The "Perfect" Match

I was watching older episodes of the show "New Girl" the other day, and came across a funny clip. In class we were discussing the perfect partner, and what that would look like in a man and a woman. Some of the traits we came up with for men were nice, funny, stylish, chill, smart, ambitious, and attractive. Watching this episode, a scene came up where Schmidt, one of the roommates, made an online dating profile to try and attract women. The clip shown below is his dating profile. While watching it, make sure to keep in mind the terms we came up with for the ideal male partner.

The clip shows Schmidt in what he claims a normal day in his life would be. It is set to the theme music from "The Hills," and has Schmidt driving in a nice car in California by the Hollywood sign. It goes on to show many unrealistic aspects of what a daily life would be, but it makes Schmidt look glamorous and classy. Throughout the clip, words like "chill", "charm", and "intelligence" pop up next to his face while he is laughing. At the end he says, "and that was just a day in the life. That was actually Tuesday. Call me."

Although this scene is extremely comical, analyzing the clip shows many stereotypes that are commonly seen in many television shows. Schmidt made the dating profile in order to find women and have sex with them. He was not looking for a relationship when the profile was being created. Instead, he talked about how to make himself seem like a perfect guy women would want to date in order for them to be more attracted to him, and be able to sleep with them easily. I instantly thought of Kim's article "From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television," and how that relates. Traditionally, men are thought of to be dominant in relationships, in addition to "actively and aggressively pursuing sex" (Kim, 2007). Schmidt, although not aggressively pursuing sex, was actively making the attempt to present himself as the perfect match to women in order to gain sex.

In every episode, Schmidt dresses in suits, and pretends to be a high-class businessman, although he is really the assistant to the assistant. He has claimed multiple times that acting as a high status male and portraying confidence helps to attract women, and ultimately earns sex. Kim says in her article that, "that men actively seek sexual activity, and that women use their bodies and looks to attract wealthy and handsome men" (Kim, 2007). Since Schmidt always dresses like he is wealthy it should result in him being able to pick up more women, right? Wrong. In the show he is constantly trying to win women over, but usually fails because he almost tries too hard. The attempt to act out the dominance script backfires in his case.

References:

Kim, J. L., Sorsoli, C. L., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007).   From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research, 44(2), 145-157. doi: 10.1080/00224490701263660