A Book Review by M. Sellers Johnson.
An engaging read for both longstanding fans of the show and first-time viewers.”
Despite its deceptive title Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW, 2015-19) proves to be rather nuanced in its address to this ostensibly negative trope by examining issues of obsession, mental health, plurisexuality, and musical genre-blending. Amanda Konkle and Charles Burnetts’ edited anthology offers insights into the TV series with over a dozen contributors who offer useful critical perspectives such as queer theory, feminist representations, mental illness, and genre studies. With the help of reception studies and the academic fandom of the authors, Perspectives on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Nuanced Postnetwork Television (Syracuse UP, 2021) generates perceptive and amusing critical commentaries on this program. It’s an engaging read for both longstanding fans of the show and first-time viewers.
This collection comprises fourteen chapters from a variety of international educators, lecturers, postgraduate students, and enthusiasts of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CXG). Most of the contributors herein are female, which is useful in positioning the book’s feminine interpretations. Konkle’s introduction situates CXG as an unusual CW network program in its defiance of expectations within the trends of “peak TV,” its status as a critical darling despite poor reception, its genre-blending efforts through a mix of network programming and online music video content, and in its resistance to cultural stereotypes and presumptions of mental illness. The following chapters are arranged in four substantial sections, which examine topics of genre, reception, subversions of character tropes, queer perspectives, mental health stigmas, and feminist attitudes. Many of the critical examinations throughout the text revolve around musical sequences, and this approach gives the essays a lively, very readable quality.
“Part One: Critics, Genre, and ‘Quality TV’” surveys the generic aspects of the show, while also acknowledging cultural shifts in television that reflect a postnetwork period, beginning from the mid-2000s to the present. Through a perspective of critical fandom, David Scott Diffrient addresses the positive reception upon CXG’s initial release from regarded pop culture media critics like Matt Zoller Seitz and Emily Nussbaum. In the opening chapter, he playfully allies the intense critical fervor for the show with Rebecca Bunch’s (Rachel Bloom) own obsessions for Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III). Diffrient argues that the cultish appeal apparent in audiences and (specifically) reviewers is rather unusual, and signals interesting parallels between the show’s narrative content and its reception. Moreover, he signals the apparent blurred lines of cultural interest between popular journalism and academic scholarship which has manifested in terms like “aca-fan” (i.e., academic fandom). In chapter two Chelsea McCracken studies CXG’s unique position as a successful, integrated musical series. CXG’s use of genre parody and narratively connected musical numbers have helped present a fresh take on TV musicals, while also appealing to musical fans through a variety of numbers that were readily exportable as stand-alone YouTube content. Through this approach, the show cleverly found distribution in network programming, in addition to successfully integrating into digital television markets. In the following chapter, Burnetts deconstructs the rom-com genre through the show’s boundary-crossings and dysfunctionalism by discussing Rebecca’s distorted romantic view of Josh and other women—a sly reconfiguration of Laura Mulvey’s conceptions of the voyeuristic gaze. He also notes the limitations and liberations of ethnic agency through Bunch’s foregrounded Jewishness. Billy Stevenson closes “Part One” by contending CXG’s position as “postcomplex television,” and its role in evolving narrative-aesthetic complexity that has been apparent in American television since the early 2000s (78). Stevenson’s chapter is considerably articulate and involves some great textual analysis involving the credit sequences for each of the four seasons.
“Part Two: Queering Television” studies aspects of queer theory, with essays from Caitlin E. Ray, Hazel Mackenzie, and Kathleen W. Taylor Kollman. In chapter five, Ray presents a stimulating study on “crip theory,” which investigates storytelling conventions that are refracted through the critical lens of queer theory, disabled perspectives, and illness narratives:
By using crip theory as a lens through which to examine CXG, I hope to demonstrate how normative assumptions of temporality and perspective are challenged through music, creating an authentic representation of mental illness in a major television network broadcast comedy” (95-96).
Ray also interprets the musical sequences as atemporal experiences of time that are expressed through a distorted, cognitive perspective. Mackenzie relays how CXG subverts the CW’s common plot device and marketing tool of the love triangle by deconstructing this convention and undermining the audience’s expectations of a happy heterosexual coupling. While Ray and Mackenzie use queer theory as a lens for their critical discussions, Kollman’s chapter specifically dives into sexual identity politics by examining bisexuality in the character of Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner). Moreover, she analyzes the semantic quality of the term bisexual and its relationship with other plurisexual identities.
