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Why is everyone laughing at Anne Frank?
It’s hard to explain exactly what Slam Frank is. It’s a musical about Anne Frank in the hip-hop style of Lin-Manuel Miranda, but also with a touch of Bob Fosse. Anne is Latina and queer; her mother, Edith, is Black.
This is not race-blind casting. It’s very much on purpose, a way to leverage Anne Frank’s story for a send-up of identity politics. If that sounds pretty offensive, well, that’s kind of the point.
Slam Frank began as a parody video posted to Instagram by Andrew Fox, who is Jewish; online, he played the part of a theater director trying to create a chance for “Latinx girlies to feel seen, to feel included, to feel like they’re a part of the Holocaust.” Despite — or, perhaps, because — of how edgy the concept was, the social media account went so viral that it birthed a full-fledged show. Or, arguably, two; the conceit is a play within a play, a production of Anne Frank staged by a theater troupe working to “decolonize” the Holocaust.
The show’s jokes aren’t really focused on Anne Frank, or Anita Franco, as she is dubbed in the play. Instead, they skewer woke culture. Otto, Anita’s father, is neurodivergent, a fact he reminds everyone of about once every five minutes. Peter Van Daan, Anita’s crush, realizes they’re nonbinary, leading to an entire musical number in which each resident of the Annex discovers their own marginalized identity. “Every woman is a Jew hiding in her own attic,” warbles one character about her newly realized feminism. It culminates with the cast ripping off their yellow stars to replace them with pronoun pins in the same shape.
A few years ago, Slam Frank would have been unimaginable. But at a sold-out performance late on a Tuesday, the audience was eating it up like they’d been starving for years. The laughter was so raucous that it could occasionally be hard to hear the dialogue.
The question is what changed so that a New York audience could laugh so heartily and so openly at jokes making fun of disabilities, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation — jokes that just a few years ago would have gotten someone canceled by a full-fledged angry online mob. Even today, there is a fully-serious Latinx production of The Diary of Anne Frank going up in Los Angeles, which the director said was meant to provoke discussion about immigration in the U.S.
It’s not that people aren’t upset; some writers for Jewish publications have accused the show of going “too far.” Reducing the focus on Jewish victims is, sometimes, a tactic of Holocaust deniers or distorters. People get defensive. Fox said the show got kicked out of a workshop program.
But Slam Frank isn’t really about the Holocaust; it’s about what happens when we talk about the Holocaust in an era in which certain identities are not considered oppressable.
Fox was inspired by a viral Twitter thread from 2021 that accused Anne Frank of white privilege, calling her a “colonizer.” I wrote about this discourse at the time; ahistorical discussions of Anne Frank’s purported whiteness were cropping up every few months during that period, as the Black Lives Matter protests and the pandemic brought identity politics to the main stage.
This discourse, while obviously absurd — Jews in the 1930s were not considered white — was nevertheless taken somewhat seriously in some circles. So, to make Anne Frank more unambiguously sympathetic, Fox assigned her and her compatriots in the Annex every extra identity she might need to qualify for victimhood.
Anne Frank’s story is particularly well-suited to a send-up of identity politics. Not only is it a narrative that most people know well — which is important since Slam Frank can sometimes be so focused on its one-liners that the beats of the story get muddled — but the Holocaust has become the archetype of the oppressor-oppressed dynamic. Online, anyone who is persecuting anyone else is quickly labeled a Nazi or called Hitler; the Jews, then, become the archetypal victim. It’s fertile ground for satirizing the so-called oppression Olympics.
For all its lambasting of a type of political correctness usually associated with the left, however, Slam Frank is not a conservative or right-wing production, though it’s also clearly not “woke.” It’s a hard show to pin down; it feels like a Rorschach test in ideology. Or, to better reflect its social media roots, it feels like one giant exercise in trolling.
Going off of the bonafides and bios of the cast and creative team, however, there are hints that the show is at least somewhat identified with the very culture it’s skewering. Olivia Bernábe, who plays Anita, uses they/them pronouns in real life, despite all the show’s jokes about pronouns. Joel Sinensky, who wrote the book, has worked on another project with Chapo Traphouse, the podcast king of the dirtbag left — a brand of leftism that rejects the etiquette of the left while retaining its political aims.
