Really great read Grace. I haven't finished Gilmore Girls so can't comment on Rory, and I don't think what I'm about to say is necessarily true for Serena, but I think a lot of "villainised" females characters are the best developed characters, who are more realistic than their counterparts. For example, I've met a lot of women like Cassie in my life but rarely met anyone like Maddie, and the ones who are like Maddie have terrified me. Blair is a similar example - she is clearly a fictional character and a caricature/stereotype of a super-rich NYC teen. I think that's why characters like Cassie and Tashi Duncan are so easy to be disliked, because they are so similar to women we know and could be real people - they are more accessible because so many people have already disliked 'real' women just like them.
Oh 100% Cassie is very realistic - ‘teen girl obsessed with male attention’ and I think that’s what scares people. Infidelity is such an emotive topic and i think the reaction to Cassie is one of fear
Scares or brings back painful memories. I think Cassie usually triggers people who have had a friend like that. Still, movies should depict real life, including girls like Cassie.
Happy my silly note inspired this essay, haha. It's a trend on Twitter, by the way—I didn't come up with it but whiile I did see characters like Marnie mentioned a lot, I did not see Cassie once. As you've said in response to the note, the backlash on Twitter during the last season of Euphoria was absolutely insane. Cassie wasn't perfect, but she never had to be because she was supposed to represent a teenager in desperate need of male attention, which is a common girlhood experience. But people were having a field day dragging her like she was the antichrist. Seems lile not being likeable is the greatest crime a female character can commit..
Yess I’ve seen the format a few times but i’d also not seen it with cassie so i reckon that’s what it stuck with me so much!! Literally the reaction to her blows my mind constantly!! I always end up in the role of OTT defender to try and balance it out i feel
I'm glad you shared Mel's substack, I am ashamed to say I've never come across it but both of your take on these characters and how they're talked about online is extremely interesting! I have always been a Rory Gilmore fan and I have fallen trap of the 'she is the main character, she must be good' several times...
People don’t Like seeing themselves in media. People who do weak/shady/selfish things like we all have at some point. Evil is easier to understand and categorize, it seems. Great piece!
We grew up all our lives with female characters written by men, we grew up with a representation of what we believe a female character is, they determined what she does right or wrong. So when a character escapes from that and presents a new perspective (whether written by men or women), we don't know how to respond and we think we hate them, but there are as many female characters to explore as there are stories to tell.
lovely piece!! i will add however that i need people to start unpacking cassie and realizing that yes she’s unfairly demonized for certain things but sleeping with your best friend’s abuser on top of the added racial layer of her being a yt woman and maddy being latina is a completely different “complex” conversation and i wonder if it makes people uncomfortable that cassie is not given a pass for that because they are used to woc being a flat character to support development. at the same time i’m livid about how moments in cassie’s storyline such as her abortion and even her father were so mishandled. like LIVID. there were NO women in that damn writing room.
This is brilliant! So many people fail to recognize this, but articles like this help to point society in a better direction. Thank you for writing this.
oop that last line👀 I also saw the note you mentioned that inspired this piece and I'm so glad you wrote about it! I was really hoping someone would do this topic justice and here it is
with Cassie it's the whole thing of automatically blaming and shaming the woman in the situation instead of holding the man, who is in a relationship, accountable. i recognise that Nate got hate but not because he cheated; it was because he was abusive (which is worse but you would think when people list his crimes, cheating would be amongst them)
I know this is about characters but real women like Olivia Wilde and Jennifer Lawrence come to mind, who everyone piled up on...cause they rubbed them the wrong way? Women should be allowed to be annoying!!!
Interesting piece! Honestly I’ve never really understood the hate these characters get because they are “annoying” I wonder if it has anything to do with the rejection men would have towards these women (because they are supposedly the “good” girls, like you said), and so we tend to reject it as well in the characters and ourselves out of fear that we are called annoying? Just a thought. I’ve always wondered why people preferred blair over serena since she is downright mean and manipulative. Why is that acceptable and looked up to as “queen”? You got me 😆
I think Blair was funnier? Or so obviously insecure behind her vitriol that it was easier for audiences to relate to her and root for her whereas Serena’s troubles weren’t as understandable to everyone… I feel I’d need to do a whole deep dive!!
you really should!! A long form of all the female characters that get so much backlash for just being human!! Interesting read & a powerful one at that. Thank you so much for sharing!!
