‘The Bold Type’ Wasn’t Always Realistic, But That’s Why We Needed It 

When The Bold Type hit screens in 2017, it felt like a glittering snapshot of millennial adulthood wrapped in the chic aesthetic of the Manhattan media world.

The show followed Jane Sloan, Kat Edison, and Sutton Brady as they navigated the glossy offices of Scarlet magazine, pitching stories, chasing love, and discovering who they wanted to be in a world that was constantly telling women to shrink themselves so that men (for the most part) didn’t feel threatened. 

I think most of us knew from the beginning that the show wasn’t really telling the truth about what building a career and life was really like. The apartments were a little too nice, the outfits were too fancy, and Scarlet somehow ran more like a family than a business. It wasn’t realistic, but that was part of its charm. At a time when so many of us were stumbling through our 20s with more questions than answers, the show was comforting. 

It didn’t ask us to suspend disbelief as much as it asked us to imagine what if things could be this good? What if our bosses weren’t out to crush us? What if our friendships stayed strong no matter what? And what if our mistakes were allowed to be forgiven? That kind of imagining felt like a rare gift. We don’t call superhero movies silly for bending the laws of physics. And we don’t scold action films for contrived sequences and unrealistic stunts. So The Bold Type should be offered that same courtesy. 

A Fantasy of Leadership That Nurtures 

One of the most obvious departures from reality in The Bold Type was its depiction of Scarlet’s workplace. In real media jobs, competition often outweighs collaboration, editors are rarely as nurturing as Jacqueline Carlyle, and entry-level assistants almost never find themselves on red carpets or leading viral campaigns. Scarlet was glossy and intimidating on the outside, but once you were inside, it became this cocoon where women were encouraged to dream big instead of being cut down to size. 

Jacqueline cared deeply and consistently. Instead of weaponizing her power, she used it to nurture the young women around her because she actually believed in them. The fantasy wasn’t that Jane could pitch a controversial article and somehow always get it published. It was that a boss would look at you, flaws and all, and decide you were still worth betting on. That’s what made people keep watching. We were desperate to see powerful women as mentors and not someone to be feared. 

Friendship as The Real Love Story

While the show had several romance arcs, the actual love story was the friendship between Jane, Kat, and Sutton. It was almost absurd how quickly they could drop everything to gather in the fashion closet when one of them was in crisis. Real life doesn’t usually allow that much availability. Most of us know what it feels like to text a best friend and wait weeks before your calendars align. But The Bold Type didn’t care about logistics, it cared about intimacy. 

It wanted to show us what it might feel like if your friends were truly your anchors and showed up without hesitation. In a culture that still romanticizes couples above everything else, the show insisted that friendship could be just as central and just as life-saving. Watching those three hold onto each other so fiercely was a reminder that maybe we should be treating our own friendships less like background noise and more like the foundations of our lives. 

The Messy Work of Feminism 

The feminism aspects of the show were definitely not perfect. Sometimes it felt shallow, and the plotlines were often wrapped into a neat little bow too easily, but that imperfection actually made it endearing. Real feminism (the kind we live, not the kind we hashtag) is super awkward and constantly evolving. You don’t always know the right words, you don’t always get it right, and you’re going to stumble through more than a few mistakes before you grow. 

That’s exactly what Jane did when she let her blind spots show, what Kat did when she realized her activism didn’t always line up with her privilege, and it’s what Sutton did when she dared to want a career and love. These characters were flawed and even a little broken. But they were still worth rooting for. Maybe that was the show’s most radical argument. That women don’t have to always have everything perfectly figured out to matter. 

A Utopia We Didn’t Know We Needed 

The Bold Type was less about depicting reality and more about creating a kind of utopia. Not the unreachable kind. But the kind that says, maybe the world doesn’t have to be so hostile? Maybe workplaces can nurture. Maybe friendships can last. Maybe feminism can be learned in real time. And maybe women’s stories can be difficult and glamorous and heartbreaking all at once without needing to justify their worth. 

We didn’t need The Bold Type to show us how things really are. We needed it to show us how things could be because sometimes imagining a life we deserve is the first step toward actually building it. Humans don’t live on harsh realism alone. We survive on possibility. We thrive on fleeting glimpses of what could be and if emotional needs sometimes outweigh accuracy, then maybe that’s not a flaw. And it’s exactly why this show resonated.