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Mel Brooks' <i>The Producers</i>: Tracing American Jewish Culture Through Comedy, 1967–2007

2007; American studies; Volume: 48; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/ams.0.0035

2153-6856

Kirsten Fermaglich,

Race, History, and American Society

Mel Brooks' The Producers:Tracing American Jewish Culture Through Comedy, 1967–2007 Kirsten Fermaglich In its first year on Broadway, Mel Brooks' 2001 musical, The Producers, wowed critics, charmed audiences and shattered records with its 12 Tony awards, and its $100 tickets. Brooks' story of two producers who fail in their scheme to get rich by producing a sure-fire flop, "Springtime for Hitler," became the toast of New York, even in the wake of the attacks of September 11. The extraordinary success of The Producers in the new millennium is particularly surprising for those aware of the extremely mixed reactions audiences had to Brooks' original movie, The Producers, first released in 1967. Some film critics panned the film, while others loved it; the film sold out in some cities and barely attracted an audience in others. The Producers won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, but rather than becoming a classic, it became a underground cult film for many years. Given this history, contemporary theater critics, newspaper columnists, and religious leaders offered a number of different interpretations for the wild and unexpected success of Brooks' 2001 musical. One rabbi argued that The Producers was a healthy "coping mechanism" for victims of the Holocaust.1 The editor of the Forward argued that audiences had gained enough distance from the Holocaust to be able to laugh about it.2 And novelist Thane Rosenbaum expressed concern that contemporary American culture had "eventually grow[n] weary of the pieties surrounding the Holocaust."3 [End Page 59] Although all of these explanations can help us to understand the phenomenon of the 2001 musical, The Producers, I would like to offer a different explanation for Brooks' success. This explanation hinges on an historical understanding of both the original 1967 movie, The Producers, and the musical play version of 2001: although they were substantially similar, each reflected the era in which it was produced, and their ability to speak to different audiences in separate eras helps to explain their very different critical responses. The film version reflected the upheaval of the 1960s in the United States, and particularly in American Jewish life: generational and political divisions, as well as the changing social status and cultural preoccupations of Jews during this era reshaped the American Jewish community, and Brooks' wild film reflected this moment of very loud and visible change. The tamer Broadway musical version of The Producers in 2001, on the other hand, reflected a very different country, and a changed Jewish American experience in the 1990s. While issues like abortion and homosexuality moved to the center of public discourse in virulent culture wars during this decade, Jews moved more decisively, if quietly and unobtrusively, into the white mainstream. These changing dynamics in American Jewish life can help us to understand why "Springtime for Hitler" could be viewed as an outrage by many in 1967 and a triumph by most in 2001. Jews in 1967 were still anxious about anti-semitism, fearful of fascism, and just beginning to express rage publicly about the murder of millions of Jews during World War II. In this context, many Jews believed that the idea of a play produced by Jews glorifying Nazis was not only tasteless but also despicable and even dangerous. In 2001, however, many American Jews, comfortably ensconced in the American middle class, embraced the outrageous premise of the play as a signal of their triumph over Nazism, their success in the United States, and as a nostalgic reminder of their youth. A brief summary of The Producers' film plot is necessary for understanding these different responses to the film and the musical. The film is set in New York in the 1960s. Flamboyant, egomaniacal Broadway producer Max Bialystock (played by Zero Mostel) teams up with neurotic, timid accountant Leo Bloom (played by Gene Wilder) in a fraudulent scheme to oversell shares in a flop. Since investors do not expect to receive returns on failed plays, the men plan to produce the worst play ever, and pocket investors' money when the play folds. Bialystock seduces little old ladies into buying shares of Springtime for Hitler, "a gay romp with Adolf and Eva," written by an escaped Nazi...