MovieChat Forums > The Man in the High Castle (2015) Discussion > How does Juliana know what a Bar Mitzvah...

How does Juliana know what a Bar Mitzvah is????

posted 5 years ago by lolkatz (475)
8 replies | jump to latest

Midway through Season 3 there's an episode where Juliana, Frank and Ed joyously catch up on the time they've spent apart from each other. Then Frank tells about his adult Bar Mitzvah and then Juliana giggles and says something like she wish she was there to see that. This is where the show sucks so bad, and its characters look so fake: she could not possibly have a frame of reference for Jewish customs. She was raised in a Japanese-occupied San Francisco, where Jews need to hide because of the agreement with the Nazi Reich, just like her fellow San Franciscan, Mark Samson, who is very Jewish, but keeps really quiet about this, and of course, Frank himself.

So, wouldn't it make more sense if Juliana asked something like "Oh, and what is a Bar Mitzvah?" Instead she giggles as if she's from a normal timeline America where such customs are commonplace. She somehow 'knows' that the ritual involves 13 year old boys and it would be hilarious to see adult Frank in the role, right? The show is pathetic. Because if it were more truthful to itself, Juliana would scarcely know anything about Judaism. Frank himself scarcely knew anything about the customs before joining the secret community and taking religious lessons. Juliana obviously less so.

And in that same scene, Ed recounts his same-sex romance with the Denver cowboy, and Juliana and Frank respond to this approvingly as if they're from 2010s United States. And this is a very totalitarian 1960s America. Even the normal 1960's America was way more stingy about such things, and Ed would be far less forthcoming about it, even in front of his best friends, particularly if these friends were straight. It's just another example where this show is so fake and shallow.

[–] xfool (922) 5 years ago

Frank was her ex-bf so why wouldnt she know about Jewish customs, seems like they were a couple for quite a while before the series started.

[–] lolkatz (475) 5 years ago

OH come on. First off, Frank was no source on Jewish customs because he was hiding his origins, and only upon meeting Mark Samson did he first start to uncover the hitherto unknown culture. Juliana, on the other hand, would have known even less even if Frank had shared the little he had known. Despite all that, at the dinner table scene she was as amused about the Bar Mitzvah story as though she had a complete mental picture in her head about how the custom should be, and there's a very slant chance she had even heard about it. It was so fake.

[–] NukeDude (578) 5 years ago

"... It was so fake..."

Are you just as outraged about other "fake" aspects to this SCIENCE FICTION story?

[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

Why would Juliana not know what a Bat Mitzvah was? It's not like all Jewish people were gone and then five or six generations passed, so no one knew anything about their culture anymore. The Japanese Pacific States passed laws against Jews to satisfy their "partners" in the Reich but, as Inspector Kido told Frank at one point, there were none in Japan so the Japanese had no personal hatred for them. It seemed like enforcing those rules was a low priority for the Kenpeitai. They used it as an excuse to haul someone in on occasion but large scale extermination wasn't happening. Unofficially, as long as they stayed in the closet (so to speak) Jews were tolerated.

And as NukeDude pointed out, with all the various plot elements involving parallel timelines and travelers this is what you find unrealistic? Are you not familiar with customs and traditions from cultures other than your own?

[–] lolkatz (475) 5 years ago

A weak argument. Nothing in the series had previously established that Juliana would be familiar with the Mitzvah ceremonies. Who knows, maybe inside of that totalitarian society, there would have been an opportunity for her to even attend one of them, but it didn't. It's just a shoddy writing, if you ask me.

[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

Talk about a weak argument! Bad writing. I've never attended a bat mitzvah myself but I know what they are. Are you seriously suggesting average people know nothing whatsoever of Jewish traditions only 17 years after the war? Even in the Nazi Reich that's impossible, and in the Pacific States Jews aren't actually persecuted as long as they observe their faith privately. And despite the fact that he wasn't really practicing during the time he lived with Juliana Frank would've attended bat mitzvahs himself as a child. Surely he had at least one amusing story to tell her. That you're complaining about this is silly. The level of public ignorance you seem to think is plausible ... now that would be bad writing!

[–] lolkatz (475) 5 years ago

"You yourself?" A person inhabiting a world with omnipresent information channels and abundance of content justa about everything? (And yet you still confuse bar mitzvah with bat mitzvah). Compare that to a technologically way more inferior world of two oppressive totalitarian regimes neither one of which would be keen on spreading the info on Jewish festivities. This is a case of a poor world-building. "Oh you should have seen me, a grown man, at my Bar Mitzvah, LOL!"

[–] chrisjdel (2714) 5 years ago

Information about the outside world trickles into North Korea, despite the over-the-top oppressive measures taken to ensure it won't. The people may not be anywhere near as well informed as we'd hope, but they know a lot more than Kim Jong-Un wishes they did. They read books and watch TV shows smuggled in from the South. And quite a few of them hate his guts no matter what their public behavior suggests.

The same was true in Nazi Germany. You had to be careful who you trusted, but Hitler never had as much control over his own people as he thought. There were Jewish families who continued to live in plain sight because town hall records that might give away their heritage were creatively misplaced or altered, and their neighbors never gave them up. One can only assume a conquered America would be defiant under the surface as much as they could get away with. We mostly see John Smith's children in the show, the family of an arch-collaborator would not be typical (and season 3 showed us fresh evidence their older son was probably the only True Believer in the household).

In the Japanese Pacific States Jews are not actively hunted or persecuted unless they try to practice openly. One assumes the technical prohibition was part of whatever treaty divvied up the US between Germany and Japan but only the Nazis are genuinely dedicated to enforcing it. Presumably you'd have secret ceremonies going on in homes, or churches with Christian congregations on the main floor and a synagogue in the basement, accessible through a side door. Local Japanese authorities would of course be aware of their existence but since they're out of sight, there's plausible deniability and no official paperwork would contain any reference to them. Everyone would know the unwritten rules. Keep a low profile and you're safe.

The kind of information control that blots a whole people or culture out of existence is impossible. Tyrants who think enough threats, forced labor camps, and executions will give them that control have consistently been proven wrong. The only way I can think of would be the one laid out in George Orwell's 1984, gradually dumbing down the language to the point where old media is incomprehensible and non-doctrine ideas can't be properly expressed. And you'd still need people who weren't hobbled by that stripped down thinking or civilization would collapse.