Nobody Wants This: Nobody Wants This!
October 7, 2024 4:44 AM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe
An agnostic sex podcaster and a newly single rabbi fall in love.
There's an excellent article dealing with this show and how the 'hot clergy person' trope is generally problematic.
posted by hanov3r at 12:54 PM on October 7
posted by hanov3r at 12:54 PM on October 7
I watched the first episode and really liked the humor and chemistry. Then I listened to Pop Culture Happy Hour. I’m sharing the link because it was an interesting and well-informed perspective, but the discussion suggested, at least to me, that Nobody Wants This was way off base in representing the beliefs and actions of a real rabbi.
Fortunately, the show already had me hooked, so I watched all ten episodes. It’s a romcom, of course it takes liberties with reality, but it made me swoon and feel heartbroken and hopeful. I might gripe that the female characters were frequently snarky, petty, and cruel; that the banter was unrealistically hilarious and clever; and the ending implies a season 2 (why can’t Netflix just give us one perfect season with a solid finale?). But still, I loved it and will probably watch it again and will absolutely tune in for season 2 if/when that happens.
posted by kbar1 at 1:21 PM on October 7
Fortunately, the show already had me hooked, so I watched all ten episodes. It’s a romcom, of course it takes liberties with reality, but it made me swoon and feel heartbroken and hopeful. I might gripe that the female characters were frequently snarky, petty, and cruel; that the banter was unrealistically hilarious and clever; and the ending implies a season 2 (why can’t Netflix just give us one perfect season with a solid finale?). But still, I loved it and will probably watch it again and will absolutely tune in for season 2 if/when that happens.
posted by kbar1 at 1:21 PM on October 7
I had a lot of feelings about this one! I enjoyed it and thought the cast was so great, but also did notice a lot of potentially problematic things like everything linked above. I am married to a religious leader (Christian) so I think I may have stronger bias than most on ways in which the whole thing was really bizarre. We know a lot of other religious leaders and I would certainly have my judgey-pants on if one of them dumped their almost-fiance and immediately brought around someone incongruent with the faith.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:43 PM on October 7
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:43 PM on October 7
Bridget loves Bernie?
posted by Mogur at 1:57 PM on October 7 [1 favorite]
posted by Mogur at 1:57 PM on October 7 [1 favorite]
Watched this because I needed something for a plane ride. Really stupid low-effort show and had me wondering if they've begun using AI in the writers room. Am I seriously to believe a grown woman who lives in LA, works in media, goes to dinner parties, dates a ton, is going to be asking questions like "'Shalom'...? What does that mean?" C'mon man.
Very substandard not funny NetflixCore, 5.5 out of 10 in that it was watchable but too many distracting bad decisions to keep me engaged. There is a good show buried in here somewhere about a woman who has to seriously consider converting to Judaism for a man she falls in love with and struggling with how she could reconcile this with her identity as an Independent Empowered Sex Podcaster, and it could even still be funny, but it trades in too much silly cartoon bullshit like ha ha religious guy's CRUEL family and friends are so overbearing and nosey! How will she win these judging HARD ASSES over this time?
posted by windbox at 2:04 PM on October 7 [1 favorite]
Very substandard not funny NetflixCore, 5.5 out of 10 in that it was watchable but too many distracting bad decisions to keep me engaged. There is a good show buried in here somewhere about a woman who has to seriously consider converting to Judaism for a man she falls in love with and struggling with how she could reconcile this with her identity as an Independent Empowered Sex Podcaster, and it could even still be funny, but it trades in too much silly cartoon bullshit like ha ha religious guy's CRUEL family and friends are so overbearing and nosey! How will she win these judging HARD ASSES over this time?
posted by windbox at 2:04 PM on October 7 [1 favorite]
I've heard that the depiction of the rabbi's friends and family as narrow-minded and judgmental goes far enough as to tread into offensive-stereotype territory. That may be true, but this...
how the 'hot clergy person' trope is generally problematic.
Hoo boy. I guess the tumblr generation has finally hit the age to write these kinds of articles. "Don't sexualize the kind of authority/power differential that people have been sexualizing since the dawn of time in a comedy because...Bad Things Will Happen!", I guess. "Don't sexualize religious figures whose religion permits them to get married! Everyone knows that rabbis are supposed to remain pure even while having a whole family!" (Yes, sexual abuse by religious authority figures is and has always been a big problem, and it's not uncommon for such figures to have to manage attempted boundary-crossing by congregation members. But the connection between these issues and a romantic comedy with a hot religious figure is so clumsy and confused, it ends up boiling down to "don't talk about stuff that might have some connection to Bad Stuff, even in a story, because that's endorsing the Bad Stuff and you might summon it.")
posted by praemunire at 2:24 PM on October 7 [4 favorites]
how the 'hot clergy person' trope is generally problematic.
Hoo boy. I guess the tumblr generation has finally hit the age to write these kinds of articles. "Don't sexualize the kind of authority/power differential that people have been sexualizing since the dawn of time in a comedy because...Bad Things Will Happen!", I guess. "Don't sexualize religious figures whose religion permits them to get married! Everyone knows that rabbis are supposed to remain pure even while having a whole family!" (Yes, sexual abuse by religious authority figures is and has always been a big problem, and it's not uncommon for such figures to have to manage attempted boundary-crossing by congregation members. But the connection between these issues and a romantic comedy with a hot religious figure is so clumsy and confused, it ends up boiling down to "don't talk about stuff that might have some connection to Bad Stuff, even in a story, because that's endorsing the Bad Stuff and you might summon it.")
posted by praemunire at 2:24 PM on October 7 [4 favorites]
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posted by joelhunt at 8:11 AM on October 7 [3 favorites]