There is no denying that 2013 has been a tough year for women. As a North Carolinian, I have watched as all but one Planned Parenthood in my state got slated for shut-down due to “health requirements” passed by our Republican lawmakers. At the national level, politicians have made too many rape-apologist comments to keep track of. As a feminist and former Women’s Studies major, it’s important for me to develop thick skin, and with it, an arsenal of uplifting weaponry that will keep me sane and optimistic about our future as women. Which is what has brought me to love the Fox television show New Girl. Yes, New Girl is, ultimately, a sitcom, and it is questionable whether sitcoms can hold up to serious feminist criticism or if we should just laugh along and not take them too seriously. But what’s the fun in that? When “lighthearted” media is so often blatantly sexist (the song “Blurred Lines” and its accompanying video have given feminists enough ire to last the entire year) we should acknowledge those forms of media that, even in subtle ways, subvert the sexist norm.
The cast of New Girl
This is a guest post by Susan Mackey.
There is no denying that 2013 has been a tough year for women. As a North Carolinian, I have watched as all but one Planned Parenthood in my state got slated for shut-down due to “health requirements” passed by our Republican lawmakers. At the national level, politicians have made too many rape-apologist comments to keep track of. As a feminist and former Women’s Studies major, it’s important for me to develop thick skin, and with it, an arsenal of uplifting weaponry that will keep me sane and optimistic about our future as women. Which is what has brought me to love the Fox television show New Girl. Yes, New Girl is, ultimately, a sitcom, and it is questionable whether sitcoms can hold up to serious feminist criticism or if we should just laugh along and not take them too seriously. But what’s the fun in that? When “lighthearted” media is so often blatantly sexist (the song “Blurred Lines” and its accompanying video have given feminists enough ire to last the entire year) we should acknowledge those forms of media that, even in subtle ways, subvert the sexist norm.
The premise of New Girl is as follows: Jess (played by Zooey Deschanel) is a recently-single thirty-something-year-old woman who moves into an apartment with three men: Nick, Schmidt, and Winston. The underlying feminist elements in New Girl are often subtle, which is what lends them so much power. Just when we’re expecting another average romantic-comedy sitcom, the rug gets pulled out from under us. This happened to me while watching Season 1 of New Girl for the first time. Jess picks up her best friend Cece from the bar and brings her back to the apartment to crash. Jess warns the boys that when Cece’s drunk, “She’s really grabby, really physical, really loose with her body.” Immediately the scenario seems too predictable: a bunch of men will take advantage of a beautiful, drunk girl. In fact, the opposite occurs. Cece practically forces the boys to dance drunkenly with her, while they try clumsily to impress her. It’s an interestingly equal power dynamic; Cece is drunk and thus not in control, and yet, the boys succumb to her every whim. They couldn’t take advantage of her if they tried. The episode takes an interesting turn when Schmidt offers to let Cece sleep in his bed. He “sheepdogs” her into his room, closes the door, and says he’ll sleep on the couch. This scene took me completely by surprise and illustrated how deeply ingrained sexist imagery is in our imagination: I was abruptly surprised by the fact that Schmidt was not going to take Cece to bed when she was drunk. It was a shocking and somewhat sad realization that I expected the wrong thing to happen; it had almost never occurred to me that a man would not take advantage of this beautiful, drunk woman.
Jess and Julia
Jess vs. Julia: Second Wave vs. Third Wave
Jess is a prime example of third-wave feminism because she is a new image of what independence and power look like. In Season 1, her roommate Nick begins dating a lawyer named Julia. From the first time Julia and Jess met, Julia was standoffish and cold, quite different from Jess who is friendly and bubbly to a fault. When Jess needs Julia’s help getting out of a traffic ticket, Julia tells Jess condescendingly that her whole “thing” (meaning Jess’s ultra-femininity and friendliness) might work in front of a judge.
