YDS: The Clare Spark Blog

Weinstein and wife Georgina Chapman (Getty images)

Although “couch casting” is notorious in Hollywood, the conservative (and moderate) press is highlighting the misdeeds of an “A-list” producer, Harvey Weinstein, as if he was uniquely culpable for assailing the innocence of would-be actresses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein.

I have yet to see an article on the general subject of this notorious miscreant that tackles the questions of antisemitic stereotypes or of any upwardly mobile female as she climbs the ladder of “success.” See this stimulating article that, however, misses the stereotype: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n21/lucy-prebble/short-cuts?utm_source=LRB+icymi&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20171104+icymi&utm_content=usca_nonsubs

I have now seen the popular movie musical La La Land and will have a few words to say about the appeal of Emma Stone, in addition to tackling the Harvey Weinstein affair.

First, the carnal Jew stereotype, taken up (implicitly) here: “No European myth is benign or even neutral with regard to Jews or to the liberal values that Sharf wants to defend, nor can it be otherwise. All Jews, including the “eternal” ones, are “bad”; the antithesis of Christian and Jew corresponds to the antipodes of “organic conservatism” and classical liberalism: (heartfelt) mysticism and (heartless) science, trust and withering skepticism, loyalty and betrayal, community and mob, busy bee and parasite, garden and wasteland. “Good Jews” like Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, Cumberland’s Sheva, Walker’s Schechem, and Dickens’ Riah who appeared in the humanitarian literature of the late eighteenth and early to mid-nineteenth century were good only because they were more Christian than the bourgeois Christians who were behaving like Shylock and Fagin; capitalism purged of its Judas red-beards would presumably lose its heartless and exploitative character. Christian landlords would never evict a tenant, Christian bankers would never foreclose a mortgage: this demented idea is fundamental to the völkisch revolution of Nazism,[2] but was not their invention. Nazi anti-Semitism, then, was only partly about the considerable material advantages in expropriating Jewish property and expelling Jewish rivals: Nazis, to maintain their credibility as redeemers and protectors, would have to plunge a stake in the heart of the “demon Thought” (to use Byron’s expression). For the antifascist critical mind is not found in a guilt-ridden Adam shrinking from conflict with illegitimate authority or from the perception of other irreconcilable conflicts. Instead, the anti-Semitic/ anti-intellectual mind anxiously mystifies structural antagonisms by positing (an unattainable) harmony as “normal.” Brandishing images of solidarity, the fascist bonds people only to “romance” in a false utopia necessarily maintained through deceit, terror and catharsis.” (See source and discussion here: https://clarespark.com/2010/08/15/nazis-exhibit-der-ewige-jude-1937/.)

One of my better insights has been to identify sexuality partly with the search for knowledge and discovery anxiety (“forbidden fruit”). It is ironic that liberal producer Weinstein is associated with movies that make more demands on mass audiences than the usual Hollywood fare; yet he is being reviled as an overweight goat, and worse, as a super-rich “greasy” liberal (grinding the face of the poor?) and, is put in the same box with disgraced Roman Polanski. See http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268088/why-media-covered-harvey-weinstein-daniel-greenfield. But see https://clarespark.com/2009/10/02/roman-polanski-and-his-critics/ for more on the carnal Jew stereotype.

II. I have been complaining about liberal feminism for years, noting that the more forceful arguments on women’s rights have been weakened by many pundits. Commentators might note the much-criticized hyper-sexuality advanced by advertising and all mass media. What is not usually limned, however, is the kind of sexuality practiced by pedophiles—namely the search for innocence of the kind sported by infants and youngsters.

Now think of the younger stars, Emma Stone, for instance. Yes, there are numerous femmes fatales that are heavily made up. But “the most highly paid actress in Hollywood” (Forbes) has big blue eyes and small breasts. And the successful movie, La La Land, that made Emma Stone super-popular, was noticeably sexless and dumbed down in its dialogue.

Emma Stone