Why Jess from “New Girl” is Your Role Model

That Fangirl
That Fangirl
Published in
3 min readAug 18, 2016

https://thatcrazyfangirlblog.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/why-jess-from-new-girl-is-your-role-model/

If you know me, then you know I love to watch the show New Girl (maybe a little too much!). When I’m having a bad day, there’s nothing that can cheer me up like watching an episode. When things aren’t really going my way, I can’t help but wish that I could be more like Zooey Deschanel’s character, Jess, the show’s main character. Here a just a few reasons why Jess is my role model and why she’s your’s, too!

1. She finds good in a bad situation

There was an episode where Jess was let go from her job as a teacher. Of course, she was sad that she lost her job of doing something that she loved, but Jess refused to sit on the couch and stay sad. She used her time of unemployment to find a creative outlet. She tried out new jobs and met new people all before finding another job. Jess is the kind of girl who finds a silver lining and keeps her head up in hard times.

2. She doesn’t let break-ups keep her down

Breaking up with someone sucks, and Jess knows it. At the very beginning of the show, she left her boyfriend of five years because he cheated on her. If that were me, that would have torn me to bits and I would have sworn off men forever. But Jess didn’t do that. It was hard, but Jess gathered up her courage and marched over to her ex’s place to get her things. And you know what else she did? Jess told him that she was happy he cheated on her, because if he didn’t, she would have stayed with him, married him and she would have been unhappy. It’s hard to find the strength to move on from someone you thought you were in love with, but Jess does it. She puts on some Dirty Dancing and cries for a little. Once she’s done with that, Jess gets back out there and finds a new adventure. Jess doesn’t let her failed relationships turn her into someone she’s not.

3. She sees good in everyone

In one episode, Jess and her roommate, Nick, argue about whether or not there’s good in everyone. Nick doesn’t believe that there is, but Jess does. After everything she’s been through and all the nasty people she’s had to deal with, Jess still believes that there’s good in everyone. Maybe someone who’s being mean is just having a bad day or no one has ever been nice to them before. Jess believes that just because someone is being a jerk to us doesn’t mean that the right thing to do is to be a jerk back to them. Jess is a nice person, and she tries to spread that niceness around to others.

4. She shows us that there’s no rush to making life happen

Jess is a thirty-something-year-old single lady. She shares a loft with three other people, has break-up after break-up, and has lost her teaching job only to pick another one back up. That really shows a twenty-two-year old like myself that it’s ok not to try and rush life into happening. Jess has shown me that not everything we want is going to happen right away. Not everyone gets married straight out of college and moves into a house where the sink actually works. That’s not a normal, everyday occurrence. With all its ups and downs, Jess enjoys life and all the hijinks that ensue. Jess shows us that our plans for life aren’t always the plans that were meant to happen for us. She left someone she thought she would end up with, changed jobs, and found another, better guy she was happier with (spoilers!) Plans change. With change comes experience. Why rush to make life happen? Take a page from Jess’s book and take a moment to stop and enjoy life. If you don’t stop once in a while, you could miss it.

Jess may not be real, but she still makes us happy and has taught us a lot about life, where we’re going and how we want to live our lives.

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That Fangirl
That Fangirl

Collector of comics. Star Wars expert. Fan fic enthusiast.