The Way We Were and the Fight for Social Justice

Sydney Pollack's film The Way We Were uses similar elements of social justice as films by Sidney Lumet. This justice can also be seen as particularly Jewish. Although coated with more gloss than Lumet's best films, The Way We Were manages to deal with political and social issues effectively. The political activism of the Old Left and communism is significant for Katie (Barbra Streisand). Ideas of guilt become apparent in both Katie's and Hubbell's (Robert Redford) politics and relationship. Also, repressing individual beliefs and conforming into the acceptable role plagues the love between the two main characters. Mixed with this social concern are prevalent tropes that appear in numerous films by Jewish writers and directors such as New York, show business, and mixed marriage. These blend together and allow Sydney Pollack's movie to be studied along with Lumet's and other major Jewish directorial work. They also cause strain on the main relationship and cause its downfall.

The film introduces Katie Morosky as a post-college young adult who is a Leftist radio worker. She is visibly and verbally upset by the cuts that the censors made to a script. After work Katie and her boss go to a bar where she spots Hubbell, starting a long flashback sequence to her college days where she and Hubbell attended the same university. Flashbacks are used well in both The Pawnbroker and Daniel, two of Lumet's more serious social justice films. Katie is the most well known student Communist leaders at the school and works non-stop to produce flyers and create speeches in order to spread communism. Her attachment to the American Communist Party relates to Daniel, specifically the titular character's parents. Both Katie and the Isaacson's are active around the same time period. In Daniel "the presence [Lumet] insists his audience recall, encompasses a veritable history of American Jewish politics, which trace their activist roots to Yiddish-speaking immigrants, the world of sweat-shops and union organizing, and then to ...the American Communist Party" (Desser, 221). The Way We Were works in similar, but not exactly the same way. Pollack's film gives the political background of young Jewish activists in order to set up a diversion between Katie's radicalism and Hubbell's reluctance. Her speech in front of the student's on the quad reveals Hub's respect and agreement with her ideals, but his actions throughout the film don't allow his feelings to surface.

These early scenes at the college also show the attraction that both characters feel for each other. In class, when his short story is read aloud, she is upset that her story was not picked, but amazed at Hub's great talent. This attraction is a strange reworking of the Jewish/non-Jewish relationship. Woody Allen and Mel Brooks used non-Jewish women as attractors of men. Pollack's film uses the non-Jewish man as the attractor of the woman. Katie later describes him as the "gorgeous goyish guy" who fell for the Jewish girl. The scene where Hubbell's short story is read aloud in class continues the "shiksa" element, which is the education of the non-Jew. Katie is amazed at his writing talent, but wants to be able to help him grow as a writer and use his talents to further his political thoughts.

Years later, after they meet again in New York, she encourages him to continue writing after his first novel failed. Her coaxing drives Hub and he eventually gets a job as a Hollywood screenwriter. Like Annie becoming a singer after Alvy's coaxing in Annie Hall, the move causes problems in the relationship. "Relationships, too often temporary, still give meaning to life, itself short, horrible, and filled with doubt and death" in The Way We Were just as it did in Woody Allen's film (Desser, 80). Katie and Hubbell know that their differences are too numerous to overcome, but remain together until the pressure is too overwhelming and a child is conceived. The love between the two does not disappear, as seen in the final sequence, but the relationship was too destructive to continue. Part of the destruction comes from Katie's guilt.

