On September 30, 2021, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences (the organization best known for its annual Oscars ceremony) finally opened their long-awaited museum, aptly named the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

The museum’s website describes it as “the largest museum in the United States devoted to the arts, sciences and artists of moviemaking,” which “offers exceptional exhibitions and programs that illuminate the world of cinema … through a variety of diverse and engaging voices.”

But there was one voice that was conspicuously absent: that of the Jewish immigrants who founded, and some would say created, Hollywood.

This glaring omission was widely noticed at the time of the museum’s opening. John Goldwyn, the grandson of Hollywood founding father Samuel Goldwyn (the “G” in “MGM”) declined to attend the opening. He was quoted at the time in a Hollywood Reporter article saying, “If you’re going to have a museum in Los Angeles tied to the Academy that celebrates arguably the most significant art form of the 20th century, how is it possible not to acknowledge the Jewish men who started it all? … It’s an egregious oversight.”

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who did attend the opening, told Rolling Stone, “As I walked through, I literally turned to the person I was there with and said to him, ‘Where are the Jews?’”

To its credit, the Museum sought to remedy this oversight. That is the charitable interpretation.

The less charitable version is that they were pressured into doing something they had purposefully chosen not to do. Either way, on May 19th of this year, the Museum opened a new permanent exhibit titled “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital.” Sounds great, right?

The somewhat small exhibit (the smallest of any exhibit in the museum) includes a brief documentary film, a hi-tech relief map of Hollywood, and a series of panels with biographical information about the Jewish men who built Hollywood and the studios they created.

Here is a sampling of that biographical information. Jack Warner was a “womanizer” and was “frugal.” Carl Laemmle was known for “nepotism.” Harry Cohen was “a tyrant and a predator.” The studio system created by these Jewish founders represented “a period of oppressive control” and these Jewish men were responsible for “the prejudices” of their studios and their movies.

I assume, because the exhibit provides no context, details, or examples, that words like “oppressive” and “tyrant” refer to the very controlling, top-down management style employed by these Jewish moguls.

Such a management style may be unpleasant for some to work under; it may be either effective or ineffective from a business standpoint (and given the studios’ success, I would argue it was very effective). But it is not inherently immoral, as the use of the words “oppressive” and “tyrant” would seek to imply.

The panel featuring Warner Bros. includes a paragraph describing one of the studio’s films, The Jazz Singer. It is the only film featured in this manner in any of these studio descriptions. The brief paragraph ends with the claim that The Jazz Singer invoked “a popular symbol of racial oppression [i.e. blackface] that further harms another marginalized group.”

The documentary that is part of the exhibit builds upon this theme of discrimination: “Hollywood films of [the era of these Jewish moguls] generally excluded, stereotyped or vilified people of color and LGBT+ characters and perpetuated ableism and sexism with rare exceptions. In Hollywood, to become American was to adopt and reflect oppressive beliefs and representations.”

It is true that the United States of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s was a very different place, in terms of equality, inclusion and representation, than it is today. But was this really the fault of Jewish movie moguls? Why pound this point home in the one section of the museum supposedly dedicated to their accomplishments and contributions? After all, the movie The Jazz Singer did not invent Al Jolson’s blackface character; he had been performing it on stages across the country for many years and to great acclaim.

An exploration of the history of racism and sexism in Hollywood could be a perfectly valid topic for the museum to explore. Was it necessary to make it part of the exhibit on Jewish contributions?

The exhibit’s display includes a section describing the origins of United Artists, a studio formed in defiance of the Jewish-run studios. It mentions DW Griffith among its non-Jewish founders, but does not mention Griffith’s film Birth of A Nation (originally titled “The Clansman”), arguably the most racist film in the history of American cinema.

Why does Warner’s The Jazz Singer receive an entire paragraph but not Griffith’s Birth of A Nation? Because The Jazz Singer was produced by Jews?

The Museum’s mission statement, published on its website, includes the following goal: “The Academy Museum tells complete stories of moviemaking — celebratory, educational, and sometimes critical or uncomfortable.”

The “Jewish Founders” exhibit definitely falls under the heading of “sometimes critical or uncomfortable.” I was curious to find what other displays or exhibits could similarly be described. It was very difficult to find any. There are numerous exhibits that celebrate the work of Hollywood actors, writers, directors, and producers. All of the subjects of these exhibits are praised in glowing terms and hailed for their artistry and accomplishments.

I found a picture celebrating an actor which did not include the fact that the actor had pled guilty to sexual assault. I found a panel praising a director that said nothing about the sexual harassment allegations that the director has faced. The museum has decided not to mention these facts, while calling Jack Warner a “womanizer” and Harry Cohn a “predator.”

Maybe I just missed it, but I found no place in the museum, other than the “Jewish Founders” exhibit, in which the biographies of those honored included personal details about their lives or characters that were negative or defamatory.

Where there were details in an exhibit that could be considered “critical or uncomfortable,” outside of the “Jewish Founders” exhibit, the person being celebrated by the museum was the victim, not the perpetrator.

There is, for example, an empty display case paying tribute to Hattie McDaniel, the first Black person to win an Academy Award.  The plaque discusses the racism she faced and the fact that she did not receive a statuette. Hence the empty display case.

There was a panel celebrating Black Lives Matter and The Black Panther Party, praising documentary films that “capture the determination of activists and their pursuit of universal human rights.”

A similar panel celebrates “the global #MeToo movement” and its exposing the “conditions that enable sexual exploitation in the workplace.”

So there are a few mentions, throughout the museum, of racism and sexism in the context of acknowledging those who have suffered from it and praising those who have combated it. But the only people the museum specifically charges with perpetrating racism and sexism are the Jews of the “Jewish Founders” exhibit.

To be clear, I do not claim that the Jewish moguls were without sin or above reproach. What I object to is the double standard that the museum employs in singling out Jews as the only ones called out for their sins.

Sadly, a common feature of modern antisemitism is the application of a different set of rules and standards to Jews from that which applies to everyone else.

We see this double standard in college hate-speech codes that don’t apply when Jews are harassed and threatened. We see it in criticism of Israel, the only nation accused of war crimes for unintended civilian deaths in a war it did not start. And now we can see it every day but Tuesday from 10am-6pm at the Academy Museum.

Michael Kaplan is a TV writer-producer, playwright, and children’s book author. For his TV work, he has been nominated for four Emmy Awards, winning one.

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