Unlikeable Female Characters: Flawed Female Characters and the Power They Hold

by Anna Bogutskaya

The larger-than-life figure of the Mean Girl on our screens taps into the muscle memory of our teenage insecurities, learned during a time when we were being fed vastly different narratives around our own sexuality depending on how we were socialized. The narrative around girls’ virginity—and its sanctity—is everywhere: in horror movies, a virgin’s blood is both a powerful tool and a delicacy; in teen movies, a virginal girl is unimpeachable and automatically deserving of respect; a sexually active teenage girl is de facto a Slut. Even Janis Ian from Mean Girls happily slut shames Regina. It’s the go-to insult for the Mean Girl. She might be cruel, but what’s worse is that she’s loose. The quest to lose one’s virginity is fodder for many teen comedies centered on boys—but it is treated as a life-or-death matter for a girl, a decision that everyone in their lives feels entitled to have a say in and that seems to have less to do with the act of sex itself and more to do with a girl’s reputation.