Rachel Bloom: All hail the new stereotype-smashing queen of dark comedy

“The only way was to explore the realism of a girl who is in crisis, not in a cutesy way, but legitimately depressed and unhappy”

Rachel Bloom, Golden Globe-winning co-creator, star and executive producer of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend — a musical romantic comedy TV show with two Emmys — was a lonely child.

She struggled with making friends, being bullied, and — as so many children and adults do — living with depression and anxiety.

“I don’t see children as innocent, because I was bullied by them so much,” she says, her voice hard. “I think that children are just little adults.

“I associate childhood more with cruelty and pain than innocence and happiness.”

Ahead of her critically acclaimed show’s second series hitting screens on Sunday, the Californian 29-year-old YouTube star-turned-TV sensation said being forced to the margins had made her religion an attractive prospect.

“As someone who felt left out of a lot of tribes as a kid, I clung to the things I could say I was part of — and that was Judaism.

“My grandparents, who I spent a lot of time with, were not religious at all, but they always talked about being Jewish.

“I wasn’t batmitzvahed, but I know every single celebrity who’s ever said anything antisemitic,” she says, laughing.

“I’ve never felt that the religion was shoved down my throat, so I’ve always felt very happy and warm to be part of this group of people which prides itself on being an other, and lives in that feeling of otherness.”

Bloom’s Jewish character in the show, Rebecca Bunch, is a New Yorker who has followed her pushy mother’s path her whole life, only to suffer a mental breakdown when offered a promotion at a high-flying law firm.

A chance meeting in the street with her ex-boyfriend Josh Chan, who she dated at summer camp 10 years previous, prompts her sudden move across the country to California, where Josh lives.

This is where the name of the show comes from, though she is quick to clarify the name was “tongue-in-cheek. The term ‘crazy,’ especially when you’re a woman, is very loaded. The title was meant to be deconstructed and exploded.”

The rest of the series is spent unpacking and breaking down stereotypes around mental illness and romantic comedies, with the help of original musical numbers which pepper every episode.

Part of Rebecca’s struggle is her mother, who barges into the show halfway through its 18-episode first series with the klezmer-backed “Where’s The Bathroom,” which Bloom describes as “the definitive Jewish mother song.”

In quick succession, her mother — played by Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh — criticises her town, weight, “this hovel you call home,” her career choices and “greasy, goyish food,” thoroughly tearing her life to shreds.

The most memorable exchange comes when her mother points to her lack of make-up and vases as proof of her daughter being a lesbian, exclaiming: “Please just tell me if you’re gay”.

Clearly exasperated by again having her sexuality questioned simply because she doesn’t have a boyfriend, Rebecca rolls her eyes and says firmly: “Again, I am not gay”.

“Don’t interrupt me / You’re always with the talking,” her mother sings back, continuing passive-aggressively: “I just got off a plane / Give me a moment to catch my breath. It’s the least you can do since you / Lived inside me for nine months”.

Bloom says the song wasn’t inspired by her mother, but instead based on “every Jewish mother I have ever met. That kind of mother seeps into your soul.

“My father said to me when he saw the video for that song: ‘I was wondering if you got in a time machine and travelled back to the 60s when my mother saw my first apartment. She literally called it a hovel.’

“He’d never told me that story. I knew my grandma was — for want of a better word — a bitch, but I never knew she had said that.”

Bloom’s Jewish influences also come through loud and clear in the song “JAP Battle” — which the characters helpfully clarify stands for “Jewish American Princess rap battle”.

Having left her pressure cooker life in New York City to pursue happiness on the west coast, Rebecca is faced with Audra Levine, the rival who has the successful, unhappy life she escaped.

The clash is filled with terms like shondeh, goys and shebrews, as well as references to matzo balls and seder plates.

“Think your verse is tight? Then you’re tripping like Birthright,” Audra tells Rebecca, before a crushing last verse sees her point out: “You left New York for this fucking shtetl.”

