Female Characters - why the hate? (Particularly when I happen to like many of them)

[shadowkat]

I found this article on Io9 entitled Why do we hate so many female characters so much? interesting in part because I didn't dislike any of the female characters mentioned. Did however, dislike many of the popular male characters. (Thanks to shipperx for the link and the heads up.)

The article lists the following female characters as "hated" by fandom:

1. The Tale of The Two Gwens : Torchwood Gwen and Merlin Gwen

As an aside what it is with female slash shippers and characters named Gwen?

The Merlin fandom hated Gwenivere, and the Torchwood hated Gwen. And they are rather misogynistic in their hate - to the extent, that it is hard to like them or their ship all that much. Actually, I'll extend that...what is it with female m/m slash fans and hating female characters? I've seen a pattern emerge. To a degree it's the old : I'll hate any character, regardless of who they are, that gets in the way of my ship having it's happily ever after. And of course, everyone hates the interloper, not the person who is wishy washy and can't make up their mind, no...the interloper. Which, personally, I've always considered a mite odd. But here's the thing? In some cases, such as Gwen/Arthur, there was no interloper - Arthur wasn't gay. He and Merlin had a relationship that was separate from Gwen. You could like both characters. Its allowed. Same deal with Torchwood. Gwen was married and happily at that to Rhys, and Jack was well, Jack, I think he's even done it with a car, but his heart belonged to Ianto. There was no love triangle of doom (except in their imaginations). You could love both Gwen and Ianto, it was allowed. It's not like the Baelfire/Emma/Hook love triangle or the Spike/Buffy/Angel one - although on the Spike/Buffy/Angel - that love triangle was sort of off-screen. Spike/Buffy were together - when Angel was bopping well, how many girlfriends did he have? And Buffy/Angel were together when Spike was with Dru. And Spike/Angel were..well sort of together, when Buffy was out of the country. So...the love triangle wasn't written by the writers in some of these cases, but by the deluded and I'm sorry, fanatical fans.

At any rate, I loved both Gwen's. In some respects I found them to be more developed than the male leads and the actresses to be rather compelling.

* Gwen on Torchwood, was a complex character - she starts out as a cop, gets pulled into Torchwood, struggles with her marriage and how to juggle Torchwood and her life with Rhys, and her attraction to other men. She's tough, but also feminine, and not skinny, also over the age of 30 - a rarity in these series. She was particularly brilliant in the mini-series "Children of Earth" - which I preferred to Torchwood the Series. Her relationship with Rhys is amongst the few relationships on that series that was not overly melodramatic, subtly conveyed, and gradually evolved and we get to see various angles of it. We didn't have traumatic death scenes or horrible misunderstandings, we had two mature people figure out ways to make compromises.

* Gwen on Merlin, also a complex character - who evolved gradually. Outside of the annoying Evil Gwen arc in the last season, this character was consistently written and likable. Although even in the Evil Gwen arc - she made sense - she was a character who fought for what she believed in and who she believed in, and due to her own struggles, was able to be ruthless at times. But no more ruthless than the male characters on the series.

2. The Two Skylars, Skye (Marvel Agents of Shield) and Skylar White (Breaking Bad).

Apparently fans despise Skylar White from Breaking Bad and Skye in the series Marvel Agents of Shield. Both female characters are a bit manipulative and smart. They find ways to survive. Skye is considered an interloper - the audience's point of view, and in Breaking Bad, Skylar was at times the conscience, or the voice of reason. The long-suffering wife of Walt, portrayed in various facets by Anna Gunn. In both cases, the fandom, that hated Skye and Skylar, loved a rather unattractive, balding, over 40, everyman who had done more than his fair share of torture and mauling.

Granted, it feels a bit odd to compare these two series on any level. MAoS is a box of popcorn and Breaking Bad is well..a five course meal. MAoS is about a bunch of government operatives, and well Skye, who travel about the world killing or neutralizing threats, regardless of what they might be or who. Breaking Bad is about a chemistry teacher dying of cancer who becomes a meth dealer. Sort of like comparing the movies Lincoln to The Avengers.
Or Mozart to well Justin Bieber.

At any rate, what they do have in common is many female (and a few male) fans hate these two women, but love the male lead - who is not attractive and is a bit, well, the epitome of the male power structure. He's an older, badass guy, who has defeated death, and has tortured more than a few people. One is portrayed as a hero, one an anti-hero. Female fans lovvve them, but haaate the two Skyes. Why?

Don't ask me, I honestly don't get it.

* Skylar White - I found to be a modern day Lady Macbeth. She's manipulative, at times cloying, but also tough, innovative, and layered. She sees what her husband is capable of and it tears her apart. And how she handles what he is doing, why he is doing it, and her feelings for him... in a complex manner that is shown over the five seasons. Unlike Lady Macbeth, Skylar is ultimately a survivor, and manages to pull her children out of the abyss with her. Her relationships in the show are not limited to Walt, she also has a multifaceted one with her sister, played by Betsy Brandt. And brother in law, Hank.

In some respects she's a far more interesting character than Aaron Paul's Jesse or Bryan Cranston's Walt, but she's the lesser known one. She has little power or control over the situation. But manages to subtly and at times aggressively assert it - in her own quiet way.
She doesn't take what Walt does lying down - nor does she let him rule her or control her.
But by the same token, she does protect him and her family as best she can - well aware that if Walt goes down, her family will go down with him. We see the series through Walt's warped point of view, but there are moments that you see it through Skylar's.

