That would be, Nobody Wants This, a Netflix comedy series. Summary: romantic, professional, cultural, and family shenanigans ensue as a relationship develops between an opinionated, religion-free podcaster and a progressive Jewish rabbi who needs his new love to convert to his religion if he is to become head rabbi of his temple.
Nobody Wants This was recommended to me, and has an actor in it whose previous work I’d enjoyed, [1] so moiself gave the series a go. As I struggled through episode 8 (out of 10) I realized how apt the title was…for me. Nobody (or at least, moiself ) wants this – that is, to feel what I am feeling, as I am watching the show, which is…
Is it me, or is it the show?
Yep, a silly romcom made me feel something I have never, ever, felt: if I’d grown up under a cultural rock and knew nothing about Judaism and had never had any Jewish friends or neighbors or classmates or coworkers, and NWT was my introduction to Jewish culture – this show might be a stealth primer on antisemitism.
The actors are all competent and good-looking…but holy Hadlakat Hanerot, [2] the majority of the Jewish females are written as alarmingly unattractively characters. They are bigoted (very anti-shiksa, an epithet freely and frequently employed in the show) and stereotyped (concerned with money, getting married, and keeping up appearances, and if they are married they are tempermental princesses who run roughshod over their husbands).
“Let’s practice the kicking-the-shiksa polka!”
And the conversion plotline I found to be ick, as in, creepy. Sure, it’s played for comic effect, but I found it insulting to both sides – to believers and to those who are religion-free – as in this case, to the shiksa and the Jew-who-wants-his-non-Jewish girlfriend to convert. Yeah, let’s have the atheist character be so flip that she considers “converting”– after all, since she doesn’t believe in anyone’s gods she can just as well not believe in a Jewish god to please her hot boyfriend! And besides, those Jews have such nice rituals and throw such great parties (which is how the rabbi and his brother plot to get the rabbi’s GF to consider converting: “Show her the fun stuff first!”). It’s not like anyone might seriously consider that this *fun* stuff is based on ancient/primitive stories and superstitions which some folk nevertheless take seriously and therefore it might be just a tad respectful to ponder whether or not the convert-ee even wants to pretend that those things are true or at least relevant to her life and/or this century….
One of the side plotsin Nobody Wants This, about preparations for the rabbi’s niece’s bat mitzvah, was equally stomach-curdling for me to watch. I didn’t see that the ritual meant anything to anyone participating/planning it, aside from the pressure to throw a really big party ($$$) and impress your friends ($$$) and have the right dress ($$$) and a “theme” (Seriously? Like a Halloween party?), and you have to make sure it isn’t a theme someone else has done or is doing….
Watching Nobody Wants This reminded me of how queasy/uncomfortable I felt, several years ago, when I was reading about another person’s less-than-flattering perspective re her father’s culture. It was the memoir of a bicultural writer and actor, the daughter of a Black, non-religious mother and White, Jewish father. She spent alternating years with each parent after they divorced when she was seven years old; she felt estranged from both parents, for different reasons. [3] After the birth of her own child she had a nasty, public falling out with her mother. Her father’s family, while seemingly welcoming to (or at least tolerant of) her, left her with a bad taste in her mouth re their Jewish religion (or perhaps their culture, would be a better word), which, in her observation and interpretation, consisted of being very little concerned with spirituality and overly concerned with financial success.
Moiself doesn’t know anything about Nobody Wants This‘s creator(s) or writer(s) or director(s), but I’m thinking that they have to be Jewish in order to get away with the stereotypes. Could a goy write such material and not get called out on it? No matter the source, and despite some witty dialogue and truly comic situations, I just got more and more creeped out by the material as a whole. I gave it a try, but in the end – the end of the series I didn’t make it to – yeah, *this* nobody doesn’t want this.
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Department Of And Then, There Is This….
Possibly the best Meaning of Life ® metaphor moiself has heard, can be found in definitely one of the best podcast episodes I’ve listened to: from the NY Times Modern Love’s, “Andrew Garfield Wants to Crack Open Your Heart.”
The metaphor comes not from Mr. Garfield, but from the NY Times essay he reads for the podcast: “Learning to Measure Time in Love and Loss,” by Chris Huntington. Perhaps you’d rather not listen to the podcast; that’s okay. Read the essay, if only so that you can understand that when we acknowledge the ultimate Human Problem® – which is that we can’t hold on to anything; life is all a letting go, and therefore the wisest, most heartfelt, and compassionate [4] approach to life we can take is,
Be the best prisoner you can be.
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Department Of Just Wondering, #389 in A Never-Ending Series:
Why Do Human Beings Do This?
KC is telling her friend (or spouse or parent or coworker or…) JP about how KC is feeling down about something negative that has happened to her. Why does JP reply, “Oh, don’t be so so sad – there are plenty of people out there who are worse off,” or “C’mon, it’s not like you have a cancer, or are losing your home and will be living on the streets,” or use another comparison which brings up the hypothetical or actual troubles of other people?
Why do we essentially imply that there is a hierarchy of woe in the world, and if what’s troubling you is not at the top of the list ( Are you a starving child in war torn Somalia? Do you have a brain tumor? ) then whatever is troubling you is not that awful. Why the comparison to outside situations? Why is your particular trouble not worthy, to you, and to your situation, of the sadness it evokes in you? Why the need for comparison – it is a ham-fisted intent to supposedly lift you up (or shut you up)?
And why do people *not* do that in situations which evoke opposite – as in, positive – emotions?
Imagine KC telling JP how happy she is about something new and great in her life (her job promotion, new romantic interest, the Siamese kitten she has always wanted, or other good fortune that has come to her), and JP replying, “Now, don’t be so happy – there are plenty of people out there far better off than you….”
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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [5]
“The place to be happy is here;
The time to be happy is now.
The way to be happy is to help make others so.”
( Robert Ingersoll, [1833-1899]
American writer, attorney, orater, civil and women’s and freethought activist,
“the most noted of American infidels.” )
Not a picture of Ingersoll, but a baby sloth playing peek-a-boo makes me happy, right now.
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May we be happy in the here and now;
May we think twice before sharing our things-could-be-worse perspective;
May we strive to be “the best prisoners” we can be;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] At least, what I was familiar with.
[2] The lighting of the candles for Shabbat, done by the woman of the house, around 18 minutes before sunset.
[3] Being shuttled between parents certainly didn’t help.
[4] To yourself, as well as to others.
[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
