Hi! Brief introduction before I get to the actual essay – I have been watching this show and have fallen head-over-heels in love with it. It is funny and feminist and really heartfelt and I can definitely recommend watching it – the songs are amazing! Also, if you love a good romance like me – there are several (but we all know that despite how great Nathaniel is, and how she could have been happier with any of them because happiness comes from within, bla bla bla – she totally ended up with Greg. It’s just CANON I will accept no alternative.) So here is an essay I wrote, it’s quite long because I had so many thoughts (I mean, there is so much I couldn’t even include here because I didn’t want it to get too long, which I think says a lot!) Please note there will be spoilers for all 4 seasons of the show below so be warned! Cool, hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ is available to watch on Netflix, and the songs are on most streaming platforms, as well as (co-creator and star) Rachel Bloom’s YouTube channel, racheldoesstuff.
In the television musical comedy show ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’, the main character, Rebecca, is the centre of the story and the story is largely shown from her perspective. This evolution of the presentation of characters and events of the plot assists in our understanding of Rebecca’s own mental health and her growth from an unhappy lawyer, living with undiagnosed and untreated Borderline Personality Disorder, to a more mentally stable, responsible woman pursuing her songwriting dreams.
Focalisation of Rebecca
One example of how Rebecca’s growth is emphasised is through the focalisation of the story through her perspective. The songs are Rebecca’s way of “see[ing] big moments in my life” and processing emotions, the only way she can “actually think.” This is proved through the exception – the episode ‘I’m Almost Over You’, when it is framed through Nathaniel’s perspective and not Rebecca’s. In this episode, there is just one song which is a karaoke scene, reflecting the romantic comedies it is satirising – the lack of songs demonstrates how generally songs in the show are moments of seeing Rebecca’s perspective.
Another example of this focalisation is how Greg is portrayed. After the actor Santino Fontana left the show, Greg served as another trigger for Rebecca’s BPD, from abandonment issues beginning with her father and continuing with her romantic interests from all stages in her life. The song ‘It Was A S***show’ highlights this when Rebecca desperately asks him to stay, yet he leaves before he can even say the final word of the song. The way this word is cut off highlights the unfinished business between the two of them. Two years later, in season 4, Greg returns as a new actor who Rebecca initially does not recognise. Rachel Bloom explained this by saying the change of actor is a “great statement on how our perception of people changes”, and how after a distance apart two people who were once close can seem like they are once again meeting for the first time. Rebecca says “The only way Greg would be my meant to be would be [in some alternate universe] where he was a completely different person” and as well as this being a joke about it being a different actor, it also is symbolic of both character’s growth – not only is the physical appearance of both characters different, Greg and Rebecca have both grown as characters and so are like entirely different people. Greg is “a sort of barometer for how Rebecca changes,” and the growth of their relationship is a way the show ties up the loose ends of her life and demonstrates how she has grown as a character.
In the show many songs seem to be Rebecca’s interpretation of a character or conversation, as they often seem slightly contradicted by actual dialogue between characters. One example of this is after the number ‘Settle For Me’, on her first date with Greg, Rebecca tells him “let’s talk about […] your whole ‘settle for me’ vibe”, to which Greg responds “I don’t want you to settle for me”. This contradiction highlights how Rebecca is an unreliable narrator – the songs are her own interpretation of moments of high emotional turmoil, so in this moment she is using hyperbole and is ‘splitting’ – a symptom of BPD where someone has difficulty with ‘grey area’ thinking – due to her emotional instability in that moment.
Another example of this earlier on in the show is during the song ‘I Hate Everything But You’ when Greg sings “I hate the feeling of the sun when it hits my skin”, however in a later scene he says “well, at least I’m outside in the sun”. She is viewing Greg more negatively as a defence mechanism because she is upset due to her feeling that their relationship is falling short of her expectations, and people suffering from BPD can struggle to see good and bad coexisting in one person. This direct contradiction between Rebecca’s perception of reality and what is real highlights her mental health issues, and the disconnect between her rational and irrational ways of thinking.
Her awareness of this symptom of ‘splitting’ due to her BPD grows as the show progresses, and this growth is epitomized when she sings to Heabecca, with the song “Hello, Nice to Meet You (reprise #2)“. Heabecca, as her biological child, is “both the future and a mirror”, and so Rebecca expresses a lesson she has learnt – “have fun in the grey”. The use of the noun ‘grey’ is symbolic for non-black and white thinking, something Rebecca struggles with due to her BPD, showing how she has become aware of her own shortcomings thanks to her therapy and support, and is more self-aware of the rational/irrational divide in her mind.
Rebecca, Romance & Mental Illness
Rebecca’s obsession with romance – and Josh Chan – demonstrates this rational/irrational divide. She is a highly intelligent, rational woman, yet finds herself irrationally addicted to romance and love, and defines herself based on romantic relationships. Her obsession with Josh Chan throughout the show highlights this. We experience the story focalised through her perspective – in this way, early on in the show Josh’s character flaws are not emphasised or shown, and he is idealised by Rebecca. One example of this is the number ‘A Boy Band Made Up of Four Joshes’ – symbolically, she is imagining multiple Joshes in a band which she is being excited about, reflecting how her relationship with Josh is very one-sided by comparing it to the parasocial relationship between a fan and a boy band, because of her obsessive love. Furthermore, the humour in the bathetic line “we’re not just a boy band made up of four Joshes/ We’re also a team of licensed mental health professionals” highlights how her idealisation of Josh is harmful as it means she is not getting the mental health support she requires.
