‘New Girl’ creator Liz Meriwether on TV’s new female perspectives

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – “Hey girl,” sings Zooey Deschanel each week at the start of her popular Fox comedy “New Girl.”

“It’s Jess,” goes the song, referring to Deschanel’s adorably loopy lead character. But the song could just as easily be sung about the woman behind the series, screenwriter and executive producer Liz Meriwether.

The 30-year-old, who grew up in Michigan (her father was the publisher of The Detroit Free Press), looks even younger in person. She and several “New Girl” cast members, including Deschanel, met with TV reporters earlier this year on a visit to the set of the series, which is shot on the Fox lot.

And, yes, she gets that “looks younger” thing all the time.

“I do, I do, thank God,” she says. “Better that then, ‘Oh, you look 40.'”

Especially in the world of television, where youth is coveted as much by network executives as it is by advertisers.

What’s changing is how much a female perspective is also now being sought. “New Girl,” along with “2 Broke Girls,” “Whitney,” “Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23” and HBO’s “Girls,” are current comedies created by and exploring the lives of young women.

“I really feel we’re in a moment when they are embracing that perspective,” Meriwether says of today’s network programming executives.

“I don’t know what’s in the air — ‘Bridesmaids’ or something — but I did not have trouble protecting the character and really writing what I wanted to write.”

Meriwether is seen as part of the “Fempire,” a group of young, female screenwriters crashing what for years has been a boy’s club. Diablo Cody (“Juno”) and Lorene Scafaria (“Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist”) are established players in that group, but “Whitney” and “2 Broke Girls”creator Whitney Cummings and “Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham are also at TV’s female forefront.

Meriwether is friends with Dunham and excited about “Girls.”

“I’m hoping the next season of shows that come out in the fall will just keep this going, that we’ll have more urban female comedies.”

Meriwether has a disarming, easy-going manner, blurring the distinction between her and Deschanel’s quirky Jess. She’s quick to engage in girl talk with female reporters, almost apologizing for bringing Ryan Kwanten (“True Blood”) on her show as a guest star and failing to write scenes where he’s in bed with his shirt off.

Behind her breezy manner lies an Ivy league education. Meriwether holds degrees from both Yale and Princeton.

“I’m a big nerd,” she confesses.

Before penning the pilot for “New Girl,” Meriwether wrote several stage plays, including “Oliver Parker!” And her 2011 romantic comedy feature “No Strings Attached” starred Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman.

“I like to write relationship stories and sexual stories,” she says, singling out the “New Girl” episode where Jess finally has sex with her on-again, off-again ex, Paul (guest star Justin Long).

“That’s the kind of thing I want to explore, the awkward connections she’s making in the world.”

Fox wasn’t quite ready to go down that route a few years ago when Meriwether pitched her first sitcom to the network.

“It was about three girls, a young, ‘Sex and the City’ type story,” she says, recalling lots of questions from network executives, such as, ‘if they like to have sex, are they, like, smart?'”

That show’s title probably didn’t help to close the deal: “Sluts.”

Even “New Girl” started out with a more provocative title: “Chicks and Sticks.”

Meriwether says she’s ever fascinated with the interplay between men and women, explored each week by Jess and her three roommates Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield) and Winston (Lamorne Morris).

“I have a lot of guy friends,” says Meriwether, “and wanted to write about my friendships with my guy friends and what I go to them for that I don’t go to with my female friends. It’s a different kind of tough love.”

“New Girl” airs its season finale Tuesday on Fox and Citytv. The series has already been renewed for next season.

———

Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.