Nobody Wants This on Netflix

[Anonymous]

Kristin Bell is ANNOYING

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tale as old as time

Even that is a better name than "nobody wants this". What a cop out. I bet they called it Project Bell for ages and then had to pick a name night before.

I think "Pushing boundaries" or similar would have been better. Since he's doing it is his job, she's doing it in hers (the boundaries of decency) and they are doing it together.

Or Trouncing Boundaries. Or Slaughtering Boundaries depends on how dramatic you want to be. They are pretty dramatic.

The show was actually going to be called Shiksa, but then they realized that not enough people knew what the word means from the focus groups. She and Adam talked about it when they were on her husband's podcast. "Nobody Wants This" wasn't their first choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually loved the scene where they had brunch at Noah's parents' house and Joanne caught the MIL snarfing down the charcuterie board. I know it's just fiction, but I wish I had some of Joanne's chutzpah! (see, I used a Yiddish word!)

That was utterly ridiculous.

I thought it was so funny. Especially when Joanne took the blame for it and referred to herself as eating it from the trash "like a racoon." Which is exactly how her MIL looked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually loved the scene where they had brunch at Noah's parents' house and Joanne caught the MIL snarfing down the charcuterie board. I know it's just fiction, but I wish I had some of Joanne's chutzpah! (see, I used a Yiddish word!)

That was utterly ridiculous.

Was it, though?

The family is reform. Many reform Jews eat pork. They were acting like the mom was orthodox. Total mess.

+1
That was completely over the top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm watching it. Adam Brody is adorable and saves the show. Kristen Bell is grating, so is her mean sister. I can't believe how many times they have used the word shiksa so far. It's a slur, fine if you want to use it once, but getting old, repetitive and rude. The show started to go majorly south when he brought her to the retreat, then barged in on her work dinner to light shabbat candles after sundown?!!

It just occurred to me that the sister plays the sister in law in the Marvelous Mrs Maisel…the one who converted and is a more devout Jew than her in laws. Pretty sure they used the word “shiksa” quite a bit on that show.

It felt very uncomfortable to hear that word so much. It's a total slur putting down both Jewish women for not being as alluring as, and non Jewish women for not being as worthy as. It's somewhat okay for a woman to self-define as such in a humorous way but it really is not otherwise okay.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Esther was rude, mean to her husband and generally annoying to watch. Her one redeeming scene was in the bathroom with her child. Team loser siblings!

+1
Couldn't stand Esther. Who behaves like that to a new girlfriend of a family member (or anyone)? So rude and unwelcoming. Yeeeesh.

You guys, the ex-girlfriend of the rabbi was Esther's best friend. Wouldn't we all treat the new girl in the same way? Why in the world would she be nice to her?

Are you joking? If I was in Esther's position, I would never, ever have treated the new girlfriend like that - even if the old girlfriend was my best friend. How incredibly childish. Joanne didn't break up Noah and Rebecca. She had nothing to do with them and didn't deserve to be treated so badly. That's the way a middle schooler would behave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about that part where Joanne was at the synagogue waiting for Noah and someone basically asked her to leave (I saw it when it first came out so don’t totally remember). That was just so dumb and never would’ve happened. It made Jews seem really obnoxious.

I agree. That was a very strange scene.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about that part where Joanne was at the synagogue waiting for Noah and someone basically asked her to leave (I saw it when it first came out so don’t totally remember). That was just so dumb and never would’ve happened. It made Jews seem really obnoxious.

I agree. That was a very strange scene.

As a Jew… many synagogues, especially urban ones, don’t permit loitering/lingering by people unknown to the community on the premisses for safety reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Jewish tropes are ridiculous. When Bell's character shows up to the synagogue and camera zooms in on the woman playing Brody's mom I knew she was going to call her a shiksa before she spoke. And agree that the pushy women desperate to marry their daughters off to Brody were silly.

It was also INSANE when Brody's girlfriend digs up the engagement ring and just starts wearing it without talking to him and then tries to just force an engagement. This combined with the scene at the synagogue really rubs me the wrong way because it portrays all the Jewish women in his life as marriage-obsessed with no interest in romance and essentially justifies him doing something he knows will stir up a ton of trouble by pursing a relationship with a non-Jewish woman. It has "look what you made me do" vibes.

Having said all that I do enjoy the scenes between Brody and Bell and I actually do think this could be an interesting premise (without the broad Jewish tropes that are especially harsh towards Jewish women). It's a shame they went this route and betrays a really laziness -- this was the only way you could think of to make it funny. Lame.

