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00:00In a rather iconic introductory scene, Mindy Lahiri, heroine of The Mindy Project,
00:04gets a little too drunk at an ex's wedding, delivers an unplanned speech in which she
00:08discusses their intimate past at length, is called to the hospital to perform an emergency
00:12C-section, tries to get there on a bicycle, falls into a swimming pool, has an imaginary
00:16confrontation with a Barbie, and runs the rest of the way to work barefoot through traffic.
00:20This, in a nutshell, is the hot mess character type, and she's been the queen of the female-led
00:25sitcom — and sadcom — for two decades now.
00:28I just figured if I'm gonna be a mess, might as well be a hot mess.
00:30Think Carrie Bradshaw, Bridget Jones, Fleabag, Mindy Lahiri, Amy in Trainwreck, May in Feelgood,
00:37Maggie in Everything I Know About Love, Issa in Insecure, Suzy and I Hate Suzy, Anya in This
00:42Way Up, Arabella in I May Destroy You, and other beloved millennial heroines.
00:46What makes a hot mess? She's a young woman in her 20s or 30s living in a big city.
00:51There are two million single men in this city. I have dated about a million of them.
00:57She's outspoken, impulsive, and has big appetites, whether it's for booze, food, shoes, or men.
01:03I'm not obsessed with sex. I just can't stop thinking about it.
01:06She has a desperate need for connection and a very chaotic love life.
01:10I suddenly realized that unless something changed soon,
01:14I was going to live a life where my major relationship was with a bottle of wine.
01:17There's plenty that's radical about the hot mess, from her slapstick comedy — a rarity for pretty
01:22young heroines of earlier decades — to the way her stories illuminate issues around sex,
01:26trauma, and mental health from a female perspective. And, even if we'd most likely
01:31not make the choices she makes, the hot mess's mixture of charisma and self-deprecation makes
01:35her relatable. Plus, the hot mess is often the narrator of her own story,
01:40making us see everything through her eyes.
01:42I couldn't help but wonder.
01:43Still, while these iconic heroines will be in our hearts forever,
01:46it may be time to move on from her as the main representation of youngish female protagonists
01:51on screen. As Rachel Aristey put it in The Guardian,
01:53chaotic female leads now seem to be the default, one-note expression of womanhood.
01:58Not all stories of young adult women figuring themselves out have to involve erratic changes
02:02in mood, public outbursts, and dating a string of jerks. So let's take a look at the hot mess — who
02:07she is, what's made her so appealing, and who the new heroines might be for the young women
02:11in their 20s and 30s.
02:13I'm so high right now. Can we just please talk about this tomorrow?
02:19Let us introduce you to the hot mess. She is physically awkward. She falls and crashes
02:24into things with alarming frequency. Her lack of coordination is an outward manifestation of
02:28her inner qualities, such as her impulsivity. Comedically, the hot mess is a delight,
02:32especially since just a few decades ago pretty female leads rarely got to engage to this extent
02:37in slapstick comedy.
02:38What does this do?
02:39She's outspoken. The hot mess is outspoken and opinionated. She blurts things out without
02:46thinking.
02:46I could've kept that one in my mouth, actually.
02:48She's a big oversharer.
02:49I've had these red, itchy hives along my ribcage, and I suspect it's a lanolin allergy,
02:54but tonight I'll find —
02:55She is the queen of the terrible impromptu speech, seemingly without any filter.
03:00I'm sorry. Turns out I'm not such a natural after all.
03:05The embarrassing public outburst is a staple in hot mess narratives because it is a miniature
03:09snow globe representation of how she interacts with the world at large.
03:12The hot mess exists in the tension between knowing what she is supposed to be doing and
03:17being unable to stop herself from doing what she feels she needs to do.
03:20And after four vodka sodas, I realized I had something to say.
03:24Her vices are played for laughs. The hot mess has unhealthy habits and a tendency to overindulge.
03:30I'll just eat the papaloba and cater to myself.
03:33Mindy Lahiri's obsession is food. Fleabags is sex. Bridget Jones smokes and drinks more
03:39than she'd like to. Carrie Bradshaw also smokes and is a shopaholic.
03:43I spent $40,000 on shoes and I have no place to live?
03:49The vices speak to the way the hot mess is, by definition, out of her own control,
03:53and they also point to things lacking in her life, issues she needs to fix.
