Queer Theory and the Jewish Question (46 page)

Streisand’s performance carries the historical memory of Brice’s own ca- reer, of her rubbery face and the gawky comedic style that took her from vaudeville to Paris to American radio as Baby Snooks. Brice herself created a new form of comedy; as Harley Erdman explains, Jewish women were invisi- ble in vaudeville before Brice. He writes, “In these male-dominated industries, the female body was itself a significant enough sign of difference that to com- pound it with grotesque ethnicity was redundant or contradictory.”
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Most of

the diegetic songs, including “Second Hand Rose” and “I’d Rather Be Blue,” were of Brice’s repertoire, and she invented the pregnant ingenue bride and the “klutzy” ballerina. Brice was more a comic than a singer, and her famous 1921 rendition of “My Man” succeeded in part because she “shared her per- sonal misery [of losing her husband] with her adoring public.” As Sochen writes, Brice “displayed her sure comic instinct for incongruity.” Streisand, like Brice, is “the consummate careerist.”
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Yet Streisand’s performance as a 1960s version of Brice is complexly comedic, necessarily inflected with post- Holocaust, ironic, Jewish mock self-deprecation.
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In her star turn, Streisand’s performance, as one reviewer put it, “turns gawkiness into grace.”
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“You Are Woman”

Funny Girl
’s story of stardom privileges talent over beauty, difference over conventionality, instincts over plans. But like most musicals,
Funny Girl
par- allels the tale of Fanny’s becoming a star with a plot that is not only hetero- sexual but heterosexualizing, a narrative that works to revalue beauty, con- ventionality, and plans, and one that finally fails, or rather, is queered.

The Nick Arnstein plot is introduced by way of a repeated, freeze-frame shot in which Fanny, in voiceover, sings in a single-note chant, “Nicky Arn- stein, what a beautiful name.” From the start he is feminized by name and de- scription and is positioned as an object of her gaze, her desire.

The scene that begins their affair takes place in a private dining room that Nick reserves, uncertain if Fanny will show up. Fanny’s use of Jewish-oriented humor deflects his sexual “advances” and puts her in control of the scene. More than any other scene in the film this one deploys Jewish references. After he orders the meal in French, Fanny says, “I would have ordered roast beef and potatoes,” to which he answers, “I did.” She finds that pâté (“I drink it all day”) is actually “just some dried up toast in a sliver / On the top a lit- tle chopped liver.” Later in the number, Barbra, dressed in a full-length, low- cut gown, lies draped across a red velvet chaise. Sharif nibbles at her neck, as she looks up from his caress and quips in her most Yiddish-inflected voice, “Would a convent take a Jewish girl?”
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In a song more pedagogical than ro- mantic (reminiscent of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” in
The Sound of Music
with its too obvious—albeit campy—reminders of the gendered order of het- erosexuality), Fanny learns the lessons of (hetero)sexuality, as Sharif sings, “You are woman, I am man. Let’s kiss.” Her Jewishness works as innocence, inexperience, and directness, all of which fade away as her desire overtakes her and Fanny is instantly heterosexualized.

In this number Streisand’s actions resonate with and against historical rep- resentations of the seductive “belle juive,” or the beautiful Jewess. A theatri- cal invention of the mid-nineteenth century, this character is typified by Re- becca in
Ivanhoe
or the title character in Augustin Daly’s wildly successful production of
Leah the Forsaken
in 1863.
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The Jewess, as Erdman explains, “becomes the object of gentile male longing, an exotic and sometimes dan- gerous creature whose end is pathos and whose effect is frustrated desire.”
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The film plays up Fanny’s desirability in the number. She wears a low-cut, richly textured gown, her hair in a glamorous twist, her arms and cleavage ex- posed.
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The scene is also filmed in soft light and generous angles; Streisand looks as conventionally beautiful in this scene as anywhere in the film. The scene is only about his effort to sleep with her (or at least the musical’s ver- sion of sex, always alluded to, always sung about, but never seen), and, for much of the number, Nick chases her around the room, tries to capture her in an embrace, or leans over to kiss her. Like the belle juive, her tempting him is less from her intentionally seductive ways and more from her natural allure and her own uncontrollable passion; she sings, “Oh the thrills and chills run- ning through me.” As Tamar Garb writes, “The sexuality of the Jewess is both dangerous and desirable.”
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At the same time, the scene repeatedly marks her otherness, her lack of knowledge of sex and food, her awkwardness. In the end, his desire is not frus- trated but rather is queered. The seemingly self-evident, “You are smaller so I can be taller than,” once sung, necessarily invokes its opposite; it is ghosted by the possibility of queerness. Arnstein’s ruffled shirts, his polished nails, his love for blue marble eggs, and his lack of “manly” employment construct him as gay. Furthermore, Sharif ’s “foreign” look, his ability to speak French, and his accent, which sounds vaguely European in the film, feminize him.
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The “erot- ic fascination” of the Jewess is displaced onto the gentile, un-American man.
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In this scene and in “His Love Makes Me Beautiful,” Fanny plays at being “Woman.” She self-consciously performs a femininity that foregrounds its own constructedness. And in both songs femininity is presented as only het- erosexual. Fanny’s performance, then, simultaneously denaturalizes both. In addition, both songs undermine the men’s power. Just as she refuses to be po- sitioned as The (heterosexually normative) Bride within Ziegfeld’s finale, she also refuses to let Nick seduce her on his terms. Ziegfeld gives her the oppor- tunity, but Fanny produces herself as a star. Nick reserves the dining room and orders the food, but she uses the room like a stage set, and her comic response

