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

Woody's Women by Giovanna P. Del Negro

Giovanna P. Del Negro Woody’s Women Jewish Domesticity and the Unredeemed Ghost of Hanukkah to Come From early slapstick comedies and parodies like What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)orBananas(1971)toromanticcomedieslikeAnnieHall(1977)andto more serious films like Husbands and Wives (1992) or Deconstructing Harry (1997), Woody Allen’s films are remarkably uniform in their treatment of Jewish women. As Joyce Antler and others have observed, while the narrativesoftendealrichlywiththelivesofJewishmen ,Jewishwomenareoften absent from Allen’s fictive worlds, and when they do make an appearance, they are generally depicted in terms of shticky one-liners or comical exaggerations .1 In those situations where the Jewish women aren’t fervently intellectualorambitiouscareerists ,theytendtofocusonthedomesticmilieu, nervouslyworryingoverchildrenandhusbands,whomtheysuffocatewith love.Asfortheubiquitous,oftenanachronisticstandby,theJewishmother, she is also typically portrayed as an old-fashioned, overbearing housewife whoisresponsibleformakinghersonangstriddenandneurotic,anebbish protagonist that Allen has made a career playing.2 By psychological conditioning, Allen’s schlemiel runs from the Jewish women,whomhefindsthreatening,tothelessfrighteningarmsofethereal gentile beauties, who in turn leave him. While the characters that Allen plays are afraid of long-term relationships in general, they are even more afraid, specifically, of Jewish domesticity—a stifling marriage, a sexually disinterested wife, the burden of children and religion, and a placid home life that inexorably leads to the loss of male identity and lack of pleasure. Indeed, the problem of Jewish domesticity is key to unlocking the subtle 144 Women’s Issues logic by which Allen creates his social universe and is crucial for elucidating the hidden principles of gender and ethnicity by which Allen, the writer-director, decides what kinds of relationships are possible, or even imaginable. Exploring prominent films from all periods of his oeuvre, this chapterwillshowhowsuchalogicevenshapestherarefilms,suchas Scoop (2006),inwhichJewishwomentakecenterstage,orwhereJewishmothers are presented sympathetically, as in Interiors (1978). While Allen’s world is one in which Jewish female characters are largely erased or ridiculed, his representations of their identity are more ambivalent and complex than this might suggest. Indeed, Jewish women are often portrayed as strong and independent by comparison to their more insecure and timid gentile counterpartstowhomAllen’scharactersareinvariablyattractedandwhom hefindslessthreatening.Withthesebroaderdynamicsinmind,Iwillshow how the treatment of Jewish women in Allen’s films can be doubly read as expressingboththeanxietiesaboutandthepromiseofJewishdomesticity. Two Jews Spell Disaster TheJewishfemalecharactersinAllen’sfilmsarebyandlargesmart,assertive, articulate, often politically engaged intellectuals, whose focus on career and motherhood sometimes comes at the expense of sex. Alongside these academicsandprofessionalwomen,onealsofindsdevoted,family-oriented housewiveswhoareusuallytoodomesticatingforthecharactersthatAllen plays.However,whetherattractiveorordinary,earthyorcerebral,andsecularorreligious ,allofWoody’sJewishwomencanbeassharpandtenacious as they can be emotional and irrational. In Annie Hall, for example, Alvy Singer’s (Allen) two former wives, who are both Jewish (as they were for Allen in real life), prove to be too erudite, political, or ambitious. The marriage to his first wife, Allison Porchnik (Carol Kane)—a pixie-like, pale blonde with curly hair and a small voice, whom Alvy admits in hindsight was beautiful, intelligent, and willing—inexplicably dissolves; while his fashionably dressed, left-leaning, social-climbing, darkly attractive second wife,Robin(JanetMargolin),isincapableofhavinganorgasmandlosesher appeal. As it turns out, both these women are too involved with the life of themind:Robinisalienatedfromherbody,disengagedfromthemundane world of everyday pleasures; Allison, though a pretty, idealistic literature Del Negro•Woody’s Women 145 scholar with a social conscience and a healthy libido, is just too bookish. Indeed, in the scene in which Allison accuses Alvy of using his obsession with the Kennedy assassination as a pretext for avoiding sex, the bedroom is filled with piles upon piles of books. Even though, in a flashback, Alvy confesses that he doesn’t quite know why he left Allison, suggesting that perhaps there is a deeper unconscious force at play of which Alvy (and Allen) might not be fully aware, it is clear that his ex-wife’s intellectual intensity and ardent commitment to social change is intimidating to him. Though the characters that Allen (or his surrogates) plays are usually attractedtowomenwhoaredangerouslybeautifulbuttrouble,Grace(Julie Kavner)fromDeconstructingHarry isoftheplain-lookingkind,aseemingly harmlessJewishhousewifewithanaccommodatingpersonality.WhenMel (Robin Williams), her actor husband, is sent home from the set one day because he is literally out of focus and blurry, Grace is dutifully worried and concerned. Unable to identify the root of his problem, she works hard to adjust to the visual distortion that her husband has become, and in an act of self-sacrifice, she has the entire family wear glasses to see him more sharply. Later in the film, we discover that Mel is actually a fictional character from a story by Harry Block (Allen), a troubled author with writer’s...