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No. 41: Funny Girl

Changing the face of ambitious women

by
Alana Newhouse
December 07, 2011
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

1968, dir. William Wyler. Barbra playing Fanny Brice playing herself: This late-’60s musical is like a Matryoshka doll of Jewish womanhood. A story of the comedienne’s stormy love life and unlikely career, it forever changed how America thought about ambitious women, parades, rain, and men named Arnstein.

Alana Newhouse is the editor-in-chief of Tablet Magazine.