Jewish World Review Dec. 24, 2001 /9 Teves, 5762
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Elliot B. Gertel
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
Three of the most-hyped new shows, one for each major network, just disappeared. And they all had something in common: They were about Jewish men.
Consider Inside Schwartz (NBC), which actually began with a ratings bonanza because it followed the popular Friends, in NBC's much-watched Thursday night lineup. It is hard to understand why NBC placed this lame comedy in such a prestigious spot to begin with.
Though hemmed into his father's business by limbo and inertia, which characterize all of his relationships and decisions, Adam Schwartz (Breckin Meyer) yearns to be a major sportscaster. Writer/producer Stephen Engel (who had worked on Mad About You) features sports figures like Dick Butkus, Deion Sanders, Keith Hernandez, and others, coaching his protagonist from the sidelines in his options for love and career, or just offering commentary on Schwartz to one another. In the show's first moments, we cringe from tired "sports" jokes about Adam's wanting to be the "first Jew to win a slam dunk contest."
The major problem with the series was that it gave us no reason to care about this Adam Schwartz or any of the people he hangs around with, except perhaps for Julie (Miriam Shor), the young woman who, in contradistinction with his ex-girlfriend (Eve!), is really concerned about him. Schwartz is not big on dignity or principle. In one of the few episodes aired, he was willing to compromise the loyal and adoring Julie in order to gain an audition at sports casting with a lecherous, has-been microphone virtuoso.
But, then again, the suggestion was that pimping is a family tradition. Consider the horrible depiction of Schwartz's father, played by Robert Kline (not to be confused with Robert Klein, whom we'll mention below), who wants his son to run the family restaurant chain. (This gave writer Engel the opportunity to make many jokes about Dad's love of ham.) At first glance, it seems that Dad wants Adam to settle down with a nice wife. But in the very first episode we learn that Dad has hired a "professional companion" for his son's pleasure. "Maybe for my birthday he'll give me some crack," Adam observes of his father, as television hit the all-time low in the depiction of Jewish fathers and sons.
Despite the lack of morality in heredity or environment, Adam always feels a little remorse when he exploits people or compromises him. One wonders where he picked up such moral qualms with the father and friends that surround him. The show would have therefore made a better mystery than comedy.
Sweeter, gentler, more morally aware, but also totally uninteresting and uninspired, was the short-lived, Danny, starring Daniel J. Stern as a single father living with his father and his two children, with his ex-wife (whom he still loves) scolding and cajoling in the wings. Here, the principals were all likable characters, and related to each other with warmth and kindness, even when there was occasional anger or hostility. Stern was most affecting. His character has a nice relationship with the kids who populate home and work-his own, and the others.
Here, too, a Jewish male wants to center his life around sports. In Danny he is running a community recreation club with many sports activities, and he likes to "compete" with the young males, including his own son, at basketball and other sports. (Stern relates to the elderly as well as to the youngsters.) Refusing to accept the years' wear-and-tear upon the body, the middle-aged Daniel quips, "That's not because I'm old. That's 'cause I'm Jewish." Why have we come to accept in 2001 sitcoms such an insipid line --- and this one penned by Stern himself, who wrote a lot of the series? Perhaps because we just saw a similar line on another cancelled series.
At least in Danny, the Jewish father and his children show some moral responsibility and accountability, at least when chastened by ex-wife/mom and, occasionally, by the Jewish grandfather. Even before Daniel is balled out by his ex for allowing their teenage son to attend a party where alcohol was being served, his father, upon hearing of Dan's decision to rely on "trust," calls him a "schmo," adding, "He's a teenager." When the son returns home drunk, Grandpa again adds, "Schmo." That word, repeated twice by writer Bob Nickman, is the only voice of "Jewish" moral authority that was found in the entire series. In this episode as in others, Danny was most concerned about impressing an Asian American staff member of the youth recreation club he managed.
A third series that has been rightfully pulled out of its time slot also featured Jewish male paradigms. Bob Patterson, starring former Seinfeld sidekick, Jason Alexander, could have been a clever spoof of self-help gurus and New Age pretensions. But instead it chose to focus on motivational speaker Patterson's obnoxious and crude partner, Landau (Robert Klein). Landau is always ready to provide Patterson with advice on how to cheat, cut corners, and exploit. One episode actually exulted in Landau's finding a way for Patterson to weasel out of an infomercial contract with John Tesch. The "vision" of their enterprise, as guided by Landau, is, according to writers Steven Baehr and Peter Tilden, that "G-d willing," American youth will "be a little aimless and a little confused and buy books."
In this series, as in Inside Schwartz, one of the generations is pimp-like. Here, it is the son and not the father who does the pimping in the family. "I hate it when you come back from Brooklyn," Patterson tells his son, Jeffrey. One sometimes wonders whether Patterson is intended to be a Jewish character, for he occasionally uses Yiddish expressions. We will, thankfully, never find out. The Landau character was bad enough. The only touching moments in the relationship between partners came in an episode that was literally dedicated to toilet humor. Had Patterson turned out to have been Jewish, then his son Jeffrey would have been TV's second most offensive characterization of a Jewish offspring, second only to the portrayal of Jewish teenagers on Hiller and Diller.
Hopefully, the indisputable failure of these depictions of "Jewish manhood" will cause TV writers and producers to reassess their depiction of Jewish men and of Jews in
08/16/01: State of Grace has quite a bit of its own
Jewish manhood
strikes out
Contributing writer Elliot B. Gertel, JWR's resident media
maven, is a
Conservative rabbi based in Chicago. To comment, please click here.
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