Scan barcode
A review by kennnedyexe
Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya
2.0
this might have made a halfway decent undergrad thesis, but as a published book the whole thing is just ridiculously underbaked. it is infuriatingly repetitive, inconsistent, and shallow. im just not sure what point this book was even trying to make?
the best part about it is recognizing shows or actors you like and hearing a brief summary about them followed by an almost comically shallow analysis. so i guess it gets an extra pity star for talking about some media that i enjoy.
she also starts off the book with a half-hearted attempt at intersectionality that is incredibly flimsy and completely disappears after the second chapter. i think she lists maybe three characters that are not white women in this whole thing. you cant just say "black women are oppressed too!" and expect that to be intersectional when you barely even offer lip service to them in the content of your book.
also, somewhat related to the point above, the scope of the analysis is extremely narrow, western and white-woman centered. if she wanted to focus on american movies and hollywood, fine. but she includes some international films (i.e. titane). she goes on forever about promising young woman and gone girl, but can barely muster a page about her (very few) examples of media that feature women of color. she briefly mentions latina and asian woman as a whole, but doesnt even bother to include them by name. she even teased me with a subheading titled "a girl walks home alone at night" in which she does not talk about the movie a girl walks home alone at night.
all around very disappointing, half-baked, and frankly uninteresting. takes the absolute most basic understanding of what feminism is and makes vague suggestions about it in some movies that this author likes.
the best part about it is recognizing shows or actors you like and hearing a brief summary about them followed by an almost comically shallow analysis. so i guess it gets an extra pity star for talking about some media that i enjoy.
she also starts off the book with a half-hearted attempt at intersectionality that is incredibly flimsy and completely disappears after the second chapter. i think she lists maybe three characters that are not white women in this whole thing. you cant just say "black women are oppressed too!" and expect that to be intersectional when you barely even offer lip service to them in the content of your book.
also, somewhat related to the point above, the scope of the analysis is extremely narrow, western and white-woman centered. if she wanted to focus on american movies and hollywood, fine. but she includes some international films (i.e. titane). she goes on forever about promising young woman and gone girl, but can barely muster a page about her (very few) examples of media that feature women of color. she briefly mentions latina and asian woman as a whole, but doesnt even bother to include them by name. she even teased me with a subheading titled "a girl walks home alone at night" in which she does not talk about the movie a girl walks home alone at night.
all around very disappointing, half-baked, and frankly uninteresting. takes the absolute most basic understanding of what feminism is and makes vague suggestions about it in some movies that this author likes.