Shtisel isn’t perfect, but what it gets right (and what all good Orthodox Jewish representation gets right IMHO) is that it isn’t a story about people being Orthodox Jews, but rather a story about people who happen to be Orthodox Jews. The former framing, necessarily turns Orthodoxy/the Orthodox community into a character in its own right (represented by various 1- or 2-dimensional, stereotypical figures in the protagonist’s life): an antagonist who is the root cause of the conflict in the plot. Because the story is about being Orthodox, the conflict that drives the plot can’t come from anything else (or it would be a story about that). There is no way to tell a story framed that way while depicting Orthodoxy in a nuanced or balanced way. It must be both simplified and vilified in order for such a construction to work.
On the other hand, when the story is about something else, and the characters just happen to be Orthodox, that allows for a 3-dimensional portrayal of Orthodoxy. The fact that a character is Orthodox may have an impact on what type of difficulties he or she encounters or how they are approached, but Orthodoxy is not the problem or the villain, and the protagonist’s difficulties can be addressed in a nuanced and compassionate way. The other characters can also be as fully developed as the protagonist because they are no longer serving as proxies for the antagonist Orthodox Community, and can likewise be treated compassionately even when they clash with the protagonist.Â
(SHTISEL SPOILERS) Akiva’s story could so easily have been told as the story of a brilliant but oppressed artist who must break free of his community (represented by a 1-dimensional father and other relatives), and only after abandoning and overcoming the villain Orthodoxy would he be able to achieve happiness and self-realization. Instead, the story is about Akiva, who is Orthodox, rather than about Akiva being Orthodox. While he struggles with the perception of his work by certain members of his community, as well as how to be both an artist moving through the secular world and a Torah-observant Jew,
a) the condemnation is not universal, because the other characters are individuals with their own complex personalities rather than stand-ins for the big bad Community;Â
b) the audience is allowed to sympathize with the characters who oppose his art even if we disagree with them, because they are humanized with emotions and motivations (see: Shulem wrestling with his initial desire to destroy Akiva’s painting, and ultimately opting to slightly alter it to a form he feels is more respectful to his wife’s legacy);
c) he is able to resolve, or at least learn to live, the tension WITHOUT abandoning his upbringing or his family, via his own personal growth as well as the growth of the other characters around him.
And even when Lippe does choose to leave the community temporarily, it’s about him and his own experiences, not a generalization.
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