Netflix Comedy ‘You People’ Offers a New Take on the Contemporary Black-Jewish Relationship

January 26, 2023 JTA

The stars of Netflix's "You People" include (left to right) David Duchovny, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jonah Hill, Lauren London, Eddie Murphy and Nia Long. (Parrish Lewis/Netflix via JTA)

By Andrew Lapin

Were Jews the “OG slaves”? Can the debacle of American slavery be compared to the tragedy of the Holocaust? And just exactly who gets the final word on controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan?

These questions have spurred highly contentious debates over the decades. Now, they will receive a decidedly raunchier take in the new Netflix comedy “You People,” which hits streaming on Friday, Jan. 27.

Starring Jewish Academy Award-nominated actor, filmmaker and funnyman Jonah Hill — who co-wrote the script with “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris — the film stars a visibly tattooed Hill as Ezra Cohen, a young Jewish man who falls in love with Amira Mohammed, a Black woman played by “Without Remorse” actress Lauren London.

In a new trailer for the movie that opens with a scene shot at the Skirball Cultural Center, a Jewish educational institution in Los Angeles, Hill’s semi-woke Jewish parents Shelley and Arnold — played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny — seem to immediately bless the union following some awkward comments about hair and rappers.

It’s Amira’s parents, Akbar and Fatima (played by Eddie Murphy and Nia Long), who prove a tougher sell — particularly once Akbar, who says he identifies as “Muslim,” tells the Cohens that he is a follower of Louis Farrakhan, whose antisemitism is longstanding and well-known.

If Murphy’s character is following in the long cinematic tradition of adopting zany antics to try to prevent a marriage, it’s not clear in the trailer, where he tells Ezra’s mother that his hat was a gift from Farakkhan himself.

“Are you familiar with the Minister’s work?” Akbar asks Shelley.

“I’m familiar with what he said about the Jews!” she replies.

Other awkward moments abound in the trailer, including a dinner table argument comparing slavery to the Holocaust. “Our people came here with nothing, like everybody else,” Shelley says to a round of profound cringes.

It’s all in a day’s work for director and co-producer Barris, whose series of sitcoms are well-known for prompting uncomfortable conversations about race and culture. In the aftermath of recent antisemitism controversies involving rapper Kanye West, basketball star Kyrie Irving and comedian Dave Chappelle, it seems that Barris has found the ideal moment for a “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”-style comedy about contemporary Black-Jewish relations.

An earlier trailer for “You People,” featuring only Hill and Murphy, made no references to the film’s Jewish content. The new trailer’s density of Jewish jokes is sure to fuel an ongoing debate over “Jewface,” or whether it is appropriate for non-Jewish actors to be cast as Jewish characters.

While the 39-year-old Hill is Jewish — the star recently petitioned to drop his legal surname, Feldstein, because he has never used it professionally — his on-screen parents are not. But Duchovny and Louis-Dreyfus do have Jewish fathers, as does London.

“You People” also stars Elliott Gould, Rhea Perlman, Molly Gordon, Mike Epps and Bryan Greenberg.

Andrew Lapin is the managing editor of local news for the JTA global Jewish news source.