ABSTRACT
This chapter will discuss the first of four racialized typologies found through analysis and interpretation of American Jewish characters from more than fifty feature-length films released in the United States since the year 2000. The specific onscreen racialization addressed here is that of the “meddling matriarch,” from the historically constructed mass media stereotype of American Jewish mothers as loudmouthed, nitpicky, overbearing, overprotective, domineering (in both a physical and behavioral sense, especially with respect to their husbands), and pushy (particularly with regard to their sons’ romantic lives). And while the 21st-century American Jewish characters from this book's study are strikingly similar in many ways to past racialized representations of American Jewish mothers onscreen, the “meddling matriarch” cinematic stereotype seems to have evolved in several significant ways, paralleling recent social changes in American Jewish family life and gender roles.
