Messy, Complex, and Real: TV Is Finally Embracing Imperfect Women and Getting It Right

One of the best things to emerge on television these days is that of multifaceted, flawed female characters. 

For a while, the standard for female characters was in how they contributed to the furtherance of male storylines. 

Even female-led television shows often had to revolve around an often younger female character whom viewers could deem “likable.” 

TV Used to Stick Female-Focused Stories in a Narrow Box

Television rarely showed women to be their truly messy, flawed, and complicated selves because there was a genuine fear that if they weren’t also likable, people wouldn’t want to tune into their stories. 

This is particularly true for “middle-aged” female characters. Despite their demographic dominating television viewership and being the primary target audience for many series, series were often cautious in telling the stories of those women. 

Much like in modern society, more often than not, television also didn’t know what to do with those women, outside of defining them as someone’s wife, mother, or daughter, overworked, exhausted, and just there to support those around them. 

If they were a focal point in the story, they needed to have life figured out because, despite the fact that humans never stop growing or evolving, society’s expectation of women was to have it all together by a certain age. 

But television has done something refreshing these days with the emergence of some of the messiest, most flawed, and most complex female characters onscreen. 

Today’s Female Characters Aren’t Concerned About Likability

What’s been beautiful about their emergence is how little interest has gone into desperately trying to ensure they’re “likable” or “palatable” as they stumble through life. 

There’s something liberating about the depiction of these women—their authenticity resonates with audiences, and maybe that’s why, even at their worst and most unlikable, they’re characters worth tuning in for. 

One of the strongest examples of this has been Doc‘s Amy Larsen. Molly Parker is a tour de force on this hit medical drama, and it’s not until well into the season that it really hits how understated but poignant the character and Parker’s depiction of her is. 

Amy Larsen is not a perfect character—a perfect woman. She doesn’t have life figured out; relationships, romance, friendships, and motherhood eluded her often, well before she lost her memory. 

When you tune into Doc, you see many facets of this character. Flashbacks to a happy marriage and family life feel illuminating, but as the series unfolds, we learn that it isn’t always as rosy. 

Amy Larsen’s Complexities on Doc Are a Refreshing Take on Identity and Womanhood

After tragedy struck, this woman who seemed warm and loving became cold, hardened, and guarded, shutting out everyone close to her, including her husband and daughter. 

Traditionally, society taught us that women must be warm, polite, nurturing, and kind, no matter what they’re enduring. 

Amy is none of these things in the years after a tragedy. She’s blunt, unaccommodating, brash, and rude. She cut down many around her if they didn’t meet expectations and had biting remarks about anyone she deemed incompetent. 

Her bedside manner was less than desirable, and as long as she was a brilliant doctor, she didn’t seem to concern herself with niceties and fuzziness. 

She withdrew from all of her loved ones and couldn’t handle raising her daughter. Motherhood seemed to take a backseat to her passion for being a doctor who saved lives. 

You don’t traditionally see these things for female characters, and you especially don’t get this type of nuance and raw exploration. 

Amy is a Treasured Character Because She’s Imperfect, and It Resonates with Viewers

It brushes up against all these uncomfortable truths about womanhood that television often shies away from exploring. 

Even with reasoning for why Amy was the way that she was, it doesn’t deter from the impression that she was a cold-hearted “bitch” something that’s implied if not overtly stated by colleagues who didn’t want to cross her path. 

But Doc allows Amy to be this complicated, messy woman. Even post-amnesia, she’s oblivious about what she has become and sets out to make some things right, but she remains imperfect. 

Doc isn’t afraid of allowing Amy to do unlikable things or even be unlikable in the first place. There’s no interest in softening her edges too much or absolving her from past and present sins. 

There’s something exhilarating about Amy having this second chance at life again in her 40s and still flubbing up along the way. She’s still facing unknowns and uncertainty, she doesn’t have her entire life figured out, and she’s still navigating relationships like a novice. 

It makes her one of the most compelling characters currently on television. Free from the desire to make us love her by seemingly making her perfect, she resonates enough with viewers that they actually do like her, flaws, messiness, complexity, and all. 

Found’s Margaret Reed Redefines Our Perspective of Trauma, Motherhood, and Flaws

Similarly, Found succeeds at this with Margaret Reed. 

