Woody on Rye: Jewishness in the Films and Plays of Woody Allen

"Woody the Gentile" by Joshua Louis Moss

Joshua Louis Moss “Woody the Gentile” Christian-Jewish Interplay in Allen’s Films from What’s New Pussycat? to Midnight in Paris There is a joke in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011) that encapsulates thecentralcharacterflawofthefilm’sprotagonist,aspiringnovelistandhack screenwriter Gil Pender (Owen Wilson). After traveling backward in time to visit his idealized Parisian bohemia of the 1920s, Gil self-deprecatingly describes himself to his French muse, Adriana (Marion Cotillard), with the following: “I’m jealous and I’m trusting. It’s cognitive dissonance. F. Scott Fitzgerald talked about it.” The joke operates on two levels. Within the diegesis,itrevealsGil’sobliviousnessregardinghisowncreativelimitations . He has become so enamored with the great writers of the past that even his self-diagnosis cannot be validated unless it was once mentioned by Fitzgerald. But there is another reading strategy at work in the humor structure of the joke that locates entirely outside of the narrative. Gil is echoingtherecognizableself-deprecatingcomedystylethataudiencesand critics have long associated with Woody Allen. Examples of Allen-style comedy in Paris are most noticeable when Gil’s masculinityiscalledintoquestion.WhenGilcomesface-to-facewithhisliteraryhero ,thehypermasculineErnestHemingway(CoreyStoll),Hemingway asks Gil what his greatest fear is. Gil replies, “dying.” Hemingway asks Gil if, when he makes love to a beautiful woman, Gil is able to forget about his fear of death. Gil replies with an emphatic “No, that doesn’t happen.” In another sequence, Hemingway asks Gil if he has ever hunted. “Only for And I think what we’ve got, what we’re dealing with, basically, is a nose.•Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) in Sleeper (1973) Moss•“Woody the Gentile” 101 bargains,”Gilreplies.Gil’sresponsesplayupseveralclassicWoodycharacter traitssuchasanobsessionwithdeathtothepointofcreativeparalysisandan inabilitytounderstand“conventional”masculineactivitiessuchashunting. As with most auteurs who also perform in their work, a reliance on spectatorialfamiliaritywith theauteur’sestablishedpersonaisunderstood as central to the reading strategy of the text. Woody Allen comedies will invariably contain self-reflexive patterns and traces of Allen’s long-familiar scenarios, characters, and jokes. But the specific conceptual ventriloquism of Gil-as-Woody also produces a paradox. As embodied and performed by non-JewishactorOwenWilson,Gilrepresentsacompleteinversionofboth the physical and performative attributes that have long defined the Woody Allen persona. This is seen in Wilson’s WASP physicality (blond hair, blue eyes,andboxer’snose)andhislaconic,happy-go-luckyperformancestyle.1 Consider how Gil experiences both the real and fantastical events of Paris. Unlike the typically hyperanxious and insecure Allen character, Gil isonlymarginallyconcernedthathemightbemarryingthewrongwoman, his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). He appears unfazed by the insults of hispoliticallyconservativefuturein-laws(KurtFullerandMimiKennedy). Whileexperiencinghistime-travelingadventuretothe1920s,Gilremainsin a bemused, enchanted, and untroubled state of excitement and bliss. Once in Parisian bohemia, he is easily accepted by his artistic and literary idols as one of their own. Even in the area of sexual seduction, a foundational source of anxiety for numerous Allen characters, Gil remains cool, calm, and untroubled. When Wilson’s performance is contrasted with the spasmodic ,hysterical,slapstickdestructionbroughtaboutbytheWoodyAllen characters from Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), Sleeper (1973), and Love and Death (1975), the differences are striking. Atthe2011CannesFilmFestival,Allenacknowledgedthisincongruence, observingthat“itwasgreattoseeOwendoitbecauseOwenistheopposite ofme....HegivesthecharacteranenormousdimensionthatInevercould have given it.”2 By the time of the 2012 Academy Awards, it was this very incongruity between performer and auteur that seemed to encapsulate the film’s unlikely box-office success. The host of the show, Billy Crystal, made this point clear during his opening-song montage by delivering the line, “Owen Wilson was so great as ‘Woody the Gentile!’”3 Crystal’sjokemakesthreeimportantpoints.First,itlinksthe“opposite” 102 Schlemiel Theory (as Allen put it) personas of Wilson and Allen to a distinct Jewish-Gentile (Christian) relationship. Second, it argues that audiences hold an implicit understanding that every protagonist of a Woody Allen comedy begins as an essentialist “Jewish” extension of Allen himself. Third, when the actor playingtheWoodyroleisclearlynotJewish,aswithOwenWilson,aunique form of comedic alchemy is produced. In Crystal’s understanding, the spectator is an active participant that must produce two simultaneous and paradoxical readings for the comedic protagonist’s humor to succeed. The on-screen comedic, masculine binary produced between Gil Pender and his imagined Ernest Hemingway thus becomes a textual reflection of the auteur reinvention taking place between Woody Allen and Owen Wilson. The seeming paradox of “Woody the Gentile” cannot be understood without first recognizing that similar cloaking substitutions have defined the schlemiel protagonistthroughoutAllen’ssix-decadecareer.Allen’sfilm comedies, in a number of distinct iterations, produce the “Woody” as a destabilizing, and therefore comedic, signifier. Woody characters operate as hybrid representations caught between conflicting articulations of masculinity...