It’s almost ironic that in an industry that has historically seen a disproprtionate amount of Jewish people in positions of influence, and continues to still be labeled as such despite the realities of DEI and, to be sure, actually qualified people of different backgrounds, there have been few successful movies or TV series that have prominently featured Jewish culture as a significant plot element. I believe I know that reality more than many, both actually fitting that demographic and attempting to find enough examples of it that are capable of being aired anywhere.
I served as a consultant to Jewish Life Television, aka JLTV, for more than a year during a brief period where the network was attempting to broaden its programming portfolio. They were reliant on mostly public affairs content primarily made for online viewing produced by such outlets as New York’s famed 92nd Street Y and pro-Israel forces and generally ancient public domain series featuring Jewish talents, such as THE SOUPY SALES SHOW (perhaps the only Milton Sussman that was born in his era in West Virginia) and the original GOLDBERGS, featuring the groundbreaking Gertrude Berg as the matriarch. The mercurial owner’s marching orders were to just bring him possibilties and then he’d find a way to pay for it.
What we discovered was not only were there scant few examples of mainstream TV that had been attempted, their lack of success and the fact that most had never been sold even to cable networks made the cost of resurrecting them by paying for residuals prohibitive. Even a show like BRIDGET AND BERNIE, which had been teed up with a placing in CBS’ iconic Saturday night lineup in the 70s between ALL IN THE FAMILY and THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, lasted barely half a season. The show, which focused on an interfaith marriage between an Irish Catholic teacher (Bridget Fitzgerald) from a wealthy family and a Jewish cab driver who aspires to be a playwright (Bernie Steinberg), whom she had met at a bus stop. was actually a ratings smash, because location, location, location, but, as Wikipedia tacitly puts it, CBS executives canceled the show in response to negative reactions to the characters’ marriage.
But being a fan of that show, and having lived in a world of such judgmental people all my life, I’m far less surprised than many that a modern iteration of this has come out of seemingly nowhere to become the latest binge-worthy hit, as THE WRAP’s Loree Seitz reported last week:
Within days of “Nobody Wants This” hitting Netflix, the romcom series has been the source of viral moments and inspired lots of binge watches, with the Adam Brody and Kristen Bell-led series debuting to 10.3 million views in its opening weekend.
“It’s honestly mind-blowing,” series creator Erin Foster told TheWrap. “I could not have prepared myself — I don’t think anybody could.”
For Foster, whose real life experience of converting to Judaism to marry her husband (who is not a rabbi) inspired the series, the response from fans has been “validating” as viewers resonate with the show’s themes of “love and dating in your 30s, and tying your self worth to a bad relationship.” “You’re seeing a generation of women go, ‘Wait a minute. We have not seen a securely attached male on screen making an anxiously attached woman feel safe and seen’ —
“We’re always watching the guy be anxious and avoidant, and it’s reversed,” added Sara Foster, who executive produces the show alongside her sister. “It’s giving women hope.”
Foster’s doppelganger is none other than Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell, and is understandably smitten with THE O.C.’s Seth Cohen, Adam Brody. BUZZFEED’s Nora Dominick takes over the gushiness from here:
Nobody Wants This follows Joanne (Bell) and Noah (Brody), an agnostic podcast host and an unconventional rabbi who seem like an unlikely pair on paper. However, after they meet at a party and walk out together, they can’t help but realize there is something between them. Since the series debuted on Netflix, everyone has been talking about Adam and Kristen’s electric chemistry in the series, alongside how much they love Joanne and Noah’s relationship.
Brody’s character has earned the memeable nickname “Hot Rabbi” and is no doubt the main attraction for a Netflix-and-chill demographic that has already watched the entirety of Season 1 (to be fair, it’s 10 half-hour-ish episodes, so for Ben and Jerry’s and red wine-fueled millennial ladies that’s a layup). But what has made it so enjoyable for me is the shrewdly selected supporting cast, many of whom are familiar faces to those with internet connections, as TIME OUT’s Jon Hornbuckle rattled off:
Morgan, Joanne’s sister and podcast co-host is played by Justine Lupe (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel).
Timothy Simons (Veep, Don’t Worry Darling) takes on the role of Noah’s brother, with Jackie Tohn (Glow) as his wife Esther.
