Page 56 - Knighted_Issue2.0
P. 56

Semitism were fanned by men like Tom Watson, a newspaper publisher, who accused any
newspaper, including the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who spoke against the biased court
proceedings of being controlled by the Jews (Carr 40). Frank’s sentence was commuted to life in
prison, which led an angrymob to storm the prison, remove Frank, and lynch him.

         Jews had been left out of many fields of enterprise and unable to create a Jewish identity
in other industry,so they used the film industry. In films, “the Jewish producers, directors, and
actors could determine the image of the Jew that fit their own sensibilities”(Friedman). The Jews
of Hollywood and the moguls in particular were more assimilated than the Jews in cities like
New York who still maintained their religious practices as they had in Europe. For the moguls,
Jewishness was not about religion but rather about culture and kinship (Bernardi). They were
great philanthropists for Jewish cause but did not attend temple or keep kosher. They were not
as “religious” as their fathers were and in many cases they “Americanized” their names,
intermarried and avoided public displays of religion” (Gabler 282). They attempted to fully
integrate themselves into American society through assimilation and they did the same to their
characters. The Jewish industrialist and the secretary in Gentlemen’s Agreement put a movie
voice to the true feelings of the moguls. Like the industrialist, they did not want to speak of anti-
Semitism up to the point that the movie was almost nevermade for that reason (Goldman 4).Also,
the secretary represented the moguls as someone who had assimilated into American society.
There was also a practical matter in keeping Jews out of major roles in film. The prevalence of
anti-Semitism may have led to smaller box office receipts as the audience may have been
offended by heroic Jewish characters (Gabler 300). The Hollywood moguls and others in the
industry created Jewish characters that blended in and did not rise above the crowd for that is
what they wanted in their own lives. That is not to say that the moguls did not want to draw
   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61