* Skye - not the most layered character on the planet. But definitely the character with the most potential. Skye questions SHIELD's purpose from the beginning. At each interval, she wonders if what they are doing is the correct route. Could there not be another way? Also, there's the question of who she is, and where she came from. Granted the character still feels a bit weak, but then so are the other characters.

While Skye is nowhere near as interesting as Skylar, due to the writing, she is however in some respects more interesting than the male characters. And provides a point of view that is not pro-super secret covert government, which is desperately needed.

3. Sansa Stark...Game of Thrones

The women of Game of Thrones get a lot of hate in that fandom. Actually I see this in a lot of male centric fantasy fandoms...Supernatural has similar issues. Partly due to the writing. GRR Martin and Eric Kripke write extremely dark stories about power from a male perspective. And they like to focus on the nasty side of the human soul.

Sansa is unfortunately introduced in Game of Thrones and Clash of Kings as an idealistic and somewhat romantic 12 or 14 year old. I thought she was 14? She pictures court through the pages of romance novels and fairy tales. She wears dresses, and speaks politely. She despises violence. And when she meets Prince Joffrey, she sees a handsome prince, who speaks pretty words. Little does she know he's a sadist. While her sister, Ayra, prefers sword-play, wearing boy's clothes, and scoffs at romance. Compared to Ayra - Sansa seems weak, but it's a different type of strength she possesses.

Granted she does a few things in the first novel that is...difficult to read. She confides in Queen Cersei about her father's plans regarding her and Ayra, mainly because at that point she still fancies herself in love with Joffrey, and she honestly does not know what her father is up to nor does she understand it. Keep in mind she is twelve. Ayra, also has no clue, and didn't want to leave either - because she was getting sword-fighting instructions and didn't want to lose her instructor.

While I can't say I was particularly fond of Sansa in the first two books - she came across as whiny at times, I did prefer her to the male members of her clan. Actually, I found myself preferring the female characters in Game of Thrones to the male characters, with few exceptions. (Cersei never won me over. And I adore Tyrion and Jaime.)

4. Lori and Andrea on The Walking Dead

While Lori, Rick's long-suffering wife, occasionally grated on my nerves (particularly during the first part of the second season), I actually found Lori more interesting and far more likable than Shane and Rick who were fighting over her. The character seemed to be torn throughout. She believes her husband is dead, so moves on with his best friend in a post-apocalyptic world, inhabited by zombies, and where Shane is a leader and her means of survival. When who should pop up again, but her dead husband. Who she was having marital issues with prior to his alleged death. They were arguing about the dangers of his occupation and the risks he took - turns out, she was right to be upset about that, since he gets shot and ends up in the hospital right before the world gets turned upside down and sideways.

Lori depicts the conflict well. Add to this, a preteen and somewhat precocious kid that she's raising, and being pregnant. Knowing full well that the chances she'll survive her pregnancy are slim to none. She's a tragic and incredibly brave, yet layered one.

Andrea, another favorite, is the opposite of Lori. Tough through and through. She's devastated by the death of her sister. And struggles to find the will to live afterwards.
She also struggles to find a way outside of the death and violence, a means to survive, to go back to a world without constant violence. Yet, tragically can't find it and finds betrayal and male cruelty instead.

Fans found her preachy or hypocritical, because she appeared to be supporting the villain. But Andrea was trying to find a way out of the nightmare. Rick was hardly any better.
Andrea tried to reason with both men and failed. Granted her relationship with the Governor didn't quite work and came close to ruining a wonderful character, but she remained tough and true to her own values throughout. She did not kill unless she had to.

________________

Unfortunately those aren't the only female characters female fans hate. And sometimes, the hate is warranted. There are a few characters that are just poorly drawn or written. But my difficulty with fandom, regardless of the series, has been the character hate - particularly towards female characters. Quick caveat - I'm not talking about despising a character's actions and wanting to kill them because of those actions. Or the normal shipper hate of any character regardless of their gender or ethnicity who gets in the way of a favorite ship. But something deeper. Granted the hate often sprouts from some sort of trigger or "ship", for example a lot of people despised Buffy in season 6 because of how she treated Spike in the episodes Gone, Dead Things, As You Were, and Older and Far Away. But that's different from the fans who hated her throughout the season and well into S7, for no clear reason, many of who stated she deserved to...(you fill in the blank).

I admittedly have troubles with the character Elena on Vampire Diaries, but I don't hate her, and my issues have more to do with the trope than the actual character. Also to some degree with how she's portrayed and the emphasis on beauty. She's too often the damsel.
And portrayed as a bit wishy-washy at times. But overall, I obviously like the character on a certain level or I wouldn't still be watching the series. That's not what I'm talking about.

In Doctor Who fandom, there were people who despised Doctor River Song, some for understandable reasons - they felt she was hap-hazardly written and did not like the fact that the Doctor saved her by placing her ghost in a dream for eternity. Others despised her because she could drive the Tardis and had the same brilliance and capabilities as The Doctor, how dare they create a female equal to The Doctor. The show was ruined!
Or they despised her because she was tough and played the traditional male role, with a feminine touch. Or her fizzy hair and the fact that she was played by an actress in her 40s.

