Cultural Analysis: New Girl
The show New Girl features Jess, a young woman who goes through a hard break-up and ends up moving in with three male roommates; Nick, Shmidt, and Winston. It is an unconventional situation. Jess’ best friend Cece is also a regular character and becomes friends with all the guys too. The show is a great light-hearted sitcom.
The TV show New Girl breaks the stereotype of boys and girls not being able to be just friends. In the show, Jess is friends with all three of the guys she lives with, and while at first, the guys think it will be weird, they all get along great. The show does a great job of showing that Jess and the guys can live together and have functioning non-romantic relationships. However, you could argue that the show supports this stereotype, because Jess and Nick become romantically involved later on in the show. I would disagree though, because she still maintains platonic relationships with Winston and Schmidt.
This quality is what makes this show so great, along with the fact that New Girl does a great job of showing realistic romantic relationships. For example, Nick and Jess’ relationship is complicated and confusing for them, and it takes them a long time to figure out what they mean to each other. This is what relationships in real life are actually like, as opposed to the classic movie trope of “love at first sight.” Winston and Shmidt also go through a lot of relationships, some are longer and more serious, some are not, just like real life. Shmidt also falls in love with Jess’ best friend CeCe, and they date for a while, but Cece ends up dating other people, getting engaged, etc. I think this is really valuable because it depicts real life, and how relationships are messy, and it’s not always a “love at first sight” deal.
The show also has a great cast, that is much more diverse than most I see on TV. It is diverse in terms of race; Shmidt is Jewish, Winston is black, and Cece is Indian. Winston also dates an asian girl, and Cece dates another Indian man. It is great to see a diverse cast like this without the classic media stereotypes attached to them. New Girl shows a lot of Cece’s arranged marriage to the Indian man, and the culture around it, which is definitely not something you see a lot on TV, and it adds to the unconventional romantic relationships seen on the show.
The TV show New Girl does a great job breaking a lot of different stereotypes. It helps to break the stereotype that men and women can’t be in relationships that are not romantic, and that not all romantic relationships are easy and make sense, as well as breaking racial stereotypes. The show is a light-hearted show, but when you look deeper you can really see the importance of it. New Girl shows that all people can be friends, no matter how “different” they are.
I like how you gave such specific evidence to your augments, and I think that you made the connections smooth and explained it well. I also like how you mentioned New Girl being racially diverse, similar to real life because I think that's important.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Miya. The argument you made about this show breaking the "guys and girls can never be just friends" ideology is one of the biggest reasons that it has quickly become my favorite show. As a female with a male best friend, it makes me happy knowing that this show could potentially open the eyes of some people who for a long time had agreed with that age-old ideology. As far as the rebuttal about Nick and Jess eventually becoming an item, in one interview of the panel of writers for the show, it was said that originally, there were no plans for Nick and Jess' relationship to be anything more than platonic. They ended up changing their minds and writing in Nick and Jess' romantic relationship into the show simply because Zooey Deschanel and Jake Johnson's (the actors who play Jess and Nick) on screen chemistry was too good not to do something with. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you. Like Julia said, I like that New Girl breaks the ideology of "guys and girls can't be friends". Watching the show I felt that at first there was an interesting and borderline stereotypical dynamic between Jess and her roommates. Almost like the strong men were protecting their new quirky female friend from the dangers of the world. However, as the show progressed the dynamic shifted from episode to episode and showed that the dynamic was two sided and was really just the dynamic of a good friendship. They all protect each other because they genuinely care for each other without necessarily having any romance.
DeleteI totally agree with your statement about how new girl breaks many stereotypes. I really enjoy the show and while watching I have definitely noticed a lot of those things. You made some really great points about Jess's relationships and the fact the show is very racially diverse. I like how you chose to write about breaking stereotypes rather than a show that promotes them! That's really cool, enjoyed your post!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your statement about how new girl breaks many stereotypes. I really enjoy the show and while watching I have definitely noticed a lot of those things. You made some really great points about Jess's relationships and the fact the show is very racially diverse. I like how you chose to write about breaking stereotypes rather than a show that promotes them! That's really cool, enjoyed your post!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your statement about how new girl breaks many stereotypes. I really enjoy the show and while watching I have definitely noticed a lot of those things. You made some really great points about Jess's relationships and the fact the show is very racially diverse. I like how you chose to write about breaking stereotypes rather than a show that promotes them! That's really cool, enjoyed your post!
ReplyDelete