Great TV characters, like great artists, aren’t always appreciated in their time. And plenty of great women on television have had to fight a steep uphill battle to earn fans’ respect — even if the men in their lives are literally doing crime. We’ve all seen it before: Complicated male protagonists get a vigorous defense, while complicated ladies get scorned.
It’s time to give it up for the misunderstood killjoy wives. It’s time to talk about the sci-fi ladies who blazed trails and the underrated comic forces on long-running sitcoms. Too many female characters have been failed by their shows or their fans. At best, they’re ignored. At worst, they’re hated, always for offenses as unique as they are: falling in love with the wrong person, choosing hard work over glamour, moving on, speaking up, staying quiet. Miranda Hobbes was too serious. Phoebe Buffay wasn’t serious enough.
Audiences in 2019 are more attuned to these critiques than we were 20 years ago, or even five years ago. But even now, the most interesting ladies on television don’t always get their due. To celebrate Women’s History Month, TV Guide is kicking off a weeklong salute to TV’s most underappreciated female characters. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite unsung heroes from the past few decades — whether they’re actual heroes, morally ambiguous, or straight-up dirtbags, but really, really funny about it. Check out our coverage below, and be sure to check back throughout the week as we pay homage to more underrated women on television.
Cynthia Nixon, Sex and the City
For all the progress Sex and the City made pushing boundaries when it came to portraying female sexuality on screen, it was still built within the confines of patriarchal restrictions and for an audience shaped by these norms. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) often came off like a warning of what happens when women try to “have it all.” Since the series first aired, the stigma surrounding the independent, unapologetically smart woman on TV has since been greatly lessened — but it hasn’t been erased. Now, Miranda Hobbes has become the poster girl for women who are pushing back against these oppressive expectations and helping to create room for more Mirandas in our midst.
Freema Agyeman, Doctor Who
At its best, the story of Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) was about a woman grappling with her self-respect in the midst of an unbalanced, often unhealthy relationship. Female characters in her shoes are often painted as pushovers, but Martha pushed back. Outside her dynamic with the Doctor, she had nearly everything in her life handled: She was a medical student. She kept the peace in a lively but strained family. In crises, she was cool but never detached. Martha was bold, clever, curious, and empathetic, and none of that changed because she loved a man who didn’t feel the same. She felt what she felt, and then she walked the planet for a year in order to save humanity from a fascist dictator. Martha Jones had things to do.
Natalie Zea, Justified
As the ex-wife of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), Natalie Zea‘s Winona Hawkins never quite fit into the world of Justified. It wouldn’t have been terribly surprising, then, if she had played a thankless role in the series, mattering only for how she reacted to the show’s attractive, quick-witted gunslinging hero. Instead, Winona actually had agency in a world where women traditionally have struggled to gain footing — where they’ve been forced, with their backs up against a wall, to compromise who they are or give up pieces of themselves just to survive.
Source : TVGuide
