Where are the female anti-heroes?

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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

[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.

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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).

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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.