I see what this show is trying to do, but it has no real idea of how to do it. Crazy Ex Girlfriend is the CW’s attempt at a resurrection of Ally McBeal, complete with single white professional woman zaniness coupled with musical interlude flashbacks.
Which actually works pretty well for the show, until they do this weird thing where they attempt to take frat house humor and crude language about women and have women say it. For the purpose of making it cool.
Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) is an obsessed twenty-something who leaves a high-powered lawyer gig in New York to move back to California and essentially stalk her former boyfriend Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III).
The only problem is, he’s already dating a girl named Valencia (Gabrielle Ruiz) who happens to be a yoga instructor, and pretty much perfect in every way. So far, normal. But watch this scene where Rebecca’s mind takes over, and she ruins a pretty funny musical interlude with weird and unnecessary kink:
Why was any of that necessary? First of all, you might be able to pull off this whole “women reclaiming the language of men about women for women” thing if the lead character in this story was some kind of strong woman who wasn’t flipping her life upside down for a fling she had in the 11th grade.
But she is flipping her life upside down for an 11th grade fling. So the whole language empowerment thing doesn’t really work.
Secondly, as if the “woman obsessing over the man” thing wasn’t a big enough stereotype to play into, the show goes one further by feeding into the sexual fantasy stereotypes of men by turning a double-date night into a drunken, lesbian musical interlude. While she’s dancing with Valencia:
As Julia A. Seymour has written about this show, desperation is not empowerment, and this show reeks of it. Rebecca is completely obsessed with a guy who is completely not in her league while she competes with another girl for his affections. This is the champion who reclaims female sexual stereotypes?
No. The show is funny, but it would be funny without the weird sexual dialogue and suggestion. Leave that to the frat boys.