River Song was my favorite Doctor Who character. It wasn't until she popped up that I understood the appeal of the series. Prior to the two episodes she appeared in, I thought the series was a fun show, but hardly worth spending much time on. Song - made me rethink my view and rethink the series.

Others despise Rose Tyler...and I admittedly was never a fan, mainly it was the actress, Billie Piper just doesn't do anything for me. But, I can't say I hated her. I actually appreciated the character and rather liked her for a bit in S1 of the Reboot, with the 9th Doctor, Chris Eccleston's. He was so dark and edgy, she was light and sunny in comparison.
I don't think she worked quite as well with David Tennant though. Rose was blue collar, not highly educated, street smart, with a blue collar Mum, who interfered in her life, and a boyfriend, who well she blew off for the Doctor. And really, who could blame her. (no pun intended).

Then there's Martha Jones, the companion who succeeded Rose Tyler, who I think fans despised because she got in the way of Rose/The Doctor. But Doctor Who wasn't designed as a romance. None of the companions or the actors who portray the Doctor for that matter stay for very long. They switch off. It's an adventure anthology series...sort of serialized Twilight Zone for teens. Martha Jones is bright, clever, black, and a medical doctor. She's the only companion who actually gets to move on to a better life after she parts ways with the Doctor. Some fans called her a Mary Sue, which never made sense to me - was it because she was smart?

Fred on the series Angel, suffered from similar issues. A lot of female fans despised Fred.
I never really understood why. Was it her voice? Which admittedly grated on my nerves at times, but I still liked the character. Or was it how she was written - being thrown at every male character in the cast? Spike, by the way, was also thrown at every character on both casts (and yes people hated him too - but it didn't feel as misanthropic, male characters aren't hated in the same way as female characters, I've noticed.). Fred was a brilliant scientist - and some of the best episodes of that series focused on Fred's science background. I love Supersymmetry, from the 4th Season of Angel. And Magic Bullet. Two Fred centric episodes. Some fans preferred her as Illyria - but Illyria was physical, while Fred was all mental, all cerebral.

On Once Upon a Time - Snow White and Regina get blasted in the fandom. Not sure why exactly. Belle actually I can sort of understand, she's written really badly. But Regina and Snow have become fascinating characters. I admittedly despised Regina last year - but she was being written unevenly, which was my main issue. Snow - I had a love/hate relationship with - she was being written better as Snow then as Mary Margaret. But that went away eventually, and both have grown on me. Not sure why they haven't grown on others. Also, apparently the fandom forgive Rumple everything, but Regina nothing. Considering Rumple taught Regina everything she knows...and did most of it, first....

I get character hate that's par for the course, we all hate characters. It's when the hate bleeds into something else...that I become disturbed. And its not just in television fandoms, I've seen it in Amazon and Good Reads reviews of romance novels, and towards actresses.

Female fans are highly critical of what other women wear or how they look. They say women dress for women - that's true to a degree. We do. To avoid being ripped apart.
For an example of how women criticize each other - often well-meaning, check out this blog by a soap opera actress, who has recently returned to a popular soap opera. The actress is in her 40s, and was playing a character that had been held hostage and pyschologically tortured for two years. She's gained some weight since fans last saw her. And had been working as a director not an actress. A "well-meaning" fan emailed her - telling her that she should look into getting some work down, tightening up her neck, getting rid of that "turkey neck". This was on top of emails she'd been getting about her weight. My neck has lines in it. I'm 46.
We age. Men do too. But men aren't criticized for it. Have you looked at James Marsters neck?
I can tell he's in his 50s. But no one states anything. Same with Harrison Ford. OR on the same soap? Anthony Geary who plays Luke. On Buffy, Amber Bensen, who played Tara, was criticized for being too heavy.

I think being aware of this tendency and thinking about why we do it...may aid in lessening it over time, and it's ill-effects.


[ETA: Sorry about the horrific mistake at the bottom, didn't discover it until I read an email notification from LJ this morning - and had no way of fixing it until I got home tonight.]

Comments

[liliaeth]

There also seems to be this habit, where flawed male characters are called deep, while flawed female characters are seen as evil. Even if they have the exact same flaws.

Or when a male character just stands around with one facial expression, they're 'deep and stoic', while if a female character doesn't overemote, she gets called cardboard.

The problem is the same reason why it's easier to get a black man elected president, than it is for a woman to get elected to the same post. Women are basically brought up to judge themselves and others like them. From childhood on we are told to see boy's mistakes as cute and funny, while a girl's mistakes are treated harshly. We're told to identify with men, but not to do so with women, because in most series, cartoons and so on, you'll have several males with different character traits and one girl who's just stereotyped as 'the girl'. So most girls reading/watching... those stories come to identify with one or more of the male characters instead.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Women are basically brought up to judge themselves and others like them. From childhood on we are told to see boy's mistakes as cute and funny, while a girl's mistakes are treated harshly. We're told to identify with men, but not to do so with women, because in most series, cartoons and so on, you'll have several males with different character traits and one girl who's just stereotyped as 'the girl'. So most girls reading/watching... those stories come to identify with one or more of the male characters instead.

