On a recent trip to America, in the deep Gentile south of Texas, I was walking down the street minding my own business when I was accosted by the friendliness of a man running for mayor.
In an exchange that felt thoroughly pleasant and alien, I was wished a good day and given all the information I needed for my stay, with a smile and a handshake.
I lived in New York for four years and London for another four, and not once has this ever happened to me. The very idea of someone approaching you unsolicited in New York is enough to make you reach for your wallet.
It was a very Gentile American experience, something that you couldn’t imagine happening in cities with big Jewish populations. In my mind, nowhere is the difference between Jews and Gentiles starker than in America.
To be incredibly reductive, the Jews are grumpy, Larry David types and the Gentiles are broad-shouldered, over-familiar and nice to the point of suffocation. Of course (I hear you shout), there are numerous and obvious exceptions, but the stereotypes often hold.
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Larry David in character as Larry David in HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
Think of this phenomenon as Curb Your Enthusiasm vs Ted Lasso. For those who haven’t been cursed with watching the latter hit show, the premise is that a clueless but affable American football (the throw-y one not the kick-y one) coach finds himself in London trying to coach a team called AFC Richmond.
He has to deal with a rotating cast of miserly and miserable Brits who tell him that he can’t do things the way he believes in, who don’t appreciate his folksy Kansas charm or his total lack of irony.
He becomes the most egregiously positive, nauseatingly optimistic tryhard the world has ever seen, a walking embodiment of American sensibilities.
If you like that sort of thing, then I’m sure it’s a lovely jolly jaunt through a world where injustices can be overcome with a “positive mindset” or “believing”, as if the mere act of belief is enough to overcome all adversity. Fine if you’re a child or an American, but for me it’s all a bit childish.
Those of us with a more Jewish outlook are represented in Ted Lasso by Roy Kent, the abrasive, arsey captain of Lasso’s fictional team. Kent, played by homegrown nice Jewish boy Brett Goldstein, is the voice of reason in the show, and tries valiantly to make it watchable. He very nearly succeeds.
And it’s important to remember that the Jewish cultural values of cynicism, misanthropy and pessimism do not come from nowhere.
When as a people, you have learnt time and time and time again not to rely on the supposed innate kindness of humanity, the snarkiness and dismissive cliquey-ness of Jews is a justified and valid defence mechanism.
The most cynical people in my life are the funniest, the smartest and usually the most successful. Sure, they’re also the most miserable, but it’s informed misery, not ignorant optimism.
But then why are British people snarky and cynical? No one has persecuted them. Maybe it’s because of a shared feeling of disappointment. Britons feel baffled that we’re not still world rulers. That makes a nation grouchy.
American Jews, much like Brits, lean naturally cynical. More capable of self-deprecation, of mocking their shortcomings, it’s far easier to be around this kind of people than the ceaseless optimists you find roaming the streets of America’s second-tier cities.
Americans being overly American in America is one thing: you can’t, after all, be too upset at them for that. But much like American tourists who clog up the Tube with their whooping and guffawing, Ted Lasso’s presence on these shores is an unwelcome addition, an unwanted island of positivity in a sea of cynics.
Life is not a Disney movie or an Apple TV show. Good guys don’t always win and belief is not all you need to triumph when things get tough. I love America and I think it’s one of the most exciting, dynamic countries in the world, but do they need to always be so damn happy?
