Jada Yuan's profile of Zooey Deschanel in last week's New York Magazine asked whether Deschanel's distinctive brand of adorableness reinforces Hollywood stereotypes about women or expands them. Deschanel, whom Yuan describes as "the paragon of femininity," is the Katy Perry doppelganger who's spent the last decade cementing her place as a darling of the indie-film world. This fall, Deschanel steers her acting career in a different direction, starring in a new sitcom called "New Girl" about an eccentric woman who moves in with three single men following a difficult breakup.
I haven't yet seen "New Girl" (it premieres tonight on Fox), but it sounds equal parts worrisome and promising. Some of Deschanel's character's traits -- "watching 'Dirty Dancing' six times a day, sobbing uncontrollably" -- seem like echoes of some of the most unfortunate clichés about women that exist. On the plus side, "New Girl's" comedy ostensibly has a screwball bent that's been lacking on network TV in recent seasons. Even better, it was created by a female writer named Liz Meriwether who based Deschanel's character on herself and who told Yuan approvingly, "I didn't think I could find someone as weird as I am."
Where Meriwether sees weirdness, others see girlishness -- and some critics have a problem with that. According to Yuan, some women "resent [Deschanel] for seemingly playing into the male fantasy that women are only attractive when they act like girls." Yuan quotes a handful of men who find Deschanel attractive ("She's so hot!," etc.) and alludes to a controversy that briefly lit up the feminist blogosphere earlier this year when the writer and comedian Julie Klausner wrote a post claiming that women who adopt a cutesy Deschanelesque sensibility make it easier for men to denigrate women. (In the New York profile, Deschanel responds to her critics, saying, "I think the fact that people are associating being girlie with weakness, that needs to be examined.")
What I find baffling about the controversy surrounding Deschanel's trademark adorableness is that she doesn't fall neatly into a feminine pigeonhole. Yes, she is thin, white, conventionally beautiful, and bubbly, and she has an apparently authentic enthusiasm for cupcakes and baby animals. But she has played characters who curse indiscriminately ("The Good Girl"), defy their parents ("Almost Famous"), and reject the men who love them ("500 Days of Summer") -- not exactly ladylike behaviors -- and her laugh (which Yuan describes rapturously as "as the joyous union of a bray, a bark, and a honk") is decidedly unfeminine. Deschanel, as far as I can tell from her films and Yuan's profile is, like all of us, complicated: a mix of soft and hard, girly and nerdy, silly and serious.
The fact that Deschanel's aesthetic seems to have struck a chord in Hollywood and America at large, so much so that she is now carrying her own sitcom, doesn't bother me -- more power to her. Getting to where Deschanel is in her career undoubtedly requires a significant amount of hard work, talent, and drive, and if Deschanel's natural good looks and childlike idiosyncrasies have helped her along the way, so be it.
If anything bothers me, it's that there aren't enough female faces and voices in Hollywood that look and sound significantly different from Deschanel's. Where are the sitcoms written by and starring women of color, lesbian and bisexual women, women whose bodies don't fit into sample-size clothing? Where are the scripts about women who hate movies like "Dirty Dancing," who attack every problem with unflagging rationality, who don't really enjoy baking cupcakes or sewing clothes? These women are no worse or better than the kind of woman Deschanel epitomizes -- but they exist, and Hollywood would be a far more interesting place if it began representing them, too.
They're there but they seem to be few and far between or they don't last very long. They don't normally get to be the lead. They're relegated to side characters but it mainly seems to be because they don't draw in the same number ofviewers.
Please bring back the girly girls, they are hot. We are tired of having to pretend to like these "He Women".
I have a feeling you are far from a manly man yourself, ed. Who are you to be telling women how they must behave? Are you the kind of man a "girly girl" would want? Think about it.
I imagine women also like men who don't act like ladies...
Umm...Jane Lynch, Melissa McCarthy, Susie Essman, and Brooke Elliott? Wanda Sykes also had a very successful run in not one, but two sitcoms during the last decade.
I do find it pretty ironic how this writer quickly points out how feminine and conventionally attractive Deschanel is (who by the way is a very good actor) then criticizes Deschanel for her looks, but in another sentence bemoans how actresses of color, plus size, and sexuality are not being fairly represented because of their appearance. Does anyone else see the irony in this?
On TBS and CW. MMhm, House of Payne anyone? Of course that presents a whole new set of issues unto itself...
I'm pretty sure Jane Lynch's character isn't in to baking cupcakes.
And if you want a sitcom where the woman approaches a problem with "unflagging rationality" you're not going to have a lot of laughs. People loved Lucy because she was irrational. The same reason they loved Archie Bunker and Seinfeld and the gang on Cheers.
It's a sitcom. Let the characters be funny and silly and irrational.
She's a big hit in our house because of "Elf." I have three kids and that's one of their favorite Christmas movies.
Why do you think the only talk show hosts who have made it as sole hosts are Ellen, Rosie, Rachel Maddow, and pseudo lesbian Oprah with her number one pal Gayle? All other female hosts have failed or are barely scraping by. What does this tell you about what a lot of women really want to see? But men don't like it so no...women can't have it either. Because women can't have what they want if men don't approve.
Newsflash darling, the "Butch" stereotype is about a hundred years old, the world lesbian itself was coined is in honour of Sappho, a 7th century BCE Greek poetess who was what we would call "conventionally attractive".
If anything, butch-like women are trying too hard to ensure their persona is associated with the state of being, which is stupid.
They exist, but they aren't considered funny. The show is a comedy.
I'm not sure what is behind this publicity blitz for Zooey Deschanel. It's hard to imagine that anyone is speaking as if such a minor actress is a symbol of anything in particular for any significant number of people.