Agreed.

The National Book Award winning author, Louise Erdritch stated that she wrote from a boy's perspective in her most recent novel, because she always wanted to be a boy. The novel is about a rape on an Native American Reservation and is entitled Round House.

JK Rowling's series Harry Potter has few women in it, and Hermoine is often shown as a stickler for protocol and rules.

Also...many people will state the phrase : "Don't be a girl" or "you are such a girl" when referring to weakness or cowardice or being a wimp.

So many people appear to define strength in strictly masculain tones, apparently you are strong if you are "physically assertive, aggressive, or physically strong". Yet, ironically, Nelson Mandela, who recently died, did not demonstrate his strength in this manner - instead he was compassionate, forgiving, kind, and patient - feminine traits. And he changed the world.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I in no way hate or even dislike a Belle but OMG do I hate the story dynamic they have her trapped in.

I do hate Book Cersei. Unlike show Cersei, book Cersei is pretty short on redeeming characteristics and her internal dialog suuuucks.

I believe Sansa was twelve in the book and was fourteen on the show. A bunch of the characters got aged up a bit. And I tend to find Sansa hate the most disturbing. With someone like Book Cersei there are actual actions to hate her for. Sansa's only 'crime' is that of being a teenaged girl.

I met Amber Bensen once (Season 6). Anyone thinking of her as 'big' disturbs me. IRL she was maybe 5'5" and a size 4. When I met her all I could think was... good lord, how tiny must SMG and Alyson Hannigan actually be?!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed on Belle. (I can't remember if I mentioned her? Because from what I can see - most fans don't hate the character, just how it is written. Because I loved Belle in the traditional fairy tale and in the Disney Animated version, as well as the French movie upon which the Disney version is loosely based. But I can't stand her in OUAT. She's not developed at all - she seems to be there just to prop up Rumplestilskin.)

Also agree on Cersei - an excellent example, like Belle, of hating a character for the character's sake, regardless of gender. (I hated Robin Wood in Buffy regardless of his ethnicity. Sometime you just dislike the character and that's all there is to it.) Book Cersei is written poorly, I think. And is somewhat one dimensional. While show Cersei is multi-dimensional...due in part to the actress portraying her and how they've written the television series, which provides a lot more time on-screen between Cersei and Tyrion, and Cersei and her father. We don't get that so much in the books. GRRM puts us too much inside one character's head, one character at a time, while the tv series allows us to be in multiple points of view. I honestly think tv is a better medium for this style of story-telling than novels or movies.

The hate for Sansa though is slightly different. That seems to be more directed at the fact that she is..."girly" or "feminine" and exhibits no male characteristics. I believe she's the only female character, outside of maybe Catelynn and Samwell's Ginny, that doesn't exhibit male characteristics. (I admittedly didn't like the character in the first two books...but she did grow on me, and I can't say her traits changed that much, just the way she was being written.)

I've heard SMG is really tiny in person. I remember an actress friend telling me once that studio sets are built for tiny people. And the camera really loves small bodies with sharp angles.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

"I've heard SMG is really tiny in person."

I saw her once from about 20 feet away, and I'd guess she's about 5'1" and was then maybe 105 pounds.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yep, tiny. Although, I've had friends who were 4'10.

[spikesjojo.livejournal.com]

I had Fred problems, but it was after watching the series a few times. My main problem is that she is a brilliant physicist and inventor - no problem there. But as time went on she became a medical doctor, an entomologist, etc. Anything scientific they gave to Fred - I supose that's more the writing than Fred herself but I felt it was overcompensating a lot.

As for the GRRM women - yeah, they are very different in the book. I couldn't stand Cersei in the book - I still don't like her but I find her more interesting in the show. I also really disliked Sansa in the book, but I really love her in the show. I think the difference is that it's clear in the book that she betrayed her father's plans to Cersei, and she's painted as shallow and unrealistic.

I do love Arya and Brienne because both are fighters. Arya is my favorite but I have run across other people who hate her.

I'm 58 and I do notice that my idea of beauty has changed and expanded over the years. I used to swallow what was in the media. Now I look for the person, and not at the wrapping.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to read the article because I don't need the grief. I almost never hate female characters. Unless they are the kind of useless non-character that we get so often in movies, in which case I hate the writer/producing team, not the non-character.

I wonder who these "fans" are? Not anybody I know. (Well, okay, my kid used to tell me she hated Dawn for this whole host of convoluted reasons, and she hates all of Twilight, including the girls, so I guess I'm not totally isolated from this phenomenon. She was, however, 14 at the time.) I just can't believe that the hatred is as widespread as we are supposed to believe. I'm perfectly fine with Gwen, Fred, Tara, Martha, River et al. None of them are intentionally cruel, which to me is the one unforgivable sin.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I wonder who these "fans" are? Not anybody I know.

Define "know"? If you mean in real life? Well you probably don't know most of the people on this thread either.

The article does clarify it. And provides examples.

