Nobody wants this- Netflix

amother

Almond

Wed, Oct 09 2024, 3:24 pm

I watched the first episode and gave up.

Yet another TV show/movie showing how all Jewish women are so unattractive that cute, nice Jewish men (even Rabbis!) have to marry non Jewish women. Sad

And when there is an actual Jewish woman being portrayed, she is played by a non Jew.

Just watching She Said, which has a Jewish journalist in it - the actor who plays her is not Jewish. Of course.

amother

Seablue

Wed, Oct 09 2024, 3:53 pm

I just watched the first 15 minutes or so. I don't care so much about who plays the Jewish women or if they're negatively portrayed, but it was just not a funny or fun to watch show.

Felt like the writing was a combination of the worst of SATC and Gilmore Girls. Both those shows were cheesy, but both also had a certain strong charm. They also both did something new and different. This show has the cheese factor, but not the charm, and feels derivative in 2024.

Nowithstanding the above, there were a few lines that I thought were very funny as written, but the delivery was awkward.

I may get tomatoes for this, but I thought the rabbi's Jewish non-fiancee/ex was the funniest, even though she was negatively portrayed so far.

amother

Honeysuckle

Wed, Oct 09 2024, 4:03 pm

Just binge-watched this show, since home sick and bored.
It was amusing but also awful at the same time.
Don't like the way many of the characters were presented. Or Judaism in general. Bottom line: cute but stupid.

↑ fmt4

Wed, Oct 09 2024, 4:23 pm

amother Almond wrote:

I watched the first episode and gave up.

Yet another TV show/movie showing how all Jewish women are so unattractive that cute, nice Jewish men (even Rabbis!) have to marry non Jewish women. Sad

And when there is an actual Jewish woman being portrayed, she is played by a non Jew.

Just watching She Said, which has a Jewish journalist in it - the actor who plays her is not Jewish. Of course.

His Jewish ex girlfriend is gorgeous and everyone keeps saying how pretty she is. She is played by a Jew. Which Jewish woman in the show is played by a non Jew?

↑ Amarante

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 9:38 am

I thought this was an interesting article on the show. I should add that romcoms are not my genre and everything I read about the show gave me no reason to watch it

‘Nobody Wants This’ Knows What You Do Want

The Netflix rom-com checks every genre box, but it became a megahit by offering versions of everything you already like on TV.

“Nobody Wants This,” with Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, has become one of Netflix’s buzziest hits since premiering in late September.

Two leads with nostalgia power. A meet cute. A series of fish-out-of-water mishaps, some of which rely on an almost alarming level of ignorance or ineptitude. A party that goes awry — probably from too much stress. (Probably a wealthy, maybe even icy woman has caused this stress.) Her: Frazzled, into her phone. Him: Safe, sensitive, sage.

Make it about x-mas, and you have a Hallmark Channel original. Make it about interfaith romance, and it’s Netflix’s latest hit “Nobody Wants This.”

A romantic comedy that checks every genre box, “Nobody” is about the star-crossed attraction between Joanne, a Los Angeles podcast host played by Kristen Bell, and Noah, a soulful rabbi played by Adam Brody. Since arriving on Netflix late last month, it has remained at or near the top of the service’s most-watched chart, sharing space with a show from the darker end of the replication factory, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” (On Thursday, Netflix announced “Nobody” would return for another season in 2025.)

“Nobody” has generated as much coverage as that grisly docudrama, thanks partly to its charms and partly to its shortcomings, namely its depictions of Jewish women that rely on hoary stereotypes.

The draw of “Nobody,” though, is not that the show is so distinctive, it’s that it is so familiar. Rom-coms have thrived on streaming as they have mostly fallen out of fashion in theaters, and for this particular genre “formulaic” is no great diss — it is perhaps the opposite. (“Nobody” isn’t even the best opposites-attract rom-com to arrive on TV recently — that would be Season 2 of “Colin From Accounts,” on Paramount+.) Beyond the show’s ample joys and persistent irritants — “What about our podcast?” is this show’s “can MomTok survive this?” — there’s a Goldilocks ease to the endeavor that one can see as either finely honed or algorithmically precooked; simply reheat and enjoy.

And that’s not just because it knows how to orchestrate a major kiss. “Nobody” hits its rom-com marks easily — doofy sidekicks, familial friction — but also draws on other trendy subgenres and existing fan sentiment, a hybrid strain of everything you already like.

Shows that are based on true stories are all the rage right now — hello, Menendez brothers — and “Nobody” relies on this blurring between on-screen and offscreen for both credibility and permission. It’s a key element of the show’s promotion, and the fact that the series is based loosely on the life of its creator, Erin Foster, means we don’t have to suspend disbelief. We just kind of prop it up.

