Academy Museum vows to change new exhibit about Hollywood's Jewish pioneers to avoid stereotypes
After coming under fire for its representation of Jews, The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is vowing to make changes to its exhibit that showcases Hollywood’s Jewish pioneers, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles museum told CNN.
The permanent exhibit — called “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital” — aims to highlight the contributions and history of Jewish immigrants like Jack and Harry Warner (Warner Bros.), Harry Cohn (Columbia), Louis B. Mayer (MGM), Adolph Zukor (Paramount) and others who laid the groundwork for Hollywood’s studio system.
The exhibit, more than two years in the making, was spearheaded by associate curator Dara Jaffe and opened on May 19. It was met with outcry in a letter from a group called United Jewish Writers, which was signed by more than 300 Hollywood executives, writers and actors. They criticized use of the words “tyrant,” “oppressive,” “womanizer,” “predator,” and other terms in the exhibition they described as “the only section of the museum that vilifies those it purports to celebrate.”
“While we acknowledge the value in confronting Hollywood’s problematic past, the despicable double standard of the Jewish Founders exhibit, blaming only the Jews for that problematic past, is unacceptable and, whether intentional or not, antisemitic,” they wrote.
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Typical. 