We're sharing Emmy FYCs as nomination balloting continues. Here's guest contributor Sean Donovan...
When Gillian Jacobs angrily shouts “Surprise! I’m not the cool girl!” to her semi-boyfriend Gus (Paul Rust) on Netflix’s comedy series Love, she is speaking as an actress in Hollywood just as much as she is in character as Mickey. Jacobs was introduced to most viewers as “the cool girl,” Britta in the cult hit Community, initially serving the role of a fantasy love interest: a gorgeous twenty-something with just enough problems to appear “complicated,” but not in any especially strenuous or taxing capacity for male viewers. The cool girl who’s fun at parties, has great taste in everything, and is just chill. She’s not like those other girls!
Jacobs eventually gnawed away at this stereotype purely through her own talent, as the Community writers discovered it was more fun to let Jacobs parade like a buffoon rather than be the show’s straight woman, a dynamic that perhaps reached its zenith in a ridiculous christmas display.
So when Gillian Jacobs was given the full leading role she deserves, in Love, she took the chance to shout down this brutal “cool girl” trap as hard as she could...
Mickey is frequently in bad shape in Love. She’s a manipulative liar, constantly abusing the patience of her sweet roommate. She struggles with addiction to drugs and alcohol, and to love and sex, and possesses a singular inability to remove negative influences from her life. She even has sex with her boss as a way of controlling a romantic infatuation (on his end, naturally) she fears will come back to bite her. Mickey is a piece of work, and Gillian Jacobs presents a defiantly un-sanitized portrait. This is Mickey with all her flaws.
But Mickey is trying. Gillian Jacobs plays her role with a clear eye to the exhaustion and wearied strategies of a woman who’s been through this dance many times before, found herself chased by male dreams of women (and male dreams FOR women) she struggled to conform to only to abuse herself in the process. Love is the story of Mickey trying to break out of her worst patterns of conforming to men while an oblivious Gus waits along the sidelines.
I can’t say if Love would have nearly the impact it does if it weren’t for Gillian Jacobs. I can easily imagine a much worse version of Love where we feel that all of Mickey’s baggage is truly about to be cured over through the love of a good man. Jacobs’ powerful sincerity, and her ability to completely slay a close-up, never leave the heart of Love up to debate. Jacobs makes the true arc of Love Mickey’s strengthening source of self-definition, finding a way out in a world of guys determined to only see the cool girl.