The tension between Julia and Jess reminds me of the very real tension between those who identify with second wave feminism and those who identify with third wave. Julia has had to combat sexism within her line of work and has done so by taking on traits that would typically be deemed “masculine.” Jess, on the other hand, is unapologetically feminine. When the two women break down and finally have it out in the bathroom of Nick’s bar, Julia tells Jess, “If I acted like you at work, no one would take me seriously.” This is a sad but true fact for women who work in male-dominated fields, like law. However, Jess counters, “Well if I acted like you at work, my students would turn in really weird, dark dioramas.” Second-wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s often took the physical form of women who were trying to stake their claim in society by emulating men in manner and appearance (think of the “hairy legged man-hater” stereotype of feminists). Third-wave feminists know that female and feminist power can and should be claimed by everyone, including those second-wave feminists, but also by men, people of color, trans-people, and, finally, feminine women. Jess sums up this point perfectly when she tells Julia that even though she works with kids all day and wears polka-dots, “that doesn’t mean I’m not tough, and smart, and strong.”
Nick and his girlfriend (who happens to be a stripper)
I got another jolt while watching New Girl when roommate Nick begins dating a stripper, and receives no judgment from Jess or any other female character. Jess supports Nick’s girlfriend’s decision to strip and even pushes Nick to date her because she’s such a headstrong woman. It is so rare in television and in real life to find women who accept other women’s career and life choices, especially if that choice is to work in a sex industry. But that is one tenant of third-wave feminism that has caught on particularly well with young feminists.
The feminist movement, like any social movement, has had its fair share of shameful, or at least embarrassing, moments. Recall the 1968 anti-Miss America pageant demonstration, in which feminists paraded a sheep in front of the event to represent contestants. Organizers of the demonstration later regretted the tone of the protest because it pitted woman-against-woman instead of uniting them against an oppressive institution. Now, in the era of New Girl, feminists have realized the power of female friendships and mutual support.
Jess and Cece
Female Friendships
New Girl’s ability to portray female friendships accurately is noteworthy. The premise of the show–that a recently single woman moves into an apartment full of men and hilarity ensues–seems clichéd at first. And it is, at times. There are countless scenes of the seemingly hilarious debacles when two genders live together (in one episode, Schmidt finds one of the tampons that Jess has hidden around the house). But, after all, it is a cable sitcom, and so we must cut it some slack. After all, the show does make up for the predictable three-guys-and-a-girl scenario with scenes of genuine friendship among women. For starters, Jess has a diverse group of friends (for television standards); her best friend is an Indian woman (Cece) and her other friend who appears regularly is a lesbian (Sadie). Within these women there is no gossiping or snarky behavior. When Jess suspects that Nick’s aforementioned girlfriend Julia may not like her, she confides in Cece and Sadie for their support. Nick tries telling the women that they’re imagining things, but Jess points out to Nick something about female relationships that is all too true: when girls fight, a lot of it goes unsaid. There is real conflict between the women in New Girl, but none of it is the catty back-stabbing behavior that we are used to seeing on television.
Winston, Jess, and Schmidt
Writing Diversity
Unsurprisingly, New Girl’s main character, played by Zooey Deschanel, is an attractive white woman (despite the show’s best efforts to portray her as awkward, she is still undeniably cute). For this reason, New Girl is not particularly revolutionary in its racial makeup. With the advent of Orange is the New Black, feminist viewers have gotten a taste of race done right in television (although, not without problems; OITNB has been called a “modern slave narrative” because of its use of a white protagonist as a vehicle to portray black and Hispanic characters). However, New Girl’s ability to successfully joke about race deserves notice. OITNB has garnered a lot of praise–and rightly so–for addressing race in a serious and respectful manner. But New Girl is a sitcom, after all, and has to be funny to be successful.
Modern Family, another sitcom, positions itself as a, well, modern representation of American families. Unfortunately, many of their jokes rely on tired clichés about race and gender (including the nagging wife, the fiery Latina woman, the effeminate gay man, the crotchety old Conservative white man). One episode in particular that made me roll my eyes consisted of the family’s newborn baby conveniently throwing up any time gay marriage was mentioned. It seems to me that Modern Family is trying to get away with these lazy, stereotypical jokes by positioning them as ironic; after all, how can it be offensive if it’s purposefully trying to be modern?
