Description
Book SynopsisPeak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy analyzes the ways in which contemporary American television—with its unprecedented choice, diversity, and authenticity—is establishing a new version of the Jewish woman and a new take on American Jewish female identity which challenges the stereotypes of Jewish femininity proliferated on television since its inception. Using case studies of streaming, cable, and network comedy series from the past decade written and created by Jewish women, including Broad City, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, among others, this book illustrates how this new Jewish woman has been given voice and agency by the bevy of Jewish female showrunners interested in telling stories about Jewish women for wider audiences.
Trade ReviewPeak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman is simultaneously a deep dive into some important case studies and an expansive new reading of Jewishness on American television. Pickette has crafted a story about the evolution of the depiction of Jewish womanhood. She offers sharp, insightful readings of both classic and recent television shows, comparing and contrasting their use (and sometimes misuse) of Jewish women characters. She ends with the question “where do we go from here?” but the book has left very little doubt that where we go from here is on to ever more unapologetic Jewish women populating the airwaves.
-- Jennifer Caplan, University of Cincinnati
Table of ContentsChapter 1: “The situation’s a lot more nuanced than that”: Jewish Mothers, JAPs, and the Correlation between Mental Illness and Jewish Female “Craziness” in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Chapter 2: A Modern Jewish Big Mouth in 1950s New York: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as a Contemporary Re-imagining of the Midcentury Jewish Woman
Chapter 3: Precarious Broads, Difficult Girls, and Baby Grown-Ups: Defining the Unapologetic Jewess on Broad City and Difficult People
Chapter 4: The (New) Dysfunctional Jewish Family: Jewish Mothers and Jewish Family Life on Network, Cable, and Streaming Television
