Why Are Complex Female Characters So Hated?

The Pitt is a show that everyone’s been talking about recently because of how it addresses current political issues within the healthcare system and sheds light on the complex struggles and lives of doctors both personally and professionally. Expectedly, there is also discourse on the doctors themselves and their unique issues, but I noticed a pattern more specifically surrounding the female doctors on this show in comparison to their male counterparts. Namely: there was an exorbitant amount of criticism and lack of media literacy when it came to discussing these prominent female doctors. When it comes to female characters in media, why is it that their characters are often mischaracterized to the point of slander while equally complicated male characters get a free pass? 

The Pitt has an incredibly meticulous nature embedded in the writing, blocking, and character dispositions. One of the most widely debated characters in this show is Dr. Santos, a second year resident with an over-confident, snarky, and sarcastic personality combined with a  strong moral compass. As expected, her over-confidence sometimes puts her in precarious situations that also puts her patients at risk. While this is a character flaw, she is only an R2 that is still learning how to be a doctor — but the response online tends to be very extreme, categorizing her as “cocky”, “difficult”, or “problematic” almost immediately. A stark contrast in opinion comes from her character foil, Dr. Langdon, who was an addict and stole prescriptions from the ER. You would expect that a man who literally stole drugs (a class four felony in the United States) would be getting the same backlash as a cocky student doctor, because while their character flaws differ in severity, the issue of putting people in danger as a doctor due to personal faults is an issue, right? 

Painfully, Langdon’s character gets little to no backlash about committing a literal felony. To be incredibly clear and concise, drug addiction is an incredibly complex disease that requires an immense amount of empathy and care. It’s more so the audience’s lack of empathy and understanding of Santos’ character in comparison to Langdon’s that deeply disturbs me. How is it that a female character whose only crime is having an over-inflated ego, (which in actuality was disparaged by Langdon’s character in a scene from the first season), is somehow the worst character in hospital that has characters that are guilty of theft, neglecting patients, and dismissing patients to the point it causes immense issues later on? 

Of course, a common rebuttal to the defense of Santos is often that she too is guilty of some of these actions in season two (dismissing patients’ worries and being unprofessional) which, when compounded with her cocky nature, is just too much to consider her as redeemable or likeable in any capacity. To that rebuttal, I raise my eyebrow and wonder how much media literacy is dead. The point of complex characters like Dr. Santos, who has been hinted at (very evidently) as being a victim of childhood abuse and as a result deals with depression, is that you notice her struggles and see how her background impacts her not only as a person, but also as a doctor. Her strong moral compass is both a strength and a detriment to her work, similar to how Langdon’s headstrong nature can be admirable in certain situations and deplorable in others. The point isn’t that she has to be the most likeable character in the series, or even that you have to like her. The point is that she very clearly gets overly reprimanded by the audience for her actions in comparison to male characters in the show that demonstrate similar character flaws. 

I think that the audience’s reception of a character reflects a much bigger issue in our society we all know deep down — grace is given time and time again to men no matter what they do, while women are expected to dull themselves down and be as digestible as possible in order for people to like them. And even then, people will find something “wrong” or “something that just rubs them the wrong way” about a female character so they can justify their misogyny — another restriction not given to male characters. So next time you’re watching The Pitt or another show with a female character that doesn’t fit into your idea of what a woman should be like, I implore you to think deeply about why women being nuanced and complex makes you uncomfortable. 

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