Winston and Cece
New Girl, while driven by a traditional female protagonist, has a surprisingly diverse cast. Schmidt is Jewish, Winston is Black, and her girlfriends include an Indian woman, Cece, and a lesbian named Sadie. The show is surprisingly, almost shockingly, successful in its abilities to joke about race and sexuality in ways that are truly original and funny, and not at all hurtful (disclaimer: because I am viewing the show from a straight, cisgender, white point of view, it is always possible that my privilege allows me to miss offensive humor). One episode in particular delves into the issue (or rather, the perceived issue) of Winston being the only Black housemate. Upon seeing Winston interacting with a group of strangers who are Black, Schmidt begins to fear that Winston is not being “his blackest self.” The episode continues with Winston taking advantage of Schmidt’s naïve idea of what it means to be Black. Instead of Black stereotypes being the joke (i.e., Black people smoke crack), Schmidt’s assumptions, laced in liberal open-mindedness, are the joke. (We’re laughing at Schmidt for having the assumption that Winston smokes crack.) Along the way, clever jokes of racial differences are made: Schmidt tells Winston that both of their “people” have done great things for America; African Americans have produced some of the best jazz music, while Jews have produced some of the best managers of jazz musicians. Another episode concludes with three white roommates taking turns at making Woody Allen jokes, while Winston simply ads, “Yeah, I have nothing to contribute here.” New Girl doesn’t pretend racial differences don’t exist; it acknowledges them, laughs at them, and moves on.
At the end of the day, it’s difficult to assess how great an impact a sitcom can have on society. Can twenty-five minutes of cable television enact real change in a society so permeated by racism, sexism, and every other damaging –ism? I’d like to think so. The people whose minds need to be changed are not always the ones marching on the streets, reading feminist blogs, and participating in grassroots activism. They are the ones sitting on their couches, watching television. So if a show like New Girl can subtly inject feminist values into the mainstream canon, that is something to celebrate. And now, more than ever, feminists need something to celebrate.
Susan Mackey is a recent graduate from Appalachian State University. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she teaches preschool and writes about art and feminist issues in her spare time.
This year’s season of New Girl introduced a sitcom plot that fans and audience members anticipate and dread in equal measure: the BIG KISS between two lead characters, and the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that followed.
Hooking up the two lead characters of any show is always a risky move for writers to take. No matter how much chemistry exists between the two actors, viewers and critics often fear–with good reason–that once the unresolved sexual tension is resolved, the relationship will become an endless cycle of breakups, reunions, and miscommunication, and no longer be entertaining to watch (ahem).
As a fan of New Girl, I was apprehensive about the idea of Jess and Nick getting together, because I’ve watched TV before and I’ve seen how even great sitcoms can be dragged down by tiresome will-they-won’t-they plots (such as Community’s Jeff/Britta dance of sexual tension before the writers wisely changed course with that storyline). Now that the season has come to an end, I can safely say that Jess and Nick’s kiss did not drag down the show, but elevated a good season into a great one. In fact, Jess and Nick have become one of the more delightful TV romances I’ve ever seen.
How did the writers pull this off?
1. They kept up the pacing and moved the story forward.
On another show, Jess and Nick might have only reached their first kiss by the end of season two, if that. Nick would have realized his feelings for Jess at the end of season one, right after she started dating someone else, and the reverse would happen at the end of season two. On New Girl, Jess and Nick kissed mid-season, had a few awkward conversations about it, kissed again, eventually slept together, and are now in a state where they are pursuing…something, fumbling as they do it. Their relationship is progressing at the pace of actual humans, not characters who know they’re on a television show.
Jess and Nick, before almost kissing.
2. They didn’t forget that the show is a comedy.
So far, there have been no huge declarations of love between Jess and Nick. The closest that came to a declaration was Jess admitting that she didn’t want to call off whatever they had in the season finale, followed by Nick kissing her passionately. Other than that, the writers have emphasized the “comedy” part of romantic comedy, and the results have been great. Whether it’s Nick panic-moonwalking away from Jess on the morning after their first kiss, or Jess finding herself turned on when Nick acts remotely like a responsible grownup (learning how to do laundry!), the characters are still being funny even as they try to navigate their feelings for each other.
3. The barriers to a Jess/Nick relationship are organic to their characters.
The writers on New Girl have not wasted their time with many romantic false leads or contrived subplots designed to keep Jess and Nick apart. They haven’t had to, because there’s enough standing in their way of having a functional relationship without the typical sitcom contrivances.
Nick carries Jess over the threshold.
On the plus side, Jess and Nick are friends and roommates who get along, care about each other, offer each other emotional support, and have plenty of sexual chemistry–all ingredients to a successful relationship. On the other hand, Jess’s sunny disposition, determination, and optimism clash horribly with Nick’s eternal grumpiness and lack of direction. The girl who makes up her own theme songs and the guy who gets so irrationally angry that he yells at doors can’t possibly have a relationship without some serious bumps in the road.
