Modern entertainment audiences are always demanding the return of “complex female characters,” but realistically female characters are eaten alive for doing so much as breathing when the audience doesn’t see them fit. Which characters get to receive praise for their “complexity” and which get torn down?
Beginning with the early 2000s autumnal it-girl herself: Rory Gilmore. Arguably one of the most, if not the most, hated Gilmore Girls character, but what is it about her that is so seriously off-putting? High school age, 15-18 year old “Chilton” Rory was seriously beloved. Back when she was driven, had a bright future ahead of her, respectful of her family, and when her biggest dilemma was picking between Dean, Tristan, and Jess. She was arguably a very flat character, which the audience perhaps find joy and comfort in, as most look to Gilmore Girls for a light-hearted laugh or romantic slow burn.
The shift towards annoyance and hatred comes when Rory goes to Yale and begins to struggle to know who she is and where she belongs, making a series of questionable decisions. She gets a D on a paper, steals a yacht, starts dating Logan, drops out of Yale, cuts contact with her mom, and moves in with her grandparents (to name a few). Rory is no longer the sweet, focused, and unassuming young girl the audience once knew her to be. She’s now a whirlwind of mistakes and messy decisions, and for that she is dogpiled on. But why should her imperfectness award her such hate? People often want media to be about things they can aspire to or characters to be people they can both relate to and look up to, but I think having characters that act uncomfortably close to how people do in real life is just as important.
Take Devi Vishwakumar from Never Have I Ever, Belly Conklin from The Summer I Turned Pretty, and Janine Teagues from Abbott Elementary as additional examples. No one looks at these young women and immediately dreams of having their lives (aside from maybe Belly), like they would for Summer Roberts from The O.C. or Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl. They’re less glamorous and more widely disliked for acting irrationally, making impulsive decisions, and speaking from emotion rather than the mind, just as many do in everyday life. These characters have been ridiculed for giving audiences second-hand embarrassment, for choosing the wrong guys, and for losing themselves in relationships, and therefore not prioritizing their own dreams, which — wait a second — reminds me of almost every person on earth!
People aren’t perfect and characters should reflect that. Not every character that encapsulates a young woman finding her way in her late teens and early 20s needs to be a “boss-woman” that always has her priorities straight and knows what she wants. It’s not anti-feminist for Belly to be boy-obsessed, Janine doesn’t have to be less cringe to be lovable, Rory isn’t some spoiled brat for stumbling and dropping out, and Devi doesn’t need to chill out to prove she’s growing. Messy doesn’t have to mean meaningless and these characters’ contradictions don’t have to be flaws that need fixing, as long as audiences are willing to embrace female characters that reflect them as humans.