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swing way the other direction. There are hyperfeminine (or, possibly, high-camp) nebbishettes. Fran Fine on The Nanny (1993–1999), with her big hair and bold, bodycon wardrobe, al- ways looks fabulous, but simply cannot get a man. The show’s theme song be- gins, “She was working in a bridal shop in Flushing, Queens / till her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes.” She is still nebbishette in sea- son gazillion, when she and Mr. Shef- field are wed. You may hear me speak of some- thing called a high-maintenance neb- bishette and be wondering, So, you mean a JAP? I do not. There can be crossover—a character or perso- na can have JAP and nebbishette elements—but these are different archetypes. The JAP, per cliché, has an uncomplicated relationship with her own high-maintenance self- presentation, and exists in community with other JAPs. A JAP is also, in a co- medic context, more object than sub- ject, the joked-about, not the one mak- ing the joke. I would classify, as neb- bishette, the late American-Jewish co- median Joan Rivers encouraging audi- ences to join her in laughing at her ex- tensive cosmetic enhancements—and at her repulsiveness to men. (“The only way I can get a man to touch me at this age is plastic surgery.”) But it’s more nebbishette, some- how, when what a woman is self- deprecating about is not her age (for age comes for us all if we’re lucky), or something often malleable, like her weight, but something more intrin- sic to who she is. Rachel Bloom, as Rebecca Bunch, may sing a song of JAP-hood on the 2010s series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but Rebecca—so awk- ward, so thirsty—is pure nebbishette. Where the nebbishette is more ex- plicitly Jewish, she’s a phenomenon of relatively secular, assimilated Jew-
less of her these days. It’s also that #MeToo rendered passé the strain of self-deprecating humour about men not wanting you enough. Scenarios like the one Ephron described—be- ing passed over by President Kenne- dy—come across these days as jarring, but had long been a fixture of comedy. TV shows would have scenes with a frump saying a variation of, I wish men would creep on ME! Edina of Absolute- ly Fabulous wishes a man would pinch her at the market in Morocco, not just her daughter. Sally of The Dick Van Dyke Show learns about a local skeeze and wonders how to cross his path. The nebbishette stance made light of male predation, but also allowed women to speak frankly about the downsides to sexual invisibility. Then there’s comedy itself, which has evolved over the past half- century. It’s my impression that the younger and more with-it are not as into self-deprecation as their pre- decessors. I’m thinking of Hannah Gadsby’s much-praised 2018 Net- flix comedy special, Nanette , where- in Gadsby rejects self-deprecation for political reasons. In 2019, Hey Alma , a site for young Jewish women, ran a personal essay headlined, “I’m Tired of Self-Deprecating Jewish Humor.” But what really killed the neb- bishette may be more demographic than cultural: intermarriage patterns in opposite-sex couples have stopped being so gendered. By the early 1990s, American Jewish women were marry- ing out at rates comparable to those of their male counterparts. The rates are converging in Canada as well. Cultur- al representations have lagged, with Jewish-man-gentile-woman the arche- typical intermarried onscreen couple. But the cliché of the Jewish woman waiting for a Jewish man who’ll have her, except they’re all off with ‘shiksas,’ loses some of its resonance when the
ish culture. She exists in implicit refer- ence to the out-marrying Jewish man. A Hasidic woman might be self- deprecating or otherwise nebbishy, but she’s not living a life where it’s plausible that her Jewishness is going to be off-putting to potential husbands. Even when she’s the protagonist, the nebbishette is a sidekick role, ex- isting in juxtaposition to some other (canonically gentile) woman, a friend or colleague or romantic rival, for whom feminine charm comes nat- urally. She’s the dorky brunette to a graceful blonde. She’s a downer and an overthinker, whereas the other lady, to borrow from the theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show , “can turn the world on with her smile.”
THE DECLINE OF THE NEBBISHETTE
THE NEBBISHETTE, like the nebbish, is a figure out of an earlier age of Jewish and Jew-ish comedy. But that’s not the only reason one sees
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