That’s why Jess and Nick’s conflicts have been so refreshing to watch. She’s unsure about his directionless nature and the fact that he has a credit score of a homeless ghost, and he knows that she’s unsure about him because of that reason, which leads to him feeling even more insecure. The fact that they’re friends who live together also complicates matters. If whatever they have becomes more serious, there will be many entertaining bumps in the road along the way.
4. The endgame is a question mark.
Jess dresses as Elvis for Nick’s father’s funeral (it makes sense if you watch the episode)
The relationship between Jess and Nick has been developing for a while, with mutual attraction acknowledged long before they actually kissed, but there’s no sense that Jess/Nick is an “endgame” couple. Considering their differences in personality, there’s a big chance that a relationship between them won’t work at all. They also might stay together for a long time. When they drive off together at the end of Cece’s wedding that wasn’t, there’s a sense that anything can happen between them.
From the perspective of someone who’s watched countless romantic comedies and rom-com pairings on television, I’m relieved to see a different take on a pairing of potentially mismatched friends. As a feminist, I’m happy that there’s no sense of an “endgame” with Jess and Nick, that Jess’s story isn’t all about whether or not she ends up with a guy (even if said guy is my current favorite character on television and Jake Johnson needs to win ALL the Emmys). Whatever she has with Nick is a big part of Jessica Day’s life, but it doesn’t define her, and she’s treated as a human being trying to figure out her life.
Would that all writers of romantic comedy treated their characters the way Elizabeth Meriweather and the staff of New Girl treat Jess and Nick–as people, not props in a foretold rom-com ending.
Nick and Jess, shortly before calling off their relationship (and then un-calling it later)
Lady T is an a writer with two novels, a play, and a collection of comedy sketches in progress. She hopes to one day be published and finish one of her projects (not in that order). You can find more of her writing at www.theresabasile.com.
This is a guest post by Melissa McEwan and is cross-posted with permission from her blog Shakesville.
I have never been a great lover of sitcoms. Despite their ubiquity in American primetime television, especially when I was growing up, there just weren’t a lot of them for me to love. So much of the com always relied on sits that mocked or belittled or straight-up hated the characters in the show with which we were meant to identify. I have only ever been able to love sitcoms that loved their characters.
The earliest sitcom I remember loving—I mean really loving—was Good Times, a show about a black family who lived in the Chicago projects, the central feature of which was their struggle to navigate life in poverty. It was an imperfect show: There was a strong message of bootstraps, which simultaneously challenged narratives about the Welfare Queens to whom Ronald Reagan had not yet given a name, and indirectly entrenched judgment of anyone who would accept “a hand-out.” But it was an important and challenging show, which did not shy away from discussions of racial and feminist justice. And it loved its characters deeply.
The next sitcom I remember really loving was The Golden Girls, for so many reasons, but chief among them that the show loved its characters. There were jokes at the women’s expense, but they were delivered by one another (usually Sophia), and thus was it ever unmistakable these were in-jokes of a loving group. We weren’t invited to laugh at them, but with them.
There have been other shows I’ve loved along the way, some very much. But something about these not quite as lovable shows held me (or obliged me to hold myself) at a distance. I deeply dug The Cosby Show as a child, but there was always a thread of one-upping—between Cliff and Claire, between Cliff and the kids—that put me at unease. Someone was always getting the better of someone else, which never sat precisely right with me. I loved Family Ties, but there was always a weird hostility toward Mallory’s girlyness that alienated me.
It is a subtle difference, but I have always been most strongly drawn to the shows that invite me to love their characters because of their flaws, rather than in spite of them.
For all the times Parks and Rec has made my teeth grind with its Jerry bullying, I have known, always, that the show loves Jerry, and wants us to love him—and when the other characters are thoughtless or cruel to him, it is they who are wrong. It is their flaw, their envy, their self-involvement—not anything wrong with the inimitably lovable Jerry.
It is so rare that I love, really love, a sitcom that I feel overwhelmed with a bounty of riches that there are two shows currently airing that I adore: Parks and Rec and New Girl, about which I have written before that “the thing I like most is that it loves its characters. It asks me to root for them, and I do!”
