Daily Podcasts Video Research

‘Beau Is Afraid’ isn’t Jewish ‘Lord of the Rings’ — it’s way worse

JL;DR SUMMARY In an introspective critique, PJ Grisar examines Ari Aster's film "Beau Is Afraid" through a Jewish lens. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

Jewish IdentityJewish StereotypesMedia RepresentationCultural AnalysisMotherhoodFilm CritiqueCinemaFreudian ThemesAri AsterBeau Is Afraid

Places mentioned

New York City, New York, United States
"he lives in what feels like Marjorie Taylor Greenes image of New York City, replete with body-modded menaces, junkies, death-defying sex workers, gleeful eye-gougers, neglected corpses, brown recluse spiders and a prolific naked knifeman called the Birthday Boy Stab Man."
Sweden
"2019s Midsommar, with its perennial Swedish sunshine and flaxen-haired pagans, had the makings of a Nordic nightmare well-suited for tsuris."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 58351
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-08-01 05:31:26 UTC
Curated 2025-08-01 08:31:23 UTC