Yes, I was meaning Pete all along.
Want to mention something I found offensive, which is 2 references in separate published pieces about this show which referenced how Don could never be mistaken for a Jew. The show uses stereotypes but it’s wrong to extend them to actual life. James Franco is Jewish. Paul Newman considered himself Jewish - his father was and he considered being Jewish the more difficult choice (and as Adam Sandler sang, if you crossed Paul Newman and Goldie Hawn you’d get one good looking Jew). Jake Gyllenhaal is Jewish. And so on. Michael Ginsburg’s character is Jewish and so is the actor who played him, Ben Feldman, but that’s him in a wig and you can see how good looking Feldman is in the show A to Z, where he plays a non-Jewish guy. Rachel Katz/Mencken is dark-haired but Bar Refaeli is tall and blonde.
Lergnom, was the implication that Don is too attractive? Or something else?
(And thanks a lot for getting that Adam Sandler song stuck in my head.)
Funny, if I stopped to think about it–which I haven’t–I would have thought that there was a strong possibility that John Hamm was Jewish. Why not?
I think the implication by those writers is that Jews look like Michael Ginsberg and that Don is far too tall and handsome to be Jewish. Easy stereotyping by a lazy writer.
Well, I don’t think Don Draper / Jon Hamm “looks” Jewish and I think that’s quite deliberate casting since he’s playing a WASP. I don’t see the problem. They needed their character to have a certain look.
Uh, my objection was to comments by writers in published articles about the show which tried to make a joke by saying no one could ever mistake Don for Jewish. And the way they said it was, I thought, demeaning, which is why I mentioned Paul Newman and Jake Gyllenhaal. There is no “Jewish” look, just stereotypes of dark hair, hooked noses and the like.
I think ther’s jewish look as much as there’s hispanic look. Some jewish or hispanic person may not look jewish or hispanic. But there’s a “look” Is it racist to acknowledeg it?
Oh come on. Some people look more stereotypically Jewish than others. Don Draper happens not to.
Jason Biggs (the actor) is often mistaken for being Jewish though he’s not. That’s not “racist.” Many E European Jews have shared ancestry.
Uh, there is no Jewish look. There are stereotypes about Jewish looks, but I guarantee you that if you spend time in Jewish communities you learn they look Irish, Italian, Arab, Russian, etc. And if you go to Israel, you would be hard-pressed to find people matching your conception of Jewish looking. The stereotype comes from three things: that many of Jews in certain places were from the same areas in Europe so they tended to have those characteristics and dress (which originally was poverty driven) and then the stereotype of Jews in intellectual professions. I think Jews were happy to see the latter stereotype take hold because it replaced “Jewish gangster”; a large number of the thugs, bootleggers and murderers of the gang era of crime were Jewish. Though you wouldn’t know that to look at them. As in Dutch Schultz with his typical non-Jewish face except he was born Arthur Flegenheimer. Note that Downton Abbey does the same subject differently: Atticus Aldridge and his family, all very good looking and not one played by a Jewish actor.
And again, what I was objecting to was an attempt at humor by a few writers, not the show, which I know traffics in stereotypes (and subverting them) on purpose.
I really didn’t enjoy this episode. Considering there are only 7 I found it disappointing.
Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m Jewish (well, ok, I’m half and half from an ancestry standpoint), I’ve been to Israel, thank you, and I think there is / can be a “Jewish look.” That doesn’t mean that everyone who looks that way IS Jewish, or that everyone who is Jewish HAS to look that way. Don Draper / Jon Hamm doesn’t look Jewish. Let’s see, Heather Locklear doesn’t look Jewish either. Woody Allen looks Jewish. Adam Sandler looks Jewish. Barack Obama doesn’t look Jewish 
I think many of us should be getting all up in arms about the bigoted remarks made about people of Irish descent in the last episode. B-)
^ I thought the same while watching, and I’m not Irish.
Lergnom, a good friend of mine, who is: 1) Jewish, 2) a Rabbi, 3) living in Israel permanently, once remarked that she liked the actress Jennifer Grey (years ago, pre-nosejob) because, among other reasons, “she looks really Jewish.” Anti-Semitic? I don’t think so.
My very-prejudiced Irish great-grandfather said, upon hearing that my Irish Catholic mother was going to marry a Jewish man - “well, he may be Jewish, but I can live with that - at least he’s not Italian!” Ha ha!
My godparents were my mother’s cousin (100% Irish) and her Northern Italian husband. His mother apparently was proud that her family’s red/blonde hair distinguished them from the Sicilian/Calabrian/Neapolitan Italian immigrants. When she heard that he was dating an Irish girl and getting serious, she said, “At least she’ll have red hair.” My godmother had black hair.
But she got over it.
I don’t get up in arms about the racist/ethnically obscene remarks made on the show because that’s the actual show with all the faults of the era and of the characters. In fact, I thought it revealing that Ken made such a blunt remark that reveals his prejudice and thus perhaps more substance to the objections to his presence by McCann.
I don’t like when writers about the show make stereotyping remarks, especially without relating those comments to the era. So for example, I would find it offensive if someone writing about the show remarked on the African-American secretaries hair or short dresses without putting that in the context of the era. In one case, the writer said the single most unbelievable thing ever on the show was that Don would be asked to join a Minyan. Really? The single most unbelievable thing ever on the show? I know that’s exaggeration but if you’re writing for the public you have to do better than that.
I speak as someone not generally sensitive or caring about ethnic humor. I didn’t care when Trevor Noah’s tweets came out: they’re just mediocre jokes - and I laughed at one. It’s the pathetic laziness of resorting to stereotypes that bothers me.
To use a TV example, if you saw the finale of 2 and a Half Men you saw the surprise return of Angus Jones (Jake) who publicly blew up his relationship with Chuck Lorre but in a context that made explicit the way the show pandered to taste. Jon Cryer notes that Jake started out smart and wonders what happens and Angus says it turned out to be funnier that way. Then Angus makes a dumb joke about playing craps in Vegas because “well, craps” and they all turn to the camera stare - which they do again when he says he bet on “come” because well … - the point being they acknowledged the stupidity of the material and its blatant pandering to the lowest of low because it was “funnier that way”. By contrast, when you’re a writer trying to make intelligent remarks about a serious drama TV show, you need to do bleeping better than trot out dumb stereotypes. You don’t deserve to get paid for reaching down to the level of “well because craps” because you’re not writing for that show.
Story breaking all over about a violent hazing incident with Jon Hamm:
https://news.yahoo.com/mad-men-star-hamm-accused-violent-fraternity-hazing-212146195.html
Now I don’t like him. I was getting so angry reading that article.