Nobody Wants This

Nobody Wants This is a new romcom series on Netflix, and I watched all 10 episodes of Season 1 last weekend. I waited a few days to write about it because I wanted to let my impressions settle in my mind for a bit first. Overall, the show is cute and funny, and there's great chemistry between the leads ~ Kristen Bell as Joanne, a sex/relationship podcaster, and Adam Brody as Noah, a reform rabbi. I really wanted to like this series and recommend it wholeheartedly, but I had several moments of cringe, which took away from my overall enjoyment.

Spoiler alert!

First, Joanne and her sister Morgan are supposedly these hip Los Angeles single women, with their finger on the pulse of the culture, yet they act like they've never met a Jew before. It's all so "foreign" to them, yet Noah is a totally modern person, so much so that Joanne didn't even realize he was "the rabbi" her friend wanted to introduce her to. I understand that this is simply to create awkward jokes like the stupid “sex through a hole in a sheet” myth, which was done to perfection on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but here it’s just ugh. 

Second, the stereotypes were so irritating. Joanne and Morgan are portrayed as dumb blondes. Noah's Jewish mom is portrayed as overbearing and pushy. Rebecca, Noah’s ex, is a caricature from the 1950s who cares only about getting married and having status. Esther, Noah's Jewish sister-in-law, tries to be as obnoxious as Susie on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but she isn’t funny and it falls flat. Susie’s acerbic personality works because Larry is a jerk and Jeff’s a cheater, so they deserve her barbs, but everyone Esther snipes at is nice, so she just looks petty and mean. Joanne’s father is gay, which is now a stereotype too; her mom is a new age kook, ditto.

Third, the idea that Joanne and Morgan are actually making a living (and hiring employees!) from doing a silly podcast where they banter about boyfriends is absurd. They aren’t that funny, and not that I know anything about podcasts, but I have to believe this has been done to the point that the market is saturated. I have long had a problem with TV writers portraying financial matters in a ridiculous way, and this is just another example.

I’m not saying none of the above was entertaining ~ it was! Sometimes. But when I thought about it for a bit, much of the humor made me uncomfortable because it was directed at classes of people like blondes, who, to paraphrase Dolly Parton, are often not dumb… and not real blondes. It’s also not funny imo to perpetuate the stereotype that Jewish women are obnoxious. Etc.

Despite all that, I still enjoyed how the relationship developed between the main characters. It was fraught will real life problems, centered around family and work, as many of us have experienced. The trip that Joanne and Noah took to Ojai, where Noah had to fill in for his boss at a Shabbaton (immersive weekend away for Jewish teens) was very well done, and I loved Joanne’s interactions with the girls at the camp. The scene where Joanne rescued a doggy from the streets of LA was great, and I wish more had been done with that, such as actually adopting the dog with Noah. I thought the portrayal of Miriam, Noah’s niece who had mixed feelings about her bat mitzvah celebration, was nicely handled. The growing friendship between Morgan and Sasha (Noah’s brother, married to Esther) was weird and interesting. 

So yeah. I don’t know. Watch it if you want to. I’m sure I will tune back in if there’s a second season, and you can be sure I will kvetch about it right here on the blog that (almost) no one reads.