upstages him.
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The two songs that highlight Fanny’s desire for Nick are both filmed, against the grain of the love plot, to focus on her singularity. “People” (which

takes place earlier than the seduction scene, above), like the finale “My Man,” virtually takes Streisand out of the diegesis, as the camera follows her walking down the street, looking into the distance, leaning on a stair rail. Only at the very end of the song does the camera provide a shot of Nick’s face, which would ordinarily be an early shot to establish point-of-view. The position of “the look” in this scene is the spectator’s, decidedly not coexistent with the heterosexual man’s.

Later, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” functions as the number which (theo- retically) proves Fanny’s desire for Nick. In the plot the song reveals Fanny’s effort to get to Nick, who has left on a ship for Europe. But the song itself ac- tually has nothing to do with him. Rather it is a scenic spectacle, both in its locale and in Streisand’s performance, as what matters is her bodily movement through space and across modes of transportation. Streisand runs through the train station in Baltimore, rides on a train to New York, takes a cab to the har- bor, and chases Nick’s already departed ship via tugboat. The song typifies musical film’s convention of the pass-along number, moving the scene geo- graphically and the character psychologically.
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She sings in the second per- son, but it’s not to Nick but rather to any “you” who gets in her way: “Don’t tell how to fly, I’ve simply got to / If someone take a spill, it’s me and not you!” Psychologically, she moves from wanting to be with him to wanting to be her- self as herself. It is a celebration of self, independence, and power (not unlike Styne’s “Some People” sung by Merman in
Gypsy
). Ultimately, this song is a love song, but one for the spectator. The final phrases of the song, captured visually on a descending aerial shot, image the solitary Barbra standing on the boat’s stern, dressed in a close-fitting, bright orange suit, still grasping a bedraggled bouquet of yellow roses. The shot of the Statue of Liberty in the background likens Fanny’s quest for Nick to the immigrant’s American dream, independence, and determination.
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Like any Jewish woman, once married, Fanny’s identity changes, and again, the film takes on and deconstructs stereotypical representations. Fanny raises the specter of the J.A.P. (Jewish American Princess) in the song “Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady.”
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Anachronistically playing off a typical name for an immigrant girl, the song in the film perfects the J.A.P. image. As Riv-Ellen Prell writes, “She [the J.A.P.] attends to the needs of no one else, exerting no labor for others, and expending great energy on herself instead.”
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The num- ber is introduced by a close-up shot of her hand with a huge diamond ring on it, then is comprised of bits of scenes that portray her listening to records, eat- ing chocolates, coming home exhausted after a day of shopping. The lyrics make fun of how she looks (“To tell the truth, it hurt my pride / The groom was prettier than the bride”) and her laziness and unmarketability (“Do for

me, buy for me, lift me, carry me / Finally got a guy to marry me”). As Prell notes, “Her body is a surface to decorate, its adornment financed by the sweat of others.”
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The song plays with the image of the J.A.P. as “narcissistic, sex- ually withholding, and manipulative,” by showing how Fanny’s sexual ecstasy is brought on only by elaborately wrapped packages and piles of silky clothes.
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When Nick arrives home, he receives a cool peck on the cheek, and she glides off to indulge in her purchases.

