"I Have a Character Issue"

You mention Ginny Weasley and I'm immediately drawn back to my days in the HP fandom. So, so, so many people who don't know what actors are. There were actually hate blogs devoted to picking on the actresses' looks—calling her ugly and etc... This kind of thing doesn't really happen to male actors, same as they don't get virginity countdown blogs. Irrational hatred at its best for no particular reason.

I will say that I don't like Skyler and I don't like Ginny Weasley. For the same reasons I don't like Finn Hudson, or really any of the male characters on Glee or Gray's Anatomy. They're underdrawn, hypocritical, and boring. Though, lately, Skyler has actually started to develop past the annoying wife trope she was originally presented as—I would've appreciated if she'd been given her own story line and development, like Betty Draper (who I'd really like if Mad Men weren't so slow). I, honestly, think Breaking Bad has a problem with writing good female characters that can stand on par with the guys, but that's another thread.

As you can tell, I used to watch far too much Netflix.

Yorkist said:

Eh, the "I hate whatshisname" group has a little over a thousand followers. Definitely not buying that it's all equal.

Click to expand...

Wesley Crusher's hatedom precedes Facebook by over a decade.

lilyWhite said:

I don't watch much TV, but when I think about female "bitch" characters in games, my first thoughts go to Morrigan (Dragon Age), Jack, and Aria T'Loak (Mass Effect), all of whom are popular characters in their fandoms.

Click to expand...

I actually think this is an interesting point. Other posters have mentioned that they can't think of any male characters who have gotten this kind of hate. I can: Carth Onasi, a male character from another Bioware game (all characters/games that LilyWhite mentions are created by Bioware).

He's the male love interest for a female player character, and male gamers hated him.

And lots of Bioware fans really do love Morrigan, Jack, and Aria.

Which makes me feel like the issue is more about defied expectations than anything else. For the Bioware audience (which is smaller and much more narrow in interest/focus than the audience for something like a television show), they expect certain things out of their games. One of the things that they expect is a woman who spends most of the game brooding and snarking. Most of the time they get to stick their pixel dick in her pixel vagina, thus taming the beast. It's one of the things that draws people to things like Bioware RPGs.

What they didn't expect when Knights of the Old Republic (Carth Onasi's video game) came out way back in 2003 was a complex dude with a sexy voice for the ladies to coax out of mourning and into their beds.

Many male gamers were *pissed* that this female fantasy sneaked into their RPG. Their expectations were not met. They got angry.

I think all of the hate for characters like Skyler White is born of the same sort of attitude that makes Bioware gamers love characters like Morrigan and hate characters like Carth. TV viewers expect their TV wives to be flatter and more submissive. In Skyler White, their expectations were not met. They got angry.

So I think it's wrong to say that there isn't sexism at work here. There is--the fact that people expect their female characters to be less complex and less assertive than the male characters is sexism at work.

But I think its also wrong to say male characters are inherently immune to such vitriol--it's just that the sort of narrow-minded people who join internet hate groups for fictional characters expect complexity from their male television characters. Maybe not so much from their female characters.

This makes me want to scream at things.

lilyWhite said:

Wesley Crusher's hatedom precedes Facebook by over a decade.

Click to expand...

Oh, Wesley Crusher. My sister and I watched Star Trek TNG when we were kids - we were obsessed with it. But we both loathed Wesley Crusher with the white hot hate of a thousand suns. We actually derived a great deal of pleasure - and still do - from mocking that character. Every time he appeared on screen it dragged the programme down, so we felt fully justified.

Nothing against the actor, who seems a decent bloke and has been good in other stuff, but the hate we felt for Wesley (we'd heard that some people had "Nuke Wesley" badges and for a while, it was our dearest hope to own one) has never been matched by any other character.

Some characters are just terrible. It's doesn't always have to do with the sex of the person playing them. Had Wesley been Wesleyina it would have made no difference to the sister and me.

I am almost afraid to ask, but what is a virginity countdown blog?

Also I don't understand that people hated Ginny. Is it because she eventually dates Harry? Personally I loved both Ginny and Hermione. They were my favorites in the series.

I don't get the Betty hatred either. She was an interesting and complex character and seemed to be her own worst enemy. I was hoping she would eventually find herself, but like many people she keeps making the same mistakes over and over. I did get the impression that some of the writers were never too fond of her and had her do hateful things that were out of character, even for her.