But since you wish to avoid it - it's not a bad article actually...but I've admittedly been avoiding the news, so to each their own - the fans who have expressed this hate can be found on most if not all public fan forums. Here's a short, but not comprehensive listing (note well moderated forums don't tend to have them):

1. General Hospital - Fan board, SoapZone - Message Boards
2. Television Without Pity - Fan Forums
3. Buffy Forums
4. Whedonesque
5. Buffy Cross and Stake (no longer active)
6. Angel's Soul Board (no longer active)
7. Various posts on livejournal

Doctor Who and Supernatural's fandoms are notorious for them. So too are the comic book fandoms.

I've also seen similar responses in Amazon reviews and Good Reads reviews.

So yes, it is that widespread.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I think with Once Upon A Time it's either Regina or Snow who gets hated, not really both at once. Regina has a lot of extreme fans who whitewash her utterly and declare that everything she did was driven by feminist rebellion against patriarchy and if you don't agree then you must hate women, sort of like the ultra-hardcore Lilah fans you used to get in Angel fandom. And they tend to bash Snow as "Stepford Wife"/gender-traitor/hypocrite.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No, I've seen hate for both at once. There are fans who hate both tropes, which is reasonable. But there are others - who just like Rumplestilskin and the male characters.

I discovered this hunting news on Baelfire last year, and apparently TWOPY really hates these characters. That is one sexist posting board.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Ewwww

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yup. Why it is wise to avoid TWOPY.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm, I think it is weird how much hate some of the females characters get. I have to say, that I have a tendency to find the male characters more interesting. Mainly because some traits that I like, like the active breaking of rules etc. are more associated with men than with women in our society (sadly). I love characters like River Song or Arya Stark to pieces, because they mess with that. But characters like for example Sansa (btw. she's twelve in the book, but 14 on the show, GRRM found later that he had made the children too young when he realized that there would be no way to do a time gap. So on the show they made them all older) don't give me much. I feel sorry for her and I find it silly to hate her, but I definitely care more about others.

Still I don't get what prompts people to actively hate those characters or worse to harass the actors.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Not that weird - if you consider that the traits so many people prefer are predominately male. You've stated as much yourself above - you prefer female characters who exhibit masculain traits such as Doctor Song, Ayra, etc. (Not that I'm any different in my own tastes in this respect). But characters that exhibit feminine traits...not so much. Keeping in mind, we have both traits in all of us, Spike is an example of a character who exhibited male and female traits, and many fans despised the character when he exhibited the feminine traits - they considered him weak and wimpy, weirdly I found him to be the most interesting when he did - he also hated himself for showing those traits - for he believed those traits to be weak as well. But a lot of fans deemed him uncool when he exhibited the feminine traits.

I've been examining this tendency in myself as well - I noticed that a lot of the female characters that I preferred demonstrated masculain traits: Brienne, Aeryn Sun, Xenia, Ayra, Ygritte, the Iron Islands Princess whose name I forget but is Theon's sister...while characters like Sansa were always too girly for me. Now, I'm rethinking this - and examining it. And as I do so, I find I actually like Sansa. I'm also loving Buffy - who blended both feminine and masculain traits - she was strong physically but also girly.

I think we have a tendency to prefer male characters or female characters that have those male character traits because we are taught to from the moment we are born and by everyone around us. Instead of being taught to like both.

That's not to say female characters can't be tough - they should be. And they can be from both perspectives - feminine and masculain. And there are women characters who break rules, and not through violence - I read a romance novel recently by Courtney Milan, entitled The Heiress Effect, where the heroine broke the conventional rules without any violence.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I agree it has a lot to do with social conditioning. And part of it is a sort of unhealthy "slave-mentality" that groups that are discriminated against develop.

When you are opressed you find a way to desl with it. And that coping strategy gives you a sort of power (or in many cases the illusion of it). For example some women dress nice, speak in tiny high pitched voices and try to push their interests by crying. Other's rebel against expectations like that and intentionally dress matter of factly and try to keep emotions out of it.

And both groups feel threatened by the other. The girly girls by the women, who do things themselves, because it threatens their claim that some man has to do something for them. The more masculine women make it more likely for the girly woman to be told: "Hey but she can do it on her own, why can't you?" and vice versa the more masculine women find that every women who confirms clichees about women, makes the stereotypes they fight harder.

I think both groups forget that the actual enemy are people actively discriminate against them, not people who deal with opression differently than they do.

I also love Spike when he is displaying typically female traits, but I would not like the same things in a woman because they would confirm stereotypes instead of messing with them.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I think the difficulty is a tendency to be extremist about these things. Our society is so extremist or black and white about things. You are either a girly girl or butch. You are either macho man, or metrosexual/effeminate. Seriously? That's not possible. No one is just this or that. Fictional characters that are drawn as either this or that, tend to be cardboard cutouts or cliche, hardly interesting.

Buffy is a perfect example of a fictional character who combines both traits.

Another difficulty is a tendency to generalize or assume things based on limited observation and perspective and what we think is true. Judging the behaviors of others, behaviors that are different from our own as well wrong. We don't challenge our own assumptions enough, consider the opposite point of view.

For example - from one perspective, Sansa is weak and Ayra is strong, but from another perspective it is the opposite and from yet another both are strong in their own ways. Also, there's a tendency to buy into the pov of the character we are in - and not question it.