03:57But much of the time, her overindulgences aren't treated as seriously as they should
04:01be or are even glamorized in some way. Sure, she might have an emotional breakdown
04:05after an especially rough night, but with a few exceptions, we rarely see her addictions
04:10have irreparable consequences. It's impossible to imagine, for example,
04:14an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie is diagnosed with lung cancer.
04:17Her love life is chaotic. Hot messes date a lot, and their taste in men — almost all hot mess
04:22heroines are straight — is terrible, and not continue to form romantic attachments to any
04:27of the following — alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs,
04:31emotional f**kwits, or perverts. What we eventually realize about the hot mess is that at the root of
04:36her many failed relationships is her inability to figure out who she herself is and, therefore,
04:41who would be a good partner for her. Bridget wants to change pretty much everything about herself in
04:46order to find a boyfriend.
04:47Resolution number one. Obviously, we'll lose 20 pounds.
04:51Mindy Lahiri wants a relationship just like in her favorite rom-coms. Maggie of Everything
04:55I Know About Love seems to be modeling herself and her relationship after rock and roll heroines of
05:00yore. She is both charismatic and relatable. The hot mess is fun. Her appearance and charm are
05:05aspirational, while her down-to-earth attitude and small struggles make her relatable. If a pretty
05:10and charming woman embarrasses herself in public, it makes us like her, because it reminds us that she
05:14isn't any better than us. This idea has backfired, though, over time. Take the fascinating case of
05:19Jennifer Lawrence.
05:20You're a person who doesn't mind seeming like they're not perfect.
05:24No, I don't have a choice.
05:25In the 2010s, when her star was rising, Lawrence cultivated a hot mess public persona.
05:30She was brash and unfiltered, made sure to let everyone know she was a big drinker,
05:34I'm sorry, I did a shot before I...
05:38would constantly fangirl over other celebrities, and even,
05:41iconically, tripped on the way to receive her Oscar, an event that people still debate over
05:45whether it was real or fake. At some point, Lawrence's awkwardness began seeming performative,
05:50and the relatability of her persona crumbled. Even if you're feeling like a hot mess these
05:54days, your meal planning doesn't have to be. Why not start off the new year right with Factor?
05:58Save time and give yourself the energy you need to take on all of those new year, new you tasks.
06:03Factor's ready-to-eat meals are delivered straight to your door, so you can skip the trip to the grocery
06:07store and the chopping, prep work, and cleanup of cooking. Or, if you're trying to kick that
06:11delivery addiction, Factor can save you time and money by replacing takeout. Factor's fresh,
06:16never-frozen meals are ready in just two minutes, so all you have to do is heat and enjoy, and get
06:20back to watching the hot mess on screen instead of feeling like one IRL. Speaking of, looking for ways
06:25to get healthier in the new year? Factor has meals prepared by chefs and approved by dietitians,
06:30so each meal has all of the ingredients you need to feel satisfied all day long. Plus, keto, calorie
06:35smart, vegan and veggie, and protein plus meals are on the menu each week. With 34 delicious weekly
06:40options, there's always something new to try, making it easier to stick to those resolutions.
06:45Plus, you can round out your meal and replenish your snack supply with an assortment of over 36
06:49quick bites, smoothies, juices, and more satisfying add-ons. So, take on 2023 with America's number one
06:55ready-to-eat meal kit. Achieve and maintain your goals by saving time, eating better, and living your
07:00best new you. Head to factor75.com slash thetake60 and use code thetake60 to get 60%
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07:12first box. Hot mess heroines range from purely comedic and lighthearted to tragicomic. Comedic
07:21hot messes tend to have good jobs, which is surprising considering how supposedly scatterbrained they are.
07:26Mindy is an OB-GYN. Carrie is a stable, high-earning writer. Bridget Jones works in publishing and ends
07:31up becoming a bit of a reporting sensation. Susie and I Hate Susie is a successful actress.
07:36You're f**king joking. No no no no no no no. Stay off for it.
07:39No! No no no no no no no!
07:43This incongruous professional success is key to the secret meaning of the comedic hot mess. Her
07:48character is built to be the diametric opposite of the old fashioned, lady-like woman. A lady is supposed
07:53to have a perfect boyfriend and a happy nuclear family. A hot mess tends to date a lot of jerks,
07:58at least before finding the right guy. A lady is poised. The hot mess is impressively uncoordinated.
