you think the reason is that they were worried their Christian fans would be uncomfortable if Jews ever appeared on screen.