--- title: 'The Girls on the Bus' and TV's Silly Lady Journalists description: Max's campaign-trail comedy raises the question: Why is it so hard to make good television that takes women in media seriously? canonical: https://time.com/6917595/the-girls-on-the-bus-bad-female-journalist-shows/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-03-14T17:39:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T17:17:35.092Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Why TV Can’t Stop Making Silly Shows About Lady Journalists og:description: Max dramedy 'The Girls on the Bus' raises the question: Why can't we have good TV about women in media? og:url: https://time.com/6917595/the-girls-on-the-bus-bad-female-journalist-shows/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb0d30dd8608bce2c/698a5496096a947b466b0479/melissa-benoist-carla-gugino-christina-elmore-natasha-behnam_e44565.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: melissa-benoist-carla-gugino-christina-elmore-natasha-behnam_e44565 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why TV Can’t Stop Making Silly Shows About Lady Journalists twitter:description: Max dramedy 'The Girls on the Bus' raises the question: Why can't we have good TV about women in media? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb0d30dd8608bce2c/698a5496096a947b466b0479/melissa-benoist-carla-gugino-christina-elmore-natasha-behnam_e44565.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # Why TV Can’t Stop Making Silly Shows About Lady Journalists > Sponsored content. 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Mar 14, 2024 5:39 PM UTC  From left: Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Christina Elmore, and Natasha Behnam in The Girls on the Bus From left: Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Christina Elmore, and Natasha Behnam in The Girls on the BusNicole Rivelli—Max  by [Judy Berman](https://time.com/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Mar 14, 2024 5:39 PM UTC Sadie McCarthy, the newspaper-reporter heroine of Max’s _The Girls on the Bus_, has seen the way women like her are depicted on screen, and she is not impressed. “I _hate_ when Hollywood portrays female journalists using sex to get the facts,” she gripes midway through the dramedy’s first season, “while male journalists always use their brilliant minds and unimpeachable morality to get the story.” She’s absolutely right. Which is why it's so strange that, by the time she makes the comment, the series has already incorporated a version of the latter noxious cliché, among many others. Inspired by co-creator and New York _Times_ veteran Amy Chozick’s campaign-trail memoir _Chasing Hillary_, _The Girls on the Bus_, premiering March 14,sets out to refute tropes that date back to the [_His Girl Friday_](https://time.com/collection/100-best-movies/6295234/his-girl-friday-1940/)era. Its ultimate failure to do so—or to create any female characters who feel like distinctive people, rather than stereotypes meant to represent various ages and ethics of women in media—makes the show a disappointment. More than that, though, amid our eternal surfeit of campy shows about lady reporters, from _The Bold Type_ to [_The Morning Show_](https://time.com/5711100/morning-show-review-apple-tv-plus/), it raises the question of why it’s so hard to make good TV that takes female journalists seriously.  Melissa Benoist in The Girls on the BusNicole Rivelli—HBO Following the press corps that follows a fictional field of Democrats through a twisty presidential primary season, _Bus_ takes a _Breakfast Club_ approach to cast building. Carla Gugino’s Grace is the veteran, a cutthroat scoop factory who neglects her long-suffering husband and college-student daughter. The only Black correspondent at a right-wing news network (imagine [Candace Owens](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/the-gospel-of-candace-owens) but likable), Kimberlyn (Christina Elmore) is too busy angling for advancement to plan her wedding. Gen Z caricature Lola (Natasha Behnam), a sexually fluid school-shooting survivor turned influencer, openly supports a progressive candidate clearly modeled on [AOC](https://time.com/6695367/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-biden/), dresses like she’s trying to wear every stitch of [Haley Lu Richardson’s _White Lotus_ wardrobe](https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/haley-lu-richardson-white-lotus-portia-style-interview) at once, and knows precisely zilch about journalism. From _vain lightweight_ to _ambitious woman = bad mom_, these three have all the major stereotypes about women in the workplace covered. Which leaves Sadie (_Supergirl_’s charming [Melissa Benoist](https://time.com/4208202/melissa-benoist-supergirl-3/)) to be the relatable one, a reporter for a fictional paper of record whose paternalistic editor (Griffin Dunne) is giving her one last shot at a high-profile assignment, after an extremely un-objective public meltdown when her candidate of choice lost the previous election made her the laughingstock of the industry. Emotional, prone to self-humiliation, and perennially flustered in the most endearing way, she is essentially a rom-com lead in the [Dakota Johnson](https://time.com/6695321/dakota-johnson-appreciation-madame-web/) mold. She isn’t _technically_ doing anything wrong when she hooks up with a political-operative ex (Brandon Scott) while he’s between campaign jobs, but you would think she’d be savvy enough not to jump into bed with someone who will likely soon have a different boss she’ll be reporting on. Alas, Sadie isn’t even the only member of the central foursome who gets it on with an employee of a candidate she’s covering.  Alexis Bledel, as Rory Gilmore in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the LifeNeil Jacobs—Netflix What’s remarkable about the trope of women journalists sleeping with sources is how tenacious it has proven to be, despite decades of pushback from the overwhelming majority of real female journalists who have never so much as thought about crossing that line. [_Sharp Objects_](https://time.com/5324721/hbo-sharp-objects/), [_Trainwreck_](https://time.com/3951177/trainwreck-slides-just-outside-amy-schumers-sweet-spot/), [_Top Five_](https://www.flavorwire.com/496802/memo-to-hollywood-female-journalists-dont-sleep-with-their-subjects), [_Thank You for Smoking_](https://slate.com/transcripts/c2t0M0NUSjdsZExhbmhQS01tbGcyZjAvK3h3dE1Oc0F4ZXVRUkpRaVJsMD0=), and even a [jaded Rory Gilmore](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/turns-out-rory-gilmore-is-not-a-good-journalist/508883/) in Netflix’s 2016 _Gilmore Girls_ revival are just a few prominent 21st century examples. Kate Mara played a particularly nasty (and ill-fated) variation on the archetype in _House of Cards_, which had her character Zoe Barnes [exchanging sex for intel](https://observer.com/2014/02/house-of-cards-creator-beau-willimon-on-zoe-barnes-ambition-is-gender-blind/) with Kevin Spacey’s sociopathic congressman, Frank Underwood. While based-on-a-true-story films like _She Said_, _Spotlight_, and _Whiskey Tango Foxtrot_ typically show women journalists more respect than pure fiction, even the 2019 biopic [_Richard Jewell_ worked in a fact-free portrayal](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/12/12/arts/why-tired-trope-sexualized-female-journalist-persists-movies-like-richard-jewell/) of a real, deceased female reporter sleeping with sources.Don’t worry; the backlash to that depiction didn’t change anything. This past fall, _The Morning Show_ gave us a storyline in which veteran anchor Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) dates a billionaire subject who is in talks to buy the company that employs her. (In Alex’s defense, the character was played by Jon Hamm.) Asked about the line-crossing relationship in an interview, [showrunner Charlotte Stoudt explained](https://www.vulture.com/article/the-morning-show-season-3-finale-explained.html) that she “wanted to see a different side of Alex. I felt it was important that they actually did consummate that attraction because Alex has had a really bad run!” It’s a telling response, in that it illuminates why even feminist-minded female writers, like _Bus_’ Chozick and co-creator Julie Plec or _Sharp Objects_’ Marti Noxon and Gillian Flynn, might repeat a famously toxic trope. Stoudt’s comment reminds me of [Sophie Gilbert’s observation in _The Atlantic_](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/08/sharp-objects-female-journalists-in-culture/567898/), during _Objects_’ 2018 run, that the phoning and typing most good reporters spend most days doing doesn’t lend itself to gripping entertainment. So the people who make movies and TV have to add some elements that might not accurately reflect reality. “Fantastical stories about female journalists might be preposterous,” Gilbert writes, “but they were also _entertaining_.”  Amy Adams in Sharp ObjectsHBO When those stories are aimed at a female audience, as shows that center around women generally are, they tend to get forced into genres—i.e., romantic comedy and emotional drama—that creators or producers or Hollywood executives think will appeal to that audience. In these contexts, the sleeping-with-sources trope becomes a symptom of the larger problem with explicitly gendered entertainment. It uses time-worn formulas and sexist assumptions that pander to a demographic seen as monolithic instead of honoring the specificity of characters’ experiences. By contrast, shows and films that foreground male journalists—[_The Newsroom_](https://time.com/3620882/listen-here-internet-girl-the-newsroom-rapesplains-it-all/), _All the President's Men_, _Network_, _The Hour_, the final