Yorkist said:

Apologies if this isn't the right forum or if I'm duplicating a thread.

Great article from the NYT about the insane amount of vitriol that a character, and the actress playing her, receives from the fans of a TV show.

This isn't a new thing; I've noticed it with Katherine Heigl's character in Gray's Anatomy and Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter, and perhaps to a lesser extent with Catelyn from Game of Thrones/ASOIAF and Betty Draper from Mad Men. But wow, didn't know it got this bad or that it was such a common phenomenon.

Anna Gunn on playing Skylar White, from Breaking Bad:

Holy Moses.

Click to expand...

I think there's a difference in the things you note.

People may hate Heigl's character, but they also really hate Heigl herself. The woman is the subject of kind of endless vitriol and ridicule. I've never seen Grey's and I find Heigl really offputting.

I do watch Mad Men and while I find Betty godawful, I also hate January Jones. I think she's a terrible actor and is offputting in a general, undefinable sense. Considering the flack Jones has gotten for some of her other roles, and even for being cast in some roles, I don't think I'm alone.

I don't know if it's better or worse, but I don't think it's all based in the characters or perception of them.

I've had hatred for one or two female characters, but it was more a matter of Mary Sue in the accusative case (™RichardGarfinkle), in which case the male writers were so obviously jerking off to the actress or the character that it constantly yanked me out of the narrative with its soul-sucking tornado of the male gaze.

Click to expand...

This sums up exactly how I felt about the character of Thirteen in 'House'. Could've been an interesting, likeable character if left to do medicine, fret about her illness and fire off snarks in the background, but the enforced centre-stage and revolution of nearly every storyline around her in some way, coupled with constant switches between damsel-in-distress scenes (I've been taken hostage! Now I've got a brain tumour! Now I'm in prison!) and constant reminders that the actress won Maxim's 'Sexiest Woman' award - along with male-gaze pandering lipstick lesbian scenes - I mean, in the end the character was just a hot mess of a male writer's obsession with the actress.

I like Olivia Wilde well enough, though.

And lots of Bioware fans really do love Morrigan, Jack, and Aria.
.....
One of the things that they expect is a woman who spends most of the game brooding and snarking. Most of the time they get to stick their pixel dick in her pixel vagina, thus taming the beast

Click to expand...

Yup. Add to the fact that Jack and Morrigan are both heavily sexualised (yes, Jack's got a shaven head and a shit ton of tattoos but her trousers are so low-slung you can see what she's had for dinner, and she wears a piece of rope covering her nipples. That's it. Never mind the breast enhancement she had in the third game.) Aria's not especially sexualised, though, which is pretty cool.

It's almost as if they're allowed to be bitchy and 'uppity' as long as the male gamer can ogle them - and, preferably, heal their bitchiness with his magic in-game cock a la the Shepherd/Jack romance.

UndergoingMitosis said:

What they didn't expect when Knights of the Old Republic (Carth Onasi's video game) came out way back in 2003 was a complex dude with a sexy voice for the ladies to coax out of mourning and into their beds.

Many male gamers were *pissed* that this female fantasy sneaked into their RPG. Their expectations were not met. They got angry.

Click to expand...

From my experience, most of the hatedom against Carth is based on him being whiny and angsty and having a more generic character than others in the game. ("My family was killed by the Evil Empire. I want to kill the guy who did it. Now I'm just going to be brooding over here until the game eggs you into talking to me.")

Besides, it's kind of a trend for the early human companions to be unpopular/less popular in BioWare's sci-fi games. Bastila has a hatedom of her own, as well as Kaidan and Ashley in ME1 and Miranda and Jacob in ME2. (The fandom even whined about James Vega before ME3 came out, though he turned out to be fairly popular after the game's release.)

crunchyblanket said:

Yup. Add to the fact that Jack and Morrigan are both heavily sexualised (yes, Jack's got a shaven head and a shit ton of tattoos but her trousers are so low-slung you can see what she's had for dinner, and she wears a piece of rope covering her nipples. That's it. Never mind the breast enhancement she had in the third game.) Aria's not especially sexualised, though, which is pretty cool.

It's almost as if they're allowed to be bitchy and 'uppity' as long as the male gamer can ogle them - and, preferably, heal their bitchiness with his magic in-game cock a la the Shepherd/Jack romance.

