In the course of seven seasons, New Girl has managed to become a pop-culture classic and has been widely received with positive reviews around the world. The first season of this popular sitcom introduced the characters that audiences grew to know and love.
Right from the start, the show offered a compelling story and characters with great chemistry, resulting in a bundle of hilarious episodes. However, considering that it aired in 2011, there are certain things from the first season that has since grown to be in bad taste in the last decade.
Making Fun Of Schmidt’s Germophobia
Throughout the season, it has been mentioned multiple times that Schmidt is the one taking care of all the housework and cleaning up everybody else’s mess in the loft. This is something that has been made into a joke many times, with the rest of the characters regularly teasing him about it.
In one episode, Jess decides that Schmitt has a problem and her way of helping him is by trying to convince him to stop cleaning, altogether. Taking into account current events with the coronavirus pandemic still going, a modern audience would be more hyper aware of germs and it’s fair to say that most people nowadays would take Schmidt’s side.
Cece Leading Schmidt On
Cece and Schmidt’s relationship had its ups and downs from the very start. Granted, on Schmidt’s part, he wasn’t exactly coming off as very trustworthy boyfriend material, but he made his feelings for Cece clear from the beginning. Cece, however, could not make up her mind about him at all.
Her insistence on keeping their relationship a secret from everyone in their lives was a major red flag. On top of that, she told him that she was embarrassed to be seen with him, and yet, she kept coming back to him over and over again only to break up with him in what was one of New Girl‘s saddest breakups at the end of the season.
Manipulative Exes
At the beginning of the season, Jess and Nick are recovering from their recent breakups. As the season progresses, their respective exes make their appearances in the show, and the audience learns of what led to the break-ups. Jess’s ex, Spencer, cheated on her and then refused to give her back her things when she moved out of their shared house. He also enjoyed the control he had over her and used her kindness to his advantage.
Meanwhile, Nick’s ex, Caroline, was using him as her backup plan, stringing him along and, in Nick’s words, she “physically, mentally and emotionally abused” him for years. Even though the show brings up those topics in a way that’s meant to be funny, it’s hard to say if a modern audience would feel that way.
Jewish Jokes
Schmidt has always been very proud of his ethnicity and the show actually does a great job in showing an accurate representation of the Jewish community. There are many Jewish-themed jokes throughout the show that are either self-deprecating or at Schmidt’s expense.
Most of these jokes may not be that problematic, but some are certainly awkward to hear. For example, when Schmidt is talking about his upcoming date with Nadia, he describes her as “a Russian model whose ancestors probably burned down my ancestors’ village,” which is in fairly poor taste.
Sexism In The Workplace
In Schmidt’s office, all of his coworkers and superiors are women and the way they treat him is borderline sexist. His work and ideas are never taken seriously and in every holiday work party, they force him to dress up in hyper-sexualized costumes like Sexy Santa, Sexy Easter Bunny and Cinco de Sexy.
Today’s society is becoming more aware of sexism and is continually trying to eradicate it from places of work. Therefore, jokes about Schmidt’s coworkers treating him like a sex object would likely have a different response today.
The Douchebag Jar
Perhaps the most memorable joke of the first season is the “Douchebag Jar,” in which Schmidt has to put money every time he says or does something inappropriate and obnoxious.
On the one hand, it does a great job at acknowledging that some of the jokes in the show can be offensive and it is a great way to keep Schmidt’s comments in check. On the other hand, it makes Schmidt’s character come off as ignorant, rude and at times sexist. However, in the following seasons, the mention of the Douchebag Jar becomes less and less frequent, which goes to show how Schmidt has grown and matured throughout the course of New Girl.
Casual Racism
Winston and Cece are the only non-white characters in the show and the way they are treated is sometimes insensitive towards race. This begins with the fact that the show casually replaces one Black character for another in the second episode without any sort of explanation, so it didn’t really get off on a good start.
Also, while all the other characters have specific careers, Winston spends most of the season unemployed and struggling to figure out what to do. Meanwhile, Cece is often treated as an “exotic” sex object, with barely any mention of her culture and Schmidt’s regular comments about the color of her skin. These things just wouldn’t fly now with today’s audiences.
Low-Key Sexism
Generally, the treatment of women in this season is not the best, as they are constantly sexually objectified and stereotyped. Right from the start, in the first episode, the only reason the guys agreed to let Jess move into the loft with them is that she told them that her friends are models.
Also, when Cece had to spend a few nights with them, Winston and Schmidt spent the entire time trying to seduce her and competed with each other over her, as if her mere presence in the loft entitled them to her attention.
Age Gaps
When Nick’s old roommate from law school comes for a visit, he convinces Nick that he should direct his interest to younger women because they are more naive, which makes it easier to impress them and lie to them. Nick then spends several episodes sleeping with college girls, one after the other, and the rest of the characters treat that as something admirable.
At one point, they even praise him for finally learning how to properly lie to the young women he had sex with. Not to mention that one of Nick’s girlfriends used to be one of Jess’s students not that long ago. Considering that Nick is canonically 30, him dating an 18-year-old would be more controversial today.
Not Passing The Bechdel Test
The Bechdel Test is the minimum requirement by which to measure the representation of women in a work of fiction. In order to pass, the work needs two named female characters to speak to each other about something other than a man and yet, the first season of New Girl rarely does that.
Even though there are several minor female characters in each episode, they are usually there as someone’s love interest and they rarely interact with each other. As for the female main characters, Jess and Cece, their interactions are many but they’re always centered around the men in their lives.
