#109 A Crazy Trust Exercise
03/10/24 17:33
So, my social media feeds were flooded with clips from Nobody Wants This, and it looked like it would be right up my street. Witty, cultured Americans having bantz, and romantz – what more could you want?
Well, it turns out I could want more, and I feel sad about it. When it comes to TV reviews, I’m a lover not a fighter - I take telly’s face in my hands and give it a tender kiss, rather than break its heart with cruel words. I don’t want to do a Camilla Long, say grass is red and hate the thing everyone else adores, but this show misses the mark for me. I’ve mulled and agonised about why, and am ready to share my feelings – hesitantly, tentatively, because I know nobody wants this.
Let’s set the thing up, in case you’ve not watched it and somehow haven’t encountered the torrent of online snippets, passionate embraces accompanied by comments like ‘I MUST MARRY ADAM BRODY NOW’ and ‘SETH COHEN IS A ROMCOM GOD’. This show is about an agnostic sex podcaster who meets a rabbi – which sounds like the first line of a joke – and they hit it off, against the odds. It’s an American Fleabag, except the cast is hotter and the bars are cooler. Don’t get me wrong – I do fancy Adam Brody, who plays Noah the rabbi, AND Kristen Bell, who plays Joanne, the podcaster. They are both hot AF and witty AF – the dialogue zips along, it’s genuinely funny, maybe even a bit Ephron-esque. But. But, but…
It all started when someone on one of these online threads observed that it would be unusual for a Jewish person to say someone was a ‘shiksa’ (a gentile woman) to their face. This happens right at the end of the first episode, Noah’s mother spitting when she sees Joanne turn up to drool over his debut sermon. Now, I’m about as Jewish as Joanne, so that pinch of inauthenticity passed me by, but the mild criticism opened a can of worms – I started to think about what else might be a bit off.
Firstly, IMH(shiksa)O, Noah’s sermon is just too good for a virgin preacher, and I didn’t buy it. It wasn’t a sermon; it was more of a five-minute set in Mrs Maisel - far too smooth. In the British version, he’d have had some sort of stuttering meltdown, which would have been cringe-making but ultimately charming and sexy. To be honest, I liked Noah less for being such an assured theologian.
Secondly, his mother is insane. I don’t mean hilariously over-the-top, or riotously robust – she’s just awful. We already know she colluded with Noah’s ex-girlfriend to organise his wedding before he even had a chance to propose, and next she accuses him of planning to marry his brand-new non-Jew with a level of vicious frothing hysteria that’s not really very funny, just disturbing. I’ve been enjoying the second series of Colin From Accounts – in that, Ash’s mother is also mad as a box of frogs, but it’s an archer, more amusing lunacy that stays rooted in comedy. Noah could be in The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, but his mum could be Livia in The Sopranos. Maybe that’s actually very authentic – I’m not sure – but it doesn’t exactly make for warm romcom viewing.
Also… I’m not sure about the whole podcasting thing. Carrie Bradshaw already did it in And Just Like That, and so did the Only Murders trio. It’s like a go-to activity for kooky creatives. And to load kook onto kook, Joanne’s parents are divorced because her dad is gay, but her mum is still in love with him, and Joanne thinks that her mother being ‘emotional’, while not exactly making him gay, ‘didn’t keep him straight.’ I’m sorry - what?? I had no idea that just being aware of a woman’s delicate feelings could nudge a man towards homosexuality.
But the final thing that really got my goat is when Joanne lays bare her insecurities about relationships to Noah. She’s scared that if she allows herself to feel too much - be too much (a classic thing women always do) - then he will break her heart. ‘It would truly kill me to break your heart,’ he murmurs, and I can hear legions of dogged romantics sighing ecstatically. He assures her: ‘I can handle you.’ His shoulders are broad, girls. Lean on him. Let him catch you. He’s The One.
No, I don’t want this at all. It suggests that Joanne – ergo, women in general – are fragile vessels that must be cradled like precious Fabergé eggs, OR that they’re grenades that might go off any second. I don’t want anyone to ‘handle’ me and don’t see why it’s a particularly romantic notion. I want someone to laugh at my jokes, wait for me with cake after a cervical screening and refrain from judging the speed at which I eat crisps. I’ll take that sort of ‘he’s the hero who’ll save you’ bollocks from Bridgerton, but here it made me bristle. It gave me the ick.
I watched a really interesting interview with Kristen Bell and Adam Brody – the real-life versions. They were talking about how the script said they had to share a powerfully passionate kiss; the pressure of that direction, and the way they approached it. Rather than slamming into each other, they decided it was about really taking their time. What I liked about the chat was how in charge Kristen was – forensic about what made the moment work, stone-cold gleeful about the crew’s reaction. THAT woman doesn’t need handling – she does the handling; of herself, of others. I want to see a man wooing assured executive producer Kristen Bell, not eggshell podcaster Joanne.
Yeah, I’m a right buzz-kill and should just enjoy the romantasy – and I did, to an extent. The couple’s chemistry is off-the-scale, everyone is doing knock-your-socks-off, rip-your-bra-off acting, LA looks amazing. I’ll obviously binge the rest of the series to find out who wins - Joanne or Judaism. But I keep thinking about another role Kristen played; Anna in Frozen (I KNOW – she’s incredible!). In that, she saves her sister in an act of true love, turning on its head the assumption that a man should be doing it. It feels weird that a 2013 animated children’s movie offered a more empowering message than Nobody Wants This.