Found’s entire premise centers around truly complex characters who are turning their pain into purpose and living through and trying to overcome their respective traumas. 

It’s a beautiful sight, and Gabi leads the charge. She, too, is one of the most complex characters onscreen. But we’ve explored what makes Gabi Mosely such an exceptional character. 

When it comes to this topic, Margaret fits the bill, too. We saw through most of Found Season 2 that she didn’t react well to Gabi’s truth, and for a while, the anger she harbored was offputting to many viewers, myself included. 

But even at her snarkiest, meanest, and most judgmental, Found giving Margaret the space to be genuinely unlikable and imperfect and virtually incapable of extending grace was a breath of fresh air. 

Found and Others Allow Women to Feel the Full Breadth of Their Emotions Even When It Isn’t “Pretty”

Women are expected to forgive and be gracious. They’re expected to get over things quickly and move on, and so often, the same traits that people celebrate in men are jeered in women, which also goes for onscreen.

For much of Found Season 2, Margaret’s behavior was ugly, bitter, harsh, and unsympathetic. She’s a woman who was in pain, and that pain came out in anger, lashing out, pettiness, and yeah, maybe even a bit juvenile. 

Found didn’t try to make her palatable during this time, and they didn’t care if the audience loved her or not. Consequently, they didn’t shy away from holding their lead to account either. 

Flashbacks of Margaret’s behavior in the immediate aftermath of her son’s departure have also shown a woman who doesn’t care about other people’s feelings. 

She doesn’t hold back when accusing those around her of having a role in her son’s abduction. And the all-consuming loss disrupts everything in her life and costs her so much. 

Like Amy, Margaret challenges what we expect to see from motherhood onscreen. After the abduction of her son, she, too, shut down and shut people out. 

We learn that her marriage fell apart, and she essentially drops the ball on parenthood, too. She checked out of raising her daughters, focusing exclusively on the child she lost, that she neglected the ones she still had. 

She’s still trying to mend things with one daughter, while the other seemingly has nothing to do with her all these years later.

It’s raw and real, and the fearlessness in showing that these are women who may not have motherhood figured out, may not be good or great at it in the traditional, idealistic view we’ve internalized for so long—it’s wonderful television. 

Even When We Judge These Characters, They’re Resonant

It’s honest—messy portrayals of equally messy women without fear of judgment. If anything, these depictions challenge our judgment. 

And Grey’s Anatomy is another series that embodies this well.

Meredith Grey is undoubtedly one of the most flawed female protagonists of the past two decades. However, there’s something more gratifying about her still navigating so many issues in her 40s versus as a young woman just starting in life. 

Meanwhile, Teddy Altman regularly carries the torch on the show. 

Teddy Altman is not necessarily a likable character, at least not all of the time. But Grey’s certainly allows her to relish in that. 

Over the years, she’s become progressively more complex, as we’ve learned things about her previous relationships that have deeply impacted her current marriage to Owen. 

And frankly, she and Owen seem in a race toward infidelity with things up in the air as to who will cave into it first. 

We’ve also witnessed how she struggles with motherhood as well, whether it was issues with post-partum or how to adapt to a young, transgender child, something she hasn’t responded to flawlessly. 

As the hospital chief, she’s had her fair share of challenges, and she’s a bit of a hardass when it comes to getting along with her colleagues or subordinates and managing them. 

She’s selfish, deceptive, and offputting. Frankly, Teddy is a hot mess of a character, but refreshingly so.

Authentic Characters Produce Compelling Stories

Television’s latest approach of introducing these flawed female characters and allowing them to thrive despite their flaws has contributed to compelling storylines that reel in viewers. 

They’re more authentic approaches to what women are really like, so these characters resonate with audiences. 

For so long, female characters like this weren’t shown grace or given space to explore their complexity. They were often on the receiving end of misogyny and sexism, from the writing down to the reaction to them. 

Think of how vehemently people hated characters like Skylar White or Julia McNamara for not being nearly as flawed as their male counterparts yet not being the ideal, perfect portrayal of what many expected women in their state of life should be?

Fortunately, we’ve shifted away from all of that, and this rise in fabulously flawed women has been embraced. 

Over to you, TV Fanatics.

Are you enjoying the rise of messy, complex, and sometimes even “unlikable” female characters? Let’s hear your thoughts below!

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