We All Love Gone Girl
When I read Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I was caught off guard by how proudly the protagonist acted with her privilege on her sleeve while being so out of touch, or just uncaring, toward other people. She owns her WASP status, Columbia education, and runway-model figure while also detesting most things about herself and the world around her. This blunt personality of a protagonist is unlike most female characters, which may be why the book has gained status as one of the notorious “insufferable female protagonist” examples.
On social media, the trope of an annoying or problematic female in media is commonplace as it seems to go viral in cycles. People, more often than not female, flock to an established group of these protagonists that range from Moshfegh’s character in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, to Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, or Villanelle from Killing Eve, to Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson from Lady Bird. The traits of these characters vary from stubbornness to vengefulness, but they seem to be lumped together on social media, glossing over the important distinctions between what makes Villanelle a psychopathic assassin and what makes Lady Bird the average high school girl trying to move out.
I will admit that the trope has lured me in at times due to the performance of a character who is an exaggerated version of some of my less attractive traits. Part of the pull towards these insufferable leads is that they represent the emotions women are often not shown as experiencing. Female characters in the media are friendly, kind, and importantly, redeemable. While women remain stuck inside the box of being gentle and nice, male characters get more freedom to explore their flaws. The viral examples of the insufferable male lead are from films renowned as the “best”: Fight Club’s Tyler Durden, Joker’s Arthur Fleck/Joker, or Nightcrawler’s Louis “Lou” Bloom. Movies with obnoxious or violent male leads get more recognition and become regarded as classics. Male protagonists have free reign to be irredeemable and unlikeable while simultaneously being accepted and idolized.
The rise in insufferable female leads has brought with it criticism of the characters, particularly in comparison to male protagonists. The Take credits this inequality to people’s struggle to grasp these types of women in media and that “when it comes to female characters, numerous critics and audiences lack that ability to separate the character as a meaning-making story element, from the need to judge her as a human being.” The inequality between female and male leads reflects the larger issue of who is free to express certain emotions, but based on the viral acceptance of these annoying or cruel women, I would say the representation is a good step if it means more emotional freedom within the media.
One issue with the obsession of these protagonists is the potential for glamorizing serious problems, like mental illnesses or violent crimes. The examples I come back to when considering the gray area of romanticizing this category of character are Dani from Midsommar and Esther Greenwood from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. On social media, the trending aesthetics and glamorization have the power to desensitize viewers to the experiences of depression or trauma and reduce the characters to models of this trope when they are more complex than the small label of “insufferable.”
Even with the boost for representation of female protagonists in books, film, and television, the danger of romanticizing serious issues looms over Pinterest boards and TikToks celebrating these characters.
Sources:
https://the-take.com/watch/stop-talking-about-if-female-characters-are-likable
Cover image courtesty of Pinterest