Low Angles, Wide Lenses: The Heroine Takes the Bus!

There's this show that's been getting me through Mondays.  It's called (eek) Jane the Virgin.

Now, ignore the title.  The first time I saw a subway ad for this show, I thought "Seriously?  That's a real show?!?  Please, The CW..."

Ignore the premise, please.  Just, get past it--you'll thank me.

There is much--much--that I love about this show.

It's silly.  It's earnest.  It's tearing through ridiculous amounts of telenovela-level plot ridiculousness at a rate I'm nervous it can't sustain and yet the characters often just say what they want or feel in a way that is highly refreshing.

But one thing that struck me in particular is that Jane rides the bus. This really hit me at the end of the last episode when she storms out of *redacted*'s house.  She reached for her bags, I realized I was almost mentally inserting her pulling out her car keys.

That's when I remembered that she takes the bus.  I'm so acculturated to seeing characters get in a car and drive, even when it makes no sense (why are so many Seinfeld episodes about driving?) that I just assumed she would.

Now, surely this is done as a marker of her working-class status.  I'm sure Rafael, Petra, et al are taking the bus nowhere.  But at least it's not presented as miserable. There's no "weirdos on the bus" moments.  There's no "you know why they make the windows so big" speeches.  In fact, they mostly use her bus time as time she thinks about what's going on.  Or maybe has text conversations with other characters.  That's kind of how I use my public transit time.  And isn't the freedom to do those two things one of the great things about transit?

I don't kid myself that this is done as some sort of statement.  But it's nice to see realism in how it's presented.  This character--a very practical, mature 20-something working in a hotel restaurant while attending college to become a teacher--is someone who very well might take transit rather than spend her precious money on a car, insurance, gas, etc.  And realism in that it's not miserable--sometimes she runs to catch it, sometimes she has to stand because it's full, but it's just part of her day.

It's progress.