Since 2016, I have been obsessed - "certifiably cute and adorably obsessed" - with a television show. Given the nature of the show, I think it’s worth expanding on this word obsessed to be more specific; I mean obsessed in the psychological sense of fixation as in a “persistent attachment to an object or idea” (thanks Wikipedia) with a side helping of celebrity worship syndrome, which you might get a sense of later in this post.
The show’s finale aired on April 5th2019 and I’m honestly not over it yet. Everyone is all “oh no, Game of Thrones is over,” and I’m just here like, “my show ended over a month ago and I’m still deeply depressed, so good luck my pals…”
My show, by the way, is Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and I do fully recommend it to basically everyone but I also understand the reasons why you might choose not to watch it, especially after reading that title (which may get its own post one day because it's super interesting to consider the pros, cons & reasons around such a controversial title).
I have a lot of thoughts about the show. For those who have seen it and/or spoken to me about it, this won’t be a surprise at all. For those who are unfamiliar, you might wonder how much one person can have to say about a show called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Well firstly, I’m aware of at least two PhDs that are being done on this show, so that tells you something. And secondly, this particular television show really does lend itself to critical analysis – in the sense of literary critique rather than just review. Although for the record, I rate it 5/5 stars.
So I’m planning to write a few blog posts about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, because I really need to process my thoughts and feelings about a show that has been a huge and important part of my life for 3 years. I don’t know how many posts I’ll be doing and I don’t know what the release schedule will look like.
In today’s topic "How This All Started" I’ll share with you 1) how I discovered the show, 2) what made me watch it, and 3) an introduction to the show’s creator, writer, director and lead actor, Rachel Bloom.
1. How I Discovered Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
I like to do quizzes.
I really like to do quizzes.
Which means that I always say yes to market researchers on the phone, I love to help people out with quizzes for their university research studies, I often fall prey to clickbait on Facebook, and there was a time in my life when I would spend hours and hours doing Buzzfeed quizzes. I’m a recovering addict these days.
And sometime in February 2016, I did this quiz: https://www.buzzfeed.com/ralter/which-crazy-ex-girlfriend-song-do-you-need-to-hear-dick
And the result that I got was this song. I think the Buzzfeed quiz linked to The CW channel YouTube so that the first Crazy Ex-Girlfriend song that I heard was actually the clean version of “I’m So Good At Yoga”, but I’ll link the explicit version for you here because I think it’s much better.
Notable quote: "Great each day, Namaste, fuuuuuck you, you're fat."
By the way, no spoilers for any major plot points here. I’ll put in a clear warning if I’m likely to spoil anything.
2. What Made Me Watch It
I really enjoyed the song. “I’m So Good At Yoga” is funny and a bit dirty, and pretty relatable if you’ve ever been to a yoga class or even just seen really hot people working out near to where you’re working out.
In the grand scheme, this song isn’t one of my favourites and definitely wouldn’t make a top 10 list, probably not even a Top 10 Songs of Season 1 list. Especially because, in hindsight, I acknowledge that it’s rather culturally appropriative... It also contains some fat-shaming, but that's sort of the point of the song and the humour isn't in the fat-shaming, it's in Rebecca's imagined perception of Valencia's behaviour towards her. But anyway, that's a discussion for another time.
But all in all, I did enjoy the song at the time so I was curious about the show, which made me go on to Google it and then to watch Season 1 Episode 1.
In case you were wondering, this was the first time I had ever heard of the show, and timing-wise it had just come back from the Season 1 mid-season break. So I was a little late on the uptake.
My reaction to S01E01 probably deserves its own blog post, so I’ll leave that topic for now. Suffice to say, the rest is history.
It wasn’t just “I’m So Good At Yoga” that made me watch the show. It was the fact that I recognised the girl in the music video who was doing yoga. And when I Googled the show, that actor’s name was the one that came up and that sealed the deal to get me to watch the first episode.
3. Rachel Bloom
I may have discovered Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in early 2016, but I’ve been a fan of Rachel Bloom since 2011 when one of her songs made the front page of College Humour.
Enjoy (or probably not tbh because most people don't appreciate this one the same way that I do), “I Steal Pets.”
I loved “I Steal Pets” when it first came out. My family hated me for weeks because I played it over and over again. Sorry not sorry fam.
And after discovering “I Steal Pets”, I caught up on Rachel Bloom’s other work, including the amazing “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” for which she received a nomination for a Hugo Award. I think in general more people would appreciate “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury,” so here it is:
And I followed Rachel Bloom pretty closely, and also loved “Jazz Fever” when she released that. It remains one of my favourites to this day.
Notable quote: "Buzz off, penicillin, inject me with jazz!"
But I had lost track of what Rachel Bloom was up to sometime after "Jazz Fever", so I was really surprised to see that she was not just a character in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but that she was in fact the eponymous “crazy ex-girlfriend”.
So that certainly helped to get me on board, since I knew that I enjoyed Rachel Bloom’s musical comedy.
Now that the show is over, I’ll be keeping a close eye on Rachel Bloom because Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has been amazing and I’m sure I’ll love whatever else she ends up doing too. I mentioned celebrity worship syndrome earlier - I've got a touch of it when it comes to Rachel Bloom.
That’s enough for now, but I’ll definitely be writing about this again because I still have some feelings to work through.
♥Nancy♬
