FROM INDIVIDUAL DEVIANCY TO COLLECTIVE INSTRUMENTALITY

After World War I, the Hollywood Question began making its specific allegations of Jewish control over the motion picture industry. It drew from a confluence of other discussions that had already “mapped out” a particular way of linking American Jews, ethnicity, and agency. This “mapping out” charted the route along which one could invoke the Hollywood Question. The Question circulated amid a field of stock images and assumptions. Through these images and assumptions, the Question could respond to an increasingly urban, modern, diverse, and globally significant America. Moreover, through these images and assumptions, the Question could resonate with a certain dissatisfaction over this changing America. Many of these stock images and assumptions had been circulating for centuries, well before the emergence of the Hollywood Question. The way in which they spoke through the Hollywood Question, however, marked a profound shift in American prejudice during the Gilded Age.

Prior to the twentieth century, most of these stereotypes worked to justify, maintain, and repair the marginal status – often codified into European law – that Jews held within Christian culture. For example, both Germany and Russia had historically denied Jews property and voting rights. By even interrogating the ability of Jews to coexist with Christians in a presumably Christian society, the Jewish Question used certain stereotypes to justify this denial. In most cases, these stereotypes emphasized that the individual deviancy of the Jew was at odds with the rest of the Christian community. In its most extreme form, these stereotypes could activate the blood libel. This libel accused Jews of absconding with Christian children and then using their blood in various religious rituals.