Click to expand...

The average male love interest in BioWare games is a "stud". Sexy love interests aren't restricted to just the female ones.

Megann said:

I am almost afraid to ask, but what is a virginity countdown blog?

Click to expand...

It's when guys make websites that count down the days/minutes/hours until an underage female star is legally available to have sex with for the purpose of a) imagining that they're taking her virginity, or b) just being creepy assholes. It's probably called a jailbait blog or something to that extent, but I really don't feel like googling it and giving it a hit. Suffice it to say they exist for Disney Stars, Dakota Fanning, and I'm sure, now, Chloe Moretz.

Also I don't understand that people hated Ginny. Is it because she eventually dates Harry? Personally I loved both Ginny and Hermione. They were my favorites in the series.

Click to expand...

This is pretty much why I don't like Ginny. That, and the fact that her existence derailed what could've arguably developed into one of the most mainstream interracial power couples in kidlit and on screen. Hermione, I liked. Just not with Ron.

lilyWhite said:

From my experience, most of the hatedom against Carth is based on him being whiny and angsty and having a more generic character than others in the game. ("My family was killed by the Evil Empire. I want to kill the guy who did it. Now I'm just going to be brooding over here until the game eggs you into talking to me.")

Besides, it's kind of a trend for the early human companions to be unpopular/less popular in BioWare's sci-fi games. Bastila has a hatedom of her own, as well as Kaidan and Ashley in ME1 and Miranda and Jacob in ME2. (The fandom even whined about James Vega before ME3 came out, though he turned out to be fairly popular after the game's release.)



The average male love interest in BioWare games is a "stud". Sexy love interests aren't restricted to just the female ones.

Click to expand...

I mean, sexism in games is complicated, and we can sit here and talk about it for a really long time but this really isn't the place. You could never, ever convince me that male characters are sexualized to the extent that the female characters in these games are. Jack ran around with no shirt on for a whole damn game. To equate the sexaulization of men and women in gaming (or even just Bioware games, which are sadly better than most) is just a little ridiculous.

This is a conversation about extremes and misdirected anger. People don't run around screaming "THIS FEMALE CHARACTER IS NOT LIKE OTHER FEMALE CHARACTERS ON TV! MY EXPECTATIONS HAVE BEEN DEFIED, RAGE RAGE RAGE." Nope, they call her a bitch. They call Carth whiny. I'm saying these are equivalent reactions, born of the same core sentiment.

I honestly don't think either presented explanation really accounts for the amount of hate these characters get. Sure, you think Carth is whiny. People think Skyler White is a bitch. But there are a lot of bitches and whiners in fiction (and even a lot of whiny bitches) who don't get this kind of treatment. What makes these ones different? What separates the "oh, yeah, that chick's a bitch" that some characters get from the kind of hate that spawns facebook hate groups with thousands of members and names that actresses can't even say in interviews?

My thought is that the difference lies in the defied expectations, a breech of some implied social contract that some individuals believe grants them the right to uncomplicated and unchallenging fiction. You might disagree, but I think the fact that there is a divide somewhere in there between garden variety "I dislike this character" and true hate is really hard to deny.

The average male love interest in BioWare games is a "stud". Sexy love interests aren't restricted to just the female ones.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but the women are a helluva lot more sexualised than the men. Kaiden and Jacob get to wear real, practical clothing. Jack wears a bit of string, Miranda gets a suit so skin-tight I'm 90% sure it constitutes a thrush risk - hell, Samara's not even a love interest and her cleavage verges on the terrifying.

The men are 'studs', sure, but they're not running around with their abs on display the entire time. They are nowhere near as blatantly visually sexualised as the female characters.

thebloodfiend said:

This is pretty much why I don't like Ginny.

Click to expand...

While I don't hate Ginny's character, I never really cared for her because of EXACTLY the reasons in that article. Her character had no real depth. It seemed to me that her only reason for being, was so that Harry could have her. Flat characters irritate me, but I wouldn't go overboard and start a "Hate Ginny Weasley" campaign. Psshht!

Yorkist said:

Can any of y'all think of, like, a single case of this happening to a male character, in which it wasn't a case of a maniacally evil character with absolutely no redeeming features (e.g. Joffrey in Game of Thrones) or just a profound casting mismatch or something? It would make me feel better about the universe if we could come up with a couple.

