The sexy Jewess moves boldly between neo-burlesque striptease, comedy television, ballet movies, and progressive porn. Bringing sexiness together with race, gender, and class, The Case of the Sexy Jewess looks at embodied joke-work that is most often, but not always meant to be funny.

Contents Acknowledgements Introduction The Case of the Sexy Jewess Repetition with a Difference and the Joke Body Expressive Confessions of a "Face Like That" All in a Look The Corporeal Turn for New Jewish Studies Identity Acts and Impersonations Jewish Joke-Work and the Doubled Female Subject The Queer Play of Self-Display Methods and Materials Notes Chapter 1 Nice Girls Gone Blue: Neo-Burlesque Nostalgia and the Downwardly Mobile Rockette Fantasies and the Menorah Horah Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad and Ordering Chinese On Christmas Eve "Polyester Feminism" and the Stakes of Self-Display Sexy Spirit and the Do-It-Yourself Scheme Conclusion Notes Chapter 2 Hello, Gorgeous and the Historical Lens: How Funny Girls Became Sexy Fanny Brice, Barbra Streisand, and the Joke of the Jewish Swan Sophie Tucker, Betty Boop, and the Bawdy Body Blacking Up Party Albums, Postwar Ambitions, and the Jewish American Princess Sexy Jews and Leggy Moves: Bunnies, Babes, and Mermaid Maneuvers Conclusion Notes Chapter 3 Comic Glory (and Guilt): The Appropriative License of Jewish Female Comedy Sandra Bernhard and the I/You Other Race, Sex, and the Sarah Silverman Effect Broad City's Bad Girls Getting Bi In-Between Conclusion Notes Chapter 4 Black Swan, White Nose: Jewish Horror and Ballet Birds By Any Other Name Synopsis and Setup: Thriller Ballet and Jewish Swans All Sexed Up Facing the Jewish Female Monster Jewish Swans, Queer Contexts Lesbian Sex and Swan Sin: Thrills Fit to Forget Swan Queen Kills Herself, Saves Ballet? The Funny Thing About Horror: Moving Across Genres Conclusion Notes Chapter 5 Punk Porn Princess Joanna Angel and the Rise of Jewess Raunch From the Porn Wars to Post-feminism Piggish Authority and Sexual Commodification At Home in Burning Angel and Joanna's Jewish Roots Blow Up Joanna and the Jewish Doppelgänger Heeb Magazine and the Jewish Cutting Edge The Game of Interracial Porn and Joanna's Phallic Check Mate Conclusion Notes Conclusion At the Edge and In Your Face Notes Bibliography Index

"In this fascinating, sweeping analysis of female Jewish comics from Fanny Brice to the Schlep Sisters, and popular film to punk pornography, Schwadron brilliantly considers the intersections of embodiment and movement with gender, race and sexuality. This is a groundbreaking study in which the writing is as layered, provocative, and self-reflexively ironic as the remarkable women she studies." -- Naomi Jackson, Associate Professor of Dance, Arizona State University "To be a funny, sexy Jewess as theorized by Hannah Schwadron, is to be the at the leading edge of 21st Century scholarship, as dance, identity, sexual politics and intellectual rigor meet-up on the pages of this radical, timely, and very important book." -- Douglas Rosenberg, Founding Director, The Conney Project on Jewish Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Whether the subject is old-school comediennes like Fanny Brice, controversial comics like Sarah Silverman, Jewish porn and neo-burlesque stars, or the assimilated 'Jewish princesses' of Hollywood, Schwadron's deftly perceptive writing and idiosyncratic humor makes for an absolutely engaging read that adds much to the fields of Jewish studies, gender and queer studies, media studies, and performance and dance studies." -- Rebecca Rossen, author of Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance

"In this fascinating, sweeping analysis of female Jewish comics from Fanny Brice to the Schlep Sisters, and popular film to punk pornography, Schwadron brilliantly considers the intersections of embodiment and movement with gender, race and sexuality. This is a groundbreaking study in which the writing is as layered, provocative, and self-reflexively ironic as the remarkable women she studies." -- Naomi Jackson, Associate Professor of Dance, Arizona State University "To be a funny, sexy Jewess as theorized by Hannah Schwadron, is to be the at the leading edge of 21st Century scholarship, as dance, identity, sexual politics and intellectual rigor meet-up on the pages of this radical, timely, and very important book." -- Douglas Rosenberg, Founding Director, The Conney Project on Jewish Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Whether the subject is old-school comediennes like Fanny Brice, controversial comics like Sarah Silverman, Jewish porn and neo-burlesque stars, or the assimilated 'Jewish princesses' of Hollywood, Schwadron's deftly perceptive writing and idiosyncratic humor makes for an absolutely engaging read that adds much to the fields of Jewish studies, gender and queer studies, media studies, and performance and dance studies." -- Rebecca Rossen, author of Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance

Selling point: First book on Jewishness, gender, and dance in relation to popular culture Selling point: Looks at Jewish female performance across a spectrum of spectacles Selling point: Argues for a post-assimilatory and post-feminist view of performance

Selling point: First book on Jewishness, gender, and dance in relation to popular culture Selling point: Looks at Jewish female performance across a spectrum of spectacles Selling point: Argues for a post-assimilatory and post-feminist view of performance