LOS ANGELES (AP) — When the first season of Netflix's “Nobody Wants It” premiered last year, the show's popularity exploded in ways its creator and stars could never have imagined. It spent six weeks on Netflix's top 10 English-language TV list and was viewed 57 million times in three months, according to the streaming service.
“I think we just won the lottery because of how ready people were for these kinds of stories,” star and executive producer Kristen Bell said ahead of the second season's release on Thursday.
The romantic comedy follows the relationship between hip but devout Reform rabbi Noah (Adam Brody) and Joan (Bell), an agnostic woman who hosts a podcast about dating and sex.
But as the internet collective swooned over the hot Rabbi Brody, came criticism and think pieces about how the show played on anti-Semitic stereotypes, especially in its portrayal of Jewish women. Noah's sister-in-law, Esther, and his mother, Binah, were often denounced as the bitter and overbearing antithesis of Joanna and her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe).
“When it first came out and I watched the first episode, I was so uncomfortable,” said Rabbi Elan Babchuk, executive vice president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. “I’d like to change a lot of things about it.”
He took issue with the show's portrayal of Judaism, which he felt was often presented as “a test to be passed rather than a tradition to be passed on”, as well as the frequent use of the word “shiksa”, a derogatory term for non-Jewish women (which is noticeably absent from the second season).
However, Babchuk eventually returned and watched the entire season. Although his criticism remained, he eventually changed his mind. “I celebrate this show. I think representation matters in every way, even if it's in an imperfect form,” he said.
Changes on screen and behind the scenes in the second season
When Nobody Wants It was renewed for a second season last year, Netflix announced that HBO's Girls alums Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan would take over as showrunners, while Erin Foster, the series creator who loosely based the story on her own life and conversion to Judaism, would remain as an executive producer.
“We love this show. This is Erin's voice. This is Erin's story,” Conner said. “Our job is to literally protect her voice and show her things that she may not know because she hasn't done this work before.”
As the relationship between Joanna and Noah gets serious in the first season, the couple must deal with the inevitable questions that arise from their different backgrounds about Noah's treatment, family, and work. In season two, they deal with the fallout from Noah's being turned down as chief rabbi at his temple because Joanna wasn't ready to convert to Christianity.
But season two also shows a different side of Bina and reveals more of Esther's story, which Foster claims was always part of the plan.
“If you're a Jewish woman who felt like you didn't like the way you were portrayed in the world or the way people looked at you and thus reaffirmed that, I can understand your sensitivity. That was definitely never the intention,” she said. “I think the characters are developing in season two the way they always should have been.”
Criticism
For the most part, though, Foster and the rest of the cast take the criticism with a grain of salt. “Not everyone should be allowed to express their opinion in public everywhere,” she said.
“Obviously, one show or group of characters cannot replace an entire civilization,” Brody added.
Jackie Thon, who plays Esther, said she was surprised by some of the responses.
“The two craziest characters on this show are definitely Joanna and Morgan,” she said. “I think Jewish women follow the rules and are punished. They may boss their husbands around a little, but good luck arguing about that.”
Foster said she took the show's representation of Jewishness seriously, and that from the beginning they hired a consulting rabbi who “read every script” and was present in the writers' room.
Rabbi Nicole Guzik of Temple Sinai, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles where parts of Nobody Wants It was filmed, remembers Brody asking her to discuss his Hebrew pronunciation with him both seasons. “It was so sweet and so genuine that he took great care to play the role accurately,” she said.
Finding Faith in “Nobody Wants This”
Although Nobody Wants It explores Judaism as a religion and whether Joanna will ultimately accept it, Foster argues that the religious elements are meant to be “more of a backdrop” to their love story than the focus of the series.
“It's not my intention to feel harsh. I think people really latched on to the right amount of religion in the show,” she said.
But for some, it is the show's interaction with Judaism and conversion that makes it unique and compelling.
“For a Netflix series to be so popular and around inspiring and curious conversations about what it means to be Jewish, I don’t see how we can be critical,” Guzik reflects. “I know there will be different parts of the Jewish narrative that I don't necessarily subscribe to or agree with. But that's Jewish history, too, isn't it? We're very diverse.”
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