Netflix's latest rom-com series Nobody Wants This has sought to reinvent a well-worn trope; the impossible match. In the case of the series, sex-and-relationship podcaster – and self-identifying agnostic – Joanne (played by Kristen Bell) meets and falls for dedicated, charming, funny rabbi Noah (Adam Brody).
It's not so much a will-they-won't-they, but a can-they. Many obstacles are in their path, not least of all each of their own baggage when it comes to relationships. But the biggest one is obvious – Noah is a religious leader whose congregants and community expect him to settle down with a NJG (nice Jewish girl). Joanne is not that.
This big obstacle is presented in part to the viewer through lots of small misunderstandings; mostly sort of funny faux pas. For example, Joanne brings Noah's family a charcuterie board featuring prosciutto – ie pork – which, generally, Jews don't eat. Ha ha!
The impossible match trope is one we've seen before and with it comes a familiar cast of characters. Chief amongst them, the family and community that absolutely does not want the new interloper to marry their relative. This trope isn't necessarily problematic in and of itself, but it is myopic, particularly when it comes to Judaism.
He off-handedly jokes that falling for a gentile is a no-no because 'we're trying to repopulate'. It's presented as a light-hearted aside, but it concisely expresses the fraught tension, and argument, at the heart of what it means to be Jewish.
The idea that if a Jew's potential partner is gentile, they must convert so the couple (heterosexual, obviously) can produce Jewish children is based in matrilineal Judaism (that only through one's mother's bloodline can one truly be Jewish).
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Regardless of how you are raised, who your father is, who your cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, and community are – you are not considered Jewish unless your mother is. (By this tenet, your humble writer would not be considered Jewish, either.)
This conservative foundation that Adam Brody's Noah for some reason believes in (despite being an 'unconventional' rabbi) means that he and Joanne are not going to make it. And they're really not going to make it if Noah's sister-in-law and mother have anything to do about it.
Sister-in-law Esther (Jackie Tohn) and mom Bina (Tova Feldshuh) go into full-on wicked stepmother and -sister vibes, plotting to destroy Noah's new relationship, enlisting the help of seemingly every Jewish woman Noah has ever met.
This, again, is part and parcel of the trope. However, where it falls apart in Nobody Wants This is that it pushes every Jewish woman in the show into a deeply problematic and permeating stereotype: the nagging, negative, nasty Jewish woman.
The free-spirited, blonde and beautiful Joanne serves as a foil to the neurotic, brunette and ugly Jewish women in Noah's life. Obviously, these women are not ugly, but the counterpoint makes it so that even if they are physically attractive, they are spiritually and psychologically repulsive.
The question around 'Who gets to play a Jew' also illuminates this dynamic. Stories abound of Jewish actors being turned down for Jewish roles because they look too Jewish. For women, it's often because they don't fit into the beauty standards we're so used to seeing: straight blonde hair, small noses, meek voices.
The show asks this question – what does it mean to look like a Jew? – in one of its more pointed moments about how antisemitism functions more insidiously in society. But it exists only for the show's men's benefit.
Though Noah's ex Rebecca (Emily Arlook) is often referred to as beautiful, her actions are almost entirely stereotypical: in her first on-screen appearance, she's gone behind Noah's back to talk to his mother about marriage. Oy.
Esther in particular feels unnecessarily cruel. We get that Noah's ex, the perfect NJG, is her best friend but her actions are juvenile at best and maniacal at worst. Bina, too, is comically evil, whispering in Joanne's ear that although Bina liked her, Joanne will never end up with Noah.
We see a small glimpse of a kinder, empathetic Esther as she relates to her daughter. However, the moment is so short-lived, and Esther is consistently so callous, that the tenderness she shows feels strange and uncharacteristic rather than a chance to explore Esther's dynamism.
This rom-com trope isn't meant to be kind. The family that stands squarely against the budding, exciting relationship is meant to be the villain. The problem with this trope in Nobody Wants This is it also plays into this long-standing antisemitic stereotype about Jewish women.
Speaking to Hey, Alma, creator Erin Foster said that the depiction of the Jewish women who populate the show, "[w]asn't really something I was thinking about too much". As Hey, Alma's writer pointed out – that's very obvious.
It's a shame, because what Nobody Wants This is trying to do is undo a stereotype around Jewish men and masculinity. The fact that there is a 'hot rabbi' at all (though the show is too self-aware of this) is a breakthrough in so many ways.
Jewish men are given dynamism; even Noah's father (Paul Ben-Victor) – who expresses his support of Noah's relationship, albeit couched in metaphor – has shades of grey. Save for the show's 'cool rabbi Shira' cameo (Leslie Grossman), none of the show's Jewish women are afforded nuance. There isn't even a funky-reform-Jew friend of Joanne's to warn her that bringing prosciutto to a conservative Jewish family is a no-no.
Nobody Wants This begs a lot of questions. How does a millennial woman live in Los Angeles and not know a single Jew? Why does an "unconventional rabbi" work in such a conservative congregation? Why are even the show's 'nice Jews' (aka its men) so obsessed with the word shiksa (a term which is, if not defamatory, clearly very unkind)? Why the hell is Bina eating prosciutto out of the garbage? Does it taste that good? Is it defiance against the rigidity she's adhered to for so long? Is she just really goddamned hungry?
Nobody Wants This has so many things going in its favour, and as such a potential season two has the chance to broaden its scope of the nuance of Judaism it purports to be espousing, to answer some of these questions in a way that enriches the tapestry of what it means to be Jewish, to be a millennial woman, to be a matriarch, to be a patriarch, to love at all.
Bina and Esther don't have to give up their opposition to Noah's match, but they can be more complicated, complex and messy than they are now without sacrificing any of their Jewishness.
Nobody Wants This is available on Netflix.
Gabriella Geisinger is a freelance film critic and journalist, with a focus on J-drama & film, and the Japanese production industry. She was previously Locations Editor at Screen International and Deputy Movies Editor at Digital Spy. Her writing can also befound in Curzon, 1883, and more. A born and raised New Yorker, she loves coffee and the colour black, obviously.
