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00:00Nobody likes me when they first meet me, right?
00:01Exactly!
00:05Why are we still talking about whether or not female characters are likable?
00:10Today, it's the default to embrace male characters who exist all across the spectrum of morality.
00:15But it remains incredibly common for critics and some viewers to fault female characters for being unlikable
00:21and declare that their movies or shows are therefore unwatchable.
00:25Historically, female characters have been sidelined,
00:28more often the love interest than the leading role.
00:30As a result, they've been overdefined by how much a male viewpoint character likes or indeed doesn't like them.
00:37Which do you think guys like best on girls, long or short hair?
00:40Hmm, that's a deep question.
00:42Personally, I prefer blondes.
00:45In real life, being considered unlikable holds women back far more than men,
00:49with one 2020 study revealing that in male-male interactions,
00:52likability is not an influencing factor,
00:55but in male-female and female-female interactions, likability is crucial.
00:59There's also the matter of what qualities are likable in women versus men.
01:04In studies of the race and likability scale,
01:06we see that women's laughter is rated as more likable than men's,
01:10and attractiveness is seen as a determining metric of likability.
01:13I like her.
01:14She seems smart.
01:15And when it comes to female characters on screen,
01:18who are so often reviewed by male critics,
01:20there tends to be a conflation between likability and relatability,
01:24as if the only way we would ever be able to relate to women on screen is if we'd like to hang out with them.
01:30In reality, though, people are messy, flawed, and sometimes can be pretty damn unlikable,
01:34and the best characters illuminate this,
01:37along with all the nuances of the human condition.
01:40Here's our take on the gendered bias of likability,
01:42and why we need to stop talking about whether or not female characters are likable at all.
01:47Doing something great is overrated.
01:52Because then people expect that from you.
01:55All the time.
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02:55So what makes someone likable?
03:03Psychologist Stephen Rayson's likability scale defines it through a series of questions,
03:07like whether you'd ask someone for advice, how approachable they are,
03:11and whether you'd want them as a co-worker or a roommate.
03:13But this scale doesn't measure a person's deeper values or beliefs,
03:17just how they act superficially in society.
03:20When it comes to interesting storytelling,
03:22it's undoubtedly far less important for a character to be agreeable than to be real.
03:26Yet to this day, when female characters dare to behave unpleasantly,
03:30their stories risk getting trashed.
03:33In Diablo Cody's Young Adult, the whole dark humor of the 2011 film
03:37is built around Charlize Theron's Mavis acting in over-the-top,
03:40unlikable ways as she desperately tries to recapture the glory days of her high school past.
03:45Mavis, I'm a married man.
03:47No, we can beat this thing together.
03:49For some reason, that made it difficult for many reviewers to enjoy the movie.
03:53James Berardinelli wrote Mavis is the kind of character who's easy to despise,
03:58saying by the movie's end, any hope of our caring about what happens to her is long gone.
04:02And I hate this town, it's a heck lake town that smells of fish shit.
04:07Sonia Bennett, writer and star of 2014's Preggoland,
04:10said at least one studio was reluctant to take on her film
04:13due to the question of whether her character was likable, because, quote,
04:17from a financial point of view, female anti-hero movies like Young Adult
04:21had underperformed at the box office.
04:23They thought those films were underperforming because the characters were unlikable.
04:27It's a persistent myth to this day, despite the lack of evidence,
04:30that the reason certain movies or shows fail is due to female unlikability.
04:34This was cited as a reason 2017's Gypsy was cancelled,
04:38with Terry Tironis writing that Naomi Watts' caustic therapist
04:41was an extremely unlikable figure whose irredeemable acts
04:45made her a lead player who is just hard to watch.
04:48As Jean, she gets obsessed with the people in her patients' lives.
04:52She uses those intimate details to then go and develop relationships with them,
04:56as Diane.
04:57Personality problems were the scapegoat for Tall Girls issues, too,
05:01with Alex Hartzog writing,
05:02having a toxic lead does not make for an interesting story,
05:05nor does it make the audience want to root for her.
05:082011's Bridesmaids was initially received as a female version
05:11of 2009's Celebration of Male Debauchery, The Hangover.
05:14But unlike that film, Bridesmaids faced pressure to make sure
05:17its central character, Kristen Wiig's Annie,
05:20showcased a serious, hard-working side,
05:22so she wouldn't feel too unrelatable in the scenes
05:25where she acts wild and unhinged.
05:27I'm ready to party!
