Talk to Me Like I’m a Child
Can someone explain to me what David Edelstein is getting on about with all this 'An Education is egregiously anti-Semitic' claptrap?
Okay, I get it. (SPOILER ALERT) The Jewish guy (Peter Sarsgaard) ends up being a shit: a cad and a crook. And many of the film's characters are anti-Semitic. So someone with a simplistic reading of the film can take away that the film is 'confirming' the characters' anti-Semitism.
But does Edelstein really believe that audiences are stupid enough that they need some sort of 'balance' to Sarsgaard's David so that the representational burden doesn't fall on him?
I rather believe that Lone Scherfig et. al. have enough faith in the basic competence of their audience to parse that a Jewish character can be a bad guy, but that the anti-Semites in the film are still wrong. Scherfig, writer Nick Hornby, and Lynn Barber, upon whose memoirs the film is based, probably believe that their audience is smart enough and mature enough not to extrapolate from one character an 'egregiously anti-Semitic' worldview.
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February 5th, 2010 - 23:17
Yeah I thought that was a pretty ridiculous call as well. He was pretty over-the-top up-in-arms about PRECIOUS too.
February 6th, 2010 - 12:02
I Googled the phrases and there are a number of articles (some by the same person) that give it credence:
http://www.fighthatred.com/reader-contributions/the-wandering-jew-in-an-education-the-anatomy-of-an-anti-semitic-film
http://www.jewishjournal.com/film/article/british_film_gives_an_education_in_anti-semitism_20091201/
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/18153/‘an-education’-portrays-’60s-british-anti-semitism/