Down with the old shtick. Gimme some new shtick
In the run up to Chanuka, Hanukkah, Khanike, someone sent me this year's parody of a famous rap song, complete with a guy in fake beard and payes (peyot, peyote) singing in one of those grating faux alte zakhe accents in yinglish.
I declined to post it. I felt about the same way I felt about "2 Live Jews" in their day. Old. Tired. Stupid stereotypes that can be allowed to disappear. There are many ways to represent Jewish life. Using caricatures of our fundamentalists doesn't do it for me. (Likewise and even more emphatically to anyone pushing the old "Jewish mother" misogyny, but that's yet another story—I was hoping we left that behind with Shelley Winters' portrayal of same in "Last stop at Greenwich Village," but once again, what on earth do I know?). Likewise, there aren't many Jews who have an accent like my bubbe and zayde used to have. So, when you rely on those tropes, you are already telling me, "passe, old, tired." Unless you're as brilliant as Mickey Katz or Lenny Bruce, it might be worth working with material that resonates with those of us alive today. I'm not sure what that will be (poking fun at the jewy-ness of Hebe magazine comes to mind, but I'm not sure how few people who know of Hebe mind "Jewy-ness").
In any event, I serve notice. Not only am I cranky, overworked, and underpaird. I need new shtick. To paraphrase what I used to say when I sold underground newspapers on the corners of Dallas, TX in my youth, "accept no dated b.s. Insist on fresh b.s."
Agree? Disagree? Until I get the new blog software installed so people can comment at will (you know things are bad when that sounds easier than fixing my incomprehensible mucking about with the current software), at least send me some email and let me know what you think.