The Bold Type, an amazing story about three best friends living their best lives in New York City while working for a huge magazine, certainly found its way into our hearts, but we must face the truth: the show is coming to an end. The fifth season is going to be the last one, and I can’t even begin to explain how broken my heart was when I first learned that.
With an amazing storytelling, The Bold Type brought to the table a lot of important discussions in the most real way possible. Not only do we understand the message they’re trying to give, but we also identify with the characters multiple times. They managed to create a fictional reality so similar to our actual one, that we get the constant feeling that we know the characters in our real lives, as if they were our neighbors, our coworkers or random people we cross with while walking on the streets – and judging by how attached we got to the show, I can tell it’s gonna be really hard to say au-revoir (I guess we’ll always have Paris, am I right?).
As we prepare our hearts to say our final goodbye to The Bold Type, why don’t we go back a little and remember 5 lessons that the show taught us?
- Love finds its way
-
I feel like this is such a cliche, but I couldn’t start this “Tiny Jane” style tiny list with anything other than that. Throughout the show, we watched as the girls fell in and out of love with different people, so you might be asking yourself: how does love find its way if the fourth season ended in such a delicate moment to the girl’s love lives? Well, even though we don’t really know how things will end when it comes to their romantic relationships, I would like to draw attention to a different angle on the concept of love: friendship love. The biggest bond we see in the show isn’t between Sutton and Richard, Kat and Adena or Jane and Ryan; it’s the bond between Sutton, Kat and Jane, and that’s love too!
As they always say: they’re family, and that’s what I’m talking about when I say that The Bold Type taught us that love finds its way. The girls might fight, and miss a lot of communication sometimes, but at the end of the day, they find comfort in each other. Love can be messy, and being that close to people will certainly get hard every now and then, but they put each other first, and are always there for one another, so yes, love does find its way back, even when we feel like things are ruined. Let the people you love know you love them, tell them that, show them! We can’t take bonds like this for granted and The Bold Type made a good point about that.
- Freedom to be who you are fits better than Gucci
-
If someone watches the trailer to the show, they might think it’s going to be a superficial story about fashion and journalism in New York City, but on the pilot we already see that it’s so much more than that! Every episode leaves us with some thinking to do, and this is one of the things I love the most about the show. The way they built Kat’s character as a strong and inspiring woman who is always fighting for what she thinks is right, and constantly uses her voice to speak up for the causes she stands for, is amazing. She was crucial to this lesson, because she always fought for diversity and inclusion inside the magazine and outside it as well.
The way she felt when Adena was held back at the airport in the first episode, gave us a sneak peek of what she would turn out to be: someone who never gives up fighting. But even though Kat is the most engaged one with social issues, she isn’t the only one. Pretty much everyone in the magazine eventually found a way to give voice to people who weren’t heard enough, and that’s what got me into journalism in the first place! I felt so inspired by stories in real life that looked just like the ones in the show, that I’ve decided to become a journalist so I could do that too; can you imagine how I felt when I realized they would talk about important topics on the show as well?
Diversity and inclusion are very appreciated in the show, and Jacqueline Carlyle always made sure to stick to her ideals when it comes to this, even when her job was in danger. The Bold Type talks directly to a generation of young journalists who are inspired by the show, and will definitely fight for what is right in their occupations. The show inspired a lot of people to put themselves out there, show the world their true colors and be proud of who they are – and this is definitely not what a superficial show about fashion would do, right?
- Less than enough isn’t good enough
-
When I remember how Sutton started working for Oliver after fearlessly proving her worth, I get chills. In a lot of different moments of the show, I noticed that the characters are always fighting inside out to understand where they belong – and make sure they get there. It’s very common for us to settle in, find ourselves a comfort zone and stay in it for a very long time, even if we’re unhappy inside our bubble. Sometimes we just want to have stability and feel safe somehow, you know? But is stability worth our happiness? For some people, it might be, and that’s okay, but that’s not really what happens in the show – and this is something I want to take with me for the rest of my life.
Everytime a character thought they deserved better, they found a way to get something better, and the idea of actually going after what you think it’s right for you, has so much to add to our lives. If you’re ever in a situation that makes you feel less of you, ask yourself if it’s worth it; if the answer is a solid no, then know that you deserve better and go for it. We’ll never know if our craziest dream is actually that crazy if we never try to reach it in the first place.
The show literally has the word ‘bold’ in the title, so I don’t think we should expect anything different, but still, there’s something about this fearless way to live the life that just gets me. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of taking big steps; I’m usually the one who finds a nice and cozy comfort zone and sticks to it until life pulls me out of there against my wheel. But I do admire people who spontaneously take leaps, I want to be this person someday, and this is something that The Bold Type really talks about. Remember when Jane left Scarlet for a while? Even though she regretted it, this experience still taught her so much! I think this is what they were trying to say with all the boldness throughout the show: every experience is a lesson. I guess what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, afterall.
- One voice can inspire others
-
The most memorable story for me was the whole journey about sexual assault the show talked about. This is such a delicate but important topic, and a big show like The Bold Type talking about it and putting one of the major characters as a survivor means a lot to so many people! They managed to bring this theme up with empathy and sensibility, but also as an encouragement to the victims out there to join the Me Too movement – or at least to make some of them feel less alone.
The discussion in the show made a very clear point: it’s no shame to have gone through such a heavy experience, and victims shouldn’t feel guilty about it – the aggressor should. “One voice can inspire others, one voice can start a movement”, said Jane (spoiler alert!) when she won the award for her article about Jacqueline and other women’s sexual assault stories. Speaking up can help and inspire a lot of other women to do the same thing, and the more we talk about it, the more we prevent situations like this from happening over and over.
Talking about it was a very important step for the show, and helped to empower survivors all over the world. It was a very memorable, intense and delicate moment of The Bold Type’s journey.
- The truth must always come first
-
As a journalism student, I couldn’t leave this one out. Jane always had a very objective goal: to speak her truth, and that’s something Jacqueline always supported. The way Scarlet was built as an intimate and personal magazine, was fascinating to me. It was a safe space for the writers to share their personal experiences along with the rest of the articles, and I’m pretty sure this is my dream job. Specially during the sexual assault journey, Jacqueline made very clear that what really matters for the stories we tell is the truth, weather is a piece for a magazine, or a simple story we tell to a friend – the truth must always come first.
We live in a very peculiar moment for journalism. It’s very common for the media to come up with articles built in gossip, with no other purpose than to create chaos and polemics, because it will get a lot of clicks and views. But how far should we go to get attention? Is destroying people’s lives for some clicks really worth it? The Bold Type talked directly and indirectly about this multiple times. Remember when Jane had her piece about Emma Cox all distorted by her editor, who didn’t really care about the impact that would have in the women’s life and definitely didn’t care enough to tell the whole story? We’re surrounded by stories like this in real life, and I think it was really important for the show to have such a solid vision when it comes to telling the truth, because, as I said before, The Bold Type talks directly to a generation of young journalists, and I’m sure that a lot of people will take this specific lesson to their professional journeys – I for sure will.
The Bold Type taught us way more than just five lessons, but these ones were the most memorable ones for me. This show really marked me, and I hate to say goodbye, but everything comes to an end eventually, I guess. I will for sure take a lot of what the show taught us to my professional and personal lives. We all have a big journey ahead of us, and I feel more ready to face it now than I did before The Bold Type existed in my life. So not only do I have to say goodbye to this amazing show, but I also need to say something much more important: thank you.
———————————————————–
The article above was edited by Thays Avila.
Liked this type of content? Check Her Campus Casper Libero for more!