Plenty of young women love a good female villain, whether she’s deep and complex or a Scooby-Doo-level hooligan. There are villains like Maleficent from the movie Maleficent, who you can sympathize with and understand as a multi-dimensional character. Her story is one of tragedy and raises questions of true evil and redemption.
There are also villains like Raquelle from Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse, who serves as more of a character foil and has no greater purpose than to fail in a silly way. Raquelle, Maleficent, and all the morally gray women in between them are important media representations. Everyone can be a little evil.
However, there are plenty of women in movies and TV who are intensely villainized by their audience when that isn’t their intended purpose. Fictional women often aren’t afforded the same ability to exist between good and evil that men are.
Considering that it’s now Women’s History Month, I wanted to argue for some of these women who, in the context of their shows, didn’t really do anything wrong. They just weren’t their male counterparts.
- Lori Grimes from The Walking Dead
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Lori Grimes was the first woman I thought of when I sat down to make this list. As the wife of the main protagonist of the show, Rick Grimes, she was bound to face scrutiny for her decisions. She receives little grace from the audience for any of her mistakes.
When Lori thinks her husband is dead at the beginning of the series, she takes up a relationship with his best friend, Shane. Upon finding out her husband is alive, she immediately severs her connection with Shane.
It’s Shane who continues to push Lori to see him romantically. Lori gets all the flak from the audience; they never let go of the fact that she “cheated” while she thought her husband was gone forever.
In the later seasons, just before her death, she receives more criticism for her behavior. She’s pregnant in the apocalypse, with no modern medicine to help her through it. The audience ignores the context surrounding Lori’s actions and consistently portrays her as a malicious figure who gets in the way of the men’s bold, high-impact actions. I say, she was a mother trying her best.
- Nancy Wheeler from Stranger Things
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I still don’t understand exactly why people hate Nancy Wheeler. She’s headstrong, a little stubborn, and just wants to keep her friends and family safe. In all honesty, I’ve always thought her and Jim Hopper were incredibly similar. People love Hopper, but they don’t always love Nancy Wheeler.
One reason people don’t like Nancy is because of her relationships with the men in her life. Either she isn’t good enough for Steve, unfair to Jonathan, or it’s somehow her fault that the love triangle was so drawn out.
Besides her messy teenage relationships, people think she exists only to be the “strong female” character on the cast. The show tells us she’s so much more than that. She isn’t just a brave woman — Nancy is a scared teenage girl. The audience seems to forget that.
- Trinity Santos from The Pitt
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This is a newer, more controversial character, but I think viewers of The Pitt have wildly misunderstood Trinity Santos. A competitive, female med student working in the ER is doomed to face backlash. Especially when she stands up to her male superior.
Santos is witty, eager, and cocky. The show explicitly tells the audience that she’s great at her job. What the show also tells us is that her male superior, Frank Langdon, is exactly like her. It isn’t any surprise that they don’t get along.
However, the audience forgives Langdon easily, even when it’s revealed he’s been stealing drugs from the ER. Santos, who reported him, isn’t allowed that grace.
Santos is also a lesbian and Filipina. Women of color and lesbian women usually face much more scrutiny from the general audience than straight white women. All she did was her job, but can you say the same for her male character foil?
- Elle Greenaway from Criminal Minds
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This might be the most controversial take on this list, but you need to hear me out. The Criminal Minds fandom deeply misunderstands Elle Greenaway. She’s a complex character who was a great addition to the show. Why is it that people hate her so much?
Many fans think that Elle was rude, but I don’t think this was the case. She was just as abrasive or confrontational as her male counterparts, such as Derek Morgan and Aaron Hotchner. They’re all young, cocky FBI agents. Their attitudes make sense.
What I think really turned audiences against Elle was her one instance of rudeness toward the fandom’s darling, Spencer Reid. Most Criminal Minds fans are fiercely protective of this character, to the point of alienating women like Elle Greenaway.
I think that Elle was a great character, but fell victim to a male-centered audience and writers who threw her under the bus.
- Mel Medarda from Arcane
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I’m very new to Arcane, but Mel has quickly become one of my favorite characters. As a chronically online teenage girl, I was very aware of the Arcane fandom before I watched it, as well as the discourse surrounding Mel. Now that I’ve seen the show, I don’t know why social media users seem to hate her so much.
One argument that I see a lot is that Mel is manipulative toward another character, Jayce. This is fair to an extent. I think that her manipulation is less selfish than people make it out to be. She’s a morally gray character in a cast of morally gray characters, but people pick on her more than others.
Mel is a Black woman, so a lot of the hate that she receives could be attributed to racism from both the audience and the writers. As I said when talking about Trinity Santos, women of color are much more often targets of unfair scrutiny.
Another possible contributor to this hate is that fans perceive her as “getting in the way” of their ship between two male characters, Jayce and Viktor. Many fictional women face malicious behavior from a fandom seeking more content about their ship. Mel is a complex character who deserves a much more nuanced analysis.
The next time you watch a show with a woman you hate, stop and think about what she’s doing for a second. The cameras and our own biases aren’t always so forgiving. Women deserve to be a little morally ambiguous, too.
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