Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a very clever show; its writing is frequently deceptively critical. When speaking about the writing in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, it’s impossible to ignore the songs; they’re always super catchy and super focused in their criticisms of various issues, from women’s oversexualization to the glorification of mental illness. This is true in the case of the song “Sexy French Depression,” which is featured in episode 7, “I’m So Happy that Josh Is So Happy!”

In strongly playing up the concepts of mental illness being interesting and of girls who are struggling being interesting and quirky, the song ends up poking fun at said concepts and deconstructing the fantasy inherent to them. Take the first stanza, for example:

My eyes are dark from sadness
My lips are red from pain
My bosom ‘eaves with sobs
I’m in a sexy French depression

Each individual line portrays an idealized image of struggle and sadness, and by so strongly embracing the concept that female suffering is sexy, the song is able to shine light on the ridiculousness of the concept, right from the start. The second stanza also deconstructs the concept of “sexy depression”, but in a different way. First, a quick look at the stanza:

I walk, oh, so slowly
I can only breathe and sigh, oh!
My bed smells like a tampon
I’m in a sexy French depression

In this case, the stanza doesn’t play along with depression being sexy. Instead, it shines light on how depression really is, unflattering aspects and all, through lines like, “My bed smells like a tampon.” The song switches through these two approaches, going from wholeheartedly embracing depression’s “sexiness” to exposing depression for what it really looks like, and by doing this, it more effectively gets its point across.

This clever writing isn’t very surprising, considering that “Sexy French Depression” was written by Rachel Bloom and Adam Schlesinger. Rachel Bloom has past experience with the particular style of blunt, oftentimes-explicit comedy, from writing and singing the song “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury,” in 2010 to singing “My Sex Junk” on “The Sexual Spectrum” episode of Bill Nye Saves the World in 2017. She also has experience with musical comedy—as of now, she’s released 2 musical comedy albums, Please Love Me and Suck It, Christmas—and regularly speaks about mental health issues, having a history with it herself (she has depression, OCD, and anxiety.) As for Adam Schlesinger, he has a broad wealth of experience with songwriting, having written song lyrics for movies, TV, and musical theater.

Works Cited

“Adam Schlesinger,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Schlesinger

“I’m In A Sexy French Depression,” Genius, https://www.genius.com/10127238

“Rachel Bloom,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Bloom