{"id":363650,"date":"2026-10-03T14:18:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T14:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363650\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T14:18:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T14:18:38","slug":"the-ben-affleck-and-matt-damon-movie-theyd-never-make-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363650\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ben Affleck and Matt Damon movie they’d never make today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty-five years ago, a film crew descended on my high school, <\/a>Worcester Academy.<\/p>\n

Trailers filled with cameras and costumes arrived at the end of the summer before my sophomore year to shoot a movie about a prep school set in the 1950s. Apparently, our gym and pool, unrenovated for decades,<\/a> were perfect for the vibe. A few of my classmates even got to be extras.<\/p>\n

When I saw \u201cSchool Ties\u201d in theaters the following year, the setting seemed recognizable, but the scenes of rampant antisemitism could not have felt more foreign.<\/a> Watching the movie again with my daughter a few weeks ago, however, they were sickeningly familiar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

B. Fraser, clockwise from center, R. Batinkoff, A. Lowery, A. Rapp, C. O\u2019Donnell, B. Affleck, C. Hauser and M. Damon are shown in the 1992 film \u201cSchool Ties.\u201d \u00a9Paramount\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool Ties\u201d \u2014 which starred Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Chris O\u2019Donnell \u2014 is the story of a Jewish high-school quarterback, David Greene, from a working-class Scranton family. He\u2019s recruited to save an elite prep school\u2019s failing football team from defeat at the hands of its rival. David, who\u2019s played by Fraser, decides with the implicit encouragement of the coach that he should keep his Jewish identity to himself. Early in the film, he takes off his Star of David necklace and hides it in his top drawer \u2014 subtlety is not one of the movie\u2019s strengths.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dexter Hall is pictured at Worcester Academy on Friday, October 29, 2004. Hannes R\u00f6st\/ Wikipedia<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNaomi Schaefer Riley<\/p>\n

Within hours of his arrival, David hears one of his classmates use the phrase \u201cJew him down\u201d to mean getting a better price for something. Some boys wonder how another one could choose Harvard instead of a different Ivy League school given the large number of Jews there. <\/p>\n

When there is a football game on Rosh Hashanah, David doesn\u2019t tell anyone despite the fact that his father instructs him over the phone to go to synagogue. He dons his tallis and yarmulke and goes to pray by himself in the chapel late that night; the headmaster finds him and lectures him about \u201cyou people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matt Damon and Brendan Fraser appear in a scene from the 1992 film \u201cSchool Ties.\u201d \u00a9Paramount\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

Eventually, Charlie Dillon (played by Damon) learns from an older alum about David\u2019s secret. Charlie, who has been supplanted on the team by David, seizes this information. He starts telling Jewish jokes in the shower and then reveals to everyone David\u2019s true identity. Hearing David called a \u201ck\u2013e\u201d and a \u201csheeny bastard\u201d in 1992 was quite literally the first time I recall those words spoken aloud. And when David finds a flag with a swastika and the words \u201cJew Go Home\u201d hung over his bed, I remember thinking these people might as well live on a different planet.<\/p>\n

What a difference 35 years make. It is true that I grew up at a time that people now refer to as \u201cthe golden age\u201d of Jews in America. My own prep school class was probably about a quarter Jewish. I assumed that antisemitism was a problem of the past, not something I, let alone my children, would have to confront. <\/p>\n

A flag with a Jewish star, New York University branding, and a swastika is seen flying atop the NYU Steinhardt Building, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. The banner was raised above the NYU building named after a billionaire donor to Jewish causes during a graduation week event. CBSNews New York<\/p>\n

But here we are. Antisemitic slurs are a regular feature of discourse on the right and the left. Hate crimes against Jews have skyrocketed. A flag with the Star of David and two swastikas was raised on a building over NYU in May.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most shocking part of watching \u201cSchool Ties\u201d today is realizing that not too long ago, Hollywood\u2019s biggest stars were willing to lecture the American public about the ignorance of antisemitism. Don\u2019t tell Maggie Gyllenhaal, who recently explained in a press conference how Israelis waging war in Gaza are perpetrating another Holocaust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maggie Gyllenhaal attends the \u201cBunker\u201d screening during the 83rd Venice International Film Festival at Sala Grande in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, September 8, 2026. GIorio \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n

When Charlie is being driven away from school after being expelled for violating the honor code \u2014 something he tries to get the other students to believe that David did \u2014 he shrugs it off. \u201cIn 10 years no one will remember any of this. But you\u2019ll still be a goddamn Jew.\u201d David replies, \u201cAnd you\u2019ll still be a prick.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

These days, it is hard to imagine Hollywood giving any Jewish character the moral high ground. The protests alone would make headlines for weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I was lucky to grow up in a bubble protected from the world\u2019s oldest hatred. My children will never know that world. The bubble has burst. There\u2019s no going back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty-five years ago, a film crew descended on my high school, Worcester Academy. Trailers filled with cameras and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3862,33982,67,158,9,11,10,299,11831],"class_list":["post-363650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-antisemitism","tag-classic-movies","tag-education","tag-movies","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-opinion","tag-postscript"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}