Female Characters Face Higher Standards
Entertainment Industry Shows Sexism
Women are judged harsher than their male counterparts. Whether it is their appearance, their actions and behaviors or the way they parent, they are expected to adhere to unmanageably high standards. When a woman does make a mistake she is held to an elevated ethical standard compared to men, according to a 2018 study done by The Academy of Management on Gender and Ethics. This concept is evident in female characters in film and television. People will often say their opinions are justified because the character isn’t real, but it just shows how they think about women in real life. The entertainment industry must fix the way that they depict female characters. They feed into the whiny and bossy stereotype that women are faced with. They need to present the women the same way that men are presented.
Skylar White- “Breaking Bad”
Skylar White is arguably one of the most hated women on TV, when in reality she was just a mom trying to look out for herself and her children. While no character in “Breaking Bad” was inherently good, Skylar was one of the better people in the show. Some may argue that she was whiny, but she was manipulated by her husband repeatedly into thinking he wasn’t a drug lord. When she learned the truth, she was justifiably upset and took steps to leave a toxic situation. As a result, her son turned against her, and most people sided with her son.
Karen Fillipeli- “The Office”
Viewers believed Pam and Jim were meant for each other. However, that isn’t an excuse to attack Karen. She was a woman who knew what she wanted from a relationship. She was also career-driven and wanted someone who was mature enough to realize that. People only hated Karen because they compared her to Pam. Later in the series when she was brought back for a cameo, she was portrayed as a joke. Her boyfriend was silly, and she was pregnant. She was depicted as if she shouldn’t have been happy or successful after she broke up with Jim in the season 3 finale.
Dianne Nguyen- “Bojack Horseman”
In a show full of terrible characters, one of the worst was the title character, Bojack Horseman. A big decision she made was leaving Bojack because she couldn’t handle being with him anymore. They were bad for each other. It seems to be a common trope in the media that women are supposed to stick around and put their physical and mental health at risk to maintain a relationship. In reality, women shouldn’t have to hang around to better a grown man.