Click to expand...

Even in the cases of really evil characters male characters like Joffrey, strong hatedoms are rare. A lot of people may dislike the character, maybe strongly. But they generally don't focus their energy on hating them.

Actually, I think it's more common for hatedoms to develop around characters who aren't villains. Usually, the characters who attract hate are in roles that are generally supposed to be likable, which I think fuels the intensity of people's hatred. They can react more strongly because they believe the creators want them to see something in the character that they don't see (or don't want to see).

And yeah, it rarely happens with male characters. There are a couple notable exceptions, like Wesley Crusher, but they're a lot less common than hatedoms surrounding female characters. And it's less common for people to bash male characters, even casually.

I've been in/have been familiar with a lot of fandoms, and it's definitely more common for female characters to get hate, and it's more common for fans to base their fannish identities around disliking a female character.

lilyWhite said:

Are there people who just don't like the character because she's a woman? Almost certainly. But from reading up on various sites, including the "I Hate Skyler White" Facebook page, a lot of the dislike seemed to be based on her personality and actions.

Click to expand...

The thing is, it's not just why people dislike a character, but how they express that dislike. Feeling that a female character is annoying or has had traits isn't sexist. And most people can give valid examples of why they dislike a character. But disliking some of the choices a female character has made doesn't make her a "slut" or a "whore" (insults I've seen levied at female characters quite frequently). And joining a fan community devoted to hating that character is a taking things to a different level. People join hatedoms because, for whatever reason, they get something out of hating that character. Sometimes it isn't really that negative. I think some Star Wars fans feel camaraderie over hating Jar Jar Binks, for example. But sometimes it can really be serious and nasty.

Also, a lot of people are more forgiving of imperfection in male characters than in female characters. A male character can be aloof, rude, or conniving, and a lot of people will find it interesting or charming. But a woman with those same traits is more likely to be seen as a bitch. I think people's reactions to fictional characters can reflect real-life biases and preconceptions about how women should act vs. how men should act.

That said, I do think that sometimes people go too far in the opposite direction, and are too quick to treat any criticism of a female character as sexism. But I think that extreme only exists because there often are elements of sexism in critique of female characters.

DancingMaenid said:

The thing is, it's not just why people dislike a character, but how they express that dislike. Feeling that a female character is annoying or has had traits isn't sexist. And most people can give valid examples of why they dislike a character. But disliking some of the choices a female character has made doesn't make her a "slut" or a "whore" (insults I've seen levied at female characters quite frequently). And joining a fan community devoted to hating that character is a taking things to a different level. People join hatedoms because, for whatever reason, they get something out of hating that character. Sometimes it isn't really that negative. I think some Star Wars fans feel camaraderie over hating Jar Jar Binks, for example. But sometimes it can really be serious and nasty.

Also, a lot of people are more forgiving of imperfection in male characters than in female characters. A male character can be aloof, rude, or conniving, and a lot of people will find it interesting or charming. But a woman with those same traits is more likely to be seen as a bitch. I think people's reactions to fictional characters can reflect real-life biases and preconceptions about how women should act vs. how men should act.

That said, I do think that sometimes people go too far in the opposite direction, and are too quick to treat any criticism of a female character as sexism. But I think that extreme only exists because there often are elements of sexism in critique of female characters.

Click to expand...

I agree with a lot here, especially how female characters apparently aren't allowed to be more complex. It's like a female character can only be on opposite ends of a spectrum.They can either be weak or strong, nice or bitchy. There's little room for in between.

Yorkist said:

Whoops! I meant Ginny Weasley. Apologies. Will modify the OP.

Click to expand...

I could ask the same question about her too. I felt rather bad for her throughout, actually. Harry, Ron and Hermione got to have all kinds of adventures and perform all kinds of heroics from first year on, but with the exception of the battle in book 5 and the very last battle (where she sneaked out of the room of requirement), she was always kept out of it because she was "too young," or because Harry needed to protect her. Years later, every time the "Three Musketeers" get to reminiscing about their heroic exploits and madcap school adventures, I envision her getting a sort of stiff smile on her face and excusing herself to go put the kids to bed or something. Doomed to forever being the odd person out. Not sure what's to hate there either.

