On Tuesday, the trailer for Bradley Cooper's upcoming movie Maestro was released, with the Leonard Bernstein biopic being Bradley's first project as director since his hit 2018 film A Star Is Born.
Maestro is about Jewish composer Bernstein's life and career, and is mainly centered on his relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre. However, Bradley has faced backlash for casting himself in the lead role despite not being Jewish.
The scrutiny has intensified following the trailer's release, with Bradley being criticized for wearing a prosthetic nose for his performance as Bernstein — a move that has been branded "antisemitic."
And when side-by-side comparison photos of the real Bernstein alongside Bradley started to circulate online, people were dismayed to see that Bradley's actual nose was a more accurate match, and they argued that this is proof that the prosthetic was only being used to feed into racist stereotypes.
"The prosthetic looks inaccurate — Bradley Cooper’s real nose would have been a closer match. So the prosthetic functions as a clumsy racial signifier more than anything else," one person tweeted.
"This feels especially sinister because Bradley Cooper’s nose is already the same shape and size, if not slightly larger, than Leonard Bernstein’s was," another tweeted.
Someone else added: "This isn’t about making a non-Jewish actor look more like Leonard Bernstein; it’s about making a non-Jewish actor look more like a Jewish stereotype."
And one social media user took the opportunity to point out that Jake Gyllenhaal previously shared his disappointment at losing a bid for the rights to make a film about Bernstein.
Jake's mom is Jewish, and he was raised in the Jewish faith. In 2021, he admitted that he had been hoping to play "one of the most preeminent Jewish artists in America" for almost two decades.
Jake told Deadline at the time: “No one likes to admit this, but we got beat at our own game. That’s basically what happened. There’s really nothing more to say about it than that."
"There’s always another project," he went on. "Sticking your neck out, hoping to get to tell the stories you love and that have been in your heart for a very long time is something to be proud of. And that story, that idea of playing one of the most preeminent Jewish artists in America and his struggle with his identity was in my heart for 20-some-odd years, but sometimes, those things don’t work out."
In addition to the backlash surrounding the prosthetic, Bernstein fans are also concerned that the musician has been “straightwashed" in the movie.
While he was married to Felicia for more than 30 years, until her death in 1978, he was known to have affairs with men. In 2018, Bernstein's daughter, Jamie, revealed that Felicia had acknowledged this in a letter to her husband in 1951 — the year that they wed.
"You are a homosexual and may never change,” the letter read. “I am willing to accept you as you are.”
Following her mom's death, Jamie recalled her father's "slow creep toward overt gayness." Bernstein's West Side Story collaborator, Arthur Laurents, also referred to the composer as “a gay man who got married. He wasn’t conflicted about it at all. He was just gay.”
While it is currently unclear how much Bernstein's sexuality will be explored in Maestro, some expressed their disappointment that it wasn't more overtly referenced in the film's trailer.
