By Neal Schindler
Amazon’s widely praised, award-winning dramedy “Transparent” really lives up to the hype. The caveat: You have to be OK with messy, often uncomfortable family dynamics. Series creator Jill Soloway knows all about that sort of thing. She was a producer and writer for my all-time favorite series, HBO’s groundbreaking “Six Feet Under,” which featured a decidedly dysfunctional (and WASPy) family who ran a funeral home.
“Transparent” puts excellent transgender actors like Alexandra Billings in the spotlight. In addition, it humanizes complicated issues of gender identity for a pretty mainstream audience. As if that weren’t enough, the show also accomplishes something I rarely see in pop culture: a very believable portrait of contemporary Jewish family life that acknowledges stereotypes without perpetuating them.
The matriarch of the show’s Pfefferman family, Shelly, is the closest “Transparent” comes to simply trotting out a Jewish stereotype. Shelly kvetches and worries and goes on and on about things that don’t matter to anyone else. She’s not above guilt-tripping or manipulating her adult children, and she seems incapable of keeping her inner monologue inside. Yet Judith Light, who plays Shelly, makes her a real, rounded person. This happens largely through her relationship with Maura, née Mort, her ex-husband and the show’s central transgender character.
Through flashbacks, we observe Maura’s journey from male to female, but we also see how Shelly responds as the truth about Maura’s gender identity comes to light. After years of marriage and childrearing, the couple reforges a friendship built on honesty about who Maura is and has always been. Both characters feel disappointment and regret about some things, but they love their children and still have a kind of love for each other, too. Shelly is shrill at times, but she cares about people; her humanity can’t be dismissed.
What distinguishes “Transparent” as a Jewish show is that Judaism works as a significant undercurrent that almost never feels forced. The series neither exploits Jewish themes nor gives them short shrift, and that’s a tough balancing act. (In other words, “When Do We Eat?” this isn’t.) When Maura and Shelly’s son, Josh, dates a rabbi (played by the wonderful Kathryn Hahn), the whole thing feels like a knowing peek into modern Jewish dating, not just a wacky subplot to up the ethnic quotient. It’s no surprise that a bona fide rabbi helped ensure that the Jewish aspects of the show rang true.
In a flashback, Josh’s sister Ali (Gaby Hoffmann, also terrific) chants part of her bat mitzvah Torah portion to an inquisitive, androgynous female stranger. The scene is dynamite: Ali conveys a combination of pride and irreverence for Jewish tradition that should look quite familiar to many a 21st-century, nonreligious young Jew. There’s also a mild element of fetishism about the scene: the ethnic as erotic in an ever more homogenized America. Ali commands her admirer’s rapt attention; the chanted Hebrew works like a bewitching spell. Despite Ali’s own ambivalence about her Jewish identity, to some people it’s clearly a major turn-on. There’s much to be said about Jewish sexuality, but I’ve rarely seen so much expressed so slyly.
What else is Jewish about “Transparent”? Its dark sense of humor, emphasis on family turmoil, and willingness to engage with complex issues put it solidly in Philip Roth territory. And like Roth, Soloway and company don’t shy away from subjects like assimilation and interfaith relationships. Josh finds it easier to fool around with young, naive, non-Jewish women than to start a meaningful relationship with Hahn’s rabbi, who is closer to his age (and far more mature). That may be because Josh still has a lot of growing up to do, but it could also relate to the baggage that comes with dating a fellow Jew, to say nothing of a rabbi. Shelly really, really wants Josh to date that rabbi. How can you fall in love in a natural way when your mother is backseat-driving your relationship?
The last moments of the season finale emphasize not gender issues but an interfaith culture clash. I don’t want to spoil it for you; suffice it to say that Maura’s “Oy gevalt!” still echoes in my mind. Throughout its marvelous first season, “Transparent” depicts compelling characters who struggle to bridge divides and understand each other. As it turns out, this effort is closely linked to one of humanity’s age-old challenges: to see oneself in others, and to treat them as one would wish to be treated. That applies whether you’re trans, Jewish, both, or neither.
