Throughout The Jazz Singer, the characters are involved in a series of conflicts
arising from from generational difference.
While these differences can often tear people apart, the film suggests that
common ground can be found and competing values can be reconciled with one
another.
The Jazz Singer is a film about the conflict between father and son, and the
mother’s attempt to reconcile the two.
The film presents two distinct cultures—the consumer culture and the
conservative religious culture.
Comparing and contrasting the musical careers of Jakie and his father can further
illustrate the cultural differences between them.
The world that Jakie makes himself a part of musically is the evolving Hollywood
lifestyle which his generation began to make famous.
In this culture clash, Sara Rabinowitz seeks to mediate between father and son by
giving him the support and the freedom he needs to pursue his dream.
By following his dream, which was different from his father’s, Jakie is ultimately
able to reconcile his secular culture with his father’s religious culture.
Generational and cultural conflicts are apparent in the film The Jazz Singer, but
people can also overcome these differences to find common ground with one
another.
The turn of the decade brought about a new era for women in America.
The Jazz Singer portrays this dramatic revolution by highlighting the differences
between Sara Rabinowitz and Mary Dale; each had their own unique attitudes
toward the world, reflected in their different senses of fashion.
Jakie’s mother, Sara Rabinowitz, is portrayed as the traditional, old-fashioned
woman in The Jazz Singer; she is noticeably traditional in her clothing.
Her clothing is not the only old-fashioned thing about her—her attitude toward
her husband and her role in the home is traditional, as well.
Mary Dale, Jakie’s colleague and friend in the world of show business, is
portrayed Sara’s opposite; in her clothing, for instance, she is notably modern.
In her attitude and worldview, too, Mary Dale represents the modern woman.
Fashion choices reflect many of the broad cultural changes women were
experiencing in the 1920s.
Women were important conduits of modernity in the 1920s, symbolized by their
break from tradition in fashion; The Jazz Singer epitomizes both the modern and
the traditional modes of femininity.