Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew

Mel Brooks is a great comic voice of the twentieth century who has straddled the line between outsider and insider, obedient and rebellious, and has seen the most success when he found a balance between his unflagging, subversive, manic energy and the constraints imposed by comedic partners, the Hollywood system, and American cultural mores. His American Jewish humor has become an essential part of the American mainstream, paving the way for generations of Jewish (and other) comedians.

Format: Hardback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 28 March 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press

A spirited dive into the life and career of a performer, writer, and director who dominated twentieth-century American comedy
 
Mel Brooks, born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn in 1926, is one of the great comic voices of the twentieth century. Having won almost every entertainment award there is, Brooks has straddled the line between outsider and insider, obedient and rebellious, throughout his career, making out-of-bounds comedy the American mainstream.
 
Jeremy Dauber argues that throughout Brooks’s extensive body of work—from Your Show of Shows to Blazing Saddles to Young Frankenstein to Spaceballs—the comedian has seen the most success when he found a balance between his unflagging, subversive, manic energy and the constraints imposed by comedic partners, the Hollywood system, and American cultural mores. Dauber also explores how Brooks’s American Jewish humor went from being solely for niche audiences to an essential part of the American mainstream, paving the way for generations of Jewish (and other) comedians to come.

Weight: 386g
Dimension: 156 x 218 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300244274