The Jews who founded Hollywood – and make no mistake, the major studio heads were overwhelmingly Jewish – shared several things: ambition, creative vision and cutthroat business instincts.
But above all, the men who were the driving forces behind Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shared a distinctively 20th century sense of being Jewish in America. They were assimilationists who saw themselves as Americans above all else and who formed Hollywood to reflect and shape their American ideals.
“Above all, they wanted to be considered Americans, not Jews,” Neal Gabler wrote in his definitive 1988 history, “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood.” Louis B. Mayer, co-founder of MGM, went so far as to claim that his birth papers had been lost during immigration and that he henceforth declared his birthday to be the 4th of July.
It was therefore disturbing that when the Academy Museum of Films opened in 2021, it neglected to integrate Jews in its depiction of Hollywood's early days and later successes, despite clear attention to other ethnic and racial groups. In addition to a few brief mentions, including Billy Wilder fleeing Nazi Germany, a photo of MGM magnate and academy founder Louis B. Mayer looming over Judy Garland, and a few villains in an exhibit on #MeToo, Jews were absent. Jewish studio heads, company executives and actors were almost completely excluded, a mistake that led to this development much outrage.
“It's a bit like building a museum dedicated to Renaissance painting and ignoring the Italians,” says Hollywood historian and Brandeis University professor Thomas Doherty. told Rolling Stone at the time.
When I asked the museum's former director and president, Bill Kramer, now the museum's CEO Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, what he made of the omission, he did not acknowledge the error but said museum officials took the criticism seriously. “It was clear that this was something that certain stakeholders expected,” he said. “That, according to some visitors, this was an omission that needed to be corrected.” Did he think the criticism was justified? “It was how people felt. And those feelings were real and those feelings are valid.”
The museum has made up for its neglect with what it calls its first permanent exhibit, “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital,” which opened Sunday.
The exhibition consists of three components. The first provides a panoramic view of how the city of Los Angeles developed to accommodate the influx of immigrants, including Jews, the development of the film industry, and the needs of its diverse population, from the Oglala Lakota people to Chinese immigrants, reflected in archival documentation. images and an interactive table map. The second part traces the history of the city's studios, and the third part features an original documentary, “From the Shtetl to the Studio: The Jewish Story of Hollywood.” The space is intimate yet expansive in its vision and is well executed.
So how were the Jews excluded in the first place? Some sources told Rolling Stone after the opening, it became apparent that those who might have previously exerted more pressure chose to remain silent during the museum's development. Part of this reticence certainly came from the tenor of the moment, with its focus on racial representation and what Kramer called “pro-social” causes – gay rights, women's equality, the labor movement – which the museum describes in a special section. and weaves through everything.
It may also be due to an uneasy tension among Jews around their place in America – eager to be integrated, included and successful, while at the same time wary of possible exclusion or, alternately, too much attention, which leads to a leads to a backlash and resuscitates the underlying anti-Semitism. The recent outburst of anti-Semitism we have witnessed on college campuses and at anti-Israel protests had for a long time been steaming within the academic world And about cultural institutions.
By the With the development of the Academy Museum, which took place in large part after the rise of campaigns like #OscarsSoWhite, officials made clear that this would emphasize diversity and inclusivity. The museum highlights non-white and other marginalized contributors to the industry to help address the industry's long record of exclusion.
“I don't think you open a cultural institution at this historical moment and it doesn't reflect a diversity of histories and perspectives,” Jacqueline Stewart, the museum's current director and president, told me when I asked about the museum's focus on representation. She has refuted the criticism. “Over there goods references to Jewish filmmakers from the very beginning,” she said, mentioning a clip from an Oscar acceptance speech by Steven Spielberg. “That seems to be lost.”
But by going to great lengths to highlight different identity groups at every point, the museum inadvertently omits part of what makes films such a unifying and essential popular medium: the ability to transcend those differences. In a pluralistic immigrant country, Hollywood has helped create a unique American culture that appeals to a wide audience. That's part of what we call the magic of movies.
If nothing else, Hollywood is evolving relentlessly, perhaps now more than ever under the threat of AI, increased economic pressure and consolidation. The Academy Museum also continues to change. Much of what I saw in the museum – which is a wonder and a must-see for any film lover – had been replaced with new material since my first visit in June 2022. Elements in the core exhibition are constantly changing. , partly due to the fragility of the artifacts, such as costumes; partly to reflect the immensity of the collection; and in other cases, in a then open attempt to hit all bases of competing interests.
If this flow is indicative of the Academy Museum's stated intention to represent the changing priorities of the American public, then it also holds the potential to move beyond this current moment, with its intentional and unintentional divisions.