The world of fictional female characters can be cluttered and confusing. Thankfully, there's a handy flowchart from overthinkingit.com to help you sort out society's heroines, villainesses and everything in-between (which apparently mostly consists of characters like "shrew" and "ugly duckling"). Check it out after the cut!
Click the screenshot for the full chart (hat tip to voicimessecrets!):
My favorite character types here are the evil matriarch (hellooo, Lucille Bluth!) and the wild card. However, some categories are a bit...asininely-labelled, such as the "psycho feminist lesbian amazon" (really, can we please stop pairing "feminist" with "psycho"?), "dead slut" and "attention whore". Actually, looking through these, it seems like most categories aren't exactly woman-friendly.
Maybe they aren't all blatantly offensive, but it seems the authors painted characters with negative stereotypes like "sassmouth" and "clingy girlfriend" more than ones like "badass". And even the "badass" labels have to have "cutesy" and "waif" attached to them.
Do you think its just because the creators of the graph are narrow-minded juveniles? Couldn't they have labeled Marge Simpson as "kickass mom" as opposed to "suffering wife"? Or does the chart say something about society as a whole? Or maybe I'm just a "psycho feminist amazon" who is overdoing it.
What do you think of the graph?
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Comments (10)
Stereotypes exist for a reason. A certain group of people exhibited the same qualities so often that they made themselves a stereotype. So I'm not offended. I, in fact, find this rather interesting.
I am not offended by this at all. In fact, I find it quite entertaining.
I think you might be reading too much into said flow chart..
I find it quite hilarious.
I think maybe you're misinterpreting this. The creators chose offensive stereotypes because all too often, that is what female characters are modeled on. It's supposed to be a reflection of the archetypes that writers sort female characters into when they're trying to make "strong" female characters.
If you actually follow the chart, all the categories you're fond of can be found within the "strong female character" because it doesn't narrow down what makes a strong female character (aside from being a dimensional character who isn't killed off right away and doesn't represent some idea or ideal).
LMFAO!!!! not offended at all. i find a lot of culture to be either based on, in spite of, making fun of, or railing against stereotypes. so, good job whoever invented this flowchart for brutally pointing them out in such a hilarious, matter of fact, way.
lol
Funny.
I think you missed the point it was making.
I think it's funny.
I think it's hilarious.