It seems safe to infer that the show’s critiques are from within the liberal milieu it’s satirizing. Sigmund Freud, in a lengthy text on humor — Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious — theorized at one point that “every joke calls for a public of its own” and that sharing the joke demonstrates “psychical conformity.” So the question becomes when, and why, the left finally became comfortable laughing at itself.
Some of Slam Frank’s jokes do go a bit far — there are, of course, big and important lessons to learn about the way systemic oppression still operates in society, and it was good that we spent the past few years grappling with them. The show makes fun of the idea that a group hiding from the Nazis would be worried about such trivial problems as the perfect label for their sexuality, but the real Anne Frank did grapple with her sexual feelings toward both boys and girls in her diary.
Still, most of Slam Frank’s jokes are not laughing at people’s identities themselves, which saves it from seeming mean-spirited. The butt of the joke is not that Peter is nonbinary or that Edith is Black or that Otto is neurodivergent, it’s the way the fellow residents of the Annex react to these labels.
And even if Slam Frank sometimes overshoots the mark, it’s reclaiming something else: funniness.
After Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump in the presidential election, more and more pundits began to point out that scolding voters is not a winning strategy. Liberals had somehow made their brand into telling people off while Republicans, once known for stodgy lectures about tradition and sexual mores, became the party of fun. They embraced Trump’s bad dancing as a delightful meme. They threw parties in the hottest bars in the city. Most importantly, they made jokes and didn’t chastise anyone for laughing at them.
The way for the left to come back from such bad branding is to learn how to laugh at itself. And self-deprecating humor is what Jews are best known for — that and the Holocaust. So maybe turning Anne Frank into a joke isn’t so strange after all.
The post Why is everyone laughing at Anne Frank? appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards
At last year’s Academy Awards, Anora — a frenetic, somewhat ambiguously Jewish look at a Jewish enclave of New York, took home best picture, original screenplay, director and actress for its Jewish lead Mikey Madison. This year, we have a film that feels, in some ways, quite parallel, while cranking the Yiddishkeit to 11: Josh Safdie’s breathless picaresque Marty Supreme, set on the Lower East Side, is up for best picture and its star, Timothée Chalamet is a favorite for best actor.
There’s also Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s portrait of Jewish lyricist Lorenz Hart’s breakup with composer Richard Rodgers (Ethan Hawke is up for best actor). And One Battle After Another, a campy and absurdist satire about the infiltration of white supremacists in the U.S. government, is poised to have a massive night, with the blockbuster Sinners serving as its main competition.
That all goes to say that it’s another great year for Jewish stories at the Oscars, with some really compelling fodder for discussion about the place that Jews occupy today in arts and media. What stories are we telling and how are they received?
Here, as ever, the Forward culture team is here to break it all down for you, live as it unfolds. Of course, we cover Jewish movies all year. But at the Academy Awards, we get to see how the rest of the world feels about these movies. We will be updating this story with our thoughts throughout the ceremony.
Traditionally, as we begin these Oscars roundtables, we discuss what we’re all wearing and eating. What’ve we got?
Olivia: brown sweater and jeans; no food but aggressively chewing mint gum. I will later be drinking some of the seltzer I got from Brooklyn’s Seltzer Fest today.
Mira: I did a bunch of cooking for the week so I have vegetarian avgolemono soup and Alison Roman’s fennel salad. (I’m obsessed with this salad.) I am proudly wearing hard pants.
PJ: I am reheating some chicken from last night. Wearing a blue sweater with a little toggle and jeans. How many of Stellan Skarsgård’s large adult sons are here? In other l’dor v’dor news, Bill Pullman just mentioned how they filmed the Spaceballs sequel with his son Lewis.
Talya: I believe I’m wearing the exact same sweater I donned for this event last year — where’s my award for consistency? And, as always, sweatpants; I cannot comprehend suffering through this event in jeans.
Discussion of Israeli-Palestinian protests on the red carpet
Mira: Love a toggle. Speaking of outfits, anyone have thoughts on Odessa A’zion’s spangled red carpet set? She is one of the only people who styles herself on the red carpet, which I do respect.
