From boys to men: gender politics and jewish identity in a serious man
Like many of their films, the Coen brothers' A Serious Man at once portrays a society dominated by men and calls into question what it is to be a man, especially but not exclusively a Jewish man. Indeed, while Larry Gopnik's wife is the source of much of his trouble, she, like her unmanage...
| Published in: | AJS review |
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| Subtitles: | Symposium: A Serious Man |
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Pennsylvania Press
[2011]
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| In: |
AJS review
Year: 2011, Volume: 35, Issue: 2, Pages: 383-391 |
| Further subjects: | B
Jewish Culture
B Morality B Sons B Men B Judaism B Jewish Identity B Rabbis B Stereotypes B Jewish History |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Like many of their films, the Coen brothers' A Serious Man at once portrays a society dominated by men and calls into question what it is to be a man, especially but not exclusively a Jewish man. Indeed, while Larry Gopnik's wife is the source of much of his trouble, she, like her unmanageable daughter and the seductress-neighbor—the only women characters in the film—occupies minimal space in the narrative. But the role of the female, or the characteristics that differentiate men from women, occupy maximal space in the narrative: They are incorporated throughout the film in Gopnik's behaviors, in parodies of those behaviors, and in stereotypes of Jewish men, and non-Jewish men for that matter, that have a lengthy history in American television and film and in Western, Christian culture more generally. And so we find the central irony of A Serious Man, which is the presence of the female restricted to an indirect “male” presence that articulates the problem of male Jewish identity as it is construed and challenged in the context of American suburban life. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4541 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Association for Jewish Studies, AJS review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S036400941100047X |