#jewish erasure
Wondering how my Jewish followers feel about Oscar Isaac playing Moon Knight(Steven Grant/Marc Spector) in the upcoming series?
Isaac’s mother is Guatemalan and his father is Cuban. Apparently, he has some Jewish heritage on his father’s side. However, that same father was an extreme evangelical Christian.
“My dad was a man of extremes. And the way my mom was raised, she followed her husband. So if God spoke to my father one day and said we were not supposed to have a TV in the house, it was suddenly gone. The Hernandez home became the site of a kind of ongoing tent revival … I was never frightened by it. I was more curious why I wasn’t feeling the real thing myself,“ he told GQ.
Given that Moon Knight is canonically Jewish-American, and the son of a Rabbi, I just wondered how you guys are feeling about this?
For those unfamiliar with Moon Knight, and without spoiling too much: The fact that Marc is Jewish is completely central to his storyline. An antisemitic attack is the reason he first recognizes his unique physical abilities. The trauma that causes his dissociative identity disorder is also directly related to that attack.
I saw no evidence whatsoever that Moon Knight is Jewish in the trailer. I’m really nervous about possible erasure, given Disney/Marvel’s track record. I’m also worried that his DID might be used as an excuse to gloss over his religious and ethnic background.
To make matters weirder, Ethan Hawke is also playing Arthur Harrow. (SPOILER ALERT! Possibly?) Harrow is a minor villain in Moon Knight: Fist of KhonshuNo. 2 by Alan Zelenetz and Chris Warner. He’s a former-Nazi scientist performing horrific human experimentation, and his work began in Auschwitz-Birkenau. That appears to be a completely different character than the one played by Ethan Hawke, though?
It bothers me that the trailer focuses on Steven Grant rather than Marc, since Steven in the trailer has no similarity (that I could see) to the Steven of the comics, who is a wealthy playboy. It gives us a complete unknown. They don’t appear to be following the comics very closely, if at all, which gives Disney/Marvel all the wiggle room they need to write out Moon Knight’s Jewish background.
I really like Oscar Isaac, but I have to wonder what motivated him to take a role like this. I’m reminded of the decision to cast Lucian Msamati to play John Faa in His Dark Materials. At the very least, Msamati was ready for an international breakout role, which makes me somewhat more sympathetic to his decision.
Oscar Isaac is already an international superstar; he was named one of Time Magazine’s ”100 Most Influential People“ in 2016. He’s coming from Star WarsandDune.At a certain point, we need to ask big-name actors whythey’re agreeing to take on characters who really ought to go to people with different marginalizations.
Thoughts? Am I prematurely concerned? Should I stay in my lane? Or are we looking at another example of an MCU television series with complete erasure of the character’s Jewish roots?
XOXO, Earnest