Olivia: A’Zion’s outfit kind of looks like she forgot to tie whatever was supposed to be holding it up. I don’t think it looks bad, just like it’s falling down.
PJ: It wouldn’t look out of place hanging from the window of a VW van with shag carpet and some Tibetan prayer flags.
Mira: Of note, the past several years have seen protesters approaching people on their way into the ceremony, and a lot of pins on the red carpet taking a stance on the Israel-Hamas war, largely pro-Palestinian ones. We’re seeing less of that this year — though not none. Javier Bardem posted a photo of him wearing a pin reading “no to the war” in Spanish, along with another pin featuring Handala, a cartoon boy considered a symbol of Palestinians. The team of The Voice of Hind Rajab, nominated for best foreign film, are also wearing red pins with a white dove.
PJ: Those have replaced the red hand ArtistsforCeasefire pins, which some said recalled the bloody palms of Palestinians who killed IDF soldiers in 2000.
Olivia: A reporter for ABC in a pre-recorded segment asked executive producers and showrunners for the ceremony Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan if anything would get bleeped, such as mentions of Trump, Israel and Palestine. Recently, the BBC removed director Akinola Davies Jr’s call for a “Free Palestine” from their BAFTA stream. Kapoor asserted that the night’s production team supports free speech, but we’ll see what transpires over the course of the night.
The post ‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards appeared first on The Forward.
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US Sends Additional Arms to Israel to Sustain Iran Operations
The first of two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors is launched during a successful intercept test. Photo: US Army.
i24 News – The United States has recently increased shipments of munitions to Israel to support ongoing Israeli air operations against Iran.
According to reports broadcast by the public radio network Kan Reshet Bet, several weapons deliveries have arrived in Israel in recent days as part of what officials describe as an ongoing airlift aimed at sustaining the pace of military strikes.
Since the start of the campaign, Israeli forces are believed to have dropped more than 11,000 bombs on targets across Iran.
The shipments come as reports emerge about a potential shortage of ballistic missile interceptors in Israel. US officials told the news outlet Semafor that Israel’s interceptor stockpiles have been heavily used during the conflict.
According to those sources, Washington had already been aware for months that supplies could become strained, though it remains unclear whether the United States would be willing to share its own interceptor reserves. Israeli officials have since rejected claims that such a shortage exists.
Unlike the Iron Dome, which is designed to intercept short-range rockets and projectiles, ballistic missile interceptors serve as Israel’s primary defense against long-range missile threats. Fighter jets can also be used to attempt interceptions, though this method is considered a supplementary measure to missile defense systems.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has taken additional budgetary steps to support the war effort. During an overnight vote between Saturday and Sunday, ministers approved a roughly 1 billion shekel reduction across various ministry budgets to help finance classified military purchases linked to Operation “Roar of the Lion.”
The government had already approved a 3 percent cut in ministry budgets, a move expected to increase the defense budget by approximately 30 billion shekels as the conflict continues.
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Pope Leo Decries ‘Atrocious Violence’ in Iran War, Urges Ceasefire
Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from a window of the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, March 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Matteo Minnella
Pope Leo made an impassioned plea on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in the expanding Iran war, lamenting “atrocious violence” that he said had killed thousands of non-combatants and caused suffering across the region.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its third week, the first US pope warned that violence would not bring the justice, stability and peace that the peoples of the region long for.
“For two weeks, the peoples of the Middle East have been suffering the atrocious violence of war,” the pope said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“In the name of Christians in the Middle East and of all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: Cease fire!” Pope Leo said.
IDEA THAT WAR SOLVES PROBLEMS IS ‘ABSURD’
Leo added that the situation in Lebanon – ravaged by a war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah – was also a cause of “great concern.”
“I hope for paths of dialogue that can support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis currently underway, for the common good of all the Lebanese people,” the pope said.
During a visit to a Rome parish later, the pope said war could never resolve problems and hit out at people who invoke God to justify killings.
“Today many of our brothers and sisters in the world are suffering because of violent conflicts, caused by the absurd claim that problems and disagreements can be resolved through war, when instead we must engage in unceasing dialogue for peace,” he said during his homily.
“Some even go so far as to invoke the name of God to justify these choices of death, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness. Rather, He always comes to bring light, hope and peace to humanity.”