When I was a junior in high school, my all-time favorite class, Film Studies, hosted its bi-annual “Oscars” to celebrate all the films we watched that semester. Although we had serious categories like “best picture” or “best cinematography,” we usually got fairly silly with our other categories. We had categories like “best fight” and “worst actor;” however, the category that stuck with me the most after our first ceremony was “most annoying character.” My jaw dropped when I saw the list my classmates put together; every single nominee was a woman.
Besides the fact that the category only consisted of female nominees, what surprised me the most was seeing many of my favorite female characters from the year on the list. The other students in the class were subsequently forced to hear the same sentiment I’ve said over and over again throughout the semester – all of these characters are not annoying, they’re misunderstood. Female characters are frequently criticized and labeled as “annoying” by viewers, while male characters are often praised as fan favorites for exhibiting similar traits. So, here is a list of my favorite misunderstood female characters.
1) Ginny Miller, Ginny and Georgia
The primary reason I often hear people disliking Ginny for, aside from just sheer misogyny, is that she is ungrateful or disrespectful to Georgia. People constantly forget, or choose to ignore, that Ginny is a 15-year-old girl. Fans criticize Ginny for her treatment of her mother, but never take into account her perspective: she feels as if the murder of her step-dad is her fault. Her mother told her at only 15 that she killed someone for her, which inevitably caused Ginny to develop many complex feelings towards her mother. We have seen throughout the three seasons of the series that Ginny genuinely loves and cares for her mother, but she has simultaneously had to become a second mother to her younger brother due to her mother’s immaturities. She is a black teenage girl in a predominantly white town struggling with depression, self-harm, and racism. Because of that, she inevitably acts out. From the outside, she is just a “bratty” teenager when in reality, she’s deeply struggling, and we see this blatantly spelled out for us in season two within her therapy sessions.
What I find especially interesting is that when her love interest, Marcus, is struggling with depression, he is universally sympathized with. When it’s Ginny, she is demonized. Why is that? To me, it has to do with the fact that she is one of the only black women in the show. She may seem ungrateful or rude at times, but it’s important to look at her character with nuance. Yes, she makes mistakes and can even be annoying at times, but her behavior does not warrant the misogynistic and racist hate train she gets after each season drops. Especially since she is not much different from the other characters, like Marcus, in the series, who we see struggling with the same things.
2) Rory gilmore, gilmore girls
As someone who grew up watching Gilmore Girls, I have always loved Rory. I always viewed her as a teen who thinks she has everything figured out, but as she gets older, she soon learns that the life she had planned out is not spanning out the way she’s always dreamed. Rory’s main arc in the second part of the series surrounds her confusion having to do with her future. She is a perfect example of a woman becoming lost in college, specifically, after her boss tells her she doesn’t have what it takes. She doesn’t know what she wants to do in the future, and yes, she inevitably makes mistakes. The whole root of her story is not to portray a perfect girl next door; she is supposed to be someone who is perfect and messes up. She gets with the wrong guy, drops out of school, and even gets arrested. Rory was never meant to be perfect, even if that’s what she was portrayed as in the earlier seasons. It definitely became hard to defend her at some points in the later seasons when she inevitably made mistakes, but she embodies what it means to be a once hopeful-teen-turned-imperfect-adult.
3) Belly Conklin, The Summer I Turned Pretty
For any TV lover who defends female characters with everything in them, this summer was a difficult one. Defending Belly Conklin truly became my full-time job. Since she chose to reject Conrad on the beach in episode seven, she has become a target of one of the worst hate-trains I’ve seen in recent years. According to social media, she was too harsh to Conrad and her saying “I’ve put up with a lot worse from you” was completely ridiculous. And while yes I agree it is untrue, with some simple analysis, it is clear that what she feels for Conrad is much deeper than with Jeremiah. Conrad forgetting a corsage destroyed her, while Jeremiah cheating hurt, but not in the way Conrad could ever hurt her, because of how much she loves Conrad. She was terrified to be with him because if he hurt her or if she ever were to lose him, she’d actually be heartbroken, unlike with Jeremiah. As someone who loves a good angsty love confession, the beach scene was one of my favorites of the season. However, it was very strange to me that Conrad didn’t get any hate for confessing his love the night before Belly’s wedding, when he had three years to tell her, but when Belly gets emotional or “mean,” she gets berated by social media. Conrad is universally loved and understood. He’s definitely flawed, but it’s understandable because he is struggling. When Belly, a 21-year-old girl, is flawed and makes some questionable decisions at times, no one even attempts to understand her. She made many mistakes throughout season three; however, it was clear why. She was confused after being betrayed by her long-term partner; she was entering a new phase of her life and developing deeper feelings for Conrad. But is being flawed only okay when we are discussing an angsty male character?
4) Fiona Gallagher, Shameless
When it comes to Fiona Gallagher, I can go on forever. Fiona is undoubtedly in my top three fictional characters of all time. It is hard to explain to Fiona-haters why I love her because she has definitely made some very poor decisions throughout the show, but so has every other character on Shameless. The Gallaghers have experienced poverty, abuse, homelessness, and addiction. In Fiona’s case, she’s had to become a parent of five children at nine years old, she’s been heavily sexualized, she’s been in toxic relationships, and she’s even been in prison. It’s important we contextualize her character, and not see her through a surface-level point of view of “well, she did this bad thing.” Instead, see her as a girl in an abusive situation who is a product of her environment. To hate Fiona is to hate every single character on Shameless. After all, they’ve each had their fair share of screw-ups.
Look at female characters with nuance
I can’t change everyone’s mind about these characters; however, my main goal is for TV fans to look at female characters with nuance. I want TV fans to give women an ounce of the sympathy they give to men. I see so many people coddle and obsess over male characters who are flawed, who make mistakes, or are even just downright evil. But when it comes to female characters, if they are not absolutely perfect, which is impossible, they are shunned. No screenwriter is writing a character for them to simply be “annoying.” No matter if they are a hero or a villain, they have layers to them. When I watch shows now, I always think to myself, “Would this universally loved, possibly flawed, male character receive the same love if he were a woman?” Unfortunately, the answer is no, that is, until viewers start looking at women as full-fledged people ,instead of only looking at them for their mistakes.