By Hope Sloop

When I sat down to talk with Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator of Netflix‘s Long Story Short, I readied myself to get on a little soapbox and defend Naomi, the Lisa Edelstein-voiced character who, to many, represents the stereotypical Jewish mother. One quick glance at the comment section of practically any post about the hit animated series — which scored a 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and earned the “funny and poignant” distinction from DECIDER — and anyone can see that many fans do not have grace for this (mind you) fictional character.

The first character to speak in the series, Naomi’s pessimistic passivity may have immediately felt familiar to anyone whose mother is seemingly eternally malcontent. It’s easy to see why someone might frame her as the villain of Long Story Short, as each of the 10 episodes sees her acting as — in no particular order — a killjoy, a nag, overbearing, unfeeling, and insatiable. She’s also what makes the series Emmy-worthy.

“She’s a tough cookie,” Bob-Waksberg said of the Schwooper matriarch in an interview with DECIDER during FYC season, “And I think for some people, she’s going to be very triggering because she’s going to remind them of somebody they know, perhaps a mother, or not. I think she might trigger some defensiveness in some people if they feel like she is a representation of a Jewish mother that they feel like does not speak to them or for them. I never tell anybody how to feel about any of my characters, like, you’re allowed to not like her. But I know from my end, I always saw her as the heart of the show and the difficult, prickly, challenging heart of the show.”

Through 10 all-too-short episodes in Season 1, the audience is introduced to the entire Schwooper clan, brought to life by the voices of Ben Feldman, Abbi Jacobson, Paul Reiser, Max Greenfield, Nicole Byer, and Angelique Cabral, all circling around Edelstein’s character, who has some, let’s just say, indefensible moments. For the Bojack Horseman creator, however, knowing that some people would look at her with cruel eyes and unrelenting hostility — even when faced with the reality that she too is just a human being doing their best — only made his job all the more interesting. Can the audience stomach someone whose actions are not outright iniquitous or villainous and still see the rationale behind it all?

“One of the starting places for me was thinking about [how] I’ve written characters like BoJack Horseman who have cartoonishly bad parents and are still kind of unraveling that in their brains and scrambling to make up for that in their lives. But the truth is, most of us don’t have cartoonishly bad parents, but we’re still screwed up in some ways, right? So I wanted a parent that you can’t just write off entirely, but absolutely has her moments of narcissism and monstrosity and indefensible moments,” he said. “But I would hope as you’re watching the season, you will see that she’s a three-dimensional character, that she has her own pains and vulnerabilities, and she’s a little more complicated than maybe you might think right at first.”

It’s that painstaking attention to detail and to character-building that makes Long Story Short feel like the Schwoopers are a hyper-specific group of people, and also, every family you know. You can hate Naomi for sticking her nose into her children’s lives, but do you only hate it because your mom used to (or still does) bug you about when you’re getting married or giving her grandchildren or why you wear that shade of blue when that other shade of blue makes your skin and eyes pop so much more? You get the point.

As Netflix continues to push the series forward in the Outstanding Animated Series conversation, it’s hard not to reflect on this dynamic group of characters, led — albeit reluctantly at times — by the matriarch. Zooming out, Naomi’s character may have also become the perfect representation of what the show’s creator wanted to do, even unknowingly, from the very first days of conceptualizing the tale. Anyone who has watched even one episode of his shows will attest that there’s always more bubbling beneath the surface, but it’s the subconscious action of make the audience feel everything that always comes through.

“I don’t do this just to do it,” Bob-Waksberg shared, “I’m trying to communicate things. I’m trying to articulate feelings and circle the things that I think are funny and interesting about the world. And so to see people respond to that and go, ‘Oh, this made me think of this or this really connected to me.’ That’s fun.”

Of course, not every single line, scene, or episode is going to land. I’ve found that the best feeling in the world as someone who watches a lot of (probably way too much) television, is the acknowledgment that not everything is made for me. Sometimes you are just not going to like something or understand part of a show and that is okay. For viewers like myself who watch Long Story Short, certain aspects of the vivid Jewish experience are not going to hold as much weight as for those who grew up going to shul every week. Could that take away from the experience? For a lesser show, perhaps.

Or, if you are like me, you might just find yourself researching and discovering more about the world while also falling head over heels for this messy, chaotic, relatable family that also happens to touch on religion and its constant influence on our lives. It’s a scary thing to press play on a show that you know is going to address a topic that some are going to find triggering and yet, here is Long Story Short, doing it with ease and humor. It’s the kind of masterful storytelling that makes you examine your own life and relationships.

I’ve seen comments and people have told me personally that the show has helped them create and build a different relationship with their religious upbringing — whether that’s Jewish or something else — and understand people in their family that maybe they have not understood. And that, to me, is incredibly rewarding and empowering

Raphael Bob-Waksberg on Long Story Short

Like Bojack Horseman, Long Story Short may be branded as an animated comedy, but it is far from a show meant to bring about cheap laughs and surface level humor. At this point, I’ve become accustomed to sharing with practically every person I recommend it to that you won’t go through a full box of tissues, but if you make it through with dry eyes, you probably weren’t paying close enough attention. And trust me, it deserves not only your full attention, but every vote at this year’s Emmys. For a show that is so granular, it’s also about a little bit of everything and that’s the whole idea.

“If I could sum it up in one sentence, I wouldn’t have had to write a whole season,” Bob-Waksberg joked with DECIDER. “The whole season is me, along with my writers, my directors, my actors, all my animators, artists and collaborators grappling with a lot of big issues and questions and not necessarily being able to sum it up succinctly.”

Who among us cannot relate to that?

Long Story Short Season 1 is streaming on Netflix.

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