Broad City’s Ilana Wexler: A Millennial Jewess Tryin’ To Make A Buck

• In Event: Performing Identity

Abstract

In 2010, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer launched their indie-produced, self-distributed web series, depicting fictionalized versions of their own gendered, Jewish, identities as they traverse millennial life in New York. When BROAD CITY arrived as a cable series on Comedy Central, Abbi Abrams (Jacobson) and Ilana Wexler (Glazer) announced themselves as “2 Jewesses Tryin’ to Make A Buck”. This presentation examines the distinct millennial, feminist, Jewish identities represented by Jewish, female creators on BROAD CITY. Specifically, I focus on the growth journey of Ilana Wexler as the self-labeled, ‘less assimilated’ of the two Jewesses. In the first few seasons of the series, Ilana is stunted in adolescence, unwilling and unable to achieve the standards of gendered adulthood as prescribed by neoliberal feminism. This project traces Ilana’s growth into ‘adulthood’, arguing that this destination is only reached by rejecting the tenets of neoliberalism, and leaning into a distinctly Jewish identity defined by her Ashkenazi heritage.
Through television production studies, I examine the experiences and decisions of the production workers behind BROAD CITY. As I explore issues of gender, ethnicity, and more, I adopt an intersectional approach. This project rejects a binary approach that seeks to locate what “good” or “authentic” images of Jewishness might be. Instead, I adopt Byers and Krieger’s (2005) call for an acknowledgement of the complex and contradictory nature of Jewish female identity. In theorizing a relationship between production practices and textual markers of on-screen Jewishness, I contribute new perspectives to both production studies, and studies of Jewish representation. To uncover how the BROAD CITY production community shaped Jewish and gendered representations, I examine interviews found in industry trade publications, trade shows, podcasts, newspapers, self-authored works, and more.

Author

• Avery Page, Western University