Broadway legend Tovah Feldshuh plays Bina, Noah’s disapproving mother. Her screen credits include The Walking Dead, Law and Order, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
Add to this stunt casting of just about every veteran working Jewish actor of consequence as members of Noah’s tribe, including my wonderful ex-colleague Stephen Tobolowsky as Brody’s rabbi boss, and I’m as hooked as anyone who can’t not hope that the obviously smouldering Adam and Eve-like passion that Bell and Brody show eventually pays off. CINEMABLEND’s Danielle Bruncati seems to channel the emotions of the show’s fanbase with her piece that dropped yesterday:
With a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and the fact I am a self-proclaimed rom-com enthusiast, it’s not all that shocking that I fell in love with this show. The truth is, I would binge-watch a hundred more hours of Nobody Wants This just to see the palpable and hilarious chemistry between the characters. But that’s only one of the reasons why I hope Netflix renews the series for a Season 2.
Like most streaming shows, Nobody Wants This ends with a cliffhanger. Though originally set to convert to Judaism to make their lives easier, Joanne has a change of heart when she realizes she’d only be doing it to stay with Noah. Thus, she ends up breaking up with Noah to ensure that he doesn’t have to choose between his dreams of becoming a head rabbi and his love for her. Joanne begs him not to chase after her as she leaves his niece’s bat mitzvah feeling miserable. Thankfully, Noah has a hard time staying away from her and ends up chasing after her on foot.
When Joanne gets off the bus at the remote parking lot, Noah is waiting by her car. Despite confirming Joanne’s fears that Noah can’t have her and be a head rabbi, he pulls her close, and the two embrace in another swoon-worthy kiss sure to set the internet on fire.
Had Nobody Wants This been a movie instead of a series, this would have been a perfect ending since most romcoms end with an earth-shattering kiss — at least they used to. However, because it is a series, the “happily ever after” moment offers little resolution, leaving the couple, along with the fans, wondering the same thing they wondered from the start: how are they going to make this work? Nothing beyond their relationship turmoil gets resolved, meaning Joanne and Noah are still going to be facing the same conflicts they dealt with all season.
We still don’t know if Noah’s family is ever going to accept Joanne or what their relationship means for his career going forward. Nor do we truly know if their relationship is worth giving up so much of their individual lives. And then there’s Joanne’s side of things. We’ve already seen how her relationship negatively affected her podcast with her sister. How will that continue to play out now that she’s staying with Noah?
There are so many questions about what their future might look like going forward and so much potential for conflict that Netflix would be stupid not to give the show another season to hash some things out.
Ahh, but just as there was back in the day, there’s some backlash out there amidst this love affair, as exemplified by a NEW YORK TIMES opinion piece from Jessica Grose that dropped Friday:
The derisive word for a male gentile is shegetz. I didn’t know the term until I married one. Even though my family is 100 percent Jewish and my brother took a DNA test to prove it, up to that point, I had only ever heard the female equivalent of the word: shiksa.
When I heard my community of mostly secular Jews use the word shiksa growing up, it wasn’t really used as a slur; it was used as a referent for the conventional American ideal of beauty. It was understood that as Jewish women, we purportedly existed outside this ideal. We were assumed to be emasculating scolds, obligations men were saddled with rather than women to be desired.
That’s because the shiksa stereotype looms large in American pop culture as an object of Jewish male desire. It was largely constructed in the mid-20th century by Philip Roth, Woody Allen and Neil Simon. But…(i)t’s no longer shocking or novel when a Jew dates or marries outside his or her religion — 61 percent of Jews who have married since 2010 are intermarried, according to a 2021 Pew Research report. Among non-Orthodox Jews, that number is 72 percent.
That’s why I found the experience of watching the new Netflix series “Nobody Wants This” — which was originally titled “Shiksa” — to be both off-putting and bizarre. The show seems to have been beamed in from the past century in both its depiction of Jew-gentile relations and also its gender politics.
I can’t speak for Grose’s life experiences, but I can certainly speak for mine, and, bluntly, methinks she doth protest too much. But another burning qyestion I have leaves me with some concern her words may be carrying more weight than they should.
This just happens to be a 20th Television Production, with the witty Steven Levitan of MODERN FAMILY aboard. Why would Hulu, which clearly covets this style of soulful humor with its FX comedies and ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING, have allowed this to go to its archrival? What say you, Craig Erwich?
I’d like to think we’ve evolved somewhat in the half-century since an undeniably popular rom-com with an interfaith couple was prematurely canceled that the mistake of BRIDGET LOVES BERNIE isn’t repeated. All indications are Netflix’s KPIs likely don’t involve outsized opinions from atypical NEW YORK TIMES writers. But until the official white smoke comes from Los Gatos, one never knows.
So c’mon, Teddy Bear. Show us that somebody wants this, and hopefully it’s you.
Until next time…