{"id":92448,"date":"2022-01-15T17:00:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=92448"},"modified":"2022-01-15T16:11:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-15T14:11:14","slug":"23-00-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=92448","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Where Are the Jews?\u2019: Scandal Erupts at the Academy Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>\u2018Where Are the Jews?\u2019: Scandal Erupts at the Academy Museum<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

TATIANA SIEGEL<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Four months after the new cultural center\u2019s splashy opening, big donors and showbiz veterans wonder why many of Hollywood\u2019s \u201cfounding fathers\u201d are absent from its exhibits<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021, in Los Angeles.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On Sept. 25, the Academy\u00a0Museum<\/a>\u00a0of Motion Pictures held its opening gala with a starry guest list that included Lady Gaga, Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Queen Latifah, Patty Jenkins, Tiffany Haddish, Kristen Stewart, and Jurnee Smollet. It was a moment long in the making, given that planning of the Renzo Piano-designed mecca celebrating the history of film first began back in 2005 and was delayed by the rise of the Covid pandemic. Though eyebrows were raised by the fact that the A-list revelers mingled\u00a0maskless inside the 33,000-square-foot space on Wilshire Boulevard at a time when celebrities were publicly chastising those who ignored Covid precautions, a much bigger controversy was brewing. Donors and influential Academy members, many of whom already had received private tours, were outraged that\u00a0Hollywood<\/a>\u2019s origin story \u2014 wherein a group of mostly Jewish \u00e9migr\u00e9s fled persecution in their home countries to create what would become a multibillion-dollar, American-led industry \u2014 was conspicuously absent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who was on hand for the gala, was immediately struck by the lapse. \u201cI would\u2019ve hoped that any honest historical assessment of the motion picture industry \u2014 its origins, its development, its growth \u2014 would include the role that Jews played in building the industry from the ground up,\u201d he says. \u201cAs I walked through, I literally turned to the person I was there with and said to him, \u2018Where are the Jews?\u2019 The omission was glaring.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That sentiment is being echoed from Hollywood\u2019s C-suites to the halls of academia.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s sort of like building a museum dedicated to Renaissance painting, and ignoring the Italians,\u201d says\u00a0Hollywood historian and Brandeis University professor Thomas Doherty. \u201cThat generation of early moguls \u2014 Carl Laemmle, Jack Warner, we know all their names \u2014 is a terrific story of upward mobility, living the American dream. It\u2019s one of the great contributions of American Jews to American culture.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of tributes to those Old Hollywood pioneers, the dozen-plus\u00a0exhibits that would open to the public five days later included more contemporary-skewing fare, such as\u00a0Director\u2019s Inspiration: Spike Lee<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Installation: Pedro Almod\u00f3var<\/em>. And behind the scenes, a full revolt was afoot, sources say, with some patrons threatening to pull future support for the institution.\u00a0Says one prominent Academy member who declined to be named: \u201cYou left the museum with the impression that the film industry was created 10 years ago. They erased the past. And I find it appalling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Haim Saban, who made a $50 million donation to the museum with his wife Cheryl \u2014 the single largest gift to the institution \u2014 was one of those with influence who spoke up.\u00a0\u201cCheryl and I firmly believe that the Jewish contributions to the film industry, from its founding to today, should be highlighted,\u201d he tells\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/i>. \u201cWe shared our perspective with the Academy Museum\u2019s management and appreciate that they are taking our feedback seriously.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly four months since opening its doors, 290,000 people have purchased tickets to the museum, far exceeding internal projections. But many from Hollywood\u2019s older generation, who avoided the early crush due to Covid, have only recently begun to trickle through the five-story edifice. And the feedback the Academy has received from this wider audience regarding the absence of many of Hollywood\u2019s founding fathers continues to be less than glowing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had sit-downs with four Academy members and two donors who wanted to better understand why they weren\u2019t seeing an exhibition on the primarily Jewish founders of Hollywood, and we take that note very seriously,\u201d says museum director and president Bill Kramer. \u201cRepresentation is so important to us, including our Jewish founders. If we are not talking about them in enough detail or more prominently, we want to hear that and we want to respond to that. We heard these notes, and we get it. And we\u2019re really happy to be able to make a change and are going to course correct.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In response, Kramer reveals to\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/i>\u00a0that a year from now, the museum will unveil a long-planned exhibit on the so-called founding fathers and the birth of the studio system, which will mark the first and only permanent exhibition in the collection. It was originally envisioned as a temporary installment, but museum brass reversed course following the outcry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Saban, for one, was also heartened by a six-week film series, launched Dec. 11, titled\u00a0Vienna in Hollywood: \u00c9migr\u00e9s and Exiles in the Studio System<\/i>, which features predominately Jewish filmmakers \u2014 from\u00a0Erich von Stroheim to Max Steiner \u2014\u00a0who helped shape the film industry\u2019s classical era.\u00a0\u201cWe have no doubt that as the museum\u2019s dynamic exhibitions continue to rotate, Jewish contributions will continue to be represented among the many important stories about the history, art, and artists of the movies,\u201d Saban adds.<\/span><\/p>\n