“Sadie, Sadie” toes a fine line between sincerity and parody. The melody evokes the 1920s tunes of Brice’s acts (in contrast to the much more contem- porary sounds of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and “People”), which renders the song self-consciously, comically performative. Furthermore, as the film shows, Fanny is hardly an “inactive, deathlike body.”
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When she sings, “I swear I’ll do my wifely job / Just sit at home / Become a slob,” she conjures up the idea of the J.A.P. as her absolute counterimage. Not only is Fanny the breadwinner, but her occupation involves the physical, sweating, active body. However, there are elements of the J.A.P. persona that fit neatly with other aspects of Fanny’s character; for example, Fanny does not cook or clean or en- gage in any domestic activities. Even though she does have a child, she never occupies of role of mother in any way. Also, there are no signs of sexual de- sire (or even really sensual affection) between Fanny and Nick after their mar- riage. Like the joined stereotypes of the sexually voracious, unmarried Jewess and the married, frigid one, Fanny is most interested in Nick before they marry. But
Funny Girl
turns this representations around once again. For it is Nick’s effeminacy that makes him unattractive to Fanny, and he is clearly threatened by her and avoids contact with her. Prell writes, “Paradoxically, the Jewish woman is entirely dependent upon and indifferent to her male part- ner,” but in the case of
Funny Girl
it is the (gentile) man who is dependent upon yet indifferent to the Jewish woman.
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Their marriage reverses gender roles—she makes the money and the decisions, and she even contrives ways to reduce their expenses and make business connections for him without his

knowledge.

The romance narrative undoes itself in the second part of the film. If most musicals chart developing love that ends in a marriage finale,
Funny Girl
fol- lows the disintegration of a marriage through the male protagonist’s corrup- tion and emasculation. Nick’s deterioration correlates to her rise to fame and fortune.
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As Levine writes of “the Jewish woman” (more akin to the Jewess than the J.A.P.), “Beyond her sexuality, she is also noted for her intellect, so- phistication, and attempts at self-determination, which in turn contribute to her desirability even as they add to her threat.”
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Still, Fanny does love Nick until the bitter end, and she shifts into a motherly role with him, which the

film portrays as protective but Nick clearly resents. He is always feminized in relation to her.
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Scholars of Jewish culture cite Herman Wouk’s
Marjorie Morningstar
(novel 1955, fi 1958, with Natalie Wood) and Philip Roth’s
Goodbye, Columbus
(short story 1959, fi 1969, with Ali McGraw) as the fi identifi images of the J.A.P. in American culture, from which a small industry of J.A.P. jokes was spawned in the 1970s. What is fascinating about
Funny Girl
is that it an- ticipates, refers to, and revises the J.A.P. image. In this way the fi is a precur- sor, which makes early use of a soon-to-be profl stereotype but renders it infi more complex.

“Life’s Candy and the Sun’s a Ball of Butter”

While the character of Fanny Brice and Streisand’s embodiment of her rever- berates with and against representations of the Jewish mother, the belle juive, and the JAP, Streisand’s offstage persona is strikingly similar to that of anoth- er famous Jewish actress, Sarah Bernhardt. For example, Bernhardt was criti- cized for sexual promiscuity and likely bisexuality. During
Funny Girl
’s film- ing the media had a field day when Streisand openly engaged in an affair with Omar Sharif, in spite of being recently married to actor Eliot Gould.
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While scholars like Gilman, Erdman, Pellegrini, Ockman, and Solomon agree that Bernhardt epitomized the belle juive, they also note that Bernhardt was seen as all the more threatening because of her overt masculinity and open displays of power.
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As Streisand’s career has moved on, past (but not beyond)
Funny Girl
, her star-self takes on increasingly more masculine signs. Like Bernhardt, Streisand is bossy, and as each acquired money and power she was seen as voraciously ambitious, egotistical, and acquisitive, the epitome of an avaricious Jew. Like Bernhardt, Streisand extended her range of power, soon moving into production aspects as well as performance. And, like Bern- hardt, Streisand’s inappropriate femininity was seen not only to be a sign of her “Jewishness” but to be caused by it. For each, her body was evidence of that Jewishness: for Bernhardt, her hair, complexion, and thinness; for Streisand, a general lack of “feminine” appeal—while filming
Funny Girl
, cin- ematographer Harry Stradling used a sliding diffusion glass to “make her look more feminine.”
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Finally, both Streisand and Bernhardt were perceived to dominate the roles they played. George Bernard Shaw wrote of Bernhardt, “She does not enter into the leading character: she substitutes herself for it.”
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Alan Spiegel writes that Streisand’s “heroines” are “not really characters at all, but vehicles for the demonstration of their author’s self-rapture.”
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In short,