The idea of guilt recurs in many Jewish films. Lumet uses guilt as a dominant force in the lives of both Daniel Isaacson and Sol Nazerman. Woody Allen uses guilt more comically and gives his characters guilt without much reasoning. It seems that "In Allen's work, guilt often appears as comic and is expressed in the inability to feel happiness and enjoy life. Characters in Lumet's films often must pay an even dearer price for their guilt" (Desser, 172). Katie Morosky fits into both of these categories. Her inability to feel happiness and enjoy life appears in almost every scene with Hubbell's rich friends. Their jokes make her uncomfortable and cause her to view his friends as insensitive. Her inability to have a good time brings tension to her and Hub's relationship. They even break up for a few hours because of a fight over a Roosevelt joke. Katie's trouble finding humor in serious topics is similar to the struggle surrounding Sol Nazerman. Of course, Nazerman's memory and guilt is much stronger and probably more understandable than Katie's, but each cannot live happily knowing political truths. It is the "search for social justice, the tragedy of family separated by social forces, and the injunction to remember [that] dominate The Pawnbroker" (Desser, 209). Daniel, on the other hand, deals with Daniel's family growing up being separated by social forces, but his acceptance of social justice and remembrance that bring his new family together at the end. In The Way We Were it is Katie's search for social justice and her injunction to remember that cause the family separation; not social forces. She cannot accept anything less than activism while Hubbell cannot understand anything more than conformity.

Conforming as a social issue can be dangerous. Lumet's Twelve Angry Men shows how conforming to stereotypes and mass mob hysteria can cause wrongful death. Lumet has Sol Nazerman's present day conforming under Rodriguez pitted against the mass conformity of Nazi's through flashbacks. He also shows Daniel as a conformist ("The world doesn't need another Graduate Student") until he decides to become an activist at the films end. Sol and Daniel both realize their mistakes and change, although Sol was a little late, and the eleven conformist jurors' minds are changed.

Those films show that "Conformity, especially when it disguises racism and prejudice, can kill" (Desser, 176). The Way We Were has a similar outcome. Instead of actual death it is a relationship that is killed. Katie, a Jew like Sol and Daniel, does not seem to stray from her political beliefs, but does conform to some societal norms. First, she falls in love with the blonde haired athlete instead of with another Communist activist. She then makes 'friends' with his friends whom she does not agree with. Finally, she moves to Hollywood and allows Hubbell's writings to be transformed into less political works. What changes her mind is the blacklisting of the Hollywood Ten and her eventual protest in Washington D.C. Hubbell does not find her activism necessary and believes that the problem will eventually work itself out. He sacrifices his ideals for a job while she again fights vocally for the Communist cause and free speech. This dichotomy shatters their relationship.

Conformity within show business appears in other Jewish works as well. In Woody Allen's Manhattan, Isaac Davis quits his TV writing job because the show was not 'about anything' and he refused to compromise his ideals. Lumet's Network deals almost solely with conforming to producers' ideas on how to make the most money and garner the highest rating share. Way We Were is no different. Both Katie and Hubbell work in the entertainment business. Katie's refusal to compromise at the beginning of the film is the complete opposite of Hubbell's total conformity while writing his movie. What each of these films deals with is the difference between money and morals. Each character decides which is more important.

Where Allen and Lumet are convinced that personal moral obligation is more important, Pollack doesn't seem to take a side. Both Hubbell and Katie have an equal fault in the relationship ending, and neither seems totally satisfied with life at the films end. What the film might suggest is that love should be more important than either. The times where both characters were happiest was when they were alone together, not worrying about politics or money. It was more important to be happy together than trying to make others happy, be it economically or politically. This is the same reason why Annie and Alvy broke up in Annie Hall. What neither couple realized until too late was that they were together because they "needed the eggs."

The Way We Were functions mainly as a melodrama, but searching underneath its soft exterior brings out relevant social concerns that many Jewish filmmakers have dealt with. Being active politically, being guilty about social problems, and being a conformist against self-held beliefs are present in films by Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet, Mel Brooks, and Sydney Pollack. It is Katie Morosky's political activism and guilt that causes major problems in her relationship with Hubbell Gardiner, but it is each character's conformity that brings the relationship to an end. Her love for the "goyish god" adds her to the list of Allen and Brooks "shiksa" lovers and their involvement in show business places them next to other predominantly Jewish-film characters. The Way We Were is much more than a melodrama, but a film concerned with social justice and Jewish issues.