season of _The Wire—_tend to be straightforward dramas, unbeholden to assumptions about a gendered audience.That’s not to say that lighthearted shows whose protagonists happen to be women journalists shouldn’t exist. It’s pointless to seethe over the fanciful plots of _The Bold Type_ or _Ugly Betty_ or _Being Mary Jane_. No one believes Carrie Bradshaw, typing glib questions into Word docs, surrounded by $800 shoes in a million-dollar apartment, leads the life of a typical columnist. The trouble is, even shows that purport to take journalism seriously have a habit of turning sappy or campy when the main characters are female. _The Morning Show_ is the ultimate case in point. Conceived as a prestige drama fit to be the flagship original series on Apple TV+, it cast A-list executive producers Aniston and [Reese Witherspoon](https://time.com/collection/time100-companies/5953581/hello-sunshine/) as co-anchors trying to remake a thinly veiled facsimile of the _Today_ show after a [sexual misconduct scandal à la Matt Lauer](https://time.com/5040649/matt-lauer-ann-curry-past/). But it was built on the skeleton of a soap, with Alex in the role of aging diva and Witherspoon’s firebrand Bradley Jackson as a younger upstart. Workplace romances run rampant, including Bradley’s ongoing will-they-or-won’t-they with network exec Cory Ellison ([Billy Crudup](https://time.com/6313175/morning-show-season-3-review-billy-crudup/)), while plots feel ripped from the tabloids. By the time the third season aired, last year, the _Guardian_ spoke for fans and detractors alike in pronouncing it “[the most ridiculous show on TV](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/oct/24/morning-show-reese-witherspoon-season-three).”  Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon in The Morning ShowApple TV+ Although (with the exception of Sadie’s periodic conversations with the apparition of her unlikely idol, Hunter S. Thompson) it’s a bit more grounded, _The Girls on the Bus_ falls into similar traps. This seems to have happened not just in spite of its makers’ intent to address widespread misrepresentation, but at least partially _because_ of it. In an[interview](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/arts/television/the-girls-on-the-bus-melissa-benoist.html) that questions the motives behind Sadie’s romantic indiscretion, Benoist explains: “We show that the trope is something that should be commented on and not told anymore because it’s just not possible. Your career would be over if you did that; you’d be a pariah. What we’ve seen, it’s like, ‘That’s just how female journalists get their information.’ It’s not.” So—paradoxically, in my mind—“the way we’re approaching this is that it is a massive mistake that Sadie makes.” A better way to subvert a trope you believe should be “not told anymore” might have been to simply not retell it. The same goes for the other characters, who we slowly learn are, sort of, sometimes, more than the caricatures we meet in the premiere. Beneath all the sponcon and sanctimony, Lola has the heart of a journalist. Kimberlyn has more integrity, and more to say, than the [Tucker Carlsons](https://time.com/6080432/tucker-carlson-profile/) and [Tomi Lahrens](https://time.com/5508275/cardi-b-tomi-lahren-twitter-feud/) who keep stealing her spotlight. Grace isn’t a bad mom or wife at all—except, based on the evidence of early episodes, she inarguably is. As a unit, lusting after [Scott Foley](https://time.com/3658872/scandal-scott-foley-director-lets-kill-wards-wife/)’s “hot white guy” candidate and throwing hotel-room pajama parties, the foursome embodies _Bus_’ true subject, which turns out not to be journalism or the political process but female friendship of the most generic variety. “We may have started as competitors, but we ended as a family,” says Sadie, in the show’s unnecessary (and inevitably Bradshaw-coded) voiceover narration.  From left: Carla Gugino, Natasha Behnam, Melissa Benoist, and Christina Elmore in The Girls on the Busnicole rivelli photographie—nicole rivelli _The Girls on the Bus_’ gendered silliness is hardly its only problem, nor is a series about four very different women journalists who happen to be best friends an inherently bad idea. It’s just a shame that this kind of character, marginalized and belittled as they commonly are in macho media dramas, so rarely gets to be anything besides a stock type or, in this case, an equally flat rejoinder to same. It’s hard to predict whether more serious and authentic television about female journalists would find a receptive audience because the few attempts that have appeared in recent years—most notably, Amazon’s [_Good Girls Revolt_](https://time.com/4556051/amazons-good-girls-revolt/)and ABC’s _Alaska Daily_, both canceled after just one season—have been so shoddily made. 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