As someone who works in the industry, I can attest to UnReal's realness as a fictional documentation of the reality tv industry. What i wasn't expecting, however, is to see the first true blue example of an anti-heroine.
Anti-hero/ Anti-heroine
a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.
To expand on this definition, an anti hero is someone who we, hopefully, root for as they achieve mainly selfish, destructive goals. Think Tony Soprano or Walter White. There might be a noble facade to get us on their team, but ultimately we know they're bad and what they're trying to achieve is bad, but we want them to get away with it. The way a writer gets us to do this, generally, is to put worse people around them so they don't seem so bad within the context of the world they live in.
But female characters have always had a hard time with this tricky role. Either they're heroes or villains. Men don't like sluts, they don't like prudes, they don't like any girl with any kind of power or independence really.
Yet, the following two bad girls have what it takes to get men to root for them in a still highly misogynistic world.
Juliette Barnes
Juliette Barnes, for the most series, doesn't want anything that benefits anyone but herself. She breaks many a male heart as she tries to figure out what she values in life and her brutal relationship with her mother. It's actual once she goes soft that she loses male respect. How does she remain a bad girl that men don't fantasize about throwing off a cliff?
She accepts that she's a huge b****
Being a b**** doesn't make you a b**** a. Apologizing for it makes you one. This female character is written to honestly not care that she has no respect for others feelings. Of course, it helps that she is massively famous so she has that validation going for her. Still, regular girls can learn that if they're jerks...just be aware of it and accept it. Nothing bad is going to happen because of it until you start letting people make you feel bad about it. Also, it helps to be funny when you're a b****
She's fearsome
Men would probably be intimidated by a real life juliette barnes, but not because of her celebrity as because of her ferocious personality. She will dress you down for any little infraction and arguing with her successfully is no easy feat. There's something men respect about a woman who can handle the challenges rather than cry and complain that the guy "argues to much with her all the time."
She's about her business
Compared to Reina James, Juliette actually cares about progressing in her career and being the frontwoman of country music. She makes sacrifices, stays focused, and WORKS rather than crying about two men with different qualities who both love her and ignoring her music because of it. Even with her dope fiend mother, Juliette never misses a recording session. At least until the writers make her soft, but i have a feeling that once the show comes back on CMTV the real juliette will be back.
Rachel Goldberg
Rachel is admittedly much more difficult for a man to like. She's not particularly attractive compared to the bombshells on the reality show she produces. She's constantly making this weird stink face. She's considerably less good looking than the plethora of men she bangs (no homo.) She's evil to more traditionally feminine women that we love. Yet, we respect her and she'd be a damn cool girl to date in real life. Why?
She's conflicted
She was a lot more conflicted when we met her. She knew what she did was messy and destructive, but she was being blackmailed into it. Later, we find out she was raped by her mother's own therapy patient and so we realize there's a blackness to her life that she's conflicted about. As men, inner conflict is one of our biggest problems. We're the privileged gender with many options in life and all that freedom gives us time to be mad about stuff we can't control and act in frequently aggressive ways about it.
She's a rare image of beauty
She kind of looks like meadow soprano but then the show plays up her "Jewish look" As men, we're always enthralled by the novelty in a girl. The fact that we're not inundated with many images of beautiful Jewish women gives her that bonus.
She's neither delicate nor tomboyish
She's often silent but deadly. While she's a classic case of a neglected psychologists kid who's learned all about mental manipulation by being manipulated herself by her own parents, there's something about the whole combination that makes her seem like a good lay.
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1Opinion
Good take, now do one on how there is nothing but sissy men heros now.
Good take
thnx