In the case of Woody Allen, I believe that he ignores the idea of race. I don’t think Allen embraces or even slightly acknowledges ethnic backgrounds. Most of his characters, as in his most important ones, are white. The only way in which an ethnic person would be involved in one of Woody Allen’s films is through some sort of task. (i.e. The moving men in Manhattan, or the performer in Radio Days.) The one that thing that shines through Allen’s work is the use of white actors. Basically, whiteness. He embodies the literal idea of whiteness by using whites as the basic “go to” race.
If one takes Allen’s jewish heritage into consideration, it can be said that Allen presents his jewish roots through humor.Now, maybe its because I’m not jewish and I don’t feel the sting of Allen’s jokes, but I don’t believe Allen uses humor in a hateful way. I actually think that Woody Allen is entirely neurotic. I think he makes these jokes because he’s just a liberal jewish man that is nervous about what people think about him. It’s just a tick that he has that spills over into his films. I truly do not believe that Woody Allen hates his jewish background. Maybe he does take some stabs at the “homeland” through the rabbi, but when I saw that scene I thought it was more geared toward comments on the leniency of child abuse laws.
In comparison, Welcome Back, Kotter deals with stereotypical “reform” students found in inner city Brooklyn. Kotter himself is very resistant to go back to his old neighborhood and teach in his high school. In the two episodes I watched, I couldn’t decipher who Kotter identified with. However, it was very clear who his students were. There was the typical black man aspiring to be the star basketball player and play in the big leagues. The italian guy who was tougher than everybody else. And last but not least, (and my personal favorite) the spanish jew who was a in simple terms, a pretty bad kid. Welcome Back, Kotter plays into the stereotypes because technically that’s what Kotter is most afraid of. He hates being back in Brooklyn and doesn’t want to be teaching there at all.
To be honest, I think that even though his (maybe sometimes snotty) humor, Woody Allen relates more so back to his ethnic backgrounds than Kotter does. I think Welcome Back, Kotter is more so about the students ethnic identities than Kotter’s himself.
