The Marx Brothers were the only Jewish comedians of their era to use their real surnames, and Groucho (Julius) injected Yiddish into his bits throughout. He certainly was explicit that he was Jewish when giving interviews. This was decades before most Jews in show business stopped adopting goyische stage names.

> I think Woody Allen is like an Jewish Uncle Tom

On one level I agree that the characters Woody Allen plays often do not present a positive Jewish stereotype (but he's a person we frequently know), but as a filmmaker, his work is filled with attacks on antisemitism ("Love & Death" comes to mind, which, while it has no Jewish characters, has quite a few scenes portraying the ignorance of antisemitism.) Allen's characters certainly presents a better portrayal of Jews than Seinfeld's does-- the "Jerry" he played on television was almost completely amoral. Allen's films from the 1970s onward are frequently centered on issues of morality-- even if the central character is amoral-- "Deconstructing Harry" is a good recent example.

I'm not sure either Mel Brooks or Lenny Bruce (two more stage names) were exactly "positive stereotypes" but they did have one quality Allen's characters generally lack: chutzpah.

> Mel Brooks is the only Jew I can think of that has made as big of an impact as Woody
> Allen as far as Jewish identity and stereo types.

> I think Woody Allen is like an Jewish Uncle Tom, maybe it would be acceptable if there
> were an equal voice of positive stereotypes.

Surely you jest, LiaBear. How about Albert Einstein? Who doesn't know that he was Jewish?

Going to an American university without encountering openly and uncompromisingly Jewish professors is almost impossible. When we speak of the stereotype of this group or that, we should remember such a stereotype is not a global reality, but only defined in this cultural context or that. We've made reference to Woody Allen's nebbish online persona without asking which aspect of that persona his mostly goyish audience would be inclined to see as being typically Jewish. There may be some small group of ranchers somewhere in Montana who've never met a Jew in person and still actually believe that we are typically as slowwitted and ineffectual as Allen's character in Sleeper, but such a view does not seem to survive a personal encounter with reality for very long.

I think, in part, this may be a California thing - I've noticed that there's this vaguely Anglo-Saxon concoction that seems to be thought of as being a default cultural setting on the West Coast, requiring no comment or notice, with all other cultural identities thought of as being as a deviation from that norm and thus making a comment with their appearance. In Chicago, we are well aware of the fact that all cultures in our city are minority ones, not a one of them coming even remotely close to being widespread enough to qualify as our cultural mainstream. A San Franciscan, seeing Allen's visibly Jewish persona and less than heroic screen presence, might see a linkage between his character's Jewishness and his untermeschhood given the built-in assumptions about what is the norm and what is exceptional; the character happens to be Jewish, therefore any comment on him is a comment about Jews in general. A Chicagoan, if asked about such linkage, would be likelier to shrug and say "whatever his character was, he'd have to be something, so why not that"; how does one flesh out the character at all without giving him a past and by implication, a cultural identity? Or do we insist that a character be "assimilated", playing along with the unexamined assumption that there is some inherently more legitimately American in a faux Anglo-Saxonnness drained of almost every visible sign of any connection to anywhere but one barely remembered chilly island nation by the North Sea than in any of the multitude of other cultures that have long existed in this country? Does one really fight Nativist cultural intolerance by yielding to its illogical demands, even if one does so without acknowledging the fact that in effect, that is what one is doing?

Allen exaggerates his quirks and weaknesses, but this is what comedians tend to do in general. I'll admit that I've seen only a few of the man's films, so I may be missing something, but what I find myself seeing in those movies is a character who, for all of his flaws and insecurities has a sound conscience and a good heart. If one sees his movies as PR for his community - and I would seriously question the notion that comedy should be asked play that role - we could do a lot worse and do in Seinfeld whose characters, however amusing to watch in action, never seem to show the slightest sign of having a moral qualm about anything or the capacity to understand why one might. I might feel a little uneasy as Fielding Mellish sat down next to me and told me about such the headache he was having, but if I saw Kramer and Elaine showing up, I'd make sure to run and keep on running until I was in another state; take a look at what happens to those who cross their path and you'll see why. Yet Seinfeld is acceptably PC and Allen isn't.

I find that odd.