Feeling guilty about being disinterested in or disliking Rowling's female characters

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

The title is self-explanatory. After rereading HP, I realized how let down I was about the dearth of interesting and/or likable female characters. As someone who has a long list of favorite female characters from various books, movies, TV shows, and video games, the women in the Harry Potter books leave me cold or bored.

Now, granted, the male characters aren’t spectacular either. Harry is passive, Ron is average, Draco is a waste, Snape is a mess, Dumbledore is also a mess, Voldemort is a standard villain, and plenty of other male characters are either boring or obnoxious.

And yet, as disappointing as some of the guys are, I can still find something about them interesting or engaging. I can see their potential or humanity, no matter how static, simplistic, or irritating their characterization is (well, maybe with the exception of James; I can’t stand him no matter how hard I try - and I’ve tried.)

Maybe I’m being sexist and judging the women too harshly. Maybe I’m not giving Rowling enough acclaim for trying to write a variety of female characters in a story revolving around a young boy. Maybe I’m excusing the poor characterization and lack of depth in the male characters when they’re far from complex either.

Whatever the reason is - it is what it is. Even as a young girl who enjoyed the books, I only gravitated towards Hermione and Luna. McGonagall was the sole female authority figure I found respectable. The rest?

Umbridge and Bellatrix are stereotypical images of evil. Narcissa is all about her son. Lavender and her friends are silly girly girls. Pansy is a mean girl. Millicent is an ugly mean girl. Fleur is French and beautiful. Katie and the other Quidditch gals are just there. Tonks is bubbly until she falls for Lupin. Cho is the first love interest. Molly is Harry’s overbearing surrogate mother. Petunia is Lily’s awful sister. Rita is the “pushy” career woman. Trelawney is an oddball. Sprout might as well be nonexistent. Merope is the birther of Evil Incarnate.

And then there’s the two female characters that I dislike the most: Ginny and Lily. They’re depicted as wonderful young women we’re meant to admire and adore. And yet, I’d take rude Pansy and crazy Bellatrix over them any day. Even Harry, who is portrayed as “amazing” at times, is given some flaws and criticisms within the narrative. Not everyone adores Harry and he’s called out by other characters (including his friends) for his behavior. But Ginny and Lily are overwhelmingly worshiped to the point where I can feel Rowling hitting me over the head on how I must approve of their superiority awesome personalities.

Writing this post is not doing any favors for the feminist in me. Strange thing is, from what I’ve read, JKR considers herself a feminist. But her female characters are not compelling or well written enough. Her male characters fall flat as well, but at least with the boys and men, it seems like she tried to give them depth. With the exception of Hermione, I get the sense that JKR didn’t bother to go any deeper with the girls and women. (And it’s telling how Hermione is an Author Avatar and the female character JKR put the most effort into.)

Well, this bitter rambling post has gone long enough, so I’ll end it here. Am I being too harsh and unfair or is there something off about the way JKR writes women? Or is it no different than the way she writes men? I know this topic is far from new, but I'm forevermore late to the party.

Comments

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

Female characters, especially feminine ones, are always treated as lesser, unless they're no-nonsense like Hermione and McGonagall or tomboys like Ginny.

I agree, although I think it's not only feminine women that are disparaged, but women who are considered too "masculine" or unattractive. Umbridge, Rita, and Millicent come to mind as women who have unfeminine features and are seen as unattractive for it. The "correct" type of femininity is reserved for girls who aren't too girly but aren't ugly or too masculine either.

Speaking of appearance, this is a side-topic and me being oversensitive, but I found it bothersome how cruel JKR could be in describing characters meant to be unappealing. It makes me wonder how much of it is truly Harry's perception of the people around him and how much is it JKR's own superficial vision of appearance. Again, I'm most likely being oversensitive, but I find it an interesting thought nonetheless. Especially when it pertains to the Slytherins who are either ugly (e.g. Snape, Pansy Crabbe, Goyle, Umbridge, most of the Death Eaters) or beautiful in a vain and cold way (e.g. the Malfoys, Blaise, young Tom Riddle). And the one token bad Gryffindor, Peter, is the most physically unappealing member of the Marauders.

Sorry for going off on a tangent there. Back to the main topic:

All the important roles are filled by men: all the DA teachers, the rival, the mean teacher, the mentor, all the ministry employees including the aurors (the only female one is Bertha Jorkins and she exists and dies completely off-screen). Even with Harry's parents it's all about his dad: Harry looks like him (except the eyes), he played Quidditch like Harry, Snape's beef is with James, the Marauders were James' friends and so on. Lily was just there for her eye color and dying so Harry has a magical protection and a muggle family that could raise him.

Well said! It's completely true that the majority, if not all, of the main and significant roles in the story are filled by men. They're the major players who affect the plot and vice versa. You can take out plenty of the female characters and the story will remain largely unaffected. Even though some female characters get an upgrade in OOTP, it doesn't matter too much in the long-run. Once HBP comes around, the important characters in the story are, once again, male - Dumbledore, Snape, Draco, Slughorn, and Harry.

And Lily is such a weird case for me. She's praised throughout the books and depicted as being so sublime and perfect in comparison to the imperfect men in her life... and yet, she's more of a symbol than a character of her own. Her existence relates back to Harry, James, and Snape. She has nothing interesting of her own to offer. JKR keeps trying to tell the reader how amazing and special she is without showing it.

This connects back to Ginny in a way because I got the vibe that JKR wanted her to be Lily Version 2.0. She wanted Ginny to be "worthy" of Harry. In the end, Ginny is nothing more than a love interest given to the hero as a reward to make babies with, just as Lily had no existence beyond the men in her life as well.

JKR should just admit that she has no real interest in female characters unless they are exactly like herself and that she has a lot of issues with girly girls and femininity.

Yep. She at least tried with her male characters to give them complexity, but other than Hermione, none of the female characters mattered too much to the overall story.

Thank you for your insightful comment!