‘Nobody Wants This’ is a huge surprise hit for Netflix, leading to a season 2 renewal

Gee, could it be because it was quite bizarrely attacked as "antisemitic" solely for its use of the word "shiksa," never mind that most of the cast and producers are Jewish? (It starred Tovah FFS!)

This was a surprising snooze-fest. Kristen Bell should have limited on screen time. I don't think she has the charisma, talent etc. to be a front-runner on a TV show. She's cute, in very small doses.

She was the star of the beloved Veronica Mars.

I liked her in this and I usually never like her. I thought the first half of the season was actually great but once they got serious it got kinda boring

[quote]Gee, could it be because it was quite bizarrely attacked as "antisemitic" solely for its use of the word "shiksa," never mind that most of the cast and producers are Jewish? (It starred Tovah FFS!)

I've just googled that and there is nothing online about it being "antisemitic" or "racist" solely for the word "shiksa". What multiple people say is that the depiction of non convert ethnically Jewish women is stereotypical and regressive. OMG what a surprise the hot rabbi is interested in a beautiful White/European convert when the alternative is ethnically and culturally Jewish woman.

Hadley Freeman said it reminded her of The Big Sick where an Pakistani man picked an exicing liberal white woman over all the annoying Pakistani hag women featured in it. She compares it to the tropes used by Woody Allen and Judd Apatow.

Adam Brody is hotter with age

Why did Tovah's character speak like a first generation American, Nazi concentration camp survivor? If Brody's character is 40. Mom is 60. Not 95.

Because her mom probably spoke like that.

Have you ever interacted with some Jewish people who are only around Jewish people most of their time? They have their own schools etc. and all. They speak different than us usually

Weak logic, R8. The series is chock full of hoary, dated stereotypes.

How is reality weak logic? Maybe break out of your bubble and visit Jewish places.

They renew this, but cancel the excellent Kaos. I call bullshit.

[quote]It starred Tovah FFS!

Yes, but was she circumcised?

R11 it’s about people watching.

I wondered if Feldshuh’s character was supposed to be Israeli. I honestly was more distracted by the fact that Bell’s character - an upper-middle-class woman who grew up in Los Angeles - was so completely clueless about Jewish culture. Like half the girls she would have gone to school with would have had Bat Mitzvahs.

The Jewish population in LA is 17% in modern day, which is a lot more than it was in the 90s and 00s, when she would have been very young r14.

Also, knowing Jewish people doesn’t mean you partake in anything of their culture. I’m from Brooklyn, which has always had a lot of Jews, and I’ve never been to a Bat Mitzvah etc.

R5, you're either not doing googling correctly, or you're bullshitting. (Or you're looking in the wrong place, given that Britain isn't exactly a hotbed of Judaism. This isn't the Guardian's wheelhouse.) You're also being overly literal relative to obvious hyperbole. It took me 20 seconds to find this piece in the NYT:

--------------- Nobody Wants This’ Pits Jewish Women Against ‘Shiksas.’ Nobody Wins.

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 heard only 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.

Our looks were all wrong and in need of expensive plastic surgery or hair treatments to even attempt to measure up. The feeling was summed up by a line from a throwaway character, apparently post-makeover, in a Season 2 episode of “Sex and the City” that first aired in 1999: “Well, you know, my boyfriend and I were really compatible, except for one thing. He liked thin, blond WASP-y types, so … now I am.”

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. Writing in 2013 for The Los Angeles Review of Books, Menachem Kaiser described the stereotype succinctly: "By the 1980s, what I’ll call the Allenesque Jew/shiksa split was entrenched: Jewish = nonathletic, brainy, neurotic, pasty, dark-haired, profoundly unhealthy parental relationship, usually from the New York area; shiksa = healthy, WASP-y, carefree, blond, supportive (if judgmental) parents, from the Midwest or from a home that might as well be in the Midwest."

[quote]What multiple people say is that the depiction of non convert ethnically Jewish women is stereotypical and regressive.

Yes, and the word that LITERALLY describes precisely this is, yes, "shiksa." This is roughly akin to complaining about Joe Locke's role in "Agatha All Along" because the makeup department decided to make him look "faggy" with kohl or eyeliner: taking offense where none whatsoever was meant, and getting riled up over stupid shit when the Jewish world has MUCH, MUCH BIGGER PROBLEMS at present.

It was mildly enjoyable. I have a weakness for easy, breezy romcoms and this was very much in that world. Not the best version like, say, While You Were Sleeping. But totally fine.

It did feel more like a four or five hour movie than a TV series. Because of that, I can't quite see how it will work for a season two, however. But I suppose I'll watch the first episode of season two.

Well they are playing out Emily in Paris to death so why not this shit, too?

I didn’t get the hype. It was okay. Not amazing.

they had great chemistry and a good storyline.

I'm sorry that it will be nothing close to what it was in the first season. sad.

I really liked it.

Yes. I liked it too. I did feel the second half of the season wasn’t as interesting as the first half but it was still great regardless. It helps that Kristen Bell is very likable as is Adam Brody.

I don’t know why people are offended by the shiksa thing. That’s how a lot of traditional Jewish people view non-Jewish women and most Jewish people won’t marry someone who isn’t Jewish. Hell, there are some who won’t marry someone who wasn’t born into Judaism, but most expect you to convert if anything unless they themselves choose to leave it behind.

Can they reconsider?? i loved the cast and storyline.

Please don't change this. It's the first sitcom I've gotten into for awhile.

Gives me hope that love will triumph over all.

Had no idea what this movie/tv show is about. But the Jewish man and the blonde non-jew story has been done to death and screams self loathing.

Made it to the second episode before I gave up.

So many stereotypes, so little time!

What stereotypes? We don’t even meet his mom until like episode 7

JFC, R26 -- a blonde "shiksa" in and of itself is a stereotype.

Do I have to lead you by the hand?

There aren't any schvartzes in this, are there?

Brava, R16!

I enjoy well written comments from smart women.