Why all the hate?

[shipperx]

Intersting post on i09:

Why do we hate so many female characters?

Postman,

Reading the recent online complaints about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., one of the biggest issues with the series is one I with which greatly agree: Skye adds nothing to the show. This seems to be an ongoing problem with series of the last few years. There's Chloe on SGU, Laurel Lance on Arrow (weirdly her sister Sara and Sara's sidekick Sin are much better characters after just four episodes), or Gwen on Torchwood. They're not like Skyler White or Andrea on The Walking Dead, who are fully fleshed out characters hated for their bad decision making.

These characters are unlikeable because of a combination of poor character development and weak acting. The writers seem bored with them too, giving them stories that are disconnected from the events. The classic example for me is SGU where Chloe, while being stuck on a derelict spaceship on the other side of the universe, is worried that all her friends back home are phony bitches. Or Laurel's drinking problem. Or everything about Skye.

So what gives? I get that society has historically written women as damsels or objects meant to be rescued by the dashing hero, but the days of Season 1 Counselor Troi have passed us by. For every Major Kira or Sarah Connor there seems to be two Charlie Mathesons. Is this a gender thing, or general, poor character writing? What would you recommend to TV showrunners about giving us women characters we can care about?

There are a ton of reasons why people find certain female characters problematic. You've already hit upon two of them, which is to say poor writing and poor acting. Skye in Agents of SHIELD is a prime example of this; she doesn't really have any defining characteristics, she's completely unconvincing as a brilliant hacker, and yet somehow the team is bringing her along everywhere and she's the audience's surrogate. It's a recipe for annoyance, if not disaster. But to be fair, all the characters on Agents of SHIELD are equally poorly written — Melinda May gets away with it for being mysterious and badass, while we have a long history with Agent Coulson, but imagine Coulson's "Tahiti" mystery applied to, say Ward and think how much of a shit you would not give.

Another problem is when storytellers create female characters to be love interests and nothing else — meaning they're one-dimensional (and completely boring if their on-screen relationship isn't clicking). This is Laurel Lance's problem on Arrow. She was fine as Oliver's object of affection, while she was dating his best friend, but in season two they had to cool off the relationship. This made sense storytelling-wise, but left Laurel with nothing to do. Now, I actually liked her drinking storyline, because 1) it gave her a dimension beyond her relationship with Ollie, and 2) it seemed to be to be a very reasonable response to all the horrible shit she'd so recently been through. But compare that to Felicity and Black Canary and Ollie' mom and the Huntress and even Thea, and all the interesting facets those women have beyond their relationships with male characters.

But sometimes the problem is the fans, who are often unwilling to give female characters slack that they seemingly give to male characters. This seems to me to be a pretty recent phenomenon, and it's kind of disturbing. Skyler White from Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones' Sansa Stark are the two most prominent examples of this. These characters are largely hated, despite being well-written and well-acted and three-dimensional, and as far as I can determine they're hated because of these reasons

For instance, people seem to hate Skyler in Breaking Bad because she was "a bitch" to Walt in the beginning, then became a hypocrite for reaping the benefits of Walt's meth operation while disapproving of it (I'm only midway through season 2, so I'm using this excellent Esquire article for help here). First of all, Skyler was nagging Walt 1) when her husband was constantly and obviously hiding things from her, and 2) when she discovered her husband was running an illegal meth operation. As for the latter, why is Skyler spending Walt's meth money a bigger issue than Walt running a goddamn methlab in the first place? It seems to me that the problem people have with Skyler is that people see Walt as the protagonist, and somehow think that makes him a hero, and thus Walt's irritation with Skyler becomes the audience's, despite the fact that Walt is a goddamn monster.

Sansa is hated even more, and it just boggles me. This is a girl who was fed stories of beautiful princesses and brave knights all her life, gets told she's going to marry the prince of the whole damn country, and then had her beliefs and her entire life slowly, methodically destroyed. Who wouldn't be upset by that? What teenager wouldn't be devastated by this, male or female? People compare Sansa to Arya, who seemingly holds up "better" than Sansa, but the amount of danger Arya is in never comes close to Sansa's. Arya was never beaten in front of the court by the knights she had always been told protect people. Arya is trying survive on the run, but Sansa is the most vulnerable pawn in the Game of Thrones, which is way more dangerous than serving Tywin Lannister wine at night. I understand all of Sansa's anguish, and that she's still holding it together, playing the game and even just surviving at this point only shows her immense strength.

