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  • Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by Jem at 12:18 on 28 May 2013
    Fascinating discussion between Sarah Dunant and Fay Weldon triggered by writer Claire Messaud's reaction to a comment by a reader who said she could never be friends with the heroine of Messaud's novel.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22685719
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by Jaytee Conner at 12:39 on 28 May 2013
    This is one that ALWAYS gets me going.

    women are just as responsible for making unlikeable heroines taboo as men are. In fact probably more so.

    If you aren't nice you don't get to play/network with the other little girls.

    Unfortunately the yummy mummy chicklit brigade are unlikely to ever agree that women can be 3D.
    Marion Keyes is giving us something interesting with her depressive PD but she's still cute and lovely and funny. Mind you I'm only 50 pages in.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by Account Closed at 13:07 on 28 May 2013
    Scarlett O'Hara is not a nice character. But maybe fifty years ago it was fine to have a mean-spirited female character, particularly as Rhett was there to counter her selfish character? Certainly she got her come-uppance. Maybe this is key.

    Nowadays people want feisty women but, yes, it does appear that readers often want to emphathise with these women in a way they don't need to with men.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by Jem at 13:14 on 28 May 2013
    She doesn't get away with not being nice either! Unlike male characters.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by Jaytee Conner at 13:41 on 28 May 2013
    Isn't there a comfort in empathising in the not so nice bits? Because you can say well we are only human.

    Unfortuneately, we've been living through an era of extreme self-gratification. My belief is that while everyone could get cheap credit they could avoid a few truths and being told a story where everyone is nice and gets what they want was an expectation.

    The whole world changed in 2008. A lot of books have not caught up with that fact yet. Havne't understood the impact on all our lives.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by wordsmithereen at 13:41 on 28 May 2013
    Fay Weldon said: "When women read books, they read it for rather simple reasons - they like friends and they want friends and the book is a comfort."


    Patronising old trout.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by SandraD at 13:45 on 28 May 2013
    Can't remember, but wasn't Becky Sharp unlikeable? I'm racking my brains for modern ones.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by saturday at 14:05 on 28 May 2013
    Can't remember, but wasn't Becky Sharp unlikeable? I'm racking my brains for modern ones.


    Certainly, you'd watch your back if Becky Sharp was about; Emma Woodhouse was an insufferable bossy boots; Emma Bovary needed a good slap; Fanny Price was often considered problematically worthy and dull even at the time. I can think of lots of heroines I wouldn't want to be friends with, even though I'm happy to read about them, so it is too simplistic to say that female heroines have to be nice and male ones don't - I think they're all flawed/ perfect to a similar degree, depending on what type of book it is.

    If we're looking at out & out female baddies, Gone Girl is a recent example that springs to mind, but for me it felt as cartoonish as if she'd been perfect.

    Rushing, sorry, hope this makes sense.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by Astrea at 15:10 on 28 May 2013
    Patronising old trout.



    I think the argument has not been well-stated. I think what's equally true for male and female 'heroes' is that there must something...not likeable, perhaps, but something that strikes a chord with us somewhere - and not necessarily for the best of reasons.

    But yes, I agree - why should the female counterparts of, I don't know, Flashman, always have to get their comeuppance? do women always have to go on a journey and come out the other end of their troubles somehow purified by suffering? Is this really what we want to read about? Grr.

    Rant over.

    <Added>

    Hah! The post by ?Jaytee? reminded me of 'The Fall' in which Gillian Anderson plays a very strong, uncompromising character. Any bets it's not going to end well for her?
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by alexhazel at 19:27 on 28 May 2013
    Anyone who thinks that heroines aren't allowed to be unlikeable should read some of Terry Pratchett's work. There are a number of female characters in his novels, many of whom count as the heroines of the stories they appear in, who, while being admirable in many ways, certainly don't come across as particularly likeable. I don't think I would find Granny Weatherwax particularly easy to befriend, for example.

    I can also think of many male heroes, both in films and books, who I don't find likeable. There's a current trend, in films, for the bloke who turns out to be the hero who saves the day to be a total prat at the start of the film. The film Battleship, which was out last year, comes to mind, as does Green Lantern. I would also say that the James Bond character, both in the film and the books, isn't a particularly likeable person. In the book he's far too stiff and chauvinistic to be likeable, while in the film he's far too sadistic.

  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by Astrea at 22:39 on 28 May 2013
    What do you mean, Granny Weatherwax isn't likeable?!

  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by alexhazel at 22:50 on 28 May 2013
    I suppose it depends on your definition of "likeable". And therein lies the challenge of the assertion made. Just because some people define a character as likeable, that doesn't mean we all agree.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by RJH at 10:49 on 29 May 2013
    Unfortuneately, we've been living through an era of extreme self-gratification. My belief is that while everyone could get cheap credit they could avoid a few truths and being told a story where everyone is nice and gets what they want was an expectation.


    Yes - but I remember going into WH Smiths at one of the Heathrow terminals a few years ago & there was a whole wall of books under the heading of 'Real Life Tragedy' or somesuch. I remember being struck by that - people off on to sun themselves on beaches wanting to read about other people's miserable childhoods and so on.

    Cheap holidays in other people's misery, as Johnny Rotten once sang.
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by SandraD at 06:40 on 30 May 2013
    Just finished Tessa Hadley's 'The Master Bedroom' whose female protagonist has a lot of unlikeable about her and several Goodreads reviews cited this as a reason for not enjoying the book, which backs up Fay Weldon doesn't it?
    IMHO the problem may well have more been that the story itself was a little shaky and the reasons for her bad behaviour not sufficiently convincing. (i.e. stroppy selfish female lusts after cardboard cut-out)
  • Re: Why can heroes be unlikeable but not heroines?
    by alexhazel at 07:09 on 30 May 2013
    Just finished Tessa Hadley's 'The Master Bedroom' whose female protagonist has a lot of unlikeable about her and several Goodreads reviews cited this as a reason for not enjoying the book, which backs up Fay Weldon doesn't it?

    Whether it backs her up depends on whether there are any other reviews which cite that as a reason for enjoying the book. And the fact that you can cite another reason why people might not like it does suggest that there's a degree of selective memory in that kind of "proof".
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