The Rhetoric of the Uncommon Sense.

Happy Birthday, Woody!

Woody Allen was born 70 years ago today as Allan Stewart Konigsberg, in the Bronx, to a Viennese mother, Nettie, and a Russian father, Leon. (Reportedly, he chose the name Woody because his first choice, Mel, was already taken by a sportscaster, and because “Woody” seemed funny. Funny simply because “Woody” is the captain of the football team in Middle America, not a small bespectacled Jew from New York… The beginning of a marvelous career of subverting American “norms” through a careful process of melding self-effacement with an odd form of self-assertion.)

I was going to write a nice historical piece about Woody, but that has already been taken care of. Instead, I sit and ponder the lifelong relationship between he and I, and I think of all the hours of enjoyment I have received, as well as the ways in which his work has affected my life and work.

Those of you who know me, or have followed this blog, may guess how I feel about Woody Allen. Since childhood, along with Groucho Marx and Charlie Chaplin, Allen has been one of the most formative influences on both my sense of humour and my political sensibilities. Further, my identity as a Jew who is unaffiliated with any particular trend of Judaism has been partially forged and grounded in the work of this adorable little man.

The first way in which Woody has impacted my life is in the way he has made me question the privilege of suffering. We all know that the Jews have suffered. Simply put, if G-d were really a Father, we would have sued Him for failure to support years ago. However, despite resistance to his message, Woody often serves as a conscience for the Jews of North America. As long as one guy in the world is hungry, Allen once claimed, he can’t be happy. Further, the greatest charge that Allen has leveled against the Jews is that there can be no hope for a religion that cares only for its own kind, and that there is something seriously wrong with Judaism as currently practiced if the only suffering that matters to its adherents is that of other Jews. I’m not sure if there is any other critique of Judaism that has so profoundly affected me.

The second way that Allen has shaped the way I see myself and the world is the way in which his work has served to interrogate the academic industry of thought production. Allen’s work, which is so attractive to the intellectual set, is first and foremost a rejection of the ivory tower form of scholarship of “Big University Thinkers” who sit and muse on the meanings of Marshall McLuhan, but never just go and watch an audience fall out of their seats laughing at a slapstick picture. For Allen, the world of the intellectual is a world void of vital fluids, and a world in which the search for capital-t Truth obscures the daily life of humans. For Allen there is only Struggle, Employment, Enjoyment, Life, and Love. Truth is irrelevant, except for what one finds in a romantic quest for acceptance and connection.

Allen’s work has also taught me that if someone is more comfortable quoting Karl Marx than Groucho Marx, he probably has never had a single reason to smile in his whole life, and seriously needs to check his priorities, not to mention his pulse.

And anyone who has dedicated their lives to the deconstruction of the thoughts of others probably does so because they have none of their own.

Finally, Allen’s pictures serve as constant reminders for me that experience of the Divine is a thorn in human existence. The fact that some people claim to have faith and to have experienced G-d is one of the cruelest taunts a person can make to the rest of the world. It makes everyone else feel a void that doesn’t have to be there! The fact is that to be human is to be insecure about the world. That was what our ancestors knew, and that is what we feel too when we are naked, sick or undergoing an interview.

However, ultimately, does it matter if there is a G-d? Sure, we’d probably live a bit differently if we had absolute knowledge of G-d, but what point would there be of waiting around for the ending? The final chips fall like this: We can spend our whole life searching for our G-d, but we may not like what we find, so maybe it is just better to find someone to love and a meaning for ourselves that won’t piss G-d off, but neither will it collapse if we found out there is no Higher Power at all.

This seems like pretty good advice to me.

So, Happy Birthday, Woody! Thanks for helping to send me in my current direction, and thanks for the years of pleasure. We may not have proof of the existence of G-d, but as long as we have Woody the small sparks of discomfort and insecurity in us will not force us to be alone in our misery.


"To you, I'm an atheist; to G-d, I'm the Loyal Opposition."