Where are the female anti-heroes?

[next_to_normal]

I was listening to the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast today, and one of the topics they addressed was the fan reaction to the wives of anti-hero characters. Think Betty Draper, Skyler White, or Carmella Soprano - in any other context, they'd be the sympathetic partner, even considered a victim, but because their husbands (despicable as they may be) are the show's main characters, the women tend to get a lot of hate for (a) inadvertently complicating the husbands' secret lives, (b) trying to find out their secrets, and/or (c) daring to call them on their shit. As if wanting to know what your husband is hiding from you is an unreasonable expectation. As if being appalled is an inappropriate response to the revelation that he is a murderer/drug dealer/mob boss/cheater/scumbag/whatever.

Okay, preaching to the choir here, I know. Anyway, the comment that prompted this post was wondering whether the reaction would be the same if it were a female character who was the anti-hero, and her husband/partner was the one standing in the way of her criminal enterprise, or if their respective genders matter. Now, the podcast is made by dudes, so I'll forgive them for not knowing the obvious answer (yes, of course gender matters) and skip right to what I think is most interesting:

This is entirely a hypothetical question, because as far as I can tell, there are no female anti-heroes like that, much less ones with a hated spouse/partner to use as a comparison.

Seriously - can anyone think of one? Because I'd probably really like that story. The closest I can come up with is Veronica Mars, who's a ruthless and occasionally cruel person who has no qualms about breaking the law to get what she wants. The parallel is strongest in season 3 - before that, she's still the plucky, albeit flawed, heroine, whereas in season 3 she becomes flat-out unlikable at times. But even then, I don't think she ever reaches the level of a Don Draper or a Walter White.

Similarly, characters like Katniss or Buffy or Elena, although they may go through unlikable phases, never lose their "heroine" sheen. They're just good people going through remarkably difficult situations. And frequently THEY are the ones who get the fan hate, not their put-upon male partners, which goes back to the thing about gender influencing fan reactions.

I suppose that answers my own question about why there aren't more female characters that could be considered anti-heroes, doesn't it? If fans will react so negatively to flawed female heroines, God only knows how badly they'd eviscerate a female Don Draper. But y'all know how I love me some flawed characters, especially ladies, so if you can think of any - or have any other thoughts on the subject - please chime in!

Comments

[goldenusagi]

I haven't seen Weeds, but isn't that about a woman who deals drugs?

I haven't seen Nurse Jackie, either, but she doesn't seem to be that shining.

Someone else chime in and tell me if I'm even close, lol.

Oh, and there's always Xena. She has to count for something. She's not a good person going through a remarkable situation.

[next_to_normal]

I haven't seen any of those shows, either! That said, just from my general pop culture knowledge, I definitely would have put Xena in the "heroine" category, not anti-hero. Isn't the series about her journey of redemption? I'm thinking more of a main character actively being a horrible person over the course of the series.

[goldenusagi]

Xena is a heroine, but she falls into the category of 'escaping her horrible deeds', which seems to be mostly a guy thing on TV. How many women on TV/movies are trying to attone for all the people they've killed?

[next_to_normal]

True, although I still think that formerly-bad-but-atoning is a more "acceptable" characterization for women than currently-and-unapologetically-bad. It's all part of our (lack of) tolerance for morally questionable female characters.

[pocochina]

Weeds is a really interesting case. "Anti-heroine" is definitely the best way to categorize Nancy Botwin as time goes on. I'm not sure she has a romantic partner that's analogous to Betty or Skylar, though. The thing that kicks off her drug dealing career is that her husband dies, so there's no one in that position of pre-existing impediment to her criminal enterprise; then most characters who become important to her are at least as shady as she is, one way or another.

[next_to_normal]

I'm not sure she has a romantic partner that's analogous to Betty or Skylar, though.

Yeah, the concept of the clueless (or willfully ignorant) husband seems to be unheard of...

Of course, when your partner withholds information, it puts you in a position of weakness in a relationship, so I'm not that surprised that TV writers can't conceive of men being in that situation.

