When it comes to characters, there are always a few that grind the viewer’s gears significantly. One of those characters is Jessica Day from “New Girl.” While she may be lovable in the beginning, towards the middle and the end of the show her character started to shift. She went from being helpful and cheerful to annoying and a know it all. The way she treated her friends and boyfriends became disrespectful. She has no boundaries when it comes to her friendships and has to fix everything. Instead of making things better, she make them worse.
For example, at the school she teaches at, one of her students creates a video making fun of Jess for singing in front of the class. Instead of reacting in a professional manner, she responds in a childish way. She took her anger out on this student by wrecking her science fair project. A teacher should not react in that manner to a student. There are other ways that a teacher can address this situation without damaging a student’s project.
Another reason she is an awful character is how she navigates her personal relationships. For example, Jess treats her childhood best friend, CeCe, terribly. Cece is a model, and Jess likes to make snide comments about her career path. At Cece’s birthday party, Jess gets upset with all her model friends/co-workers and insults their professions. She is also ashamed of her sister when she comes to visit in one of the later episodes. Instead of embracing her sister, who is constantly getting into trouble, she hides her from her boyfriend, Nick. A loving sister is supposed to embrace and care about their siblings, not hide them from their boyfriend and friends.
In addition, her respect for boundaries is nonexistent. Everyone has boundaries they do not want crossed, but Jess seems to believe that she can cross them. When Cece was getting ready to move into her house with Schmidt, Jess wanted to help her pack. Cece had a hard time getting rid of some of her belongings because they had a deep meaning to her. Instead of trying to convince her to let it go or to come back to those items, she locks Cece out of her apartment and packs for her. This may seem helpful but locking your best friend out of their apartment and throwing away things she finds valuable is a boundary that should not be crossed.
Not only that, but she also acts as Nick’s girl repellent. She cannot take a hint when Nick is trying to flirt with another girl and finds a way to interject herself into the interactions. Jess either says the wrong things or gets between Nick and the girl because she is not aware of her surroundings or the boundaries set. Nick has even pointed out that Jess needs boundaries and should be aware of them.
Jess can be a lovable character, but she is in fact the worst character in “New Girl”. Her emotions get the best of her, which results in her destroying her student’s science fair project. She believes that she is better than the rest of her friends when she makes fun of CeCe and her model co-workers. Her lack of boundaries and the shame she pushes on her sister explains the awfulness of her character.