Forgive me–am I the only person who can’t stand the new show, “The New Girl”?
I love Zooey Deschanel in everything I’ve seen her in, and I saw enough commercials for her new show before I gave up my cable that I figured I’d catch the pilot on Hulu. And it really sucked. The premise felt trite (recently jilted girl finds new home with 3 guy roommates, wacky hijinks ensue), but I’d thought it would be offbeat and funny. Zooey’s Jess is offbeat, but in the most halfhearted way I’ve ever seen–we break out some spontaneous singing, awkward public dance moves, and one of those montages where the nerdy girl doesn’t know how to smile like a human being. From what I can tell, her only hobby is watching “Dirty Dancing.” And funny? Maybe if you haven’t watched any TV or movies in the past 10-15 years and missed all the tropes of the “quirky,” “wacky,” or otherwise crazy chick. Otherwise, same old, same old, which is a sad thing to have to say about Zooey.
The roommates, for their part, consist of a gruff personal trainer who “doesn’t care” that girls like shopping, a completely bland one who I’m assuming will become the vehicle for romantic interest, and the one who routinely says things that make him have to put a dollar in the “D-Bag jar.” Men, amirite? They work out, they have the possibility of wearing a tux someday, or they want to see your boobs. The jar was funny the first time, but the episode leaned on it for at least four gags.
I wouldn’t have mentioned anything about it, but I happened across some reviews, and everyone’s calling it “charming” and “adorkable” (dear Lord), and writing things like:
“the amusing contrast between Jess’ quirkiness as a girl and her roommate’s attempts to understand her”
Whoa. Back up. Quirkiness as a girl? Her roommates are attempting to understand her, because she’s a girl?? What the flying crap is that supposed to mean? I will readily admit to my own quirk (which I hope is more three-dimensional than awkward poses and a self-written theme song), but I’m not quirky because of the double-X in the double-helix, thank you very much.
At any rate, I’m no TV reviewer, but as a lover of story and character, there’s got to be something newer-feeling than this out there.
Jessica Jonas 
I totally agree!! I have nothing against Zooey Deschanel, but I find New Girl obnoxious. I consider myself pretty quirky, and I was proud when my friends told me that if our circle were to populate the world of Bridesmaids, I’d be Kristen Wiig’s character. I’m nerdy, a little weird, overly enthusiastic but also unabashedly morose, but also a human being.
No one is like this “adorkable” Jess. She has no sense of the world around her. She is exactly this “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”– she is terrifying in that she is uncontrollable, but she is completely out of the real world so the men have total power over her. I can’t, and don’t, believe that it’s useful for a mainstream sitcom character to be THAT far from a real person. She’s not endearing, she’s just weird.
Haha, rant over. I’m glad I’m not alone.
Hooray for real-life quirk! I loved Bridesmaids, and I am a huge fan of shows/books/etc that offer real quirk–as in, interesting, 3-dimensional characters that do unexpected things, including giving in to flights of whimsy. I just get irritated when people imply that if you’re quirky, you must be completely removed from the real world. My friends have compared me at times to Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series, which is fine by me–she’s odd and spends a lot of time in her own world, but she still knows what’s going on in the world other people inhabit (plus, a lot of the strange things she believes in turn out to be true!)