Halle Berry Said "JEWISH!" Is She out of her Half-Black Mind?!
"If you watch the clip, you can see Halle saying the word Jewish....[she] should be ashamed of herself!"
I'm not sure who is a bigger douche, the Leno audience member who said that, or Richard Johnson, who quoted her on Page Six, under the headline, "Berry Nose Better Than That." Are we really such a nation of pussies now? Someone says the word Jewish and we call 9-1-1? Excuse me, but my tribe has been run down by every small-dick thug since cro-magnon had his first bar mitvah. Halle Berry didn't urinate on a Torah. She made a joke and it was funny (and in this business, you don't cut funny).
If you didn't see it, she was showing distorted images from her computer camera and one made her look like she had a big nose, so she said "This one makes me look like my Jewish cousin." See? It's kinda funny. At the very least, it's cute. Laugh a little, folks. Lotsa jews have big noses, as do Italians, Arabs, Armenians, and a whole buncha other people. And big noses can be beautiful and they can also be funny (Jimmy Durante's nickname was Schnozzola). And Halle Berry, with her perfectly gorgeous nose, is funny with a big nose. Her Jewish assistant who first made the joke thought so. And on behalf of the rest of the thick-skinned Jews out there, I think so too.
You know, I was talking about this with my black friend today. Wait...can I say black? Sorry, my African-American friend. Actually, he's not African. Okay, my Jamaican-American friend. Does that make him African-Jamaican-American? Are Jamaicans from Africa? He's Catholic, too. Come to think of it, he kind of has a big nose. In fact, if he were white he might even look Jewish. Did you know Ethiopia has a lot of Jews? They have small noses. You've seen them before, the small-nose-African-American-Jewish-types? They don't look anything like my Jewish cousins. In fact, they probably look more like Halle's gentile-black-African-American-gorgeous-movie-star-cousins. Wait...can I say movie star?
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I think House & Senate Repugs should spend a week ignoring the problems of the Country to debate the the merits of Condemning and/or censuring the lovely Ms. Berry. I am sure that the Telcos and other corporate benefactors of Repug charity would be willing to wait a week for the benefits that they have paid so much to get. The rest of us could just enjoy the week off from the continued destruction of our Constitution.
Michael, I like your take on this. As an American Jew whose most distant ancestors came from Africa via the middle east and Europe, I can appreciate your sensitivity to ethnic pigeon-holing. I know Halle from years ago when her manager and I shared office space in New York and in my estimation, she is totally without guile and as free of bias as any reasonable American can be in this age. I probably would have laughed myself especially since I've always been told my nose was more Grecian.
It's not like she called anyone a kike, for (fill in name of deity of choice) ____'s sake. Remember Don Rickles, the equal opportunity offender? Those were the good old days. Everyone is too damned sensitive these days. No wonder it's easy for the power elite to divide and conquer. America! Get some steel testicles and quit moanin' and groanin' about the small stuff (I would have said "bitching about", but no doubt some softbrain would think I was being sexist, though I see that word as non-genderized in this context.)
Man--do people have such thin skins these days--Jeez Louise!!!
A whole bunch of fuss over nothing!!!
No way am I giving her an out. She had plenty of time to consider her comments. Halle has always been a nervous interviewee. When I look at her I see a person terrified of being judged. I've no doubt she rehearses in her mind what she's going to say (like most celebs). God forbid she leave it to chance and come out sounding stupid! Oh, the irony.
Still, while I believe Halle behaved like an idiot, I also believe she's sorry and regrets her ignorant joke. Dammit Halle...Th
Are you sure it's your 'out' to give?
Here is China foreigners are sometimes referred to as 'big nose' and old guys like me get called 'old nose' from time to time.
It's not all that common but it happens often enough to notice. It's funny and it's based in cultural stereotypes and there is nothing wrong with it.
Oh how I long for the old days. The days before all the PC rules mostly made up by thin skinned weaklings.