But some feel that the damage has already been done.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy not including the founding fathers out of the gate, they were making a massive statement,\u201d says Triller CEO and Academy member Ryan Kavanaugh. \u201cAs the grandson of Holocaust survivors, it\u2019s just shocking that they erased the contributions of a group who faced severe anti-Semitism \u2014 they couldn\u2019t get bank loans, they couldn\u2019t own homes in L.A., and yet they still created this industry that is the bedrock of the L.A. economy and touches people around the world. Instead of, \u2018Look at what what they were able to do,\u2019 it\u2019s just wiped out. It goes against everything that our industry says they stand for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Why the museum made such a polarizing move is a matter of debate and intrigue. Sources say a small contingent of influential Academy members\u00a0pushed hard for nonwhite cinema to be highlighted and white contributions to be de-emphasized.\u00a0A review of the exhibits would seem to support this notion. Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, for example, received a retrospective, while there was no similar treatment for the genre\u2019s godfather, Walt Disney.<\/span><\/p>\n

The relative obscurity of others spotlighted, such as Ethiopian director Haile Gerima, who received the museum\u2019s first Vanguard Award, left some patrons scratching their heads. The museum\u2019s website notes that Gerima \u201chas mentored several generations of filmmakers such as cinematographers Malik Sayeed and Bradford Young as well as cinematographer and video artist Arthur Jafa.\u201d But one patron, noting that\u00a0The Godfather<\/em>\u00a0is mentioned nowhere in the museum, says far more influential filmmakers seem to have been ignored: \u201cI don\u2019t think this man has ever made a film that was distributed [widely]. That\u2019s a kind of insanity. I mean, Coppola is still alive. They couldn\u2019t have gotten him?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

recommendet by: Leon Rozenbaum<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nIf identity was a priority in programming, Jewish identity apparently was not. There is scant mention of Jewish trailblazers, Sunset Boulevard<\/i>\u00a0director Billy Wilder being an exception. A small placard next to one of the six Oscars he won notes that he fled Nazi Germany because of his religion.<\/span><\/p>\n

A source who is familiar with programming decisions says it was a battle no one was willing to fight, even if that meant a skewed overview of cinema history: \u201cA lot of people who might have fought harder for the representation of Jews were just really laying low,\u201d says the source.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the current drama has played out mostly under the radar, a few outlets have blasted the museum for neglecting the forefathers. Sharon Rosen Leib\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The Forward:<\/em>\u00a0\u201cAt the museum, [Jews] are ghosts. Their presence hangs over the halls \u2014 there would literally be no museum, no industry, without them.\u201d Likewise, Sam Wasson\u2019s\u00a0critique<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Air Mail<\/em>\u00a0of the new tourist attraction was even more scathing, calling it \u201cworse than a failure. It is a fraud.\u201d A\u00a0piece<\/a>\u00a0by Peter Kiefer and Peter Savodnik in Bari Weiss\u2019 Substack, Common Sense, also referenced the museum\u2019s omissions of Jewish contributions amid a broader report on modern culture clashes in Hollywood.<\/span><\/p>\n

As more industry veterans visit the museum for the first time, resentment continues to simmer, with some expressing everything from confusion to downright disgust about the programming. Many that\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/i>\u00a0spoke to declined to be named given the third-rail nature of the issue. \u201cIt\u2019s a conspiracy of silence and that\u2019s deeply upsetting,\u201d says Greenblatt.<\/span><\/p>\n

But others say the controversy is overblown.\u00a0Sid Ganis, who was one of the earliest champions of the museum and is an honorary trustee, began to hear rumblings of disappointment even before the gala and was \u201ca little surprised.\u201d Ultimately, he has no regrets about the museum\u2019s content.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a museum that covers over 100 years of this industry. And yes, we didn\u2019t get to opening night with the origin story, but we got to opening night with what was relevant to the audience we were playing to and needed to include,\u201d he says. \u201cI have friends who said to me, \u2018Where are the Jews?\u2019 It\u2019s in the eyes of the beholder. They\u2019re there, and they will be there in a bigger, more prominent way pretty soon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ethan Millman<\/strong> contributed to this report.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2018Where Are the Jews?\u2019: Scandal Erupts at the Academy Museum TATIANA SIEGEL Four months after the new cultural center\u2019s splashy opening, big donors and showbiz veterans wonder why many of Hollywood\u2019s \u201cfounding fathers\u201d are absent from its exhibits Academy Museum Of Motion Pictures on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021, in Los Angeles. On Sept. 25, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92448"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92471,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92448\/revisions\/92471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}