Musical Theatre

Bradley Cooper has faced an onslaught of criticism for wearing a prosthetic nose to play the late conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, in his latest film Maestro. The backlash came after Netflix released the first trailer to the romantic biographical drama, which was also directed and co-written by Cooper.

Critics are calling it a classic case of "Jewface" and it's not the first of its kind Hollywood has seen.

While there's nothing wrong with actors using prosthetics in order to look more like the person they are portraying, the act of enlarging one's nose to resemble a Jewish person has deep historical ties to antisemitism.

Critics also took offence to Cooper for not having any religious or ethnic relations to Judaism.

Bernstein's three children, Jamie, Alexander and Nina, have taken to social platform X to stand in solidarity with Cooper, saying they have been consulted throughout the making of the project.

The casting of gentile actor Katerina McCrimmon as Fanny Brice in the US tour of Funny Girl led to similar criticism by some members of the Jewish community.