Ever since the inception of television sitcoms, there have always been pretty girls trying to make it in the big city. There was That Girl in the 1960s, The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s, Kate & Allie in the 1980s, Caroline in the City in the 1990s and Sex and the City in the 2000s. 
Today, there are dozens of shows on the air with this plot line, but one show in particular reinforces the glamorous, city girl stereotype: Hart of Dixie. If you thought there were enough girls trying to make it in the big city before, it’s time to meet Zoe Hart.
Zoe, played by Rachel Bilson, is a fashionable doctor from New York who takes a chance at practicing medicine in small-town Bluebell, Ala., after graduation. With each day, Hart gets more adjusted to the small-town life, but by Thanksgiving, she is “craving elegance and refinement” and plans to fly home to New York for the holiday.
Thanksgiving brings the end of the fiscal quarter, but Zoe learns that she does not have the mandatory 30 percent of patients required to keep practicing. Her partner, Brick Breeland, is not excited to work with her in the first place, and sees this as an opportunity to buy her out. Hart spends the rest of the episode trying to find more patients so she can keep her share in the practice and take the red eye back to New York.
And who wouldn’t want to be Hart’s patient? Even though I have only watched one episode in the season, it seems Hart consistently wears short dresses and heels to work, she always wears a massive amount of makeup, and her hair is always perfectly flowing and down. Totally normal for a doctor, right? Even Breeland describes her as the “pretty lady doctor in the short shorts.”
At least shows like ER were not afraid to show how women actually look while practicing medicine. Normal tennis shoes. Scrubs. A normal amount of makeup. Hair out of the face. This is what a professional doctor looks like.
It’s hard for a viewer to take this doctor seriously when she doesn’t dress the part. Maybe that’s the point, but I’d hate to see people get attached to another show where you can’t take a woman seriously in her profession because she’s too pretty. The show conveys an uncomfortable message: a face full of makeup, a head of perfect hair and a wardrobe of revealing clothes are necessary for a woman in medicine.
There are enough shows out there that feature attractive, quirky girls trying to find their way in a new environment. Take the show New Girl featuring Zooey Deschanel, for example. At least this Zooey uses her quirkiness in a fun, obvious way. Check out the Saturday Night Live sketch “Bein’ Quirky With Zooey Deschanel,” if you don’t believe me. One Zooey trying to make it in the big city is enough, especially when the other Zoe does nothing more than reinforce negative stereotypes.
Cynthia Johnson can be reached at john3175@stthomas.edu.