Mental illness is an important theme of the show, and during much of it she is in denial about having an issue. As Rachel Bloom, the co-creator of the show, stated, the theme song for each season reflects “the story Rebecca is telling herself” and the line “I have no underlying issues to address” during the theme song of series two highlights her denial. The fact that it is repeated during the finale of said season, where her prior institutionalisation is revealed, highlights how Rebecca is stuck in a loop of perpetual mental health issues and will be until she gets the mental health support she requires.
After she begins dating Josh the harmful mindset of believing a boy will solve her mental health issues remains – this is highlighted by the song “We’ll never have problems again”, where Rebecca sings “now our love has magically solved [our problems] / And there won’t be any more in our future at all!”. The adverb ‘magically’ connotes childhood and reflects Rebecca’s immature, irrational side assuming that a romantic relationship solves all her problems, as derived from her own childhood love for fairytales where magic – and love – solve all problems. The intensifier ‘at all’ serves to emphasise Rebecca’s fallibility and the scene’s proleptic irony, as the viewer rationally knows that this idea is impossible.
During the second and third seasons Josh’s flaws become more and more obvious to the viewer as Rebecca too discovers them – however, her obsession means she ignores them. One example of this is when she has dinner with Josh’s parents, and begins to hear Josh’s words as “blah, bah, bah.” When this occurs she blames Nathaniel, stating “he’s getting in my head, he’s making me think that Josh is an idiot.” The syntactic parallelism of “he’s…” shows how Rebecca deliberately pushes responsibility off of herself and onto Nathaniel when she finds herself questioning her idealised image of Josh, and this irrationality is emphasised by her petulance and lack of responsibility for her actions.
The viewer’s understanding, therefore, of the irony of Rebecca assuming a relationship will solve all her problems, highlights how she must first discover herself and take control of her own life. As stated by the co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna, “In [the coming of age years] of your life, you tend to ascribe meaning to your love relationships that maybe they don’t totally have […] the show knows that no boy is an answer to the problems that she has.” Her own name has a connection to this idea – her middle name, Nora, references ‘A Doll’s House’. Co-creator of the show, Rachel Bloom, stated “Nora has been emotionally stunted by her husband/societal expectations of women and learns to grow up and take charge of her destiny,” and similarly Rebecca must break free from her self-constricting identity defined by men to come into her own before she can have a truly fulfilling romantic relationship.
Rebecca & Paula
The true emotional core of the show’s relationships is the bond between Rebecca and her best friend Paula. Initially, Paula acts as an enabler for Rebecca’s toxic behaviours, obsessing over her love life in the absence of her own. In the song ‘After Everything I’ve Done for You (That You Didn’t Ask For)‘, their co-dependent relationship is highlighted by Paula listing all the ethically dubious things Paula has done for her friend, furiously blaming her despite the fact that, as Rebecca says, “I didn’t ask for [them]”. This manipulative low point for Paula is reprised by Rebecca after she is jilted by Josh, where she names all the toxic things he “made her do”, showing how Paula’s attitude of excusing toxic behaviours for ‘love’ remained in Rebecca’s mind and meant she would not take responsibility for her actions.
However, over the course of the show this friendship grows to be more healthy, and in the end Paula begins to hold Rebecca to account, for instance when she says “but it obviously is [representative of the person that Rebecca is], I mean you did it!” The adverb ‘obviously’ is Paula highlighting the unspoken truth – that Rebecca is still responsible for her actions even though she has a personality disorder, and that distancing herself from the choices she makes means she won’t be the best person she can be. It is due to her that Rebecca chooses to begin to take responsibility, not only for almost killing Trent, but also all her other wrongdoings done due to her BPD.
In the show’s finale, she tells Paula about her musical way of thinking, and takes her into her “abstract theatrical space” and symbolically lets her see her deepest and truest self for the first time. This leads to Paula seeing the inner world that Rebecca has previously seen as embarrassing and in it seeing a passion that Rebecca can pursue. Paula tells her “what you’re looking for, the way to know who you are? It’s here!” emphasising Rebecca’s realisation that her value was never in finding something external, like a man, but rather herself.
At its core, ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ is a show about Rebecca and her own mental health – both what causes her to behave in the way she does, and her growth into a more happy, stable and good person. The exploration of both these ideas is what makes the audience understand, like and root for Rebecca – despite her flaws and the bad actions she does, she remains a likeable and relatable character, fulfilling the show’s aim to humanise and understand the reality behind the clichéd and often sexist stereotype of a ‘crazy ex’ and explore mental health in a nuanced and realistic way. Her own growth is demonstrated through, and facilitated by, her relationship with all the other characters in the show. ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ is an empowering, feminist coming-of-age story, and Rebecca’s journey to find herself and her passion is presented with both humour and heart.
Read More
- www.wikipedia.com Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
- www.twitter.com @racheldoesstuff
- www.priorygroup.com ‘Understanding splitting in borderline personality disorder’
- www.hollywoodreporter.com ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: Rachel Bloom Talks Mental Health and Writing a New Theme Song Every Season’ by Tara Bitran (this is really interesting if you want to read some more about mental health in the show)
- www.vanityfair.com ‘Crazy Ex- Girlfriend: if you’re rooting for Josh or Greg, you’re doing it wrong’ by Joanna Robinson [18.4.16]
- www.ew.com ‘Pitch Perfect Star Skyar Astin joins Crazy Ex Girlfriend as ‘reimagined’ Greg’ by Chancellor Agard [06.8.18]
- YouTube comments under the songs – I probably subconsciously took a lot of inspiration there!