I've always wondered if there's something aspirational (esp for young women) in the "brashness" of the Maddies and Blaires? Women still aren't allowed the assertiveness, bluntness, etc. — unless it's in some context for or in favor of men. So we root for them even during their crap. But introduce the Rorys and Cassies — who do not outwardly have this aspirational I-don't-give-a-F-ness, yet are often just as trapped and flawed by sexism — and you haven't given the audience as much to root for at a passing watch?
Basically I wonder if ALL these characters are relatively messy in tangled gendered + race + class-based ways, but modern audience give more grace to those who seem like they've somehow escaped. But that itself reinforces some of the very problems here. UGH! Thank you for articulating so succinctly something so complicated!
"We say “We support women’s rights, but we also support their wrongs”… that is, until they defy our exception of what a good girl/woman is." 👌👌👌👌💯 Such a good way of articulating this sentiment!!!! It also bothers me that this complex characters go through character development, and people are still judging them for their prior "seasons." Thats not really how we think about people so it always struck me as strange.
Honestly, I don't think anyone really knows how to write female characters, women included. I don't think anyone really knows how to critique female characters or what makes a good or bad female character. Because women, womanhood, and femininity have all been politicized in the current social climate, there is no way to critique a female character without some sort of personal biases at play. I enjoyed this essay, and it gave me a lot to think about.
And I agree - we can't handle complex female characters. We can't handle unlikeable female characters, female villains, female anti-heroes, or morally grey women. We especially can't handle these kinds of female characters when they are not white. If Cassie Howard from Euphoria was a Black girl (especially a dark-skinned Black girl), the backlash against her character would be so much worse and she wouldn't have many defenders. There is still a level of privilege and grace afforded to these complex white female characters that would not be given to complex non-white female characters.
Really great read Grace. I haven't finished Gilmore Girls so can't comment on Rory, and I don't think what I'm about to say is necessarily true for Serena, but I think a lot of "villainised" females characters are the best developed characters, who are more realistic than their counterparts. For example, I've met a lot of women like Cassie in my life but rarely met anyone like Maddie, and the ones who are like Maddie have terrified me. Blair is a similar example - she is clearly a fictional character and a caricature/stereotype of a super-rich NYC teen. I think that's why characters like Cassie and Tashi Duncan are so easy to be disliked, because they are so similar to women we know and could be real people - they are more accessible because so many people have already disliked 'real' women just like them.
Oh 100% Cassie is very realistic - ‘teen girl obsessed with male attention’ and I think that’s what scares people. Infidelity is such an emotive topic and i think the reaction to Cassie is one of fear
Scares or brings back painful memories. I think Cassie usually triggers people who have had a friend like that. Still, movies should depict real life, including girls like Cassie.
Happy my silly note inspired this essay, haha. It's a trend on Twitter, by the way—I didn't come up with it but whiile I did see characters like Marnie mentioned a lot, I did not see Cassie once. As you've said in response to the note, the backlash on Twitter during the last season of Euphoria was absolutely insane. Cassie wasn't perfect, but she never had to be because she was supposed to represent a teenager in desperate need of male attention, which is a common girlhood experience. But people were having a field day dragging her like she was the antichrist. Seems lile not being likeable is the greatest crime a female character can commit..
Yess I’ve seen the format a few times but i’d also not seen it with cassie so i reckon that’s what it stuck with me so much!! Literally the reaction to her blows my mind constantly!! I always end up in the role of OTT defender to try and balance it out i feel
I'm glad you shared Mel's substack, I am ashamed to say I've never come across it but both of your take on these characters and how they're talked about online is extremely interesting! I have always been a Rory Gilmore fan and I have fallen trap of the 'she is the main character, she must be good' several times...
❤️
People don’t Like seeing themselves in media. People who do weak/shady/selfish things like we all have at some point. Evil is easier to understand and categorize, it seems. Great piece!
Thank you! It’s definitely easier to reject a character than reflect on ourselves!
We grew up all our lives with female characters written by men, we grew up with a representation of what we believe a female character is, they determined what she does right or wrong. So when a character escapes from that and presents a new perspective (whether written by men or women), we don't know how to respond and we think we hate them, but there are as many female characters to explore as there are stories to tell.
exactly if we want complex female characters we have to be open to all variations of this!!
lovely piece!! i will add however that i need people to start unpacking cassie and realizing that yes she’s unfairly demonized for certain things but sleeping with your best friend’s abuser on top of the added racial layer of her being a yt woman and maddy being latina is a completely different “complex” conversation and i wonder if it makes people uncomfortable that cassie is not given a pass for that because they are used to woc being a flat character to support development. at the same time i’m livid about how moments in cassie’s storyline such as her abortion and even her father were so mishandled. like LIVID. there were NO women in that damn writing room.