05:33It almost goes without saying that male characters,
05:36who would be pretty objectively unlikable in real life,
05:38are lauded on our screens.
05:40Tony Soprano, a literal mafia boss who murders members of his own family,
05:44set off a craze for male antiheroes.
05:47Breaking Bad follows a guy who likewise murders, lies, and manipulates,
05:50putting his family at risk to manufacture meth for the sake of an ego trip.
05:54I did it for me.
05:56But all this was seen rightly as a plus from the standpoint of good drama.
06:01There's an implicit understanding that these characters aren't real people,
06:04but story elements who interact with everything else going on in the narrative
06:08to create interesting pockets of meaning.
06:11Willa Paskin described the smug, menacing megalomania of Walter White
06:15as a walking incarnation of the central tension of the show.
06:18I am the one who knocks.
06:20Margaret Lyons writes that womanizing, arrogant, unpredictable Don Draper
06:25is there to remind us of the failures of post-war American culture
06:28that told people patriotism, consumerism, and determination were the keys to happiness.
06:34In the comedic realm, the unlikability of George Costanza in Seinfeld
06:37or Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm
06:39as they call out petty social annoyances that most of us just tolerate
06:43is the whole point.
06:45You got a wobbly table here.
06:46Yeah, well stop moving it.
06:47Stop moving it?
06:48Every time I lean on it, it's going to move.
06:51Karina Kochana writes that David's unlikability in Curb
06:54speaks to a wider study on the universe
06:56where every little seed of discord that he has planted along the way
07:00comes back to haunt him in a merciless, karmic domino effect.
07:04For decades now, audiences and critics have become increasingly educated
07:08in the value of unlikable male characters
07:10and can recognize that likability is just one personality trait of many
07:14which should be factored into a portrait of character
07:17that illuminates the story's wider truth.
07:19Strangely, when it comes to female characters,
07:21numerous critics and audiences lack that ability
07:24to separate the character as a meaning-making story element
07:27from the need to judge her as a human being.
07:30In You, Guinevere Beck should be the character we naturally sympathize with
07:34given that she's the target of a creepy stalker-turned serial killer
07:37but reviews still called her ungrateful and lazy,
07:41complained about how much she cried
07:43and even said that her unlikability undermined the entire message of the show.
07:47Were you ever f***ing your therapist?
07:52Yes.
07:53In The Walking Dead, Laurie became a target for hate
07:56for, among other things, not being a feminist and being a bad mom
07:59which, given the fact that the show was set in an apocalypse, seems harsh.
08:03Another odd phenomenon when it comes to the reception
08:06of unlikable female characters
08:08is a widespread inability to recognize
08:10when stories intend the character to be unlikable
08:14to make a certain point.
08:15This ties into the larger bias to conflate female storytellers
08:19with their characters
08:20and assume that their material is always autobiographical.
08:23Girls' Hannah Horvath was described
08:25as one of the most disliked characters on television by Erin Whitney.
08:29But many critics and viewers seem to miss
08:31that Girls was trying to depict Hannah and its other characters
08:34as privileged, entitled, bratty, and often problematic
08:38in order to explore some of the worst traits of Millennials.
08:41They thought we were going,
08:43this is what everyone's life is like.
08:45And we were going, no, these are girls
08:46who don't understand the value of a dollar.
08:48They think everything's going to be handed to them.
08:50In A Year in the Life, Rory Gilmore,
08:52the bright, mostly polite teen
08:54of the original Gilmore Girls series,
08:56had become an irresponsible, entitled 30-something
08:59who was even cruel toward her mother.
09:01It's my life, Rory.
09:03Now you're going to lay it all out in a book?
09:05The Things wrote that Rory,
09:06the quintessential privileged millennial,
09:09was the number one reason why Gilmore Girls is the worst.
09:12But Rory's unattractive qualities
09:14actually made for a more interesting and realistic portrayal
09:17of how a millennial who grew up with wealth and privilege
09:20might be in this stage of life.
09:22I'm blowing everything, my life, my career.
09:24I'm flailing, and I don't have a plan or a list or a clue.
09:28Critical and awards darling, the favorite was so interesting
09:31because it's the rare historical drama
09:33that's choosing not to give us female characters of the past
09:36who act in the way we'd expect.
09:38Yet it too found itself dismissed by some
09:41for having wholly unlikable female characters
09:43as if the movie wasn't fully aware.
