ellauri152.html on line 585: Yeshiva Boy moves fluidly between referring to the main character as Yentl or Anshel depending on context, which is a great detail. There are times when she’s referred to as Anshel for long stretches of time, and the same for Yentl. The movie, not having third person narration, is a different beast. I take my cue from the story and use both names, depending on the context of what I’m talking about—for example, if Yentl is definitely seen as Yentl by the story in that moment, or as Anshel, or ambiguously as both. That’s a very subjective choice to make each time you write her name! But that question, the fact that you have to ask it of yourself and the fact that it’s not always clear, is to me a crucial part of Yentl’s character.
ellauri152.html on line 591: In the story, Avigdor just trembles and sits down, and Yentl calmly explains. He then asks what she is going to do now, and she says she will go to a different yeshiva and start over. Avigdor half says they could get married, but doesn’t finish the sentence. Yentl rebuffs him, saying it wouldn’t be good, and explains, “I’m neither one nor the other.” She tells him to go back to Badass instead. Avigdor has strange feelings, trying to reconcile who Anshel is, who Yentl is. But they spend the night in companionable debate, discussing Yentl’s marriage to Badass and whether she legally needs to divorce her, as well as why Yentl crossdressed. Avigdor brings up marriage again, but Yentl refuses even stronger.
ellauri152.html on line 613: “Miss Streisand [made] Yentl, whose greatest passion was the Torah, go on a ship to America, singing at the top of her lungs. Why would she decide to go to America? Weren’t there enough yeshivas in Poland or in Lithuania where she could continue to study? Was going to America Miss Streisand’s idea of a happy ending for Yentl? What would Yentl have done in America? Worked in a sweatshop 12 hours a day where there is no time for learning? Would she try to marry a salesman in New York, move to the Bronx or to Brooklyn and rent an apartment with an ice box and a dumbwaiter? This kitsch ending summarizes all the faults of the adaptation. It was done without any kinship to Yentl’s character, her ideals, her sacrifice, her great passion for spiritual achievement. As it is, the whole splashy production has nothing but a commercial value.”
ellauri152.html on line 617: So I’m not of Singer’s opinion that the movie has no merit. I love Yentl’s music and emotionality (the short story is more distant), and I think I’ll always love it. But I do prefer Yeshiva Boy’s ambivalence and ambiguity to the movie’s heterosexual Hollywood polish.
ellauri152.html on line 621: This genderqueerness is the simple fact of Yentl’s character in Yeshiva Boy, but totally painted over in Yentl.
ellauri152.html on line 622: And yet in other ways, the film can’t help preserving the queerness of the story despite itself. Barbra Streisand can add a song about how Yentl is just jealous of Badass for being a conventionally feminine woman whom Avigdor loves, but she can’t stop me from putting my grubby little bi hands all over her film, pointing at Yentl’s tortured gaze aimed at Badass, and saying “GAY.” And she certainly didn’t no-homo the interactions between Anshel and Avigdor very well, because they are in fact very yes-homo, and I will point and say “GAY” at that too.
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