Well, it turns out I could want more, and I feel sad about it. When it comes to TV reviews, I’m a lover not a fighter - I take telly’s face in my hands and give it a tender kiss, rather than break its heart with cruel words. I don’t want to do a Camilla Long, say grass is red and hate the thing everyone else adores, but this show misses the mark for me. I’ve mulled and agonised about why, and am ready to share my feelings – hesitantly, tentatively, because I know nobody wants this.
Let’s set the thing up, in case you’ve not watched it and somehow haven’t encountered the torrent of online snippets, passionate embraces accompanied by comments like ‘I MUST MARRY ADAM BRODY NOW’ and ‘SETH COHEN IS A ROMCOM GOD’. This show is about an agnostic sex podcaster who meets a rabbi – which sounds like the first line of a joke – and they hit it off, against the odds. It’s an American Fleabag, except the cast is hotter and the bars are cooler. Don’t get me wrong – I do fancy Adam Brody, who plays Noah the rabbi, AND Kristen Bell, who plays Joanne, the podcaster. They are both hot AF and witty AF – the dialogue zips along, it’s genuinely funny, maybe even a bit Ephron-esque. But. But, but…
It all started when someone on one of these online threads observed that it would be unusual for a Jewish person to say someone was a ‘shiksa’ (a gentile woman) to their face. This happens right at the end of the first episode, Noah’s mother spitting when she sees Joanne turn up to drool over his debut sermon. Now, I’m about as Jewish as Joanne, so that pinch of inauthenticity passed me by, but the mild criticism opened a can of worms – I started to think about what else might be a bit off.
Firstly, IMH(shiksa)O, Noah’s sermon is just too good for a virgin preacher, and I didn’t buy it. It wasn’t a sermon; it was more of a five-minute set in Mrs Maisel - far too smooth. In the British version, he’d have had some sort of stuttering meltdown, which would have been cringe-making but ultimately charming and sexy. To be honest, I liked Noah less for being such an assured theologian.
Secondly, his mother is insane. I don’t mean hilariously over-the-top, or riotously robust – she’s just awful. We already know she colluded with Noah’s ex-girlfriend to organise his wedding before he even had a chance to propose, and next she accuses him of planning to marry his brand-new non-Jew with a level of vicious frothing hysteria that’s not really very funny, just disturbing. I’ve been enjoying the second series of Colin From Accounts – in that, Ash’s mother is also mad as a box of frogs, but it’s an archer, more amusing lunacy that stays rooted in comedy. Noah could be in The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, but his mum could be Livia in The Sopranos. Maybe that’s actually very authentic – I’m not sure – but it doesn’t exactly make for warm romcom viewing.
Also… I’m not sure about the whole podcasting thing. Carrie Bradshaw already did it in And Just Like That, and so did the Only Murders trio. It’s like a go-to activity for kooky creatives. And to load kook onto kook, Joanne’s parents are divorced because her dad is gay, but her mum is still in love with him, and Joanne thinks that her mother being ‘emotional’, while not exactly making him gay, ‘didn’t keep him straight.’ I’m sorry - what?? I had no idea that just being aware of a woman’s delicate feelings could nudge a man towards homosexuality.
But the final thing that really got my goat is when Joanne lays bare her insecurities about relationships to Noah. She’s scared that if she allows herself to feel too much - be too much (a classic thing women always do) - then he will break her heart. ‘It would truly kill me to break your heart,’ he murmurs, and I can hear legions of dogged romantics sighing ecstatically. He assures her: ‘I can handle you.’ His shoulders are broad, girls. Lean on him. Let him catch you. He’s The One.
No, I don’t want this at all. It suggests that Joanne – ergo, women in general – are fragile vessels that must be cradled like precious Fabergé eggs, OR that they’re grenades that might go off any second. I don’t want anyone to ‘handle’ me and don’t see why it’s a particularly romantic notion. I want someone to laugh at my jokes, wait for me with cake after a cervical screening and refrain from judging the speed at which I eat crisps. I’ll take that sort of ‘he’s the hero who’ll save you’ bollocks from Bridgerton, but here it made me bristle. It gave me the ick.
I watched a really interesting interview with Kristen Bell and Adam Brody – the real-life versions. They were talking about how the script said they had to share a powerfully passionate kiss; the pressure of that direction, and the way they approached it. Rather than slamming into each other, they decided it was about really taking their time. What I liked about the chat was how in charge Kristen was – forensic about what made the moment work, stone-cold gleeful about the crew’s reaction. THAT woman doesn’t need handling – she does the handling; of herself, of others. I want to see a man wooing assured executive producer Kristen Bell, not eggshell podcaster Joanne.
Yeah, I’m a right buzz-kill and should just enjoy the romantasy – and I did, to an extent. The couple’s chemistry is off-the-scale, everyone is doing knock-your-socks-off, rip-your-bra-off acting, LA looks amazing. I’ll obviously binge the rest of the series to find out who wins - Joanne or Judaism. But I keep thinking about another role Kristen played; Anna in Frozen (I KNOW – she’s incredible!). In that, she saves her sister in an act of true love, turning on its head the assumption that a man should be doing it. It feels weird that a 2013 animated children’s movie offered a more empowering message than Nobody Wants This.
- Nobody Wants This, 10 episodes, Netflix
