You are not Carrie Bradshaw

a defense of complex female characters

I had to rewrite this article three times before I was content with its existence. For some reason, I didn’t want to publish a second part of my baddie favorite article ‘You are not Rory Gilmore’ which is my most popular piece.

You are not Rory Gilmore had people on two sides: on one hand, they agreed with what I had to say about Rory being a fake intellectual with no singular thoughts, that her only personality trait was drinking coffee. That she was an overprivileged kid who didn’t realize her own privilege. On the other hand, people were telling me I was reading her character wrong, that she was complex, and that I simply couldn’t handle complex characters. That is completely untrue, I still like watching Gilmore Girls, I just don’t think Rory should be idolized when on that show, you have characters with much more spunk like Lane and Paris, who go after what they want and fight.

So here we go, here is a defense of complex female characters. But be prepared, it will go to unexpected places. Are you ready? I’ll hold your hand, you might need it ;)

A lukewarm defense of complex female characters

Personally, I grew up watching complex female characters on screen. When I was 8 I started watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer (arguably the best straight and white woman ever written for the screen) How I Met Your Mother (Lily I love you, your character was ruined) Sex and The City, The Sopranos, Fleabag…

I watched Breaking Bad as it was airing and rooted for Skyler to leave Walter, dared to hope for Carrie to find her soulmate in her Manolo Blahnik, and longed for Buffy to kill Riley and Angel because fuck them. Spike, I love you, but it’s on sight if you’re soulless.

Complex female characters raised me, Hunger Games was my bread-and-butter, jam and cherry on top.

Carrie Bradshaw, much like Rory Gilmore, is a naive and romantic journalist. She’s unconfident, shrinking into her slim body to make herself less threatening to men. She’s unaware of her privilege as a cis and straight white woman, nor is she aware of her privilege in terms of the money she makes, allowing her to buy at luxury stores all the time. In her head, Carrie is middle class, because everyone around her makes so much more money. But she’s not middle class, she’s upper class.

I like Carrie, much more than I like Rory. Not liking a complex female character doesn’t mean that we ‘can’t handle them’ like those rage-bate tweets are saying, it means that you recognize that character’s complexity and simply don’t think it’s for you. Media literacy is dead, long live clickbait articles and twitter.

But still, you are not Carrie Bradshaw. You don’t have the luxury of buying luxury clothes with your writing money, you probably don’t have a solid group of 4 friends to have brunch with every weekend because everyone is ‘too busy’ or ‘don’t have the money’. We’re Gen Z, we’re lucky to have two friends. You’re not invited to club openings and you don’t get hit on publicly instead of on dating apps.

Carrie Bradshaw and Rory Gilmore are two of the most celebrated characters on this site, they’re copy and paste of one another. Both of them are journalists, both of them are naive romantics, both of them have money, both of them are straight, cis, white, slim, able-bodied, and don’t have a history of mental health issues. I love them, but they’re kinda basic if you think about it for a second. They’re predictable and have already been written hundreds of times.

Now, whenever I see a book with a blurb about a struggling writer in her late twenties who’s cis, white and straight falling in love in a small town with the farmer she’s been sent to interview, I don’t read it. This book is in 20 different fonts and has the same cartoon romance cover. And as a writer, I’m tired of reading the same women, over and over when so much hasn’t been covered yet, or has only just begun being covered.

The most recently beloved and hated female character that had all of stan Twitter in a clutch, silently putting aside their lace underwear was Shiv Roy in Succession. Do you remember Succession Sunday? Because I do, and I lived and breathed succession for a long time. Shiv Roy started a new era of the complex female character: she was confident, strong, and emotionally distant (she said ‘fuck off’ when she meant ‘I love you’). She was mommy, wasn’t she?

She’s the beginning of a new kind of woman on screen, and yet, she’s still very mainstream, and very hated outside of feminist online circles.

There’s a dichotomy (look at me using big words, are you impressed? Yes, I’m still holding your hand firmly), between the woman who gets the most hated for being complex (Skylar from Breaking Bad is more hated than any of the sociopaths from Game Of Thrones) and the need for more complex female characters.

We need more Shiv Roy in other shapes, in black, in Latina, in Asian, in bisexual and lesbian, in nonbinary, and in trans women. And yet, when we’re given women just like that, the world is silent, because simply no one is watching because even though we need them, no one is ready for the lack of comfort these characters will bring.

But do we watch TV for comfort or to intellectualize?

I’m tired of white cis and straight complex characters

POC and queer representation historically doesn’t bring a lot of viewers. I remember when Sense8 was airing (one of my favorite shows) and it was canceled because it wasn’t doing the numbers needed to justify its filming budget, therefore ending the era of Netflix as an initiator of change on TV.

HBO has been trying to pick up the mantel, and it is the same with Hulu with shows like I May Destroy You and Atlanta, but these shows don’t get the viewership they deserve because it makes people uncomfortable. Why do you think the term ‘comfort show’ is so popular?

I can think of one beloved female character who breaks the mold: Cristina Yang. A series regular for 10 seasons on Grey’s Anatomy, Cristina Yang is strong, ambitious, unflirty, she’s Asian and she’s loved. She doesn’t want kids and refuses to let go of her ambitions for her husband, leading them to a divorce in an otherwise happy relationship. She was a precursor for Shiv Roy, the uncontested queen of all that is cold and unemotional.

So why are people so uncomfortable at the idea of watching complex female characters of diverse backgrounds? Why can’t we stand them? Why aren’t they being written in the first place?

Well, I can tell you why they’re not being written: it won’t bring the ratings the network needs. It’s that fucking easy. But we need to change our watching habits, mobilize behind shows like I May Destroy You, get them trending on the apps, and write think-pieces on them like we do with Rory and Carrie, so networks know there’s money to be made there. Because (not to be a capitalistic cynic) there is a shit ton of money to be made off the back of POCs and queer people, we’ve seen that with the shitty pride month collections company gives us. Yay, look at the pride flag on converses! I don’t care, give me more Scooby Doo shoes, this time with Daphne and Velma kissing, please.

We need to sit with our discomfort, hold it, and question it, why can’t I watch Atlanta? Why am I not interested in the story of Viola Davis in How To Get Away With Murder?

One of the best tv writers and creators of our time is Shonda Rhimes, the mind behind shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder. She manages to write characters of color that feel comfortable, she’s able to write femininity and all its accompanying issues incredibly well in a palatable way, and it makes BANK. Why do you think there are so many fucking seasons of Grey’s Anatomy?

Can I let go of your hand yet? Will you watch something else than Gilmore Girls and Sex and The City? Because I’m tired. I’m tired of the media being so monotonous, of every think-piece on this website being about the same kind of girlhood when there are so many different flavors of girlhood.

Can you handle something else than your straight-and-white diet? Add a little sriracha, I swear it’s good.