[chaila]

I'd count both Patty Hewes on Damages and Jackie Peyton on Nurse Jackie as anti-heroes. And I LOVE both shows. (They are both extremely lady centric too in the supporting characters. The "main" relationship in both shows is between two lades--sometimes partners, sometimes rivals on Damages, and friends on Nurse Jackie). They are undoubtedly not "good" people, but of course it's way more complicated than that. Sometimes they do good things in really awful ways, sometimes they have good motives, sometimes it's hard to tell. They're selfish and destructive, except for when they're not.

They're both married (and both marriages are extremely difficult). I wish I had more brain power and less spoilers with which to dissect each relationship, but both husbands sort of...interefere in the anti-heroism or judge it, and the relationship suffers for it. But their husbands definitely don't get hatred from the fandoms. Um, such as they are--the fandoms for both are pretty much non-existent, and speculating why just makes me sad. The fandoms are actually too tiny to even describe patterns, because if I say, "In the Nurse Jackie fandom, I've actually seen slash shipping involving the husband," that means I've seen two people do it. So yeah, I guess the takeway is, we can't even really compare the reactions to the husbands because 1) there aren't enough shows with female anti-heroes, and 2) there aren't enough people talking about those shows to really observe reactions to the husbands. :(

This has been a depressing comment. The shows are awesome though! :D

[next_to_normal]

Ohhhh, Patty Hewes! I forgot about her. I did watch Damages for a few seasons, but I lost track of it and may have missed the last season or two?

Her husband made zero impression on me, though, because I barely remember him at all, lol.

[chaila]

The fifth (and last) season's about to start in July. DirecTV took it over from FX after season 3 so it became harder to keep track of and harder to track down.

Her husband made zero impression on me, though, because I barely remember him at all

Ah that's the beauty of Damages. :D Mr. Patty is not around very much, and usually not a very big part of the story.

[next_to_normal]

Yep, that's when I lost track of it, I think, when it moved to DirecTV. I'll have to see about getting my hands on season 4.

[ruuger]

the fandoms for both are pretty much non-existent, and speculating why just makes me sad

I've often been tempted to make a post about feminist-orientated fandom's tendency give more attention to blink-and-you'll-miss-it female characters in male-dominated megafandoms like The Avengers and Supernatural than to fandoms that actually multi-faceted female characters as the main character.

(I mean, I didn't like Dollhouse, but I still found it much more interesting female character-wise than The Avengers or Firefly)

[chaila]

ACCURATE.

I've often privately commented to others that even female-character loving fandom doesn't want female leads, it wants one female member of an ensemble so it can work her into the background of stories and read/write the occasional story featuring her and then go back to boys.

(I mean, I do know it's far more complicated than that, and there are things going on with genre shows vs. non-genre shows how people are interested in the huge fandoms just because they are huge, but when I get frustrated I do think this. Being pretty sure that if Patty and Ellen, or Jackie and O'Hara were boys, there WOULD be a bigger fandom doesn't help with this).

[ruuger]

I have to admit I was not the least bit surprised when at least one of the most popular stories in the rarewomen ficathon had a background m/m slash pairing... I often feel like an outsider in fandom because what I usually need to become fannish about something is an ensemble that includes at least two major female characters who have a meaningful (non-familial) relationship with each other that is not through any of the male characters, and megafandoms rarely pass that test.

(and no, I don't think fanfic is the solution to fix it all, because what I want is books and tv-shows and movies with more interesting female characters)

And yeah, it is complicated, and there's nothing wrong with liking m/m slash or things like Supernatural or Inception, but I tend to side-eye people who makes posts about how awesome [insert minor female character here] is, but never seem to show any interest in anything that doesn't have a m/m relationship as its main focus.

[next_to_normal]

OOOOOH. MAKE THIS POST.

In general, it seems like if a fandom has two slashable male leads, it's practically guaranteed to have a huge following. Much as we beg for more developed female characters, shows that actually feature them as leads are definitely smaller fandoms (with the exception of Buffy, I suppose).

[ruuger]

I'm afraid that if I ever make that post, everyone will unfriend me :) I have a bad feeling that I'm already on certain people's blacklist for saying that I thought that Black Widow didn't get as good character arc in The Avengers as the male characters.

with the exception of Buffy, I suppose

Buffy did have Xander and Angel in S1, who were fairly slashable, and then Spike and Angel from S2 onwards. I've actually been wondering what the early Buffy fandom was like - what were the first pairings? Because Buffyverse is an interesting fandom in that it's neither het nor slash dominated, but both sides of the fandom seem equally strong (and femslash is also pretty popular, which is even more rare).

