My Vicarious Role in a Journalist’s Missed Encounter With Seth Rogen…in Las Vegas

About a month ago, I was contacted by Louie Lazar, a journalist who told me that he was given an assignment by Tablet: to determine whether or not Seth Rogen was the future of Jewish comedy. Pondering this question, Lazar came across several article/blog posts I had written on Seth Rogen for this blog. After […]

Body Talk: On Seth Rogen’s Comical-Erotic Descriptions of Zac Efron’s Body

When Seth Rogen recently went on Conan to promote his latest film, Neighbors, Conan’s first comment went right to the relationship of Seth Rogen to Zac Efron’s body: “Your costar Zac Efron, in this film, I…I didn’t know this but apparently…he’s in ridiculous shape.” In response, Rogen says, shaking his head up and down, as […]

Seth Rogen’s Body – A Few Thoughts on Seth Rogen’s Latest Appearance in “Neighbors”

In one of the most urgent moments of Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up (2007), we see a desperate Ben Stone, played by Seth Rogen, go to his father, played by Harold Ramis, for advice about whether to become a father and have children. Ramis tells Rogen to go for it and that he wants to have […]

The Schlemiel Does Kardashian and Gets Done by Franco: On Seth Rogen and James Franco’s “Bound 2” Video

Is Seth Rogen giving the schlemiel a bad name or…another name?  To be sure, I’ve written several blog-entries on Rogen-as-Schlemiel.  Before I saw Rogen and Franco’s parody of Kanye West’s Latest video, I was already on Rogen’s trail.  And, to my understanding, he, along with Judd Apatow and others, were looking to revise the schlemiel […]

The Transformation of Seth Rogen: From a Schlemiel into a Green Hornet

Seth Rogen is often cast as a schlemiel in many Hollywood films.  We can see this in films like Knocked Up (2007), Superbad (2007), and Pineapple Express (2008). But in films like Knocked Up we start seeing the transformation of Rogen’s character.  In that film, Rogen goes from a pot-smoking “lord of dreams” to a […]

Regarding My Blog Entry on the Rogen/Franco Parody

I’m happy to see that yesterday’s blog post on the Rogen/Franco Parody of Kanye West’s “Bound Two” video has prompted some response.   What I’d like to do in this blog entry is address the questions and concerns of some readers regarding the post. First of all, in my blog entry I acknowledged that this video […]

Some Thoughts on the Schlemiel’s (Political) Body and Benjamin Balthaser’s Recent Essay: “From Schlemiel to Super Hero: Volodmir Zelensky and the Price of Western Inclusion”

As the crisis in the Ukraine has grown, I – like millions of other people – have become very interested in the meaning of Volodmir Zelensky’s journey to becoming the hero of the West in the drama of war. What interests me most, as a scholar of the schlemiel and a schlemiel theorist, is the […]