In an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "I Have a Character Issue," Anna Gunn, who plays Skyler White on AMC's Breaking Bad, expresses her shock at the way the Skyler character has been treated by the fans, and blames much of it on misogyny, saying a lot of it "has to do with their (fans') own perception of women and wives."
She states that being on the show for five seasons has been a wonderful journey for her, but she was bewildered and unprepared for the anger directed at her by the show's more rabid fans, especially on the internet.
She also says that she was always aware that Skyler would probably not be the show's most popular character, reasoning that "Because Walter is the show's protagonist, there is a tendency to empathize with and root for him, despite his moral failings...As the one character who consistently opposes Walter and calls him on his lies, Skyler is in a sense, his antagonist." But the level of hatred and vitriol directed towards the character online ("hate pages" on Facebook, "hate boards" on AMC's website), and eventual threats towards the actress herself convinced her it had more to do with people's complex feelings about TV wives and strong women (citing similar dislike of characters like Carmela Soprano and Betty Draper).
It's an interesting editorial. I myself have wondered about this very thing, and as a fan of Breaking Bad, I will freely admit to finding Skyler annoying at times in the past (although nothing approaching anything like hatred and threats towards the actress, that's insane), but I too have always figured the sole reason for this reaction was because audiences are pretty much always set up to be on the side of the protagonist, even anti-heroes like Walt, Don Draper, and Tony Soprano. But it goes back further than them, it goes back to films that have glorified gangsters and villains, always putting us on the side of the guy who seems like he can get away with it. I don't think that's anything new really, but my own personal annoyance has been the similarity of the "wife" characters on TV- they're always on the outside, usually in the dark, set up against the protagonist, never allowed to be part of the action themselves. My argument would be for something different: why not let them be part of it? Why can't there be female antiheroes on television, just like men? As a woman myself, I have been wanting to see this for a long, long time.
Take the example of a show like Justified (and there will be spoilers here if you haven't watched every season). Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is our protagonist (he's not even an antihero, really, just reckless), and he was saddled with the same "wife" problem at the outset of the show. In this case, his ex-wife Winona (Natalie Zea) was the love interest, and she ended up becoming, like so many of these other women, a character that audiences didn't like because of her complaining about Raylan's job, the violence, the safety issues. Now of course she's right, but if Raylan quits his marshal job, obviously the show's over, so that's not going to happen- and eventually they just ran out of things for Winona to do and she had to be written off the show, only to show up occasionally. Now on the other hand, Justified has two protagonists- and one is Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) whom audiences love just as much as Raylan, if not more. Boyd's true love Ava (Joelle Carter) was brought into the fold completely as a member of his crime circle and made a true partner in his nefarious activities. She wasn't forced, she was ready and willing to do it and happy not to be lied to. Ever since they've gotten together, there have not been any complaints about Ava, she's very well liked, and in fact she's the one woman on the show with any significant role because she gets to be a part of the action.
And why is that so hard to do on these other shows? Ava is the only example I can think of that is allowed to be a part of things (and even then the writers draw the line at times, last season balking at her killing someone, saying they wouldn't want her to be "too bad"), but I dare them to go further with these female characters. These shows are really about entertaining people, and audiences have always loved a good bad guy (probably because we can live vicariously through them), but I'm saying that applies to both men and women.
I'm willing to bet if there was a show about a female protagonist that audiences liked in part because she was somehow getting away with all kinds of criminal or questionable activities, but was saddled with an annoying husband who did nothing but nag her and try to stop her, that audience antipathy would wind up directed towards the husband. Or maybe I'm wrong and the deep seated feelings about strong women that Anna Gunn talks about really are true and widespread (I'm sure they are in some people, I just question that as being the primary reason behind dislike of these characters), but as a woman myself who has often, like many in the audience, found these characters annoying, I can only tell you how I wish they were instead. And I'd like to see more shows test this theory by trying out a female antihero and seeing what the reaction would be.
