![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Feb. 11th, 2021 09:46 amFemale characters from fandoms I'm in that I am morally obligated to defend, even if the rest of the fandom hates them:
-Sally Reed (Barry)
-Kate McReary (GTA IV)
-Jean Berkey (Inside Llewyn Davis)
-Natalie (Memento)
-Jeanine Pettibone (This is Spinal Tap)
-Skyler White (Breaking Bad)
I'm sure there's more that I can't think of right now... I will say this, though. Not all of them are good people, and not all of them I actually LIKE like. Kate McReary is my favorite of the six, and she's demanding, emotionally manipulative, preachy, and hypocritical. Her redeeming quality is solely based on her relationship with Niko, and how she's the person he falls in love with in Liberty City and the one who makes him want to turn his life around and become a better man. She's more of a symbol than a character (so much so that she gets fridged, SIGH) and most of her good traits are informed. But... I love her to death because she's an imperfect love interest and, more importantly, I can really relate to her. She's also sympathetic in that she's been traumatized by her upbringing, growing up in a crime family where violence was the norm.
Sally is my second favorite, and in some ways, she's similar to Kate. She's extremely self-absorbed, she's emotionally manipulative, she uses the people around her as if they're playthings and expects the world to revolve around her. And again, I love her to death. She too is an imperfect love interest, but her redemption as a character doesn't come from her relationship with Barry. It comes from the fact that she's incredibly well-written, well-acted, well-rounded, multidimensional, just as strong a character as Barry with a similarly sympathetic backstory (she was trapped in an abusive marriage at a young age and still feels shame over it) and y'know what? She doesn't KILL people. Barry is selfish just like Sally, and traumatized by his past just like she was, but I think the reason everyone hates Sally more than Barry is that her trauma comes out as anger/lashing out at others, while Barry does everything he possibly can to avoid causing violence. But both of their reactions are valid- if not acceptable. I could talk for AGES about these two, so let's move on to...
Skyler. So much has been said about Skyler over the years- maybe too much. I myself am not one of those people who's seen Breaking Bad a thousand times, so I can't remember much of her character in the early episodes, when people really disliked her the most. But... I'm sorry but why the FUCK would you still side against Skyler after she finds out her husband manufactures meth, what the FUCK? Sure, she makes poor decisions and can be petty at times but I. Don't. Get the hate. Anyway, other people have much better insight into her character than I do, so I'll leave that to them and move on to...
Natalie. I was so shocked when I was discussing Memento with someone online once and the person said they wanted to backhand Natalie for being "cold." It's true that Natalie is not nice to Leonard. She takes advantage of his mental disability and manipulates him into killing off (or well, just running off and scaring) her enemies. But man... she has every reason to hate Leonard, being that he killed her boyfriend. And the way she deals with that is to cruelly use him, but ultimately I feel like she's much more sympathetic than some of the other characters on this list. Hell, she even has a change of heart about using him when she hears from him what a miserable life he has, and she ends up helping him by tracking down the person he's searching for (even though it turns out the person he's searching for is innocent, but it's unclear is Natalie knows that and even if she does know it, she probably wouldn't care, because as far as she knows Teddy is every bit as guilty as Leonard when it comes to her boyfriend's death). So I think Natalie redeems herself by having a change of heart and helping Leonard, although I still like her fiery character even before that.
Jeanine is probably the character I care about defending the least, because I feel that we're presented a slanted view of her in the film. We get hardly any sense of her personality and absolutely no backstory on her as a character and how she and David met and why they're attracted to each other. She's just there to serve as a roadblock, as the archetypal "girlfriend who gets too involved in the band and causes tensions between the members." She also directly opposes Nigel, standing in the way of his relationship (whether it's a romantic one or a brotherly one) with David. Being that I believe Nigel is the protagonist of the film, it's no wonder she's painted as the villain, that her last few scenes show her kissing David in front of Nigel as if to say "he's mine and you'll never have what we have," then her side-eyeing Nigel from the side of the stage, practically DARING him to set foot and intrude upon the territory where she's imposed herself. Her takeover of the band is presented as unfair, and it's clear that she has no managerial skills whatsoever- but does that make her a bad person? Wasn't she just trying to help the band, never mind the fact that she had an agenda against Nigel? I dunno. I see her only major flaw as being jealousy and clinginess, that she feels threatened by David's relationship with Nigel and threatened by the fact that the band is as much a responsibility for David as she is, and yes, she goes too far... but I can't hate her for that! Writing all this out has actually made me want to write a fic defending her, which I've done for every other character on this list except Skyler, so this has been surprisingly helpful. What it boils down to is, she's the only female character besides Bobbi Fleckman (who I love!) who has any significance to the story, and the "girlfriend takes over the band" trope is already kind of misogynistic, so I just don't want to hate on a prominent female character just because she's not perfect.
Finally, we have Jean. And she's not an easy one to defend, let me tell you. She refuses to take responsibility for her actions, cheats on her husband, is caustic and hypocritical and does nothing but hurl insults towards Llewyn for the entirety of the movie... But GOD I love her so much BECAUSE of all that. I've already written a post down below about her, so I won't go on, but I want to add this... just like Llewyn's bad behavior stems from his grief, could it be that Jean is also grieving in her own way? Only one line indicates that she had any sort of relationship with Mike, the ambiguous "I miss Mike." But maybe they were close, and maybe his loss affected her too, and maybe in their mutual grief, Llewyn and Jean slept together, and now they regret it. I don't know. There's so much unsaid about these characters and their backstory that it's so easy to drift into headcanon territory, so I'll refrain. I just want to say, I see WHY people hate her, but I will never feel the same way.
