A Serial Upper East Side Satirist Skewers Social Media-Addicted Socialites

The Upper East Side of Manhattan endures as a popular and desirable location for films and TV shows to be shot. But for whatever reason the neighborhood doesn’t play host to many movie theaters where films can actually be seen.That accounts for why actress and writer Jill Kargman was to be found last Friday launching her new film “Influenced,” a comedy about an Upper East Side social media maven, at the Quad Cinema in Greenwich Villlage, a short distance from the location of her new film, yet spiritually worlds away.In recent times Ms. Kargman, 51, has cornered the market in chronicling uptown Manhattan satire — Town and Country magazine recently referred to her as the “Bard of the Upper East Side.” Her sitcom “Odd Mom Out” ran for three seasons on NBCUniversal’s Bravo network and she has published comic novels about being an upwardly mobile mother competing with social anxiety and the embarrassment of riches on the Upper East Side, entitled “The Ex-Mrs. Hedge Fund,” and “Momzillas.”Ms. Kargman is herself more connected than the New York electrical grid; her late father Arie Kopelman was president of Chanel USA for nearly two decades while her mother Coco Kopelman is a board member of the School for American Ballet. For “Influenced,” she enlisted her old friend Gwyneth Paltrow, with whom she attended Spence school, to appear in a cameo role. Other celebrity appearances in the film, which is directed by Rachel Israel, include Drew Barrymore and Matt Damon.But despite living and working in the area, Ms. Kargman stressed she has little in common with her character in “Influenced,” Dzanielle, a hysterical social media addict who goes to extreme lengths to hire the best dog walker and has an unhealthy Ozempic addiction. “I don’t hate-follow anyone,” Ms. Kargman said of her knowledge of the elite social media influencer scene. “It’s just been by osmosis, I guess; living on the Upper East Side and having kids who will say, ‘Mum look at this Bar Mitzvah or look at this social media thing.’ You are just steeped into into it geographically seeing some women filming themselves.”She also stressed “Influenced” is not inspired by any specific individual. “It’s not based on anyone,” she said. “There might be a trait that is present in social media that’s a pattern, like flashiness, It’s not just one person, it’s a disease — people posting their sideways oval windows.”Ms. Kargman got the idea for “Influenced” during the pandemic and it was initially scheduled to be a TV show for the IFC channel: “It was going to be a half hour comedy which is what my experience is with ‘Odd Mom Out’…my pilot was greenlit and then everybody got fired, and it was devastating.”Ms. Kargman skewers the Upper East Side absurdities with trademark lacerating, but loving, fashion. Lines in “Influenced,” which she co-wrote with Carol Hartsell and Shane Crespo, include, “If an alien landed on Fifth Avenue, they’d think the dominant form of life was nanny,” and “I’m like herpes and political emails — you’re never going to get rid of me.”But Ms. Kargman has also retained her strong sense of Jewish identity. The climax of “Influenced” takes place around her character’s two children attending a joint b’nei mitzvah filmed at Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation in Midtown Manhattan where Ms. Kargman herself had her bat mitzvah. “It was cool standing up there at 51 and feeling the full circle moment of it,” she said. True to form she also went to college with Central Synagogue’s Senior Rabbi, Angela Buchdahl. Ms. Kargman also claims to have written the only mainstream TV show episode framed around Yom Kippur, an episode entitled “Fasting and Furious” in series 2 of “Odd Mom Out.”At the Quad she recounted how life imitated the art of “Influenced.” A scene in the script called for an Andy Warhol-esque silk-screened print of Dzanielle’s family to be prominently hung in an apartment; the family, who owned the townhouse which they used to film scenes in the picture, actually had such a Warhol-style print hanging in their own household.“Influenced” has a social conscience; Dzanielle’s two children bond with a homeless man on their street corner who used to be an indie music star and there is talk of a billionaire property tax. Did that not, the Sun asked Ms. Kargman, put her in alignment with Mayor Mamdani’s proposed new annual surcharge on New York City second homes worth $5 million or more? “The difference is he wants to do it for any homeowner,” she said. “The mansion tax in New York is crazy. The thing about New York, which is something we sort of reference is even if you are successful you can feel poor here because there is just such excess and there are so many billionaires and it’s so over the top. Mayor Mamdani wants to do a tax like that for any old homeowner — there are people who have a million dollar apartment that is a studio. He wants to tax the shit out of them and they can’t afford it.”After “Influenced,” Ms. Kargman is hoping to make a film adaptation of her 2016 non-fiction anthology “Sprinkle Glitter on My Grave.” “I love New York,” she said. “I’m never leaving — they’re going to put me in a coffin on Third Avenue.” No doubt, her snobbish characters would hold out to get laid to rest on Fifth Avenue.

A Serial Upper East Side Satirist Skewers Social Media-Addicted Socialites

A Serial Upper East Side Satirist Skewers Social Media-Addicted Socialites

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