It screams not a single woman was present!! And 100% we need to bring all the cultural context to the landscape with which we look at characters
This is brilliant! So many people fail to recognize this, but articles like this help to point society in a better direction. Thank you for writing this.
this is the kindest comment!! thank you!!
thinking of Daisy from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald here!!
You are so right with this one!! I am and always have been a Daisy defender
oop that last line👀 I also saw the note you mentioned that inspired this piece and I'm so glad you wrote about it! I was really hoping someone would do this topic justice and here it is
Oh thank you so much!! I feel STRONGLY about this
love this. i would read a whole essay on cassie and each character, please do write more on this.
❤️❤️❤️
with Cassie it's the whole thing of automatically blaming and shaming the woman in the situation instead of holding the man, who is in a relationship, accountable. i recognise that Nate got hate but not because he cheated; it was because he was abusive (which is worse but you would think when people list his crimes, cheating would be amongst them)
I know this is about characters but real women like Olivia Wilde and Jennifer Lawrence come to mind, who everyone piled up on...cause they rubbed them the wrong way? Women should be allowed to be annoying!!!
Oh yeah!! the reaction to Olivia Wilde was A LOT
Interesting piece! Honestly I’ve never really understood the hate these characters get because they are “annoying” I wonder if it has anything to do with the rejection men would have towards these women (because they are supposedly the “good” girls, like you said), and so we tend to reject it as well in the characters and ourselves out of fear that we are called annoying? Just a thought. I’ve always wondered why people preferred blair over serena since she is downright mean and manipulative. Why is that acceptable and looked up to as “queen”? You got me 😆
I think Blair was funnier? Or so obviously insecure behind her vitriol that it was easier for audiences to relate to her and root for her whereas Serena’s troubles weren’t as understandable to everyone… I feel I’d need to do a whole deep dive!!
you really should!! A long form of all the female characters that get so much backlash for just being human!! Interesting read & a powerful one at that. Thank you so much for sharing!!
The temptation is growing!! Thank you so much x
YES! All of this!
I've always wondered if there's something aspirational (esp for young women) in the "brashness" of the Maddies and Blaires? Women still aren't allowed the assertiveness, bluntness, etc. — unless it's in some context for or in favor of men. So we root for them even during their crap. But introduce the Rorys and Cassies — who do not outwardly have this aspirational I-don't-give-a-F-ness, yet are often just as trapped and flawed by sexism — and you haven't given the audience as much to root for at a passing watch?
Basically I wonder if ALL these characters are relatively messy in tangled gendered + race + class-based ways, but modern audience give more grace to those who seem like they've somehow escaped. But that itself reinforces some of the very problems here. UGH! Thank you for articulating so succinctly something so complicated!
I love this comment!
Every Rory is told to be a little more Paris, and every Paris told to be more like Rory. It's never enough. What a world!!!
"We say “We support women’s rights, but we also support their wrongs”… that is, until they defy our exception of what a good girl/woman is." 👌👌👌👌💯 Such a good way of articulating this sentiment!!!! It also bothers me that this complex characters go through character development, and people are still judging them for their prior "seasons." Thats not really how we think about people so it always struck me as strange.
Literally!! People are allowed to grow!!
Honestly, I don't think anyone really knows how to write female characters, women included. I don't think anyone really knows how to critique female characters or what makes a good or bad female character. Because women, womanhood, and femininity have all been politicized in the current social climate, there is no way to critique a female character without some sort of personal biases at play. I enjoyed this essay, and it gave me a lot to think about.
And I agree - we can't handle complex female characters. We can't handle unlikeable female characters, female villains, female anti-heroes, or morally grey women. We especially can't handle these kinds of female characters when they are not white. If Cassie Howard from Euphoria was a Black girl (especially a dark-skinned Black girl), the backlash against her character would be so much worse and she wouldn't have many defenders. There is still a level of privilege and grace afforded to these complex white female characters that would not be given to complex non-white female characters.
These are some great comments! Thank you for sharing!!x
Love this! Women are held to harsher, impossible standards.