Hey, Girl you're on TV.

Looking at the list of new shows this autumn, it seems that there is a significant increase in the number of shows with main female protagonist.Not only this but many of the first lot to have a full season order are members of this new bunch. Side note one of the first to be cancelled was The Play Boy Club. But probably best not to read gender into this given it was straight up just terrible television.

This summer Bridesmaid's significant box office success was heralded as a sign that media (specifically comedy) with a female slant can make money. This idea has apparently been adopted by television. Looking at a shows like New Girl and 2 Broke Girls and their commercial success I'm conflicted about what it suggests about representation of women in entertainment.

I don't hate either of the shows, but I'm not sure that their depiction of females speak to any real progress.

Firstly 2BG, which lets be honest is an odd (and by odd I mean bad) show. I jump from half liking it, to not being able to believe that it's actually getting made. Yes I laugh every now and again, mainly thanks to Kat Dennings putting more effort in than the scripts deserves. But she can't do anything to make up for the fact the show does spend most of its time being casually racist and throwing in more rape jokes than seem absolutely necessary. Which is obviously less than ideal. Although the women do have actual conversations about things that don't involve men, they also spend a lot of it conform to the typical gender conventions. Yes they talk about vagina's, sex and the like. The delivery of which, even though its been 13 years since Sex and the City started showing, still feels weird and forced. Its written and performed like they want every time they say it to be subtitled with See What We Did There, Look How Avant-Garde We Are. Not that I'm saying SATC a beacon of progressive gender but still 13 years later is this stuff meant to be shocking or worth noting. Surely it would indicate progress if vagina wasn't still a punch line. Although this comparison to SATC does link to one of my favourite things about 2BG is the fact that Caroline is continually wearing the same clothes and necklace. In the last episode we even saw her wear the pair of shorts she bought in an earlier episode. This kind of continuity and the fact a women who is meant to be broke has a limited wardrobe is nice to see. If she had a different outfit each week it would be going against the ethos of the show. Not that their insanely large apartment in Brooklyn really goes with idea of broke-ness. Seriously it has a back yard, one that a horse can walk about it. That said it's not really shown to be big enough that I don't believe keeping Chestnut there is anything other than animal cruelty. What's the American equivalent of the NSPCA, because I feel it warrants a call.

On to New Girl, which although I haven't posted about since the pilot I've have been watching. The awkward reality is that I keep on wanting to write about it, but then I think to do that I really need to re-watch the episodes before I do. But I can never be bothered to get around to watch them. This isn't a good sign is it? The main issue was the awkward simultaneous occurrences of me watching the pilot and reading an article in the New Yorker by Mindy Kaling about women in film. In it she presented various stock females characters. Here is one, which I'm loath to quote because it will show why Kaling writes for the office and I don't. But that said I can't possibly begin to describe this in any funnier or better way. So I won't.

“The Klutz.

When a beautiful actress is cast in a movie, executives rack their brains to find some kind of flaw in the character she plays that will still allow her to be palatable. She can’t be overweight or not perfect-looking, because who would pay to see that? A female who is not one hundred per cent perfect-looking in every way? You might as well film a dead squid decaying on a beach somewhere for two hours.
So they make her a Klutz. The hundred-per-cent-perfect-looking female is perfect in every way except that she constantly bonks her head on things. She trips and falls and spills soup on her affable date (Josh Lucas. Is that his name? I know it’s two first names. Josh George? Brad Mike? Fred Tom? Yes, it’s Fred Tom). The Klutz clangs into stop signs while riding her bike and knocks over giant displays of fine china in department stores. Despite being five feet nine and weighing a hundred and ten pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society. But Fred Tom loves her anyway.”

That is essentially Jess, word for word. Well as long as you replace Fred Tom with her 3 roommates and whatever romantic interest gets added later. Obviously whoever he is, he will have a much less awesome name. So now watching New Girl all I can hear is Mindy's words dancing round my head, crashing into china as it goes. Sometimes is seems so completely accurate and well timed that I wonder whether its all a big meta ploy. I'm just waiting for them to announce that New Girl is just people playing on the Klutz convention and they know how ridiculous and played out this kind of female character is. If this happened my affection for the show would increase by a solid 34%. I won't hold my breath.

When you acknowledge the fact that both these shows are consistently getting better ratings than 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, its a little disheartening. Especially since both of the latter shows are better written, funnier and more engaging. They are also both shows have female lead characters than are more interesting, developed, real depictions of women hood in the 21^st century than any show with girl in the title. At the beginning of this current season, for example, we saw Leslie Knope break up with Ben because it would make her running for office problematic. This kind of non-man related thinking and taking control over ones own life in a pragmatic way is often rare, even in shows with lead female characters. It seems that to a certain extent we, as a television audience, are wiling to watch prime time sitcoms with women as long as they aren't too clever or deviate too severely from the expected ways women are meant to behave. Baby steps I guess.