The semi-autobiographical auteur comedy became standardized in the 2010s. Now the genre is seeing its next generation: “Baby Reindeer” demonstrated what a darker, gnarlier spin on it can look like, and “Nobody” takes the brighter, lighter, gentler tack. The descendants of “Fleabag” walk many different paths.

In the show, the stars play versions of people we have seen and liked before.

The stars of “Nobody” also are proven commodities, playing versions of people we have loved them as before. Bell is not merely sweetheart-coded. (How many commercials can one relatable mom be in?) We’ve also seen her play a free-spirited wild card in high-rise jeans who is incurious about the nature of existence until she falls for a s-xy-dorky guy who has devoted his life to studying morality. Vive “The Good Place.”

As for Brody, we don’t just know his general Hollywood résumé: We know him as Seth Cohen from “The O.C.,” interfaith icon and popularizer of Chrismukkah. He is the son Noah and Joanne might themselves raise.

And Bell and Brody have actually played a romantic pairing before, albeit briefly, in a premium-cable deep cut, Showtime’s “House of Lies” — she as a management consultant, he as a dildo scion. (So even the “Nobody” relations-toy shop scene has a kind of predecessor.)

But maybe the most contemporary aspect of “Nobody” is that although it centers on a rabbi, its overall perspective could be described as “spiritual, but not religious.”

Its religious characters aren’t. Its seemingly observant Jews scarf pork in secret. The rabbi not only plays basketball on Saturdays, he also doesn’t offer counsel when he realizes a congregant is having an affair — instead, he just accepts a donation to the shul and looks the other way. Rites of passage are just excuses for big parties, and rituals are tedious and hollow. The upshot is that Joanne seems truer to her principles, or lack thereof, than Noah does to his. “It’s not like you stand for anything or have strong beliefs,” her friend tells her, approvingly. But she resists conversion anyway; it’s Noah who is willing to risk his traditions and beliefs.

Put another way, even the thing that makes “Nobody” distinctive has been packaged into something comfortable and familiar. If the show’s understanding of Judaism seems mean and shallow, that’s probably because its true religion is the holy algorithm, its episodes preordained to be even more irresistible than illicit prosciutto.

amother

Dill

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:13 am

Random side q, but I thought people are not allowed to convert "in order to marry a Jew". So how did that work?

amother

↑ Butterscotch ↓

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:14 am

Rabbi is reform

ittsamother

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:14 am

Amarante wrote:

Man, I totally hate shows that show ostensible Jews not being religious. Sigh.

amother

↑ OP

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 10:22 am

In the future, it’s really common courtesy to write spoiler alert before posting. Guess I have to stay off my own thread Can't Believe It

amother

↑ Butterscotch

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 5:24 pm

It was just renewed another season

eta14

Fri, Oct 11 2024, 5:39 pm

Am I the only one who watched the OC? I am watching just for Seth Cohen lol

s c

Sat, Oct 12 2024, 10:15 pm

Hated the show. The Jewish women were such caricatures especially the mil. Found it all faintly ridiculous. But also very typical of netflix these days. They always have an agenda, whether it's inserting gay and mixed race couples or trans into everything or trashing traditional family values. This was a kind of attack on religion for being bigoted and non inclusive. All he'd ever wanted to do was be a Rabbi. Without that he'll he nothing and have nothing but we're supposed to cheer him on and feel good at the end because he gave up everything he spent his life working for and went for 'true love'.

amother

Obsidian

Sat, Oct 12 2024, 10:24 pm

I thought the show showed Judiasm itself in a positive light, but Jewish women on the other hand…let’s just hope there will be at least one Jewish woman in season 2 that we want to empathize with

amother

↑ Brunette

Sat, Oct 12 2024, 11:39 pm

I didnt find it antisemitic at all. It threw in all the mother in law/daughter in law stereotypes and they only spoke positively about the Jewish ex fiance -how she's gorgeous and has no pores lol
I think they did a halfway decent job portraying reform as well and showing that some people were fine with him marrying out but he can't cuz hes the "rabbi"
Renewed for 2nd season so let's see where this goes.
Also ya just here for Seth Cohen lol!

amother

Cappuccino

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 8:33 pm

Ben Shapiro certainly does not like this. This is what he had to say:
https://youtube.com/shorts/weB.....eaNjS

amother

Coral

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 10:37 pm

amother Obsidian wrote:

I thought the show showed Judiasm itself in a positive light, but Jewish women on the other hand…let’s just hope there will be at least one Jewish woman in season 2 that we want to empathize with

I empathized with the ex girlfriend.