Funny Girl (film) "funny girl" with her body, voice, gesture, and character, tying together her Jewishness and oddness. The film values women over men and portrays the men as dependent to their women; it reverses the gender roles. "Funny Girl" helped change the way women were viewed and used comedy to deflect Jewish mockery. Streisand was widely praised by critics, with "The New Yorker"s Pauline Kael calling it "A bravura performance ... As Fanny Brice, she has the wittiest comic inflections since the comediennes of the 30s; she makes written dialogue sound like inspired improvisation. ... Streisand's triumphant talent rides right over the
The Great Ziegfeld of the performers of the earlier Broadway version of the Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, the ballet dancer and contortionist. "The Great Ziegfeld" marked Rainer's second Hollywood film role after "Escapade" (also with Powell). Fanny Brice appears as a comedian in the abridged song sequence "My Man" and played an effective version of herself in addition to her routine comic role as the funny girl. Nat Pendleton, a freestyle wrestler who had won the silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp and had appeared alongside Powell in "The