08:03A lady is polite and tactful. The hot mess is tactless and loud. To highlight this contrast,
08:09the hot mess is often juxtaposed with women who have it together or who exemplify a traditional
08:13model of femininity. Bridget's rival in love is Natasha, an accomplished and suave professional.
08:18Mr. Big's wife, weirdly another Natasha, is polished and tasteful. Meanwhile, Mindy's
08:23friend Gwen is the picture-perfect representation of serenity and motherhood, and so is Amy's
08:27sister Kim in Trainwreck.
08:29Best sex that you've ever had guy is in jail.
08:31Yeah, but I've been thinking about maybe reaching out to him.
08:34Stop.
08:35But the final differentiator is that, unlike the archetypal ladylike lady, the comedic hot
08:39mess has a cool and interesting job that makes up a significant part of her self-image. Or,
08:45at the very least, she has cool and interesting job aspirations. The progressive message of
08:50the hot mess is that she is unafraid to take everything our post-second-wave feminism world
08:54has to offer. She will date everybody while she tries to figure out who is right for her.
08:59She will chase and achieve a fulfilling and successful career. And the qualities that allow
09:03her to do all this, we are shown, are her gusto for life and irrepressible individuality,
09:07none of which she would be able to have if she adhered to the stifling old-fashioned model
09:11of femininity, or to the impossible standards of the modern having-it-all woman.
09:15I'm sorry he moved to Paris and fell in love with me. I'm sorry he cheated on me with you.
09:20Still, while her message is progressive and affirming, there's an illusory quality to the
09:24comedic hot mess. First of all, by bundling all these quote-unquote opposition of femininity
09:29traits into one rambunctious character, it's almost as though the trope keeps telling us that to be a
09:34progressive, successful, charming woman, you have to be all these particular things. But there may well
09:39be plenty of non-traditional, interesting women out there who aren't at all clumsy,
09:43overindulgent, and would never deliver an ill-planned, impromptu speech at a public event.
09:48Yep, yep, I got it. Lillian.
09:52Keep shining, knowing you can always count on me.
09:57Secondly, for all her manifest imperfections, the hot mess's life is still too good to be true.
10:03She is completely disorganized and yet professionally successful. She has terrible taste in men,
10:07and yet she ends up with someone great, not always to everyone's taste, but mostly. She seems to be
10:12completely off her planned track, yet she somehow gets everything she ever wanted in the end.
10:17So even though she is, in many ways, billed as realistic, she is still a fantasy.
10:22Carrie, you're the one.
10:24One striking example of the comic hot mess who stands out in some ways from the others is Issa
10:28in Issa Rae's Insecure. Issa has the hot mess hallmarks of being awkward and outspoken,
10:33with a chaotic love life taking a non-traditional path and finding interesting creative success
10:37in a big city. But this heroine's story is built a little differently because it's not
10:41only about being female in the modern world, but also about being black. All the hot messes
10:46we've discussed so far, apart from Mindy, are white. The white hot mess moves through the world
10:50in a kind of raucous and riotous way, consuming people and experiences while oscillating wildly
10:56between self-doubt and megalomania. But when your heroine is a woman and something else,
11:01this adds another, often constraining layer that may affect the way she relates to the world.
11:05Accordingly, many of Issa's outbursts happen only in her imagination, or if the privacy
11:10of a bathroom and her indulgences in drama aren't quite as over-the-top, perhaps because
11:14she feels she can't be quite as performatively, dramatically messy all the time.
11:19What if I could introduce you to Ty Dolla $ign?
11:26Where did Ty Dolla $ign just come from?
11:28Atlanta also explores this problem when the usually very together character Van has a rare
11:33out-of-character night out, smokes weed, and finds herself subject to a random drug test at her
11:38teaching job the next morning. So her pretty limited messiness is quickly punished in her world.
11:43"'Unfortunately, you have admitted the use of an illegal substance to a superior, so
11:47I've got to fire you to cover my own ass as well as the school.'
