Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Is It Better To Be First Woman President, Or Date Seth Rogen? New Romcom Investigates.

Can women have it all? It’s a silly question, of course, nobody can really have everything.

Can women have as much as men?

No, a new movie by Seth Rogen answers that other, more to-the-point question. Women can either have mammoth career success, changing history and the world, or they can have a stirring sexual and emotional connection with Seth Rogen. There is simply no in-between.

This is the crisis that stalks the lives of American women ages 13-to-death, as new comedy “Long Shot” suggests. And it’s totally unfair, because some women are hot enough to be sexually compelling presidents and acceptable love interests to Seth Rogen. Nobody should have to choose between these things!

In “Long Shot,” which will be released this year through Lionsgate, the US Secretary of State (played by Charlize Theron) has the endorsement of the sitting president for her candidacy, but when she reconnects with Fred (played by Seth Rogen), once a little boy for whom she babysat, she begins to see stars in the flaps of his grimy hoodie. Will she chase her dreams of power, or power down and smoke a few jays with Rogen, who other characters make clear is disgusting. (His full name is Fred Flarsky and people think he’s “too much,” so we know he’s a disgusting Jew.)

Leader of the free world, or girlfriend of a yucky Jew whose diapers you used to change? It’s a tale as old as “third child or corner office.”

Okay, okay, “Long Shot” is just a silly movie with a silly premise, and Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron are never not charming. Maybe we’re misreading things! But it’s hard, just before a presidential year when a historic number of women seek candidacy, to pretend to be amused or interested in trading currency to watch this dilemma unfold on screen.

Rogen has spoken a lot about wanting his work to create opportunities for women’s voices and stories in an authentic way. This — in which love and career are incompatible binaries, in which there only seem to be two female characters, in which the female protagonist is conventionally perfect and the man is charmingly schlubby — probably ain’t it.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.