I felt this way watching the Big Sick. It was mostly a good movie but the S Asian women the main character tried to date were all awful. A person can end up with someone of another background without it having to be about their own women sucking. It was lazy, disrespectful writing then and is here as well.

true. and also having been the non-Jewish partner myself for a long time, I’ve finally come to understand why Jewish culture prioritizes in-marriage. It really stems from the millenia-long history of intense marginalization. Judaism could never rely on people converting to survive because being a Jew was stigmatized. Conversely cultural and physical survival depended on a strong Jewish identity. The in-group pressure was strong. I dislike being mare to feel “other” as the non-Jew but I understand it.

That said Tova Feldsuh is hilarious as the mom. Her comment “that was a strange sermon” to Adam Brody was so 💯 what my Jewish immigrant MIL would say.

Tova as the Jewish mother is amazing, just as she was in Crazy Ex Girlfriend….

And A Walk On the Moon as Diane Lane’s MIL.

[Anonymous]

Even dumber is the idea that Joanne would be dating a rabbi and would bring pork as a gift to his family, and would not know that of course prosciutto is pork/ham and not “Italian beef”. So she’s supposed to be a moron? Or and the rabbi knows she’s bringing a bad gift and doesn’t intercept her beforehand?

It’s lazy writing like this where they think we’re stupid that I can’t stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually loved the scene where they had brunch at Noah's parents' house and Joanne caught the MIL snarfing down the charcuterie board. I know it's just fiction, but I wish I had some of Joanne's chutzpah! (see, I used a Yiddish word!)

That was utterly ridiculous.

Was it, though?

The family is reform. Many reform Jews eat pork. They were acting like the mom was orthodox. Total mess.

It was pure comedic gold that the mom wanted to be nasty to Joanne about how they don't eat pork, only to be caught 20 minutes later stuffing her face with it. Don't take this show too seriously. It's really not a lesson on Judaism some of you think it is.

I got that part, obviously. Comedy has to have an element of truth to work.

But it does. Even reform Jews typically don't eat pork.

5% of Reform Jews keep kosher.

I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that a traditional—albeit religiously Reform—family would not eat pork, even if they don’t keep kosher overall. A lot of Jews do that.

This family has a rabbi as a son and the parents are obviously traditional in a lot of ways.

To me, it tracks with experiences I’ve had as a Jewish American.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Esther was rude, mean to her husband and generally annoying to watch. Her one redeeming scene was in the bathroom with her child. Team loser siblings!

+1
Couldn't stand Esther. Who behaves like that to a new girlfriend of a family member (or anyone)? So rude and unwelcoming. Yeeeesh.

You guys, the ex-girlfriend of the rabbi was Esther's best friend. Wouldn't we all treat the new girl in the same way? Why in the world would she be nice to her?

Are you joking? If I was in Esther's position, I would never, ever have treated the new girlfriend like that - even if the old girlfriend was my best friend. How incredibly childish. Joanne didn't break up Noah and Rebecca. She had nothing to do with them and didn't deserve to be treated so badly. That's the way a middle schooler would behave.

Agree.

Being civil costs nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about that part where Joanne was at the synagogue waiting for Noah and someone basically asked her to leave (I saw it when it first came out so don’t totally remember). That was just so dumb and never would’ve happened. It made Jews seem really obnoxious.

I agree. That was a very strange scene.

As a Jew… many synagogues, especially urban ones, don’t permit loitering/lingering by people unknown to the community on the premisses for safety reasons.

I can certainly understand that. But it seemed like everyone at that synagogue was hostile to Joanne because she looked like she didn't belong. Normal Jewish people don't behave like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even dumber is the idea that Joanne would be dating a rabbi and would bring pork as a gift to his family, and would not know that of course prosciutto is pork/ham and not “Italian beef”. So she’s supposed to be a moron? Or and the rabbi knows she’s bringing a bad gift and doesn’t intercept her beforehand?

It’s lazy writing like this where they think we’re stupid that I can’t stand.

+1
Joanne was a smart person - no dummy. Of course she wouldn't have brought a platter of pork to her rabbi boyfriend's family home. And of course she would know what prosciutto is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even dumber is the idea that Joanne would be dating a rabbi and would bring pork as a gift to his family, and would not know that of course prosciutto is pork/ham and not “Italian beef”. So she’s supposed to be a moron? Or and the rabbi knows she’s bringing a bad gift and doesn’t intercept her beforehand?

It’s lazy writing like this where they think we’re stupid that I can’t stand.

I would also add, the naming of all the Jewish characters with stereotypically Hebrew names just screams, "We think the audience is incredibly stupid, so we're going to draw them a very obvious map." Spare me.