But I suppose I'm expecting people to be rational

I certainly have had an intense dislike for some characters in books (Joffrey comes to mind, and I tend to react badly to stereotyped whiz kids that are smarter than all the grown ups), but I'm hardly going to spend much emotional time away from my actual reading on that or get involved in some kind of strange inverse fandom.

I was reading an author blog yesterday and one of the posts talked about character consistency and how authors can't make their characters hypocrites. This led to some comments pointing out that some readers seem to be less tolerant about fictitious characters' flaws and imperfections than to people in real life. I've noticed that too, and I find it so odd. Is it because readers know they're fake people so they feel better ranting about them with no consequence then someone they may know in real life? That's my theory. Anyone else?

ANaughtyMouse said:

I was in Buffy fandom for a decade, and I hated Riley Finn. Completely hated him. Most everyone in my corner of fandom did as well. None of us hated the actor, though, or wished him ill will. I might not have been in the right corner, granted, but that is one character I remember passionately hating to a degree I suppose I can compare to Skyler or Ginny hate.

Click to expand...

Oh my God, Riley was the worst character ever. Remember when Faith possessed Buffy's body and Riley made such sweet love to her he fucked the evil out of her? I feel like Spike becoming the love interest after that was the writers apologizing for Riley.

Yorkist said:

I have never, not once, seen a male actor conflated with the character that he plays (at least not in a hatey way). Nor have I ever seen a male character or actor get dogpiled on with that amount of vitriol.

Click to expand...

Have you read Wil Wheaton's memoirs, Just a Geek? In it, he talks a lot about the hate he received--as a teenager--for playing a role that was poorly written. There were a number of fans who came up to him at conventions and told him that he ruined Star Trek. The fan hate and the lack of respect from one or two members of the production team were the whole reason he quit Star Trek and then spent the next dozen years loathing everything about it.

ANaughtyMouse said:

That said, speaking as a fandom veteran, I do see the trend Anna Gunn is talking about. There is a difference between loathing a character subjectively, as I do Walter, and finding the character objectively brilliant, as I do Walter. Walt is morally repugnant, but damn what a great character. Skyler is morally compromised, but damn what a great character. The sort of vitriolic response she's received, as other female actors have received for unpopular characters (like Ginny Weasley) is pretty much incomparable to that received by male actors and their unpopular characters. Yes, even Wesley Crusher.

Click to expand...

Also a big fan, and I agree. It's completely legitimate to dislike Skyler for all sorts of reasons. I personally think she's a well-written, complex, fascinating character, but she is also annoying, high handed, self-righteous and currently doing stuff I really don't approve of. (All descriptors that also apply to her husband, along with much worse ones.)

But I've seen hate rants on fan boards suggesting that some people take Skyler's unlikable qualities personally, as if she were the wife or girlfriend who was nagging them to eat veggie bacon. (Yes, this is one of her most oft-cited sins.) That has died down somewhat, but you still get people saying they hated a scene just because Skyler was in it, as if they were allergic to her very presence.

If the show tried to push Skyler as an awesome person when she gave no evidence of being awesome (Riley and Dawn, I'm looking at you), I'd find this reaction more justified. But Breaking Bad doesn't have anything approaching Mary Sue characters; everybody is shown as being irredeemably flawed except, perhaps, Walt Jr. Who inspires his own share of viewer mockery for being so useless and peripheral to the action, but it's nothing compared to the hate Skyler receives.

I've also seen a lot of commenters ragging on Gunn for gaining and losing weight and supposedly getting Botox, which they say ruins the illusion that the entire series takes place over a couple of years. I've noticed changes in Skyler's appearance, sure, but it's a TV show. I've got no problem suspending my disbelief on this particular point.

Anyway, given the personal nature of such comments, I can see why Gunn wanted to respond. I haven't seen rape/murder threats against her, myself, but the boards I frequent tend to be pretty civilized, and I can believe they're out there.

It's normal to identify strongly with fictional characters and have personal reasons for loving or hating them. I know I give Jesse way too much slack because I feel akin to him, and when I look at Walt, I often see my dad, which makes my response far from objective. Hell, I even liked Gus Fring because I admire his cool, and I want Mike to be my grandpa. All these irrational reactions make me more invested in the show. But, at the end of the day, I try to recognize that fiction is fiction, the characters have assigned roles to play, and all that really matters is how consistent and compelling the writers can make that story.