[next_to_normal]

I'll still be your friend! And probably most of the people commenting here, lol. But yeah, the only person who got less of a character arc than Black Widow was Hawkeye, but at least he had the excuse that he was being mind-controlled for half the movie.

Buffyverse is an odd fandom. I wasn't around in the beginning, but I would guess the het pairings were dominant then (specifically Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Xander, and Willow/Xander), with the slash pairings really gaining traction once Spike showed up. Or who knows? Maybe we missed out on some epic Xander/Jesse slash. :-P

The femslash doesn't surprise me, though - there are just so many female characters in the ensemble to choose from, some of whom are even canonically lesbians! You rarely get that kind of material to work with.

[pocochina]

ooooh, excellent point.

I think Dollhouse does some interesting meta-commentary on this very point with Adelle, and how being aware of her anti-heroine occupation means she has to program herself a man if she wants one who's not as deep in it all as she is.

I might cast Caprica Six as a borderline case, because she becomes such an influential character? But I don't think it's the same because she's not conceived as central in the way the Walters and Tonys are.

[next_to_normal]

Yeah, that's what I find with most female anti-heroes. While they may be important characters, they're very rarely central to the narrative. Even Adelle can really only provide meta-commentary because she's a supporting character, since we can still have our traditional heroine in Echo.

(Also, since you bring up BSG, I would totally count Bill Adama as an anti-hero in the same way, with Roslin in the Skyler White role, except I sincerely doubt the show wanted me to think he was a horrible person in the way that Walt or Don is, lol.)

[eilowyn1]

What about Kate from Lost? She's always wanting to bolt the minute things get serious, and I think some of the tension in the Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle is that Jack would stop her from doing something bad for good outcomes, while Sawyer would understand that sometimes you have to do bad to do good. I can't think of any outright instances, but characterization-wise - Kate burned down her own house so her mother could get the insurance money. She's willing to do the less pleasant things if it has a good outcome, and so we have this love triangle where it's the hero vs. the anti-hero in her that's drawn to both men.

[next_to_normal]

As I mentioned to pocochina above, I think one of the key characteristics of these male anti-heroes is how central they are to the show. Lost is such an ensemble show that Kate (even as the nominal lead female role) isn't in the same position within the narrative.

I like her moral ambiguity, though, and I'd never quite thought of the Jack vs. Sawyer thing as her choosing between her own heroic vs. anti-heroic instincts. (Probably because I avoid thinking about the triangle of DOOM as much as possible.) It reminds me of Stefan/Elena/Damon in that sense.

[ruuger]

You know, I was thinking of this exact same thing when I watched The Avengers because the way everyone was talking about Black Widow, I thought she was going to be one (of the working towards redemption kind at least). And I was really excited about that, because borderline-sociopath-formerly-evil-heroes are my thing! But no, she vaguely talked about the horrible things that she'd done, but not once was there even a slightest suggestion that she might be anything less than a straight-up hero now.

I'd say Jackie in Nurse Jackie definitely counts as an antihero, since she's basically the female equivalent of House, maybe also Kerry Weaver on ER (she started off as an antagonists but was definitely one of Our Heroes by the end). Bad Girls, which is a British show about a women's prison also had several characters that I think would count.

But those are all in drama. It's harder to think of examples from 'manlier' genres. Sarah Connor in T2, maybe? I think scifi and action movies are so geared towards the male gaze that women still aren't generally allowed any other roles than the victim/lover or the (Sexy) Spinny Killbot - the moral scale on a female characters seems to be usually determined on simply how willingly they use their sexuality and 'feminine wiles' to get what they want...

[next_to_normal]

I think the consensus is that I need to watch Nurse Jackie, lol! (Interesting, too, that it's Edie Falco who plays the most-mentioned anti-hero, after playing the anti-hero's wife for years.)

the moral scale on a female characters seems to be usually determined on simply how willingly they use their sexuality and 'feminine wiles' to get what they want...

