ABSTRACT
By far the most prevalent and pronounced American Jewish stereotype found in this book's study of 21st-century U.S. film is that of the “neurotic nebbish,” or the historically constructed, racialized image of the American Jewish male as effeminate, emasculated, insecure, passive, unsure of his sexual identity, and/or romantically obsessed with Gentile women. “Neurotic nebbishes” are featured in almost every movie with American Jewish characters that was screened in the study, and these characters’ ineffectuality, particularly with regard to intimacy, love, romance, and sex, creates a highly racialized portrait of pathological American Jewish masculinity, relational capacity, and self-esteem. And like the “meddling matriarch” stereotype, the portrayals of “neurotic nebbishes” in U.S. film today seem to have been affected by broader social changes in gender and sexuality norms, manifesting in a wider diversity of American Jewish “neurotic nebbish” characters in the 21st century.