And we are taught that crying is weak, that it is strong not to show emotion, to be stoic. Too many fictional novels and stories have shown a girly girl crying to get her way with a high pitched voice, when this isn't reality. And they show the strong stoic man, who never cries and shoulders through. So we are taught from an early age to swallow our emotions. To not feel. And we wonder why we have so many problems with our stomachs. ;-)

I'm not saying its necessarily wrong to love Ayra over Sansa (hell I do, I really can't stand Sansa at times) - but I think we need to "question" why we do and "question" what we are doing and perhaps try to change the behavior pattern. For history has shown that the Ayras of the world - who practice vengeance and can't forgive, do not succeed.

[kikimay]

As it's wrote above book!Cersei is very different from show!Cersei. I'm sympathetic towards show!Cersei and I'm totally amused by the evilness of book!Cersei so, in the end, I don't hate her at all. She's just a bad person but she spices the plot.

I love Gwen from Torchwood. I can't understand the hate for her because she's maybe my favourite character of all. She's strong, compassionate and funny. How can somebody hate her? I can't stand Jack instead, so maybe I'm an exception.

The only female character I kinda dislike is Gweneviere from Merlin. But I didn't dislike her per se, she's very nice, but her Mary Sue characteristics (Like every man around her was mysteriously in love with her etc) I guess that I don't like the idea of "perfection" associated to a female character, because I think that female characters - like male characters - should be complex and flawed. I demand equality in the complexity of the portrayal.

(I also liked Illyria more than Fred. Actually because Fred was, once again, "too perfect" in the eyes of everyone, while Illyria was most complex and she was very machiavellian in her conception of power. Anyway Amy Acker was simply the greatest for portraying both characters so good)

And I just don't express judgement towards the characters in TWD because I think it's one of the most badly written shows ever and the characters - all of them - are like puppets.


EDIT: I think I did something wrong with the answer, so I deleted and rewrote it.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I get your issues with Fred - a lot of that was just the writing. Writers should not be permitted to write for characters they have a huge crush on. Just saying.I had similar issues with Cordelia and Riley at various points because of the stupid writers. That's a separate issue.

Agree with you on Torchwood - although I was admittedly ambivalent towards Jack, Ianto on the other hand grated on my nerves. I don't know why.

Gwen on Merlin was written unevenly. And it did not help that only female cast members were Gwen and Morgana. Honestly if you were a Knight of the Round Table who would you love Gwen or the evil Morgana? The other female characters were either working for Morgana or dead on arrival. That series was a bit too male centric for its own good. Fred had similar issues on Angel - there were only two female cast members, so of course they had to have a romance with all of the men. Weirdly, Buffy didn't go that route and in some respects the male characters - although I suppose you could say that Xander managed to boink or kiss just about everyone in that cast at some point.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

I think there are 2 parts to this issue. One is the general one of why female characters seem to be disliked. The other involves specific cases. I'll leave the first one alone for now, except to say that I think the early reaction to Amber Benson is a good example of what you have in mind.

To answer some specifics, I dislike Sansa because I like strong female characters (Buffy, Arya), and Sansa is weak. She's naive, foolish, helpless, kind of like Buffy when she put on Ethan's dress in Halloween. I should add that she only really starts to develop as a character (for me) when she goes off with LF to the Vale. For one thing, nobody deserves LF. For another, she finally begins to develop both an understanding that people are playing her and some backbone to counter that.

Cersei is in a different league. She's the villain. We're supposed to hate her (authorial intent). She does come across as more nuanced in the show, but that's a function of the fact that LH is so good with her, and the fact that many of her worst actions haven't happened yet. As I see it, we're no more supposed to like Cersei than we are the Evil Queen in Snow White.

As far as GoT generally, I see lots of internet love for the stronger female characters, particularly Arya and Asha and Ygritte. I'm speculating, but perhaps the contrast is between weak characters (Tara at first, Sansa) and stronger ones (Arya, Buffy). Admittedly, that doesn't explain the internet dislike for Buffy in S6/7.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I can't say I disagree in regards to Sansa. As you may already know from reading my posts on Game of Thrones - I didn't start to warm to Sansa until late in book 3 and in Feast of Crows, around the time she took off with Little Finger. Mainly because around that time she starts to show some strength and cunning. She's actually quite strong in her own right, she just doesn't resort to violence like her sister does. Instead, she is clever, kind and careful. That's how she escaped King's Landing, and to a degree death at her Aunt's hands.

What I've begun to pick up on...is a societal tendency to worship "masculain traits" over "feminine ones" - keeping in mind everyone has a combination of both. Spike is a perfect example of a character who exhibited both traits, but hated the feminine ones - until that is, he fell in love with Buffy and began to embrace them - because Buffy encouraged those traits, until the Seventh Season, when she pushed him the other way, he had to embrace both.
Buffy is another perfect example of a character who exhibited both traits, and why she remains amongst my favorites - she was strong but permitted to be "feminine", she was the gentle warrior. She managed to win often through non-violent means, using violence when she had to. Willow equally demonstrated both traits.

Ayra is a bit too one way, as is Brienne, both seem to shirking their feminine traits - hating them, because of the world they inhabit - a world that is uber-masculain, or too male. There's no balance. So it's eternally at war with itself. The feminine characters in that story are deliberately written as appearing to be weak - but, there are a couple who aren't. Little Finger, Cersei, and Tyrion. Also Jamie...is beginning to exhibit more feminine characteristics - with the loss of his hand.