“Part Three: Trauma, Vulnerability, and Mental Illness” segues into more serious considerations of its topics as the dramatic crux of the series. In chapter eight Lauren Boumaroun notes how CXG destigmatizes mental illness through its formal and comedic style, generating an empathetic relationship between the audience and characters. Margaret Tally does an exceptional job of examining the specifics of Bunch’s diagnosis, as she is revealed to have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Tally’s textual analysis regards the third season of CXG and acknowledges other more contemporary female-centered programs which deal with either heightened emotional states or mental illness specifically. Stephanie Salerno explores how parody and CXG’s stylized musical numbers provide a healthy outlet for the characters to express their emotional traumas in productive ways. In revealing positive perspectives on disappointment and mental health, Christine Prevas argues for the idea of failure as a radical alternative in Bunch’s life which reveals the unreasonable standards of conventional American society and success. In the final chapter of this section, she writes,
Failure is at the crux of CXG. Rebecca’s plans never quite come to fruition, and her antics never quite go the way she wanted… [however] to embrace failure is to embrace a life of possibility outside the never-ending self-surveillance and self-policing necessary to retain success” (186).
In viewing Rebecca’s hazardous efforts at traditional forms of happiness, we can appreciate her initial failures as acts that distance herself from childhood traumas and struggling expectations in adulthood. CXG’s common interests in genre-blending, gender relations, and subversive perspectives on sexuality and mental health strive to better define women’s figurative role in television authorship.
“Part Four: New Feminisms” centers around feminist outlooks from CXG. Marija Laugalyte argues that female networks are facilitated through technology by highlighting female resistance to heteronormativity and in nurturing feminine bonding. In their chapter, Bibi Burger and Carel van Rooyen discuss the notion of metamodernist feminism, which characterizes the oscillation of modernist and postmodernist aesthetics. They use musical numbers in CXG to investigate certain contradictions and debates in feminist discourse. Finally, Cristi Cook offers a worthwhile analogy on the contradictory nature of American society’s appetite for women’s sexualized bodies, but not in viewing expressions of their literal appetites. This suppression of corporeal agency instigates acts of resistance in Bloom’s character (and other women on the program), and Cook further involves the folkloric notion of vagina dentata to highlight the tension between men’s heterosexual fear and obsession with women’s sexuality. Cook’s bold and incisive discussions here stand out as an exceptional closing chapter to this collection: “In addition to normalizing women’s sexual appetites, the show delves into a level of sexual knowledge that is atypical of most comedies” (237). By her estimation, CXG gives vaginas both a mouth and a voice.
This edited anthology holds a collection of eminent writers and media studies scholars, who all share a passionate interest in Bloom’s delirious, cheeky, and sharp program. CXG’s common interests in genre-blending, gender relations, and subversive perspectives on sexuality and mental health strive to better define women’s figurative role in television authorship. Bolstered by an ensemble of mostly female, or non-binary television critics and scholars, Perspectives’ discussions are further validated by mostly feminine perspectives that help to validate their analyses. And while certain subjects herein are quite sensitive, such as suicide and depression, these essays are mostly light-hearted, in terms of their analyses of musical numbers, genre subversion, and the generally humorous tone of the show.
Collectively, these fourteen essays show a continuing interest in CXG which, while critically regarded, proved to be a relatively underwhelming TV series, in terms of its audience reception. But more importantly, they exhibit an academic fandom through the critical interests of their writers. Perspectives on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend hosts strong academic material that cleverly blends the critical discussions of this irreverent, ostensibly low-brow comedy-drama series. The fact that many of the textual analyses here involve examinations of musical numbers titled “Getting’ Bi!,” “You Do/Don’t Want To Be Crazy,” and “The Sexy Getting Ready Song” make this anthology a very approachable read. Moreover, the comedic materials lead deftly into the more serious discussions involving mental health issues, self-harm, and existential failure. While certain essayists stand out in particular (such as Cook, Prevas, Ray, and Tally), they all offer insightful considerations to CXG that are accessible for both current fans and newcomers to the series. With passion, reflection, and studied interest, Perspectives on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Nuanced Postnetwork Television presents a relaxed, yet decisive study of blended network television reception studies, progression representations of mental health, and scholarly analysis through a pleasurable string of fun and thoughtful essays.
Perspectives on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Nuanced Postnetwork Television, Eds. Amanda Konkle and Charles Burnetts, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 2021.
M. Sellers Johnson holds an MA in film studies from Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington). His work has appeared in New Review of Film and Television Studies, Film Matters, and the International Journal of Communication.
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