Despite losing the rap battle and being repeatedly insulted by her throughout the episode, Rebecca approaches her nemesis because she sees the same pain and loneliness in Audra which she felt before she moved.

Audra fobs her off with the same statement Rebecca tells herself after being offered a promotion — “I am happy. I’m so happy. This is what happy feels like.”

Despite only being in the show briefly, this crack in Audra’s veneer allows the audience to see beyond her description of herself as “vicious,” “malicious” and an “alpha bitch,” through to her troubled inner workings.

It’s a trick which Bloom and her co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna repeat with every character, from Rebecca’s best friend Paula — whose failing marriage causes her to become fixated on Rebecca’s love life — to her bumbling boss Darryl, who slowly realises he’s bisexual.

This, Bloom says, is one of the main aims of her creation. “The whole show is a deconstruction of a cheesy romantic comedy,” she says.

“Throughout the show everyone starts off as a stereotype, and we enjoy cracking open those stereotypes, and exploring the nuances, the grey areas in each person.”

Of course, Rebecca is the main focus of this drive. “If you’re going to have a show about a girl who drops everything and moves across the country, the cheesy way to do it is: ‘She’s bored and sad’.

“The reality is that if somebody did this, they would be very depressed — they would at least have depression. And looking at the depression and anxiety issues of myself, my friends and people in my family, it just felt like it was the only way to do this show.

“The only way was to explore the realism of a girl who is in crisis, not in a cutesy way, but legitimately depressed and unhappy, and who does not understand how to pursue her own happiness.”

Rebecca is relentlessly critical and yet deluded, telling herself she is not in love with Josh but treating their every interaction as a make-or-break situation, living her life in the highs and lows of their relationship.

Yet alongside this, she is also struggling with her own internal turmoil, as she decides whether or not she is a good person, worthy of love.

Songs like “I’m a Good Person” and “I’m the Villain In My Own Story” give voice to this anxiety, but it is in “You Stupid Bitch” — which comes after a particularly bad encounter with Josh — where she slashes and burns at her self-esteem.

“You’re just a lying little bitch who ruins things / And wants the world to burn / Bitch / You’re a stupid bitch / And lose some weight,” Rebecca sings, in a gut-punch of self-hate.

Rebecca is desperate for Josh because he represents the happiness and love which she — and seemingly, her mother — cannot provide.

“Josh is a Southern California Asian bro who comes from a large, loving family. This is exactly what Rebecca’s has not been, and it’s what she craves.

“In the pilot episode, you see Josh’s parents — who are very loving and still together — pick him up from camp and hug him,” she observes, while 16-year-old Rebecca is left unloved and dumped.

After having her heart broken by Josh, her mother greets a clearly distraught Rebecca with: “Is that a hickey on your neck? Anything happens, we go right to the abortionist”.

“That’s what I wanted,” Bloom says — “that sense of otherness versus being part of a tribe.”

This idea of feeling marginalised permeates Bloom’s whole show, as she explores new frontiers such as Josh’s Filipino-American family — the first to appear on a US TV show — and hilariously takes apart sexist ideals.

As the lyrics to “You Stupid Bitch” show, Rebecca’s mental health issues are tightly tied to her difficulties in living up to the double standards which women face.

“Women are sold a bill of goods that love will solve everything,” Bloom explains, “but then we’re also told to have a career. There are so many conflicting messages thrown at women, it’s hard to navigate them all.

“That was a central focus, even when we pitched the show — the essential confusion of being a woman.”

She said the show’s focus on struggles which still suffer from a lack of representation on TV — such as those involving gender, sexuality, race and religion — is what attracted its hardcore audience of around a million fans.

“People come up to me all the time to thank me for putting mental health on TV. It’s great — it’s been really wonderful.

“It just shows that relatability is not in these vague ‘People being good at their jobs’ thing that mainstream TV still tries to shove down our throats; it’s in specificity.

“The more specific you are, the more you’ll relate to people — and I’m really proud of that.”