Unlikeable Female Characters
Jun. 4th, 2025 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearUnlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya is a nonfiction book about trends in the portrayal of women in film, and how audiences have reacted to the less likeable ones over time.
It seemed like it might be right up my alley, since I often look at female representation in media, both in my book reviews and my media reviews podcast.
But...
The author herself says: "This book really shouldn't exist. Writing about unlikeability seems old-fashioned, superfluous or even dopey at this point."
Her point is that we, as a society, should probably have moved on from needing to discuss the marginalisation and/or double standards applied to the presentation of women in fiction - but it's disappointingly the case that it's still a thing. And I agree!
But, unfortunately, for me, the book didn't seem to have anything particularly new or interesting to say about the subject.
To be fair, the history section was quite good, particularly in discussing the dominance of women in the early years of Hollywood, and also the acknowledgement of issues of intersectionality for both queer women and women of colour in media.
But, at a micro level, I actually found it hard to follow and take in for some reason. And at a macro level, it didn't have enough to say to keep me engaged. Once it got to the main sections, detailing the different types of unlikeable female characters, it essentially just turned into a list of different roles in different films and that was about it.
I skipped around a bit to see if any of the sections were more interesting than the others - but eventually decided to DNF.
It seemed like it might be right up my alley, since I often look at female representation in media, both in my book reviews and my media reviews podcast.
But...
The author herself says: "This book really shouldn't exist. Writing about unlikeability seems old-fashioned, superfluous or even dopey at this point."
Her point is that we, as a society, should probably have moved on from needing to discuss the marginalisation and/or double standards applied to the presentation of women in fiction - but it's disappointingly the case that it's still a thing. And I agree!
But, unfortunately, for me, the book didn't seem to have anything particularly new or interesting to say about the subject.
To be fair, the history section was quite good, particularly in discussing the dominance of women in the early years of Hollywood, and also the acknowledgement of issues of intersectionality for both queer women and women of colour in media.
But, at a micro level, I actually found it hard to follow and take in for some reason. And at a macro level, it didn't have enough to say to keep me engaged. Once it got to the main sections, detailing the different types of unlikeable female characters, it essentially just turned into a list of different roles in different films and that was about it.
I skipped around a bit to see if any of the sections were more interesting than the others - but eventually decided to DNF.