09:46In the series Barry, a comedy about acting and assassins,
09:49Sarah Goldberg's Sally embodies all of the worst cliches
09:53about actresses, like being self-absorbed,
09:55narcissistic and fame-obsessed, while at the same time
09:58illuminating in an honest way the heart, drive,
10:01and complexity of striving to be a working actor.
10:04I'm terrified, okay, because my piece is real.
10:06It's not a character, it's me.
10:08Raw, unapologetic truth with a capital T.
10:11In response to early feedback that Sally was too dislikable,
10:14Goldberg fought to maintain the character's flaws.
10:17On the other end of the spectrum,
10:19the pressure for female characters to be likable
10:21can lead to ones who seem written solely for likability,
10:24at the expense of making them real, multidimensional characters.
10:28And even then, trying too hard for likability can backfire.
10:31Emily from Emily in Paris is warm, friendly, and approachable,
10:35all traits indicated on the race in likability scale.
10:38Merci, have a bonne journée.
10:40Yet despite the show's popularity,
10:42many viewers complained that Emily was annoying,
10:45to the point that Lily Collins felt compelled
10:47to defend her in an interview, saying,
10:49to have someone be optimistic, bright, and bubbly,
10:52it's sad to think that people would look and go,
10:54that's a lot.
11:00The gender bias surrounding likability
11:02isn't just in how much it matters,
11:04but also in what we consider likable in men versus women.
11:08We expect men to be assertive,
11:09so when they take the lead,
11:11it feels natural to us.
11:12In contrast, we expect women to be kind and communal.
11:17This sexism often plays out in business and politics,
11:20where important leadership qualities,
11:22like assertiveness and directly addressing conflict,
11:24are held against women.
11:26Such a nasty woman.
11:27Perhaps the most striking example
11:29of the unlikability bias in recent years
11:31came with the release of 2019's Captain Marvel,
11:34when intense negative scrutiny on both the character
11:37and Brie Larson revealed a lot about gender expectations.
11:40Captain is a gender-neutral term,
11:43but most female superheroes have explicitly feminine names.
11:46Take Black Widow, Catwoman, Supergirl,
11:49The Scarlet Witch, and Wonder Woman.
11:51Today's other main superhero with the Captain name
11:53is that all-American archetype of masculinity, Captain America.
11:57So through this association,
11:59Carol Danvers implicitly adopts a kind of maleness.
12:02Criticism of Captain Marvel was rooted
12:04in her being too strong, too confident,
12:07I have nothing to prove to you,
12:09and too able to overcome her emotions.
12:11In other words, not woman enough.
12:14There are countless examples in film and TV
12:16where a lack of traditional femininity
12:18is conflated with unlikability.
12:20Returning to Star's Hollow,
12:22Paris Geller was initially set up
12:24as an antagonist of Gilmore Girls,
12:25and loaded with unwomanly characteristics.
12:28She was assertive, driven,
12:30very confident in her own ability,
12:32and uninterested in sororal relationships.
12:34You'll never catch up.
12:36You'll never beat me.
12:37The school is my domain,
12:38and the Franklin is my domain.
12:40And don't you ever forget that.
12:42But Paris went on a journey toward likability,
12:45which entailed softening
12:46some of these stereotypically male characteristics
12:48while forming a sisterly bond with Rory.
12:51In other words, as she became more of a girl,
12:54audiences began to like her more.
12:55On the deeper level,
12:56what really bonds Paris, Captain Marvel,
12:59and other so-called unlikable protagonists
13:02isn't masculinity, but agency.
13:04We are not asked to define them
13:06by their relationships to anyone else,
13:08least of all men.
13:09I can't date.
13:10I'm not genetically set up for it.
13:12But we've long been conditioned
13:13to view female characters,
13:15and perhaps women in general,
13:17in relation to others as love interests,
13:19sidekicks, or more broadly,
13:21objects of the male gaze.
13:23Gilda, are you decent?
13:25Me?
13:27For most of cinema's history,
13:28women have served as images for men
13:30not only to enjoy,
13:31but also to use as symbols
13:33and project their inner worlds onto.
13:36In Laura Mulvey's theories on the male gaze,
13:38she observes that this makes women
13:40inherently passive,
13:41an erotic object for the spectator.
13:43So when female characters take a more active role
13:46and define themselves,
13:47this challenges the automatic assumptions
13:50of many viewers and critics,
13:51who probably don't even quite realize
13:53why this makes them so uncomfortable.
14:00Today, we are seeing a growing number
14:02of compelling female characters
14:03who don't adhere to traditional standards
14:06of female likability.
