Rogin makes many interesting points that I missed in The Jazz Singer. When we were watching it in class, I thought the story was simply about a boy who wanted to sing jazz music. But Rogin brings up all these religious and racial conflicts the character goes through in the movie. The Jewish boy paints himself black in order to perform jazz, and he changes his identity from Jakie Rabinowitz to Jack Robin. Rogin describes Jakie’s blackface as a “racial cross-dressing.” It replaced the Jewish man as well as the black men. An interesting point that Rogin brings up is that the part where Jakie’s father sees him and yells at him to stop singing secular music is the last time we hear speech in the film. And only after this scene does Jakie start putting on his “blackface,” suggesting that the black men become silenced. Jakie suffers from a conflict of identity–his family is Jewish and he has grown up listening to his religion’s music, but he wants to follow his passion as a jazz singer. An interesting quote from Rogin was “two bodies, one blacked and one white, heal Jacki’s single, divided soul.” A scene that best shows his conflict is perhaps the one where blackfaced Jakie is staring in the mirror and sees his father singing. I believed that the ending would be Jakie choosing one side and being happy with his one identity, but the movie doesn’t seem to resolve that; it seems as if Jakie is still acting as two different people, going back and forth with whichever is more convenient for him.
I thought Hester Street was a more entertaining film that shows another man vs. self conflict, regarding culture and religion. In the book From Ellis Island to JFK, Foren talks about the reasons so many people, especially Jews, immigrated to the United States. She talks about how Jews suffered under political and religious persecution, as well as anti-Semitism and violence. America was a “free country for the Jews” that promised better wages, jobs, political and cultural freedom, and “material abundances.” America was the land of dreams, sense of achievement, and freedom. In Hester Street, Jake shows his love and passion for America and repulsiveness of his former ways. Many characters in the film, especially Jake, say things such as “It’s America!”, “Some country, huh?”, “It’s different here,” etc. to justify their new, less restrictive ways of life. If blackface was a symbol of Jakie’s new identity as a jazz singer, then I believe that hair served a similar purpose in Hester Street. Jake is repulsed by Gitl’s wig and “kerchief,” he cuts Joey’s hair and is delighted that his son looks like a “yankee,” and he has cut his own beard since he came to America. He becomes easily frustrated with his traditional Jewish wife and often seems to look down upon her. I think Jake doesn’t like Gitl’s traditional ways and her calling him “yankel” because she keeps reminding him of his former self and “true” identity, which he seems to dislike. He only wants to follow American ways and wants to teach his son English and baseball to make him like a yankee. Perhaps the “self-conflict” we see in The Jazz Singer by Jakie is portrayed in Hester Street by Gitl instead of Jake, since Jake doesn’t even seem to find a conflict between following his Jewish identity and American customs. Gitl is the one who is torn; the one who struggles to decide whether she should leave her Jewish customs and take off her wig, call her son “Joey,” and get a divorce.By the end, Gitl has become more “americanized” and is perhaps living a better American life than her husband, who struggled very hard to achieve one.
