‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ brilliantly explores the single life, in song
As much fun as it is to be single in your 20s, there are a lot of nerve-wracking insecurities: Proving there are tons of people you can invite to your housewarming party. Trying to impress your crush’s parents. The special hell of getting ready for a date.
Though these issues come up all the time, you know what’s not considered socially acceptable? Talking about them or, honestly, admitting they exist in the first place. And when people (especially millennials) try to discuss them on TV, as in HBO’s “Girls,” they’re frequently criticized for being too self-involved. So the last place you would expect to find some genuine #realtalk about these feelings is on a delightful CW comedy called “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” that also doubles as a musical.
But, as it turns out, a musical is exactly the right venue to out the deep-seated fears of singledom. In real life, there’s a sense of shame that keeps people from talking about these common thoughts: I’m scared that I don’t have enough friends to throw a party by myself. I just spent three hours getting ready to impress someone who might just see me as a friend. Maybe if I can get my crush’s mom to like me, he’ll see the error of his ways and dump his annoying girlfriend.
However, when you throw them together as funny songs on a TV show? Those anxietyridden topics are fair game! Even more tellingly, these musical numbers are all inside the head of the main character, Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom). She’ll occasionally burst into song to depict her insecurities about single life and romance, the most palatable way to showcase such vulnerabilities. It’s one of the deeper themes of the show: The idea that women are expected to have everything totally together on the surface. Sure, it’s OK to fall apart … as long as no one hears about it. Otherwise, you’re deemed the dreaded “c-word”: Crazy.
The tongue-in-cheek title “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” illustrates this perfectly as Rebecca, a 20-something who quits her job as a high-powered New York lawyer and moves to West Covina, Calif., where her high school ex-boyfriend just happens to live. The ex now has a girlfriend (a stunning, snooty yoga instructor named Valencia), though Rebecca is determined that Josh is her soul mate.
Of course, Rebecca runs into various humiliations, which is often when the show transforms into a musical. The most talked-about tune so far is R&B single “The Sexy Getting Ready Song,” in which Rebecca details the absurd amount of attention women pay to their appearances. “Primping and plucking, brushing and rubbing,” Rebecca sings during a song that features one of the more graphic waxing scenes in TV history.
When a rapper appears for an interlude, he’s stunned. “God, this is how you get ready? This is horrifying, like a scary movie or something.”
In interviews, Bloom says one point of the series is to highlight the contradictory messages women receive from society, particularly how they’re supposed to portray themselves when it comes to finding love.
“The show is a (messed)-up rom-com,” she told Vulture. “For me, it’s taking a pop trope and exploring what’s the actual human side of that, that’s trapped in the sexiness? With the show we also wanted to explore not just how someone comes to be crazy, but what women are sold.”