Clumsy is the New Sexy

So for those of us watching New Girl, who else was super excited when Dr. Rick showed back up? Of course technically on the show he’s known as Sam, but every time I see him I just think happily of Fired Up!

However, this also reminded me of a certain trend in portraying women that has been driving me insane for years. That is the Clumsy Girl bit.

I adore Jess on New Girl, but she also happens to be clumsy as all get out. During this episode where Dr. Rick reappears she manages to run into about 10 different walls. In one of the first episodes with him, they flash back to her issues with standing.

You have to understand I am actually not arguing that this is an unfair portrayal of girls. There are clumsy boys out there too.  Nor am I saying this is completely unrealistic.

The truth it, I am a clumsy girl. Accident prone. A walking disaster, if you will. Just this Friday, I was sitting at my desk having a phone meeting. Well midway through the meeting my left leg cramped up. Since I was all twisted up in some weird position, when I jumped at the unexpected pain, this also caused me to fall out of my chair (this friends is why you always keep your phone on mute during meetings until you’re actually saying something).

I’d like to pretend this is an isolated incident, but really it’s one of many. Back in college there was a guy that we always referred to as “The One That’s Afraid Of Me” (I said me, my friends would say you). He was in my freshman seminar along with several of my friends. Now typically I sat over with my friends, but I believe I was running late that day for whatever reason, so I ended up sitting in between him and Scott Cameron Cameron Scott Scott (we had a lot of strange names for people in college). The nice thing about this room was that we weren’t in desks. The bad thing was this meant I could tip my chair back. So there I was tipping my chair back and somewhat paying attention to the professor, when all of I sudden I look down and think “why am I holding on to the table?” I couldn’t think of a good reason offhand, thus I let go.

Why was I holding on to the table? For balance, of course, since my chair was so far tipped back. Meaning when I let go of the table, both me and the chair went tumbling backwards.

One minute I’m innocently sitting there, the next The One That’s Afraid Of Me looks over and just sees my legs in the air.  For the rest of my college experience he made sure to NEVER sit next to me again, and anytime he saw me he looked quite disturbed and afraid.

The really sad thing is this is actually a reoccurring experience. I totally did the same thing back in middle school during Earth Space Science. Even worse, I feel like I was wearing a dress that day.

So I am not arguing the logistics of clumsiness. What offends me is this new trend portraying it as something desirable. Not that New Girl is falling into this category, but let’s look at two popular book series: Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey.

Disclaimer, I hate both series so I am a bit biased. I also have only read the first Fifty Shades book.

But both books have this main female character who thinks of herself as completely average, boring, unattractive, and ungodly clumsy. Yet everyone else in the world spends their time trying to jump her bones. It is heavily implied that both characters are actually extremely sexy women just with confidence issues (and trust me, that’s a whole ‘nother rant right there). Their clumsiness is also implied to be part of their appeal.

I see this all the time in fanfiction too. There are characters called Mary Sues. They are original characters added to a story. They are super awesome and can do everything right, yet they have to be flawed in some way, so normally they’re also clumsy.

It’s like the world had a meeting I wasn’t invited to and decided if you want to keep a character from being too perfect, you make them clumsy. That “normalizes” them, but it’s also not as much a flaw as say giving them a gimp leg or OCD. It’s used as a plot device to give them vulnerable moments so the male lead can “save them” without being too obvious that the female needs saving.

I hate it. Seriously, this makes me practically foam at the mouth.

Being clumsy IS NOT SEXY. It IS NOT ROMANTIC to fall over all the time so people are trying to catch you. It IS NOT ADORABLE when people feel like they can’t even let you walk off on your own without you getting injured in some way. Oh and those bruises that inevitably show up everywhere? ANNOYING!

As a clumsy girl I’m not condemning people that are clumsy. It happens. Whatev, it’s just a part of life. Some people are super coordinated. Some people are not. I just think this should stop being the default flaw given to one-dimensional characters to try and give them a bit more dimension. It doesn’t work.

New Girl is actually a good example of clumsy done right. Jess is just all over awkward. Her clumsiness is one part of the whole. It’s not overplayed, it’s not something people are trying to fix, it’s just one tiny aspect of a very interesting character.