All of which is prelude to this: The Big Bang Theory doesn’t like its female characters anymore, and so I don’t really like The Big Bang Theory anymore.
I didn’t like TBBT the first time I watched it, which was just some random episode in the middle of the series. But then I watched it from the beginning, when it went into syndication, and I liked it a lot. It’s never been a show I’ve loved like the aforementioned shows, but it was a show I enjoyed quite a bit, anyway—and I thought it did a pretty swell job of exposing Nice Guyism for the garbage that it is.
Mostly, I liked Penny.
I really liked this female character, despite her tokenism, who was routinely drawn as a complex human being despite the guys’ objectification of her. I liked that she was allowed to be funny, and clever, and have sexual agency, and teach the guys by example how to stand up to bullies.
The show, I thought, liked Penny, too.
And I really liked the additional female leads that were added in time. I liked Bernadette—even though she has a terrible case of Bailey Quarters which compels us to pretend that she’s not beautiful because she wears glasses and someone else is supposed to be the sexpot on the show—and I loved Amy Farrah Fowler. (I really like Leslie Winkle whenever she shows up, too.) I liked most of the scenes between the girls, and I was glad Penny wasn’t isolated in a tower of Exceptional Womanhood anymore.
But then something changed. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but the show lost its respect for Amy Farrah Fowler. Once a formidable complement to Sheldon Cooper, she has been reduced to an unwanted trophy—he gets a girl (that he doesn’t even seem to want) and she has to settle for a shitty relationship because, hey, she’s a nerd; it’s not like she could do (or deserves?) any better.
And, this season, the show seems to have lost every trace of the love it once had for Penny.
Penny isn’t allowed to be good at anything anymore. She can’t accomplish this, she can’t understand that, she’s not even smart enough to take science classes at community college. This is the same character who used to (literally) kick ass on earlier seasons, and now her entire oeuvre consists of drinking wine and making sure Leonard still thinks she’s sexy.
There was an episode earlier this season, in which Penny was taking a history course, and couldn’t even write a decent paper on her own. Leonard was being a complete asshole about it, and, watching the show, Iain and I were bitterly complaining that the show had rendered Penny incapable of writing a 101-level essay. When at last Penny presented Leonard with a B+ paper, we were so happy—only to be immediately crushed by the reveal that Bernadette and Amy had helped her, and only helped her enough to get a B+, because they wanted it to be “realistic.”
Every time Penny trudges by in her waitress uniform, I now cringe. Because it’s just a reminder about how the show won’t let her succeed. At anything.
Which certainly doesn’t make for a better show. I would have found an episode about Penny and Leonard trying to navigate their relationship while she’s taken away by a movie role (professional success! yay for Penny!) exponentially more interesting than the last episode, where I instead watched Penny put on sexy glasses to give Leonard a boner to assuage her insecurity after another woman flirted with him.
The fact is, TBBT has officially fallen out of love with Penny. And that makes TBBT pretty damn unwatchable for me.
Take note, sitcom writers: I can’t love your characters more than you do.
———-
Melissa McEwan is the founder and manager of the award-winning political and cultural group blog Shakesville, which she launched as Shakespeare’s Sister in October 2004 because George Bush was pissing her off. In addition to running Shakesville, she also contributes to The Guardian‘s Comment is Free America and AlterNet. Liss graduated from Loyola University Chicago with degrees in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology, with an emphasis on the political marginalization of gender-based groups. An active feminist and LGBTQI advocate, she has worked as a concept development and brand consultant and now writes full-time.
She lives just outside Chicago with three cats, two dogs, and a Scotsman, with whom she shares a love of all things geekdom, from Lord of the Rings to Alcatraz. When she’s not blogging, she can usually be found watching garbage television or trying to coax her lazyass greyhound off the couch for a walk.
I’m not sure what’s happened, but I have fallen head over heels in love with FOX’s New Girl. I devoured the first season within a week and immediately caught up on the first few episodes of season two.
New Girl wasn’t a show I ever planned on watching. I actually like Zooey Deschanel, but I didn’t feel like I needed to see half an hour of her “adorkable” antics every week. The initial ads also made me believe that this show was going to be about a weird woman-child who moved in with three men who would eventually either a) pull a My Fair Lady on her and craft her into a more normal human being, or b) come to appreciate the quirky elf magic of this manic pixie dream girl and learn how to live their lives, or c) both of the above. Then one of them would fall in love with her, and they’d have a “She saved him back” moment from Pretty Woman, and they’d live manically and pixie-like forever after.