Lighten up Owlygirl. There are over six billion people on this earth. Give us a break.
I did not know Halle had a Jewish cousin. If I knew you,Owlygirl, I would buy back my intoduction. You are another one of the jealous and envious girls. There are too many of you. Ms.Halle is a pleasure to look at or listen too.
If Leno had more guests from the entertainment world and less politicians we will see less prepared conversations and more open and humorous such as Halle.
Her (Halle's) comment is really too stupid for someone like you to take offense to. Get a life Owlygirl, or at least revamp what you call a life!
Good God, such extreme touchiness. I think back to the '50s, when so many of the comics on TV were vets of the Borscht Belt, and many were Jewish. Myron Cohen, anyone? These were the funny men of my youth, and I think the way that America at large got introduced to Jewish humor. Psst, the key to it was self-deprecation and an ironic intelligence. Hope that isn't, you know, stereotypical.
My father and I were born with proportionate, angular but rounded noses. Masculine, but not "big" by any means.
My mother and sister were born with very delicate, feminine and proportionate noses. My sister has been asked a few times for the name and number of her non-existent plastic surgeon.
Berry's mistake--which she now realizes--is that she took a self-deprecating, privately made comment from a Jewish friend and used it publicly. It is never a great idea to make a joke about a group--ethnic, religious, gender--of which you are not a member. You run the risk of looking like a bigot.
Such jokes among friends can be funny, as the trust and relationship has been established.
That aside, aversion to "big" noses on people from any ethnicity is an anglo "standard" of beauty. Beauty is culturally defined.
And selectively applied.
So why, Michael, is there such a tempest over a poorly considered joke gone awry?
As of this writing, I have not read any of the comments on your piece. However, if the comments here are like those on ANY HuffPo story or opinion piece about Jews, there are many that are anti-Semitic.
Just take a look at the stuff written about the news account of this incident.
http://www
Stereotypes are fertile ground for comic material. Late night TV would be dead without them. But at a time when prejudice and discrimination against a particular group runs high, you likely would find that group fighting anything disparaging.
"But at a time when prejudice and discrimination against a particular group runs high..."
Which particular group of people do you mean? Arabs? Muslims?
No doubt that it is running high against Arabs and Muslims. And when people slander them, I fight back. On this blog and in day-to-day life.
If you bother to read this blog and others, you would know how common anti-Semitism is.
If you walked two inches in my shoes, you'd never forget it.
Behave yourself, whoever you are.
It was a mildly offensive remark, she apologized, time to move on. What's Mel Gibson been up to lately?
Bravo, Mr. Seitzman. I couldn't agree with you more.
Jokes are great if it came from someone who didn't claim in her last interview that she was oppressed as a black actress. Sensitive people should be sensitive to others or their plight seems disingenuinous.
On the other hand, pregnant women being sensitive in the morning and giggly in the evening is not so unusual.
Never mind. Cut her the slack.
a jew with gatorhide. lol! now that's a funny image. don't ruin my fun. i've taken great pleasure in my life busting the chops of new york jews just because they are so easy to instigate and aggravate. the best ones are the ones who figure it out; a ball busting match breaks out and a friend is made.
What everyone is missing is that Berry's Jewish assistant made the joke first, so Berry thought it wasn't offensive-which,on its own ,is not. However, The Nazis, in an effort to de-humanize Jews in europe, drew them as weasels, rats,etc..
Stuart, I agree. I do not want to made fun of just because I have a large penis.
The hostility in your post doesn't make much of a case for lightening up now, does it?
Neither does your crying, provgrays.
What can you do? The liberal fanatics have turned free speech in America into a nightmare world where you're life is destroyed with one errant usage of the N word or some other innoculous word that apparently turns the liberal into a melting witch. All I can say is, don't blame the conservatives.
Yes you're right, the conservative thugs who lynched innocent people while chanting the N word can't be blamed for how that word sends chills up people's spines.
How does Sen. Byrd (DEMOCRAT) feel about that?
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