Starring and directed by Bradley Cooper, Maestro is set to give us a more intimate peek into the life of legendary film composer, Leonard Bernstein. Judging by the trailer alone, the Netflix film looks like it’s aiming for more than a few Oscars, including a potential best actor award for Cooper. However, there might be one thing getting in the way of what could be a career-best performance being taken seriously.
The problem comes down to the prosthetic nose that Cooper has attached to his face. For one, it’s not too convincing and kind of just looks weird — at best it’s a pretty big distraction — but that’s the least of Cooper’s problems. The main issue is that the nose is offensive. It’s been exaggerated in size beyond the realm of simply being a prosthetic that makes the actor look like the figure he’s supposed to be portraying, and instead, it ends up coming across as anti-Semitic.
When compared side by side, you can clearly see that Cooper’s nose in the film looks much bigger than Bernstein’s actual nose. In fact, the Guardians of the Galaxy star’s real nose looks to be a closer match to the conductor’s, so why did they have to use a prosthetic?
The controversial make-up choice has understandably turned some heads online and caused outrage. The exaggerated nose has been interpreted by many to be an attempt at making the lead actor look overtly and stereotypically Jewish regardless of whether it actually matches the features of Bernstein himself.
Some are dubbing the make-up as “jew face” due to it reinforcing negative stereotypes surrounding those of Jewish descent. The controversy has led to some fans of the actor condemning him and his movie due to the racist caricature.
Others were quick to jump to the actor’s defense arguing that the prosthetic did actually help make the actor look like Bernstein. It seems to be a matter of individual opinions on whether the prosthetic nose was necessary.
Before we make it about racism, y’all need to understand, it isn’t Jewish caricature, they are trying to make Bradley Cooper look like Bernstein, who had a big nose. You’re weird if you see a big nose and the first thought that comes to your mind is “Jewish Caricature.”
On the flip side, Bernstein wasn’t exactly known for having a big nose, so it doesn’t add up that the filmmakers would choose to make it so exaggerated. This isn’t like Rami Malek’s prosthetic teeth in Bohemian Rhapsody. For many, it just seems like an unnecessary change for the actor that doesn’t add anything to the film.
There were also criticisms surrounding Cooper’s casting in the first place with some saying an actual Jewish actor should have been selected for the role. Jake Gyllenhaal’s name came up a few times as the perfect casting for the film.
“Hollywood cast Bradley Cooper — a non Jew — to play Jewish legend Leonard Bernstein and stuck a disgusting exaggerated “Jew nose” on him. All while saying no to Jake Gyllenhaal, an actually Jewish man, who has dreamt of playing Bernstein for decades. Sickening.”
Cooper is known for going through some pretty wild physical transformations for his roles, so this is definitely on-brand for him. It just seems like no one considered the implications of putting an unnecessary, enlarged prosthetic nose on a Jewish character.