Talk:Gentleman's Agreement

Adaptations
Gregory Peck reprised his role of Phil Green for the Lux Radio Theater adaptation of "Gentlemen's Agreement", but the role of Kathy was played by Anne Baxter. 24.57.249.250 (talk) 23:24, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

POV
It might help the article to emphasize the movie's novel aspect: a gentile conducts personal research into antisemitism by the simply device of telling people that he is Jewish. The point is that being Jewish is not an ordinarily detectable trait, and that each person's prejudice comes simply from his own stereotypes. The fact that Jews with ordinary names who do not reveal their religion / ethnicity are undetectable gives the lie to the stereotype.

Disclaimers: I am Jewish, but no one knows it unless I tell them, since my last name is not anything like Goldstein. Also, I am not trying to make this article biased toward or against anything; rather, I am trying to describe the POV of the director and the original author. --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:32, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Another aspect is women's rights, or the status of women in employment or (simply) the world of ideas. Green is struck by the notion that the idea for the article came from "a girl" at the magazine. His housekeeper replies, "Why next women will be thinking next". --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:52, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Oops, that wasn't his housekeeper, it was his mom! --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:03, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Keeping the secret
As an avid reader of spy novels, I'm also concerned with another aspect of the movie: the difficulty of keeping the secret that Green is not really Jewish. It's (obviously) the flip side of keeping one's "Jewishness" a secret, as his secretary has been doing by changing her name.

Phil immediately gets into a quarrel (or "difficult discussion") with his new fiancee about whom to tell and what to tell them. Of course, this is the whole point: the way people react to (or treat) people changes on a dime, based entirely on their ideas about "the group you belong to".

But how do I describe this for the article? --Uncle Ed (talk) 19:19, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You don't. You find a published work that makes the point and cite it. The article here is not meant to be a general collection of thoughts on prejudice or even on the book/movie, but an overview of recognized criticism & analysis of the subject.  So if there's a book or period review that goes into that point, cite it.  Original insights you have are best published elsewhere, and if it achieves a level of legitimacy then it qualifies to be cited here. --anon  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.47.174.65 (talk) 16:14, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

American life, 64 years later
I'm perhaps even more struck over another difference than the lessening of anti-semitism. It's the lessening of general good manners. When Phil's army captain friend gets in a scuffle with a drunken anti-semite at a swanky restaurant, everyone's too much of a gentleman to start actually taking punches. The antisemite's friend immediately apologizes for his friend's remark, pulls his friend away, and scolds him publicly. The manager or maitre d' comes over to apologize. Or is this just the difference between upper class and middle class behavior in general? --Uncle Ed (talk) 19:52, 19 June 2011 (UTC)