Bradley Cooper ‘Jewface’ hubub
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ASPartOfMe
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Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 68
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Location: Long Island, New York
16 Aug 2023, 7:29 pm
Quote:
Bradley Cooper is facing mounting backlash over his use of a prosthetic nose while depicting composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein in the upcoming movie "Maestro," prompting Bernstein's children to rush to Cooper's defense for his portrayal of their father.
The biographical romance, which Cooper co-wrote, produced and directed, tells the story of Bernstein, who famously co-created "West Side Story," with a focus on the composer's 25-year marriage to Felicia Montealegre.
After Netflix dropped the trailer for the film on Tuesday, advocates and social media users were quick to notice the change in Cooper's appearance, with some branding his apparent use of a prosthetic nose as antisemitic.
"Hollywood cast Bradley Cooper — a non Jew — to play Jewish legend Leonard Bernstein and stuck a disgusting exaggerated 'Jew nose' on him," StopAntisemitism, an organization aimed at countering antisemitism, said in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Social media users also weighed in, with one writing: “Bradley Cooper is putting himself in an insanely large prosthetic nose to play a Jewish man in Maestro and we’re all just supposed to act like that’s cool and normal?”
"Just looked up a picture of the real Leonard Bernstein…. the big antisemitic prosthetic nose on Bradley Cooper was definitely not necessary…" another commenter wrote.
"I saw Bradley cooper play the elephant man with no prosthetics on Broadway," another social media user said. "But then he plays a Jew and decides he needs a huge nose?"
"He’s the director too so don’t blame anyone else," they added.
Several social media users said the film was a clear case of "Jewface," a term used to characterize stereotypical or inauthentic portrayals of Jewish people, with some also questioning why Cooper, who is not publicly known to be Jewish, was playing a famous Jewish person in the first place.
The children of Bernstein issued a statement in defense of Cooper, saying that the actor included them in his “journey” to play Bernstein and the misunderstanding breaks their hearts.
“It’s true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose,” the statement said. “Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well.”
The family statement went on to characterize the complaints as "disingenuous attempts to bring a successful person down a notch — a practice we observed all too often perpetrated on our own father."
"At all times during the making of this film, we could feel the profound respect and yes, the love that Bradley brought to this portrayal of Leonard Bernstein and his wife, our mother Felicia," the statement said.
The biographical romance, which Cooper co-wrote, produced and directed, tells the story of Bernstein, who famously co-created "West Side Story," with a focus on the composer's 25-year marriage to Felicia Montealegre.
After Netflix dropped the trailer for the film on Tuesday, advocates and social media users were quick to notice the change in Cooper's appearance, with some branding his apparent use of a prosthetic nose as antisemitic.
"Hollywood cast Bradley Cooper — a non Jew — to play Jewish legend Leonard Bernstein and stuck a disgusting exaggerated 'Jew nose' on him," StopAntisemitism, an organization aimed at countering antisemitism, said in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Social media users also weighed in, with one writing: “Bradley Cooper is putting himself in an insanely large prosthetic nose to play a Jewish man in Maestro and we’re all just supposed to act like that’s cool and normal?”
"Just looked up a picture of the real Leonard Bernstein…. the big antisemitic prosthetic nose on Bradley Cooper was definitely not necessary…" another commenter wrote.
"I saw Bradley cooper play the elephant man with no prosthetics on Broadway," another social media user said. "But then he plays a Jew and decides he needs a huge nose?"
"He’s the director too so don’t blame anyone else," they added.
Several social media users said the film was a clear case of "Jewface," a term used to characterize stereotypical or inauthentic portrayals of Jewish people, with some also questioning why Cooper, who is not publicly known to be Jewish, was playing a famous Jewish person in the first place.
The children of Bernstein issued a statement in defense of Cooper, saying that the actor included them in his “journey” to play Bernstein and the misunderstanding breaks their hearts.
“It’s true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose,” the statement said. “Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well.”
The family statement went on to characterize the complaints as "disingenuous attempts to bring a successful person down a notch — a practice we observed all too often perpetrated on our own father."
"At all times during the making of this film, we could feel the profound respect and yes, the love that Bradley brought to this portrayal of Leonard Bernstein and his wife, our mother Felicia," the statement said.
StopAntisemitism.org does good in publicizing antisemitism that the media does not report but they go overboard by doing things like reporting every incident of antisemitic graffiti anywhere. In this case yes the nose was overdone but if them family is ok with it I’m ok with it. Taking the family out of it, there is so much important antisemitism going on. This is trivial.
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