Feminism. Friendship. Fashion. These are the ingredients that make up the 2017 Freeform show, The Bold Type. Inspired by former Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, Joanna Coles, the series follows three women working in different departments at Scarlet magazine. They navigate friendship, careers, love life, and other conversation starter storylines.
Kat Edison, director of social media, Jane Sloan, writer, and Sutton Brady, fashion consultant, go through journeys that help them grow as a person. In one season, Kat was racially profiled, in another Jane had to navigate finding a job and being called out on her white privilege, and after putting it off for a while, Sutton made the decision to go to therapy. These storylines just barely scratch the surface of all The Bold Type encompasses. Yes, the three women go through different phases and seasons like everyone else, and what consistently shines is their everlasting friendship.
The Bold Type portrays friendship between women in a unique way, where they are never in competition with each other. There is no teaming up against women, no hidden agenda or ill intentions; the women are girl’s girls. That is what the show provides and holds for viewers at home. The importance of friendships, specifically friendships between women, are sacred and not seen or talked about in depth.
What I think is especially endearing is the fact that the friendship has only been one of a few years and yet, the bond is strong to the point where to the untrained eye may assume it’s a friendship that’s lasted many years. That fact it has been only a few years shows that the bonds women have are truly magnificent and powerful. Years don’t matter, the heart matters.
The three women in the show met when they were working as assistants, and they almost gave up working at Scarlet. Had they not met by chance that day, they would’ve quit and wouldn’t have been friends. They encouraged each other from the start, and believed in each other, thus assisting each other’s accomplishments that would lead them to their dream lives.
The Bold Type and its leading women: Kat, Jane, and Sutton, have taught me to take risks, break out of my comfort zone, and opened my eyes to topics I hadn’t thought about. With all of that, it has also reaffirmed my belief that friendships between women are one of the most important things I’ll experience in life, and get to have as a woman.
Life goes on, cycles change, but what remains is the deep, irreplaceable bond with women that profoundly enriches the lives of the women they know.