MENTL

YENTL (1983)
dir: Barbara Streisand

MENTL
MAD #248, July 1984
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker

Yentl (Barbara Streisand) is a young Ashkenazi woman living in a shtetl in Europe interested in studying the Talmud. Law and religion forbid woman from doing so, but she does anyway. Booksellers come to town attempting to steer her away from Talmudic texts and encourage her to read picture books instead, refusing to sell her books for men until she lies and says they're for someone else. Others in the community whisper concern among themselves that Yentl does not have a husband.

"בשן" means “in the tooth”. I don't know if that has any significance. “Not So Funny Girl” references Funny Girl, an earlier Striesand movie. An ad campaign for Levy's Jewish Rye had a picture of an American Indian with the slogan “You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's”

Yentl secretly studies the Talmud under her father. When he dies, she decides to travel to a Yeshiva and in order to do so disguises herself as a man.

Victor/Victoria was a comedy about a cross-dresser that came out around the same time

On her way to be accepted to the Yeshiva, Yentl meets Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin) and takes the identity of her brother Anshel. They are both accepted and she moves in with his family. She has to share a bed with Avigdor while living with him, fooling them into thinking he is Anshel while developing feelings for him.

Avigdor is engaged to Hadass (Amy Irving). The guys all skinny dip and invite Yentl/Anshel along which she refuses to do lest she give up her ruse. Hadass's family calls off her marriage to Avigdor and believe “Anshel” to be a better suitor. “Anshel” goes through with it so she can be near Avigdor. She's gone in way over her head and continues to delay consummation of the marriage. It's complicated.

Nicky Arnstein was the name of the husband in Funny Girl. Isaac Bashevis Singer was the author of the story Yentl is based on.

“Anshel” teaches Hadass to be more liberated and gets her to go back to Avigdor. She reveals herself to really be Yentl before going off to the New World.

The song in the panel where Yentl strips down is a parody of the song from The Way We Were