14:07And at last,
14:08stories are opening audiences up to them
14:10by leveraging more and more of the qualities
14:12that have long made us accept
14:14anti-heroic males on screen.
14:16So what do you want to do now?
14:18I want to kill her
14:19with my bare hands.
14:23Salon's Willa Paskin argues
14:25that competency is crucial
14:26to going along with unlikable characters.
14:29Intelligence, or being good at a job,
14:31are key reasons audiences were enamored
14:33with Tony, Walt, Omar, or Don.
14:36And we're starting to see more stories
14:38use competence, intelligence, and drive
14:40to get us to side with characters
14:42like Ozark's Wendy Bird and Ruth Langmore,
14:44How to Get Away with Murders' Annalise Keating,
14:47Scandal's Olivia Pope,
14:48Homeland's Carrie Matheson,
14:50or The Americans' Elizabeth Jennings.
14:52We blew our whole window on the chase.
14:53We won't make it.
14:54So Park waited about where he dies in 50-50.
14:56We missed a handoff anyway.
14:57No, the mission comes first.
14:59In Killing Eve,
15:00Eve Palastri's focus on her work
15:02comes at the detriment of her relationships,
15:04but her brilliant insight
15:06as a detective is magnetic.
15:08I said it was probably a woman.
15:09Victor Kedron was a misogynist
15:12and a sex trafficker.
15:13He may not have considered
15:14a passing woman a threat.
15:15Meanwhile, the fact that
15:16psychopathic Villanelle is marked out
15:19as a top-notch assassin
15:20and looks great doing it
15:22makes her feel almost aspirational.
15:24We also know that being funny
15:26scores high on the race and likability scale.
15:29This traditionally male-coded trait
15:31has become an increasingly common tool
15:32for making us enjoy
15:33badly behaving female leads.
15:3630 Rock's Liz Lemon
15:37is kind of a bully
15:38and incredibly self-involved,
15:40but she and her partner
15:41in unlikability,
15:42Jenna Maroney,
15:43are both brilliant comedic creations
15:45that send up stereotypes
15:46of white liberal guilt
15:47and the fragile ego
15:48of celebrity, respectively.
15:50I'm the one who made Christmas happen.
15:53What about Santa?
15:54Daddy!
15:55She said there's no Santa Claus!
15:58What is wrong with you?
15:59Veep's Selina Meyer
16:00is narcissistic,
16:02inept,
16:02and totally devoid of morals,
16:04but this makes her the perfect center
16:06of the show's satire
16:07of the incompetence
16:08and chaos of the political system
16:10where no one really knows
16:11what they're doing.
16:12It's like a f***ing Rubik's Cube.
16:13I mean, it's impossible at this point.
16:15What? Mike?
16:16A Rubik's Cube is not impossible to solve.
16:18What all these likably unlikable
16:20female characters share
16:21is that their behavior
16:22illuminates something interesting
16:24about their world and ours,
16:25and what we think of their character
16:27in real life doesn't matter
16:28compared to whether they're interesting
16:30and their actions yield meaning
16:32within this particular story.
16:34Modern female characters
16:35also confront us with the truth
16:37that unlikability is fluid
16:39and situational
16:40rather than a permanent state.
16:42When we meet Mare from Mare of Easttown,
16:44she's in a state of complicated grief
16:46over her son's suicide,
16:47and so acts in selfish,
16:49highly unethical ways.
16:50She swore the drugs weren't hers,
16:52that you must have planted them on her?
16:55Not because that's who she is inherently,
16:57but as a response to her struggle.
16:59These two cases have taken a toll,
17:01and you're still struggling to deal
17:02with the loss of your son.
17:03I recommended grief counseling.
17:06In I May Destroy You,
17:07Arabella goes through a phase
17:08of becoming an incredibly self-obsessed influencer
17:11and a bad friend.
17:12You can just shut up and f***.
17:15But we can clearly understand this
17:17as part of her journey
17:18of processing a harrowing sexual assault.
17:20Mildred in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,
17:23displays a lot of anger
17:24and blunt rudeness,
17:26qualities our society is highly primed
17:28to dislike in women,
17:29but her intense grief along with her humor
17:31helped many audiences understand
17:33where her rage came from.
17:35In Can You Ever Forgive Me,
17:37this challenge to stick with a character
17:38who's behaving in an unlikable way
17:41is baked right into the film's title.
17:43Melissa McCarthy's Lee Israel
17:45is motivated by economic desperation.
17:47You are going to pay me $5,000.
