The Anti Heroine: Women We Love To Hate

Through the anti-heroine’s journey, we find out why women are finally allowed to be unlikeable on screen.

- Barry Rodgers

There’s a scene in Fleabag, the much-acclaimed black comedy streaming on Amazon Prime Video, where Phoebe WallerBridge’s character makes a prickly confession: “I have a horrible feeling I’m a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, mannish-looking, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.” When the line is delivered, it becomes immediately clear that Fleabag is our every-woman. She’s strong, weak, and even messy. She’s not a typical role model, and that’s probably why we love her. She gets drunk, she has sex and cheats (it’s not that we condone any of it, but it’s human nature). Let’s not get it twisted: Fleabag isn’t a feelgood comedy, and yet it makes us feel better about ourselves because it’s so real. In fact, it is a reminder of what it’s like to be female (“women are born with pain built in”), because almost all women want to be taken seriously, but they also want to be cool and sexy at the same time.