Entertaining and Realistic Female Characters on TV

As new television seasons premiere this fall, I have noticed that the shows with the most entertaining and realistic female characters are the ones I want to continue watching. The convincing personalities, body types, and lives that the characters lead provide relatable entertainment and pull viewers in to shows like New Girl, The Mindy Project, and Girls.
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In terms of the professions and lifestyles of the characters in these shows, an average person can relate to the career struggles, roommate tensions, and often less than ideal dating experiences that the characters go through. In New Girl, the main character Jess plays a recently fired school teacher living with three male roommates after moving out of her ex’s house due to a nasty breakup. Parts of Jess’ life are relatable to viewers and the humorous way that the episodes carry out the problems allow people to look back at their own experiences in a “We’ll laugh about this later” kind of way.

Main character Mindy from The Mindy Project works hard as a gynecologist and the series follows her hopelessly romantic, yet comedic, view of relationships. Like many other people whose expectations skyrocketed after watching The Notebook and Sleepless in Seattle, Mindy struggles with the whole romantic comedy life vs. reality life.

While Girls isn’t premiering its next season until 2014, it tries to depict a day in the life of an average New York City young adult with character Hannah Horvath. One of her many conflicts includes trying to pay rent with a writer’s salary, a problem that would never arise in the typical city-based shows like Sex and the City.

The women's personalities contribute to their realistic female characters and are convincing as all of the characters continuously deal with the many awkward moments life has to offer. No character is exactly glamorous or unfaltering, giving viewers the feeling that they could work with, be neighbors with, or ride the bus with any of the characters. The promotional tagline for New Girl was “Simply Adorkable” to tie in with Jess’ bubbly character who is bad at flirting and likes to sing what she has to say. She encompasses the blundering moments of the average person and proves that little quirks can be just as cute as they are weird. Mindy gives off a girly-girl vibe and her blunt and assertive observations spark humor and wit. While her co-workers sometimes find her stubbornness difficult to deal with, she comes off as the type of energetic person anyone could have a conversation with. Hannah captures the “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life” panic of young adults with her character’s dramatic accounts of her relatable struggles with her early career and relationships.

Perhaps the most intriguing factor about characters Mindy and Hannah is that neither of them fit anywhere near Hollywood’s cookie cutter outline of the ideal female body. Mindy often addresses her weight throughout the series (“I am not overweight. I fluctuate between chubby and curvy”), but sees it as a part of who she is. While she sometimes has concerns about it, she doesn’t seem to have a desire to change it: “I do the elliptical 45 minutes, 4 times a week.  …30 minutes, 3 times a week.  …There is a cluster of ellipticals at my gym.  ….I plan on joining a gym near my house, okay?!” Hannah, a 143 pound, 5 foot tall woman, also challenges the norm by participating in several nude sex scenes normally only portrayed by twig-like actresses in an effort to replace the ideal with the reality. They amount of comfort these female characters have in talking about and/or displaying their body types gives viewers someone to see on television that looks a lot more like the average woman.

Though these shows and plots aren’t entirely realistic, certain aspects of the realistic female characters and their experiences allow them to reach out to audiences and give viewers something to relate to, whether it be troubles with their low-salary job or their clumsy attempts on a date with someone new.