But I remember fans in the Buffy fandom, hating Spike for exhibiting feminine traits.

[sophist.livejournal.com]

"What I've begun to pick up on...is a societal tendency to worship "masculain traits" over "feminine ones" - keeping in mind everyone has a combination of both."

An excellent point. I plead guilty (having been pretty much caught red-handed). I still love Arya, though.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

To be fair? I think everyone is - it's really hard to fight against over two hundred years worth of conditioning.

[treadingthedark.livejournal.com]

The only show of all of these I have watched is Buffy and Angel. I tend to think a lot of the hate CAN be chalked up to shipping. I hadn't connected with fandom yet during the Tara criticism but I can't help but wonder if it was the Willow/Oz shippers.

I always liked Fred, but I had no emotional attachment to any ship in that show.
I didn't necessarily like the way Buffy treated Spike sometimes in season 6, but I understood she was messed up, and so was he. I still cared about her. It wasn't until season 7s "Does it have to mean anything?" and then the Bangel reunion kiss that I got angry at her.
So my Buffy dislike was admittedly shipping related.

And in my travels through Buffy boards I encounter a TON of Spike hate. Probably more Spike hate than any other kind. In the general Buffy fandom it's big. Aside from the occasional "Xander got shafted" crowd, it's mostly Bangel shippers. That's probably why most Spike/Spuffy fans keep to themselves, their own spaces.

But the appearance thing is definitely sexist. David Boreanaz was kind of a mess in some of the later Angel seasons, but all of the focus went to Cordy's bad hair.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I tend to think a lot of the hate CAN be chalked up to shipping.

Quite true. I've noticed it in other fandoms outside Buffy. Rose/Doctor shippers basically hate any woman paired with him romantically. That's just one example. Shipper's tend to watch tv series with blinders on. Which is the down-side of shipping, actually. You miss half the story. I found myself appreciating Buffy more when I wasn't actively shipping anyone or any relationship in it.

That said, a lot of misogyny comes out...during it.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

*Skylar is always in a hard place where she has to negotiate the dangers to her family that Walt presents. I like Walt -- he's the protagonist -- so Skylar's attempts to exercise power from a position of weakness can seem annoying. I can tell, though, that she's a formidable and well drawn character and when Walt works with her, they make a stronger pair.

Nevertheless, I do sometimes find her annoying, even if just out of protagonist privilege.

*Skye is drafted into the MAOS team. The rest of them seem to have no ethical problem with following orders from an unaccountable corrupt secret agency with no respect for the rule of law or human rights. I watch every show hoping to see them strung up for life as war criminals.

Protagonist privilege isn't strong enough to make me like these guys. I fear I'd derive some guilty pleasure from seeing Fitz, Simmons, or Ward die a horrible death. Especially I'd like to see Fitz or Simmons suffer; as a scientist, I feel strongly about our ethical obligations to care how our work is used.

Skye is good when she's a skeptic, but best when she's driving mischief and skepticism in her team. I want to see her undermine their obedient ethical obliviousness. Still, she's kind of wooden; maybe the actress will improve.

*I feel like Sansa should have been able to see Joffrey for what he is much earlier. Doesn't she have an obligation to her pet dog to care what happened to her?

In the long run, she has potential to learn to play the King's Landing game, though. That would make her interesting.

*Rose annoys me with the heavy uneducated working class vibe. I saw enough of that growing up. Now I can't sit through an episode of King Of The Hill and I root for Rumpole Of The Bailey's clients to go to jail.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

*Breaking Bad - is sort of interesting. If you bought into Walter White's pov and were either a fan of the character or liked him, Skylar would most likely annoy you. Because she annoyed Walt. And if you shipped Jesse/Walt - you'd also dislike Skylar. (Often as others have stated above - the hate comes from shipping - whether it's one character or two. This happens in all fandoms. "If you interfere with my ship - you are dead to me!")

I was an odd duck - I never liked Walter White. Actually it's why I struggled with the series for the first two seasons - because I disliked the lead character. But since he was an interesting, extremely well-written, and perfectly acted character - I found a way past that. They made him layered - and weirdly likable at times. Also, it helped that I despised Lydia, Todd, and his former business partners (the rich couple). Gus, I loved to hate.

So for me - Skylar, Hank and his wife, and to a degree Jesse (when he wasn't feeling sorry for himself or propping up Walt) were actually the most likable characters. But Walt was by far the most interesting.

So, I didn't completely buy into the protagonist privilege. But I admittedly did more so than ahem MAoS.

And you are right - some of the Skylar hate or dislike can be attributed to "protagonist privilege" (or whose point of view you happen to be in) and Jesse/Walter shipping. LOL! Not misogyny. We need to be careful about generalizing on this point - there's a broad range of reasons to dislike/hate or love a specific fictional character.

* Skye is drafted into the MAOS team. The rest of them seem to have no ethical problem with following orders from an unaccountable corrupt secret agency with no respect for the rule of law or human rights. I watch every show hoping to see them strung up for life as war criminals.


LOL! Oh, me too. Agree actually with everything you said about MAoS.


Skye is good when she's a skeptic, but best when she's driving mischief and skepticism in her team. I want to see her undermine their obedient ethical obliviousness. Still, she's kind of wooden; maybe the actress will improve.

