At the very end of October, many Marvel fans got excited at the news of Oscar Isaac being revealed as the likely casting for the upcoming Disney+ Moon Knight series. Oscar Isaac is a great actor and has done well with the roles he has been in, including the Star Wars sequels, regardless of what anyone thinks of the overall quality of the films themselves. Having a great and versatile actor in the role should be a great thing, but there is a slight issue. It involves Moon Knights’ background in the comics.
Marc Spector, aka Moon Knight, is a character with a Jewish background in the comics. He was the son of a rabbi who became a mercenary before becoming the vigilante called Moon Knight. Oscar Isaac’s casting is drawing concern from those who would rather see the character played by a Jewish actor for better representation.
I want to be clear here that this is not saying Moon Knight needs to be a white looking Jew, since there is no one group of Jews that should be considered the way Jews are supposed to look. If they were to establish Moon Knight as being from a Latin Jewish background, that would be just fine. The issue is with the actor, Oscar Isaac, himself.
Oscar Isaac, born Oscar Isaac Hernandez Estrada, was raised in a Christian household of Guatemalan and Cuban descent. He identifies as Christian, and that means the role is denied to a Jewish actor. Therefore, Jewish representation is not given properly. The thing is, though, one could very well argue that given the nature of the comics, it might be best not to have the character be Jewish at all in the series.
In the comics, Moon Knight gains his powers from and is an avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. He gains power from being Khonshu’s champion and has even served as his vessel before. Having a Jewish character worship and be the champion of an Egyptian god may be even more controversial than simply denying Jewish representation. Having representation is good, but it’s also how the representation is handled that is important. After all, religious Jews would not only object to a Jewish character serving a foreign god, but the fact that it is an Egyptian god would also be a bit of a problem as well.
The deeper issue is that this also represents a trend for Jewish characters from comics not being depicted by Jewish actors, despite a push for proper representation for groups in media. Batwoman is Jewish in the comics, but Ruby Rose, who portrayed Batwoman in Season 1 is not Jewish herself for example. And none of the films adapting the Fantastic Four comics have had a Jewish actor play Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, despite his Judaism being established by that point in the comics. If the solution is to not make Moon Knight Jewish, then that doesn’t solve the issue that Jewish characters have a tendency to not be played by Jewish actors at all.
In the process of researching this article, I learned that according to some sites, Oscar Isaac’s father does have Jewish ancestry, which is not impossible given the Jewish community of Cuba, but I have not been able to confirm for a fact if this is true. If it is true, then that does raise some other questions, such as how he identifies and does he acknowledge that ancestry. There are many who have Jewish ancestry but do not consider themselves Jewish, and that is an important distinction. Jessica Alba was found to have Jewish ancestors in common with Alan Dershowitz, but she obviously doesn’t identify as Jewish. In the end, though, that is a bit of a can of worms as I do not feel it is right for me to define if someone else is Jewish based on my own criteria. Others may have different criteria for what is a Jews that will vary.
Moon Knight is a touchy subject to begin with, and truth be told, his Jewish background was not intended to be a thing to begin with. It was a retcon after the writers realized they had given him a Jewish name and so made the change to his backstory. That said though, it was established and is part of the character. What Disney (and other companies) needs to do in the future is to try to cast Jewish actors in Jewish roles: have a Jewish actor play Ben Grimm, have a Jewish actress play Kitty Pryde, and be considerate of and do not hide or change the characters’ Jewish story going forward. It does matter for Jews to see themselves in stories that Jews helped create to begin with, but that itself involves a separate story and requires more detail and so is for another time.
