Violet C.

Ive never written a review for anything before, but after watching this movie I felt like I had no choice. As a 14 year old Jewish girl, this movie is a horrible distortion of American Jewishness. Then why would I ever watch such a movie? My friends and I thought the title was funny, weird, and relatable, we all had bat mitzvahs (none even half as extravagant) so why not? Lets check it out. The movie was meant to ‘show what being an American Jewish teenager is really like,’ I must say it did a horrible job. I present the 4 (.5) messed up things I noticed in the movie, that made me want to yell at the tv: 1. I know It’s a stereotype that Jews are rich and successful, and yes, there is truth to it, TO AN EXTENT!!! I live in a community where there are some extremely wealthy people, but not EVERYONE lives in a mansion! Literally every kid in the movie was loaded, which pissed me off, because it’s not realistic, and yes, it is a stereotype in a movie meant to ‘publicize’ Jewish life. 2. The Israeli DJ guy. This one made me particularly upset. I am from an Israeli family. Seeing Israelis represented as an angry, reckless, middle-aged man was outrageous. All his character did was leech money from the rich people. He didn’t really care about anything. That attitude goes against everything Ive seen from Israelis. My entire Israeli family is full of hard-working, determined people, and are absolutely nothing like this DJ Shmueley. (I know he was played by an Israeli actor. Even worse.) 3. The Hebrew school. As a kid who went to many Hebrew schools (and still does) this school environment just seemed so fabricated and fake. 3.5. Rabbi Rebecca. For elementary school, I went to a school with a female Rabbi who was deeply passionate about Judaism. She, or any TEACHER for that matter, should never dance around the classroom singing about yeast infections. That really disgusted me. On a Jewish note, having the kids chant ‘God is random’ really, really, got on my nerves. Not to make it dark or anything, but really, was the Holocaust just ‘random?’ That question doesn’t need to involve God. 4. The HORRIBLE parenting… I must admit, I don’t usually watch coming of age movies, so maybe this is just normal in that genre. Specifically the Adam Sandler character though… with his own daughters in the movie, he was the absent minded, ‘I paid for all of this’ kind of dad. It was enough with the ‘rich Jews' stereotype, but having ADAM SANDLER, the most important actor in the movie, play the rich, tired and utterly useless father just really made me sad. All the other parents in the movie were pretty mediocre too. Anyway, the real reason I wrote this is so you could see from the perspective of a Jewish teenager how fake I thought this movie was. But, hey, this is just my opinion. Maybe it really is like this in some places (though I doubt it). I wouldn’t want anyone to think this movie is a ‘glimpse’ into a Jewish reality.