By The Bold Type: Three fierce women take on New York City together while writing for a global women’s magazine called “Scarlet.” Through their adventures, they explore their sexual identities, the subject of love, and fashion. All this takes place on the Freeform’s relatively new show, The Bold Type. It’s actually based on Cosmopolitan magazine, dealing heavily with makeup and fashion but, like Cosmo, never just stopping there. The show delves deep into all the issues that plague women in society.
The three girls, Sutton, Kat and Jane are all very different, yet similar in some ways. They’re all motivated, willing to do whatever they can for the best possible pitch. Sutton is kind of like the mentor of the group. Kat, the social media director. And Jane is the introvert who longs to break free out of her shell at her new dream job, and that’s exactly what she’ll end up doing. What’s really unique about this show though is that, as mentioned above, the characters explore their sexualities, and that leads to a queer romantic storyline being woven into the show. And what’s even more unique is that the character who is queer and Black, Kat, begins a relationship with a queer Muslim woman, Adena El-Amin.
Adena is a photographer in the city and is one of the people Kat is looking to feature in one of her upcoming stories. At first, Kat states she’s heterosexual, but after spending some time with Adena for her story, she starts questioning that sentiment. It’s still fairly uncommon to see queer relationships portrayed in mainstream tv shows and movies to this day, and especially not how openly they do it in this show.
Viewers say they love how confidently Kat tells her best friends Sutton and Jane everything she goes through, even when it comes to her newfound sexual feelings and how she kissed a girl (Adena). It’s refreshing to know that TV is finally portraying intersections of different sexualities so proudly, without having to hide it in the background or not show them at all. Because portraying different sexualities is one thing, but they don’t always have to be talked about in a dark manner. Being queer shouldn’t be something that someone should have to hide or be ashamed about, it should be normalized so that queer people don’t have to be defined only by the fact that they’re queer.
Sitting here right now, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show that has a Black woman fall in love with a Muslim woman, and then actually pursue their relationship with the support of their friends. Quite frankly, it’s a huge step in the right direction for television. In my opinion, this show is an absolute win for many reasons, but mostly because of how inclusive it is. It contains so many differing characters with differing personalities, sexualities, interests, etc, yet somehow every single one of them is so relatable.
I think The Bold Type can teach anyone a valuable lesson, and I’d recommend this show to anyone. It breaks boundaries, gives good vibes, makes you feel like you’re not alone in the world, and gives you hope for the future. How could you not love that?