Two other female characters I know of who were so hated were The Walking Dead's Lori and Andrea. Now, I'd say Lori was written terribly, because I can't imagine that any decent writer would intentionally make a character that unlikeable and inconsistent. Andrea just turned really preachy. But these characters are loathed with a passion that the male characters just don't get, and I'm as guilty of that as anybody. And now I wonder why I was so passionate about hating them, along with so many other people, because Dale, Shane and even Rick were also pretty annoying, but no one hated them like they did Lori and Andrea. (In retrospect, I think Lori's turn in season three as a woman who knew she fucked up badly was pretty good, but I understand it was too little, too late for most viewers after her previous shenanigans.) It actually makes me a bit uncomfortable now.

So there are problems behind the scenes, in the scenes, and out in the audience. Writers should always refer to the Bechdel test, to make sure that their female characters are more than their romantic relationships. Audiences should try to step back and make sure they're cutting female characters the same slack as male characters. And actors… take acting lessons, or something, I guess.

All of that plus... fandom can be really sexist sometimes.

Comments

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I'm probably one of the few that didn't hate Lori. I didn't like her much, but I understood that she got herself into an untenable position when she allowed Shane to become her lover simply so she would have protection for her child. At least, that's how I read it. Of course for the Lori haters it doesn't help that Rick & Lori were having marital problems before the zombie apocalypse, so she's automatically branded a bitch *and* an adulteress. As for Andrea, she just ended up getting on my last nerve because she was so fucking stupid. I was sorry that she got killed before she wised up though. However, I did loathe Shane.

I'm way behind on GoT so I only have season one to go on, but even by the end of that season, I began to feel great sympathy for Sansa.

And I loved Gwen!

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

+1

;-)

[sp23.livejournal.com]

:-D

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

+1 - here as well. So that's three of us. I actually found Lori and Andrea and Carol all intriguing.

I couldn't stand Rick, the kid, and Shane. My difficulty with The Walking Dead was several of the male characters...LOL!

I also loved Gwen. But, I was in the minority of fans who was ambivalent about Jack and Ianto. I watched Torchwood for Gwen, Tosh, and Owen.

[cindergal.livejournal.com]

See now, I love them all, pretty much - Lori, Rick, Carl. Even Shane I found interesting. Not Andrea so much, though I could have liked her had they not had her act so stupid about the Governor. But I also loved Gwen, even though I did ship Jack/Ianto.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I have no opinion on either as I never developed any sort of sustained interest in Torchwood and thus saw maybe... three episodes total?

And zombies seriously freak me out, so I haven't seen a single ep of The Walking Dead.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think Sansa's greatest hurdle is structural, she's a very young girl without power in a situation where she's a pawn. Her situation makes her only mode of resistance passive.

People become frustrated wanting her to do something. But I rather think the point is that there is very little that she can do... except hold her tongue because she's in an extremely dangerous situation. She's a very interior character for that reason. Half her POV seems to be her reminding herself that her only defense is to keep her thoughts to herself and remain polite no matter what, which takes an amazing constitution given all that she must witness and go through, but which can frustrate an audience who craves her to take action. But then, I keep wanting to point out to critics that in the book SHE IS TWELVE YEARS OLD!

What do people expect? The fact that she perseveres without allies is in itself an amazing feat.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she is in a very dangerous position being locked in the court of a madman surrounded by his lackeys. Even in S1, after the execution of her father, she learned very quickly that even if Joffrey himself would not touch her, he had plenty of men around him who would take great pleasure in 'teaching her her place'. Man, I really need to get caught up with that show, but it's so damned intense I have to gird my loins to watch it. LOL

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I tend to think of Sansa in the mode of Elizabeth I during her siblings reigns, especially during Queen Mary. Elizabeth was basically a prisoner, was a potential flashpoint for protestant uprising against Mary, and was constantly being investigated for treason but she was also smart enough to always play things close to the chest and be say words of being the dutiful sister... until one day she was granted power.

It's a pretty common theory that Sansa is more or less in an unintended apprenticeship, learning the political slight of hand necessary to weild real political power, having been given a front row seat to some of the most Macchiavelian characters in the series. One day, she will be formidable. Until then she must keep her tongue and live another day.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

That's a very good analogy with Princess Elizabeth. She was very much in constant danger from her sister's court.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced that Sansa will be her generation's Lady Olenna aka "The Queen of Thorns". (If you've only seen season 1 you haven't ment Olenna yet, but she's quite the wiley old lady/matriarch.)

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I don't think I branded Lori as a bitch - I thought she *was* one. :D She was manipulative, and even after Rick came back, she played him & Shane off one another for her own ...whatever the heck psychodrama she was playing out. I flat out didn't like her at all. I get her protecting her son, but she was kind of awful to him, too.

I could care less about adultery in fictional characters, but the game playing was over the top.

Andrea was a big waste of character, and I was annoyed that she took up so much plot time AND was so stupid.