17:49I don't have $5,000.
17:50You're a clever woman.
17:55Figure it out.
17:56Being unlikable often frees up female characters
17:59to provide more of the story's fun,
18:02like by driving the plot,
18:03raising the stakes,
18:04and keeping things entertaining.
18:06Unlikability can also just be a standard
18:08within the character's world.
18:10The women of Succession and Ozark
18:12are by turns amoral, selfish, and cruel.
18:14I'm not wanting to put a damper
18:15on Rhea's celebrations or anything,
18:17but it's time we killed her dead.
18:19Smash her skull in with a rock.
18:20But they exist in morally bankrupt universes
18:23where we're not invited to like or admire anyone.
18:26So why should we expect the women
18:27to be any different?
18:29A woman, that's a minus.
18:30Well, of course it's a f***ing minus.
18:32I didn't make the world.
18:34All of these examples push us
18:36to put ourselves in these women's situations,
18:38just as we would for a male character.
18:40In other words,
18:41substituting likability for relatability.
18:44And this gets at the central problem at play
18:46when people complain they can't relate
18:48to female characters.
18:49It reveals that too often critics and viewers
18:52aren't seeing women as universal humans.
18:55Partly this stems too from the long-standing
18:57white male makeup of the critical establishment.
19:00Women are still in the minority of film critics.
19:02Even in a 2021 Decider review
19:04of Julie Delpy's Netflix show,
19:06On the Verge,
19:07critic Joel Keller writes that
19:08the intensely unlikable main characters
19:11hurt the narrative of the show,
19:13complaining that their unlikability
19:15renders them unrelatable.
19:17But there's nothing even strikingly unlikable
19:19about most of the show's characters.
19:20The reviewer's inability to relate
19:22reveals more about him than about the comedy,
19:25whose humor about four 40-something women
19:27going through shades of midlife crisis
19:29is probably accessible to many.
19:31Sometimes I think we're all just grieving the person
19:35we hoped we would become.
19:37To be sure, it remains ineffective to make a female
19:40or any character unlikable and unrelatable
19:43with no motivation we can identify with.
19:45Rosamund Pike's most iconic roles represent
19:48an interesting study of this balancing act.
19:50In I Care A Lot,
19:51Marla Grayson is unlikable,
19:53but that's all she is.
19:55And the film's message is muddled,
19:57so while we're almost invited to root for Marla,
20:00it's unclear why.
20:01In comparison,
20:02Pike's Amy Dunn in Gone Girl
20:04similarly behaves in shockingly unethical ways,
20:07but her motivation is clearer.
20:08We're invited to understand and relate
20:11to the sources of her resentment.
20:12Nick Dunn took my pride and my dignity
20:15and my hope and my money.
20:17And so,
20:18even if we'd never condone her actions,
20:20we're interested in going along with her for this ride.
20:23In today's social media fixated world,
20:26we're perhaps more primed than ever
20:28to fixate on the goal of being liked.
20:31But great stories move us the most
20:33not through characters who are purely aspirational,
20:35enviable, or nice,
20:37but who reflect a piece of ourselves we recognize,
20:40even when we'd rather not.
20:41As viewers,
20:42we need to get used to accepting that truth
20:45from a character of any gender.
20:46People can have bad days,
20:48which sometimes turn into bad weeks,
20:50bad months,
20:51and bad years.
20:52And if we're honest,
20:53that may be when we're able to relate to them the most.
20:57I have no one.
20:58I have nothing.
21:00And you want me to be more likable?
21:02This is the take on your favorite movie shows and pop culture.
21:06Thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe.
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21:12Right now,
21:13Mubi is showing The Graduate.
21:15The 1967 classic directed by Mike Nichols
21:17is the coming-of-age story of recent college grad Benjamin
21:20as he figures out what he wants in life and love.
21:23Not only is it hilarious and beautifully bittersweet,
21:26it features an iconic female character
21:28some might not find likable,
21:30but who is undoubtedly fascinating.
21:32As a special gift to our viewers,
21:34Mubi is offering 30 days free.
21:36So click the link in the description below to start streaming now.
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21:41these days you may be totally uninspired and stuck
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21:55so their recommendations are always top-notch.
22:06The
22:18acceptable
22:19activity
22:20is just a little bit better.
22:22If you're looking for a big thing,
22:23it brings the truth to playing.
22:24By the way,
22:25let's look for you.
22:27Let's go for a big thing.
22:30If you're looking for a big thing,
22:31let's go for a big thing.
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