I think that's probably true even outside the sci-fi and action genres. It's kinda funny to me (in a gross, depressing sort of way) how the worst thing fictional women can do, apparently, is use their sexuality or their "feminine wiles." Male anti-heroes get to commit all sorts of heinous crimes, but women? They only seduce.

Of course, the use of their sexuality is only a ~moral issue for women because their purity is valued, which is not something you ever see with male characters.

[gabrielleabelle]

Does Lilah count? Though I guess she's more a villain turned sympathetic than an anti-hero. Hrm.

[next_to_normal]

Hey, it's Gabs! (No lie, when I was writing up this post, I was thinking, "Aw, man, too bad Gabs is on hiatus, because I bet she'd have thinky thoughts on this topic.")

So, naturally, I have high expectations of you... *waits for your brilliance*

[gabrielleabelle]

(Ha! I'm not checking my flist, but I'm tracking a few peeps. ;) *stalks you*)

I don't know that I have much brilliance. I think we're at a fumbling time for our media where there are some attempts to get better female characters out there, but there's a sore lack of established female protag tropes to draw on. I mean, I've been rewatching Star Trek TNG with Andrew, and we've both commented on the massive under-utilization of the women in what is ostensibly a progressive show.

I think part of it is Token Woman Syndrome. Wherein show/movie creators throw in a token woman cause it's the PC thing to do, but she has to represent ALL WOMEN which is nonsense, so she ends up being bland and boring. She's not a character. She's just a bone to throw to the women.

But then I also think that part of the anti-hero trope, specifically, is the fact that it's supposed to be relatable. I mean, we look up to heroes. They're who we want to be. But anti-heroes? They're who we actually are, and anti-hero media serves to reassure us that we can still be awesome regardless.

This is where the predominance of men in production and writing comes in because when you have characters that are so tied to a creator's (and intended audience's), it makes sense that they'd err on the side of their own gender. Men will create male anti-heroes that they relate to. They'll shy away from female anti-heroes because they can't relate to that. Instead, they'll give us Token Women because they figure that we'll (somehow) relate to that.

And my rambles have made me late to pick up Andrew from work. Look what you did!

[next_to_normal]

(ooooh, I feel special now!)

Men will create male anti-heroes that they relate to. They'll shy away from female anti-heroes because they can't relate to that.

Hmmmmmm, yeah, there's probably some truth to that. Although it still seems rather silly to me that these writers (who most certainly are not criminals) have no problem creating a "relatable" character who is a mob boss or a drug kingpin, but a woman? Now that's just stretching the imagination too far! *grumbles*

Tell Andrew I'm very sorry! :-P except I'm not really, because he's taking my Gabs away from me!

[gabrielleabelle]

Although it still seems rather silly to me that these writers (who most certainly are not criminals) have no problem creating a "relatable" character who is a mob boss or a drug kingpin, but a woman? Now that's just stretching the imagination too far! *grumbles*

Yeah, well. Men are discouraged from relating to (or liking) anything pertaining to women.

I feel like I have more thoughts, but I'm gonna have to sit on them for a bit.

[ever_neutral]

The character my mind jumps to is Emily Thorne on Revenge. She's definitely not a heroine. She's actively plotting the destruction of other people's lives. Because, revenge.

Oh, and she has a thing for a "good boy" who's an innocent and whom she actively deceives in order to ~protect them.

How's that one for you?

[next_to_normal]

EMILY! I can't believe I didn't think of her myself. Yeah, she's as close as you can get, I think.

And it's funny because the guys in her life kinda represent the different iterations of the anti-hero's wife. Jack is the innocent good boy, whom she deceives in order to protect him, whereas Nolan is a total Skyler - the reluctant partner who is kinda horrified by what she's doing and has attempted to impose moral boundaries, but can't go so far as to turn her in. And yet he's pretty much beloved by fandom. Jack's biggest flaw seems to be that he's boring, lol, but I haven't seen much hatred there, either. But I suppose we'll see next season if anyone gets painted as the bad guy for standing in Emily's way.

[mikeda]

A rather belated thought. Perhaps Sarah Michelle Gellar's character Bridget Kelly from "Ringer" somewhat qualifies. Granted she is portrayed somewhat sympathetically but she's still put herself in a position where she has to lie on a grand scale to just about everyone around her.