Problem here is the actress isn't good enough to carry off the role - although it's not like the role is layered or well-written to begin with.
But that said - she's still the best thing in the series, which unfortunately is why I gave up on it.

Rose annoys me with the heavy uneducated working class vibe. I saw enough of that growing up. Now I can't sit through an episode of King Of The Hill and I root for Rumpole Of The Bailey's clients to go to jail.

Admittedly this may have been my issue with Rose as well - due to my own experiences with legal aid, defender project and various family members.
I had similar issues with Raising Hope after a while. The cliche is annoying.

[vamp-mogs.livejournal.com]

I’ll never understand the Skylar hate. I don’t believe anyone can look at all those characters objectively and claim she is any worse than Walt, Jesse or Hank and she’s portrayed by a very talented actress so that can’t be the issue either. I pretty much have to chalk it up to sexism and internalised misogyny because I don’t see the justification for why she would be singled out for so much vitriol. It’s a pattern with so many shows.

Honestly, most Buffy-hate I’ve seen in fandom has to do with shipping. Spike fans (particularly females) loathe her for how she treat Spike (never mind the way he treat her at times) or in their eyes for not loving him back (as if she owes it to him or something) and Xander fans (mostly male) resent her for picking the vampires over Xander (aka THEM). In both cases shippers act like Buffy was obligated to love their guy just because he fell for her and if she doesn’t see how awesome/loveable/hot/good for her he is then she’s a cold stone bitch, basically. I know we can’t help which characters we identify with but I must admit that it depresses me more with BtVS than any other show that there’s still so many fans that are outright dismissive of the female characters in favour for the male characters. I just find it depressing given the show’s themes and mission statement. And 99% of the time the Bangel VS Spuffy shipping wars are really just Angel VS Spike with fans acting as if Buffy is just some trophy to be won.

I have noticed a lot of sexism when it comes to Spuffy in comparison to Angel/Darla and Wes/Lilah too. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen fans (almost always male in this case) claim that Buffy stopped being a hero the moment she slept with soulless Spike and basically shame her and act as if she’s been permanently “tainted” for having sex with a monster. Meanwhile, no one says a word about Angel being tainted for having sex with soulless Darla and Wes is just totally cool and badass the moment he starts toting shotguns and sleeping with Lilah. To the writer’s credit I never got a sense the actual shows were being sexist in this way and they always treat Buffy, Wes and Angel the same (they were all shamed at one point or another by other characters for sleeping with villains, which isn’t great but at least there was no double standards).

I remember reading a review of The Avengers and ended up browsing a comic book forum afterwards. All I saw was fans criticising Scarlett Johansson and debating whether she was a good actress or not. There was absolutely no comment on any of the male actors and the only other person to be criticised was some random comments about how bad Natalie Portman was as Jane in Thor. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at how typical it was that the female characters/actors were targeted but not a single male.

I’m a bit of an odd duck as I find myself gravitating towards female characters far more than I do male characters and I’m a guy. If a show doesn’t have any female characters or well-written female characters it’s pretty rare that it’ll hold my interest for long. I think it’s why I’m loving AHS so much at the moment because the cast is pretty much all women. I can't really say why I find them more interesting but I think it's probably because actresses are allowed to more emotive and expressive.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Part of this...is well heterosexual attraction. ie, I think we do think with our...well not our brains or necessarily our hearts when we are watching television series. Which is shipping in a way.

A lot of Spike shippers fell for Spike in a sexual manner - which the actor and writers encouraged. Let's face it they marketed Spike and Angel as sex symbols. Hollywood does that a lot - it markets sex, as a means of selling its product and obtaining viewers. Buffy was the character many women either identified with or the pov they were in - if Buffy boinked Spike, they did so vicariously through her. They wanted Spike, so why didn't she?

This also happened with a lot of male viewers - who fantasized about Buffy in a sexual manner. (This I found a bit more disturbing, not the male viewers but the marketing. The show actively marketed an actress who was 17/18 as a sex object with pump up bras (she actually wore those) to increase her bust and short-short skirts. When she was in her 20s, she stopped and wore slacks and less sexy outfits...which is weird and disturbing, and makes me wonder about the people marketing this show.) At any rate, a lot of men fell for Buffy and wanted to boink her - so they did it through Xander, Xander was their pov (they couldn't identify with Angel, although a few may have or for that matter Spike.)

So, if you were thinking with ahem...then you may have been doing that. And it's not like the writers, network, producers and actors weren't pushing you to think that way - they were going out of their way to make you do so. Because you know, sex sells.

That said, I agree with what you stated above, this is not necessarily always the case. For example - I actually liked Buffy, and now that I'm past my Spike obsession (which was due to a combination of factors, including raw sex appeal), I find that she's my favorite character in the series. And I often require a strong female character in a series in order to watch it, with a few exceptions here and there. Although though those series tend to have strong female characters - if just in supporting roles.

I admittedly struggled with Breaking Bad because for a while because it didn't appear to have any strong female characters in it, when I discovered that I was wrong - and it did have two - Skylar and her sister, I changed my mind. My view of strength was out of wack, once I adjusted my view - I found the series more appealing.

[fishsanwitt]

I loved this post.

Thank you!