11:52The hot messes of tragicomedies, or sadcoms, aren't as happy-go-lucky as their purely comedic
12:00counterparts. Their stories explore darker topics. May in Feelgood is addicted to cocaine and processing
12:06childhood abuse. Anya in This Way Up is coming out of a nervous breakdown. Arabella in I May Destroy You
12:11is processing a traumatic assault. Here, again, we see how the hot mess's exterior is used to signal
12:17what's going on inside her mind. Her erratic behavior is supposed to reflect her psychology
12:21and internal struggles. Where the comedic hot mess is funny seemingly without meaning to be funny,
12:26the tragicomic hot mess actively uses humor as a defense mechanism.
12:30"'Great. Brilliant.'"
12:31Fleabag's protagonist builds up a wall of jokes to protect herself from the world, and from us,
12:36presenting as the totally comedic type of hot mess, before she gradually can't hide that she's in deep
12:41grief over the death of her best friend, which was partially triggered by her own sex addiction.
12:45These people are sad clowns, laughing on the outside and crying on the inside.
12:49May is literally a stand-up comedian, while Fleabag even dresses like a mime.
12:54The tragicomic hot mess typically isn't as established professionally as the comedic one.
12:58Carrie Bradshaw or Bridget Jones' good jobs are proof that they are, really, quite capable of staying
13:03afloat in life. So it's fine for us to laugh at their personal failures and public embarrassments
13:07without feeling too worried about them. The tragicomic hot messes tend to have lackluster jobs
13:13and vague, not-yet-realized, though-creative, ambitions. When we meet Fleabag, she's running a
13:18cafe with as little enthusiasm as humanly possible. Maggie does, well, this.
13:25But wants to be a writer. Arabella has had some successes in writing, but she's at risk of losing
13:30the bigger opportunities in front of her due to not getting herself together. The tragicomic hot mess is
13:35actually in trouble, life goals-wise.
13:37You know, everyone feels like this in a little bit, and they're just not talking about it.
13:42Or I am completely f***ing alone.
13:45Even still, the tragicomic hot mess isn't totally realistic or relatable, either. Because,
13:51invariably, these women, while troubled and hanging by a thread, are also the most interesting,
13:56charismatic, special people in any room they enter. Most of us don't get that consolation when
14:01we're dealing with pain. The thing is that if you make every female protagonist on screen mentally
14:06ill, sardonic, and miserable, but in a charismatic way, this ends up glamorizing her particular set
14:12of qualities and holding up this one model as the only cool way to embody non-traditional femininity.
14:17Climate crisis is real. My hair is not. And I love chicken.
14:23Over the two decades of her on-screen reign, the hot mess evolved. Bridget Jones was wildly insecure and
14:29trying to be the woman she thought the world wanted her to be. Carrie spent her time scrutinizing this
14:34same world and figuring out a balance between what she was and what the world wanted of her.
14:38Mindy Lahiri barreled through the world doing mostly exactly what she wanted, trying to fit into her
14:43own private rom-com. And Fleabag was completely disillusioned with her world and basically going
14:48through the motions. Until the, drumroll, hot priest. If we take Bridget and Fleabag, maybe the two most
14:54iconic hot messes ever, as bookends of the trope, then the hot mess starts out as an insecure klutz who
14:59has absolutely zero control of her life and, seemingly through the universe's benevolence,
15:03ends up with a happily ever after.
15:05I now pronounce you, finally, husband and wife.
15:14She ends up a dark and sardonic young woman who builds a facade of complete control, breaks down,
15:20and eventually gets a subtle internal happy ending without it being tied to romantic fulfillment.
15:25Yet, despite this maturation and increasing nuance, the hot mess is still, at this point,
15:29an exhausted trope. So, what comes next? We're seeing less individualistic, less romance-focused
15:35characters. We're seeing messy younger characters, like Rue and the other female leads of Euphoria,
15:40whose problems aren't played as aspirational or cute and aren't magically resolved in rom-com happy
15:45endings. And we're seeing more heroines that represent intersecting identities that have yet to be
15:49properly explored on screen, like Euphoria's Jules, who is trans, Sex Education's Florence,
15:54who is asexual, and Matilda from Everything's Gonna Be Okay, who is queer and on the autism spectrum.
16:00There's a lot more ground to cover in the topic of young adult women figuring out who they are for
16:04Gen Z creatives. Hopefully, today's writers are up to the challenge.
16:07Like, it started with that, and then it was clothes, and then it was makeup.
16:14This video was written by friend of the take, Anya Formozova. If you liked the ideas here,
16:19you can check out her channel, Q22, for more interesting cultural insights. Click the link in the description below.
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