I usually try to stay out of public arguments that are too stupid for words, but as a Jewish woman recently apprised of the anti-Semitism brouhaha raised by some Jewish groups over Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose in his role as Leonard Bernstein, I feel that I'd like to weigh in.
Are these people out of their bleeping minds!!!!! If you're offended by the prosthetic nose Cooper wears as Jewish conductor Bernstein because it looks too Jewish, you might just as well have been offended by the prosthetics Daniel Day Lewis wore to portray Abraham Lincoln because he looked too ugly. The fact is Leonard Bernstein was Jewish and had a prominent nose. To present his character without it would not only be a lie, it would be giving him a nose job he never found necessary to get in real life.
Actors have been using prosthetics, weight gain or loss, wigs, fat suits, etc. to present a more realistic interpretation of the character they are playing since film was invented. As you can see by the photo above, Cooper doesn’t just look like Bernstein, he seems to inhabit his very being.
And if only the controversy stopped with the nose. Unfortunately, that debate is eclipsed in idiocy by the debate over whether Cooper should be playing Bernstein at all because as we all now know, Cooper isn’t Jewish. According to the naysayers, Jake Gyllenhaal should have been cast because he is Jewish. WTF?? Have you seen Jake Gyllenhaal? His nose is even smaller than Cooper’s, and quite frankly, I thought he was Irish.
Anti-Semitism is too serious a subject, especially now, to be thrown around in this frivolous manner. Every day there are real and imminent threats because of the hate and intolerance that is so prevalent and accessible in our politics, cable news and social media. A talented actor who isn’t Jewish portraying a legendary music figure who was is not anti-Semitism, it’s art.