Jewish Mother Stereotype - Decline in The Late 20th Century and The "Jewish Grandmother"

Decline in The Late 20th Century and The "Jewish Grandmother"

According to Alisa Lebow, in the late 20th century and 21st century the stereotype of the Jewish mother has "gone missing" from movies. She observes that there appears to have been no conscious effort on the part of screenwriters or film-makers to rewrite or change the stereotype, in pursuance of some revisionist agenda, but that it has simply fallen back a generation. It has become irrelevant to filmmakers, as the political pressures of assimilation, and of 1950s and 1960s culture, that brought it about have receded. The Jewish mother has transformed into the Jewish grandmother, or bubbe. While still unschooled, food-obsessed, doting, loving, anxious, and a working-class balabusta (good home-maker), the Jewish grandmother is more mellow than her Jewish mother antecedent.

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