Well, this goes to show how marketing can be misleading, because New Girl is not that show at all.
Jess (Zooey Deschanel), Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), and Winston (Lamorne Morris)
Yes, the first few episodes were largely about Zooey’s character Jess moving in and the male friends adjusting to her personality, but soon, the audience was introduced to the weirder sides of Nick, Winston, and Schmidt, and we quickly saw that this was a group of people who are all freaky oddballs. Sure, Jess makes up her own theme songs and speaks in silly accents, but Nick believes that an old man who speaks to him at the bar is himself from the future, Winston gets overly competitive about a middle school bells group, and Schmidt…is Schmidt.
Sometimes Jess is the voice of reason among the weird people, sometimes she’s the odd one that one of the guys has to rein in, and sometimes, in the very best episodes, the whole gang is completely off the wall. More importantly, Jess never has to be the mommy to a group of manchildren, and the guys never have to be the condescending Three Men and a Little Lady daddies to a girl-woman. I was afraid of both of those tropes before I started watching of the show, but neither has been the case.
On top of that, New Girl also showcases a female friendship that I find delightful to watch. Jess’s childhood best friend Cece, a confident, gorgeous model, is another main character on the show, and they complement each other perfectly. They’re highly supportive of each other, they share tough love when they need to, and their heartfelt moments are always genuine. When they fight, they fight like real women fight, not like a male fantasy of catty, bitchy women.
One of my favorite episodes of New Girl is “Secrets,” when Schmidt and Cece’s secret relationship becomes known to everyone else in the apartment. Jess is horrified to learn this information, but she’s also hurt that she was the last person to find out, thinking that Cece doesn’t trust her anymore. Cece, meanwhile, was afraid of Jess’s judgment, but was more afraid of admitting that she cared about Schmidt as something more than a hookup. The fight was over by the end of the episode, and there was a refreshing lack of catfight jokes.
Jess makes up with Cece (Hannah Simone)
There was another episode that featured an argument between two women – Jess and Nick’s girlfriend Julia – that was a great commentary on the way women fight when their personalities clash. Julia (Lizzy Caplan) is immediately put off by Jess’s whole persona, assuming that her super-girly attitude is nothing but an act, and feels threatened by Jess’s place in Nick’s life:
“I know that I’m the mean lawyer girl who wears suits and works too much, and you – you’re the really fun teacher girl with all the colorful skirts, and you bake things, and eventually Nick will come running to you, and you’ll tuck him in under his blankie.”
This ends in an argument where Julia flat-out admits that she doesn’t like Jess and quietly asks her to go away so she can cry in the bathroom. Jess doesn’t want to leave because then she won’t have anywhere to cry, but runs into the men’s bathroom to see Nick crying, and is then forced to cry in the hallway.
The sequence is hilarious and I watched it several times, but I also thought the scene, and the episode in general, was a great portrayal of how women sometimes misunderstand each other. Julia sees Jess as a threat because Jess is the living embodiment of the bubbly feminine stereotype that male writers use and re-use and over-use in their navel-gazing stories. Julia’s not being fair to Jess, but her feelings are more than understandable. Our society gives us such a narrow definition of how to be a woman that it’s easy to have knee-jerk feelings of resentment towards women who are more traditionally feminine, even if we know it’s irrational.
Julia (Lizzy Caplan) and Jess – two clashing personalities
And by the end of the episode, Jess and Julia have put their issues aside and bonded over some girl time crocheting. They’re not suddenly best friends, but they’re cool with each other, and it was so refreshing to see two women put aside their differences without a) showing any underlying cattiness, or b) turning the show into a Hallmark card.
The show isn’t perfect, of course. The writers broke up Schmidt and Cece much too quickly, almost as though they bought into the idea that happy couples are never funny. Winston as a character still isn’t as clearly defined as the other three roommates, even though Lamorne Morris is a very funny actor. And as a former teacher, I’m perplexed as to why Jess has to quit teaching entirely after getting laid off from one school, instead of, I don’t know, trying to find a job at a different school, like most teachers do. But despite its flaws, I love New Girl for introducing me to this group of weird people and treating all of its characters with respect and affection.
Did you think I would write a whole post about New Girl without a reference to the douchebag jar?