-Sally Reed (Barry)
-Kate McReary (GTA IV)
-Jean Berkey (Inside Llewyn Davis)
-Natalie (Memento)
-Jeanine Pettibone (This is Spinal Tap)
-Skyler White (Breaking Bad)
I'm sure there's more that I can't think of right now... I will say this, though. Not all of them are good people, and not all of them I actually LIKE like. Kate McReary is my favorite of the six, and she's demanding, emotionally manipulative, preachy, and hypocritical. Her redeeming quality is solely based on her relationship with Niko, and how she's the person he falls in love with in Liberty City and the one who makes him want to turn his life around and become a better man. She's more of a symbol than a character (so much so that she gets fridged, SIGH) and most of her good traits are informed. But... I love her to death because she's an imperfect love interest and, more importantly, I can really relate to her. She's also sympathetic in that she's been traumatized by her upbringing, growing up in a crime family where violence was the norm.
Sally is my second favorite, and in some ways, she's similar to Kate. She's extremely self-absorbed, she's emotionally manipulative, she uses the people around her as if they're playthings and expects the world to revolve around her. And again, I love her to death. She too is an imperfect love interest, but her redemption as a character doesn't come from her relationship with Barry. It comes from the fact that she's incredibly well-written, well-acted, well-rounded, multidimensional, just as strong a character as Barry with a similarly sympathetic backstory (she was trapped in an abusive marriage at a young age and still feels shame over it) and y'know what? She doesn't KILL people. Barry is selfish just like Sally, and traumatized by his past just like she was, but I think the reason everyone hates Sally more than Barry is that her trauma comes out as anger/lashing out at others, while Barry does everything he possibly can to avoid causing violence. But both of their reactions are valid- if not acceptable. I could talk for AGES about these two, so let's move on to...
Skyler. So much has been said about Skyler over the years- maybe too much. I myself am not one of those people who's seen Breaking Bad a thousand times, so I can't remember much of her character in the early episodes, when people really disliked her the most. But... I'm sorry but why the FUCK would you still side against Skyler after she finds out her husband manufactures meth, what the FUCK? Sure, she makes poor decisions and can be petty at times but I. Don't. Get the hate. Anyway, other people have much better insight into her character than I do, so I'll leave that to them and move on to...
Natalie. I was so shocked when I was discussing Memento with someone online once and the person said they wanted to backhand Natalie for being "cold." It's true that Natalie is not nice to Leonard. She takes advantage of his mental disability and manipulates him into killing off (or well, just running off and scaring) her enemies. But man... she has every reason to hate Leonard, being that he killed her boyfriend. And the way she deals with that is to cruelly use him, but ultimately I feel like she's much more sympathetic than some of the other characters on this list. Hell, she even has a change of heart about using him when she hears from him what a miserable life he has, and she ends up helping him by tracking down the person he's searching for (even though it turns out the person he's searching for is innocent, but it's unclear is Natalie knows that and even if she does know it, she probably wouldn't care, because as far as she knows Teddy is every bit as guilty as Leonard when it comes to her boyfriend's death). So I think Natalie redeems herself by having a change of heart and helping Leonard, although I still like her fiery character even before that.
Jeanine is probably the character I care about defending the least, because I feel that we're presented a slanted view of her in the film. We get hardly any sense of her personality and absolutely no backstory on her as a character and how she and David met and why they're attracted to each other. She's just there to serve as a roadblock, as the archetypal "girlfriend who gets too involved in the band and causes tensions between the members." She also directly opposes Nigel, standing in the way of his relationship (whether it's a romantic one or a brotherly one) with David. Being that I believe Nigel is the protagonist of the film, it's no wonder she's painted as the villain, that her last few scenes show her kissing David in front of Nigel as if to say "he's mine and you'll never have what we have," then her side-eyeing Nigel from the side of the stage, practically DARING him to set foot and intrude upon the territory where she's imposed herself. Her takeover of the band is presented as unfair, and it's clear that she has no managerial skills whatsoever- but does that make her a bad person? Wasn't she just trying to help the band, never mind the fact that she had an agenda against Nigel? I dunno. I see her only major flaw as being jealousy and clinginess, that she feels threatened by David's relationship with Nigel and threatened by the fact that the band is as much a responsibility for David as she is, and yes, she goes too far... but I can't hate her for that! Writing all this out has actually made me want to write a fic defending her, which I've done for every other character on this list except Skyler, so this has been surprisingly helpful. What it boils down to is, she's the only female character besides Bobbi Fleckman (who I love!) who has any significance to the story, and the "girlfriend takes over the band" trope is already kind of misogynistic, so I just don't want to hate on a prominent female character just because she's not perfect.
Finally, we have Jean. And she's not an easy one to defend, let me tell you. She refuses to take responsibility for her actions, cheats on her husband, is caustic and hypocritical and does nothing but hurl insults towards Llewyn for the entirety of the movie... But GOD I love her so much BECAUSE of all that. I've already written a post down below about her, so I won't go on, but I want to add this... just like Llewyn's bad behavior stems from his grief, could it be that Jean is also grieving in her own way? Only one line indicates that she had any sort of relationship with Mike, the ambiguous "I miss Mike." But maybe they were close, and maybe his loss affected her too, and maybe in their mutual grief, Llewyn and Jean slept together, and now they regret it. I don't know. There's so much unsaid about these characters and their backstory that it's so easy to drift into headcanon territory, so I'll refrain. I just want to say, I see WHY people hate her, but I will never feel the same way.
