Thesis: “Out of Darkness Comes Light” Recreating Stereotypes as a Survival Mechanism in Jewish Comedy

I prepared for this thesis for a full year, conducting countless interviews and hours of research. This culminated in a large presentation.

Click here to see the full thesis

ABSTRACT

Alongside contemporary conversations on race and representation in the media, this paper will discuss how Jewish comedians reappropriate negative Jewish stereotypes as survival mechanisms. In refuting Audre Lorde’s theory “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”, this paper will assert the ability of Jews as a marginalized people to reuse negative Jewish tropes through self- deprecation. In this discourse, is a focus on the history of Jewish humor, the production of comedy from Jewish comics and the reception of Jewish comedy from a Jewish audience. To discuss Jewish representations in popular culture, participants discussed Jewish representations in Broad City and The Producers and four Jewish comedians and writers were interviewed to understand their perceptions of Jewish representation. Through these interviews, I identified five survival mechanisms that rely on using Jewish stereotypes. This contributes to the larger conversation on the beneficial qualities of reclaiming and reusing harmful portrayals or ideology.