When Halle Was Silly
By now, most of you are probably aware of the infamous Halle Berry “Jewish nose” joke of last week. If not, here’s what happened.
One of Hollywood’s most famous faces has apologized for a joke about a “Jewish” nose.
Oscar winner Halle Berry called the New York Post Monday evening to apologize for a comment she’d made the previous Friday at a taping of The Tonight Show. In the segment, an audience member told the newspaper, Berry presented images of herself distorted by a computer, and upon seeing one in which she appeared with a large nose, remarked, “Here’s where I look like my Jewish cousin.”
“No one laughed,” the audience member reported, “and [host] Jay [Leno] nervously said, ‘I’m glad you said that and not me.’”
The word “Jewish” was cut from NBC’s broadcast of Berry’s appearance, though a brief silence can be heard between the surroundings words. After the edited comment, Berry is shown joking, “Oh my God, have I just, like, ruined my whole career?”
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According to the New York Post item, Berry “sounded like she was near tears,” in her call to the paper, telling a reporter, “I so didn’t mean to offend anybody – and after the show I realized it could be seen as offensive, so I asked Jay to take it out, and he did.”
The first black woman to win the Oscar for best actress, Berry explained that the “Jewish cousin” joke had first been made backstage by one of her three Jewish assistants, who she said had looked at the photo and told the 41-year-old star, “This could be your Jewish cousin!”
“But,” the actress told The New York Post, “I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I didn’t. I didn’t mean any harm … It was just supposed to be a silly segment. I am so sorry, and I apologize.
My reaction? I don’t believe that Berry is an anti-Semite, just an idiot. She’s definitely not in the league of, say, Mel Gibson.
Having said that, I would have expected some more sensitivity from Ms Berry, especially considering she was once insecure with her nose, leading to plastic surgery.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: Uncategorized
There are more important things to worry about than Halle Berry.
That’s the problem with celebrities these days…. they think they are sooooooooooo important! Unfortunately they are held in high regard by masses of people and therefore should remember to refrain from racial slurs and jokes like the slip Ms. Berry made on the Tonight Show.
She needs to show more class….
Who cares. Oh no, Barbara Streisand has a Jewish nose! Shock, horror, abandonment (well, *I* abandoned her a long time ago)!
I don’t think it’s a negative thing about Jews, although the nose itself might take offense. I only care about ‘Jewish noses’ when they are long and hooked and drawn into cartoons/movies attached to evil stereotypical Joooooos. As a nose commentary, not so bad.
There are other racial stereotypical body parts that people use without causing terrible offense. How about (for men) “once you go black, you never go back?” or (for women) an Hispanic rear-end (e.g. J-Lo)
Surprise surprise, you call her an idiot. Could be worse. She could be knee jerk contemptuous of, and full of hatred for, anybody who expresses anything other than a far right, pro-Israel point of view.
I don’t even think she is an idiot. It was a fairly innocent joke, not the most tasteful one perhaps but certaily not malicious or offensive to any meaningful degree. At the very least, we should keep in mind that the “Jewish nose” jokes fly in the face of the common Arab anti-Semitic claims that the Ashkenazim Jews are somehow not real Jews but a bunch of white Europeans who don’t belong in “Palestine”. Our legendary Jewish shnobels are, in a sense, another confirmation of our property rights to the Land of Israel.
To a non-American, this seems like political correctness verging on the paranoid. The Jewish community have been making about their noses for centuries, if not millennia. This was hardly a derogatory comment – there is nothing special about having a stunted nose, after all
If only there were REAL problems that we could worry about instead!
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