‘Nobody Wants This’ creator Erin Foster addresses show criticism

Erin Foster is addressing critics of her new Netflix show “Nobody Wants This.”
In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Foster, who created the series, addressed criticism of the show, which follows an agnostic, unfiltered podcast host, Joanne (Kristen Bell), who collides with a man totally her opposite at a dinner party.
“I think we need positive Jewish stories right now. I think it’s interesting when people focus on, ‘Oh, this is a stereotype of Jewish people,’ when you have a rabbi as the lead. A hot, cool, young rabbi who smokes weed,” Foster said. “That’s the antithesis of how people view a Jewish rabbi, right?”
In the show, Joanne has an undeniable connection with the charming, emotionally available Noah (Adam Brody), but things are complicated by a difference in beliefs.
Foster continued: “If I made the Jewish parents, like, two granola hippies on a farm, then someone would write, ‘I’ve never met a Jewish person like that before. You clearly don’t know how to write Jewish people, you don’t know what you’re doing, and that doesn’t represent us well.'”
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The show is based on the love story of Foster, the daughter of Grammy-winning composer David Foster, and her husband Simon Tikhman, who she tied the knot with on New Year’s Eve 2019.
Criticism over the depictions of Jewish women in “Nobody Wants This” was swift.
“It’s a shame the Jewish women in ‘Nobody Wants This’ are impossible to root for — one-dimensional and painfully trope-ridden. Joanne’s interest in converting to Judaism to be with Noah is understandable; he’s the perfect boyfriend. But who’d want to become a Jewish woman when this is what being one looks like?” a writer for the Jewish feminist cultural site Hey Alma wrote.
Jessica Radloff wrote for Glamour that she “struggled with ‘Nobody Wants This,'” writing that “while I love Noah’s commitment to Judaism, and just the fact that he’s one of the best TV boyfriends I’ve seen in some time, I can’t say the same about the other Jewish characters on the show — primarily the women.”
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Radloff continued: “Would it be too much just to see Jewish characters in shows without feeling othered?”
Writer Esther Zuckerman wrote in Time that, “What should be a show about a woman’s entrance into and embrace of Jewish culture instead perpetuates the worst ideas about Jewish women. I wanted to fall in love. Instead, I just felt targeted.”
Contributing: Erin Jensen