A Dissection of the ‘Insufferable Girl’ Archetype in the Media
7 min read
Chappell Roan for Polyester Zine
“Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? Who knows what women's intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love?” — Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique.
In the 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Freidan, Freidan explores the prevalent theme of femininity; the baseline for how women present themselves and how we (whether male or female) are expected to see a woman. THE WOMAN; a term with truly one known denotation but thousands of social conversations, arguments, and historical themes tied to it. In every room full of ten women, there’s ten different people. Ten different lives and ten different personalities. Maybe an overlapping archetype of women with the same passions. Maybe all of them are similar. But not one is the same. As women, we find ourselves in different shades and change our behavior based on our environment, our circumstance, our mood. A woman’s personality and the way she presents herself is a spectrum. Anyone who takes a step outside and observes would notice this, it’s common social awareness. But these lines continuously blur in today’s reliance on media consumption. Oftentimes, people become increasingly reliant on what they see in the media and tend to correlate it more with reality than actual reality. That’s why media representations, in this case, women, is often interpreted as the truth. Our access to easy to grasp-media becomes more recurring and our actual observances of the world around us fade away. Humans nowadays consume more media on the daily than actual interactions, even if it’s at a subtle level. Media consumption is a multifaceted routine that starts with the first opening of a social media app to watch tv during breakfast to reading the news or listening to a podcast. Because we consume media so much, the lines often blur between an illusion and reality. Us, as the viewers, whether it’s a tv show or a celebrity interview, try to see ourselves in these people. As we watch so much content on celebrities, we often idolize them or see them as role models, due to one factor that grows off of them being successful. Whether it’s intentional or not, a part of everyone tries to see themselves and relatability in people we see on screen or in the media. That’s why it’s such a taboo to be in the spotlight these days. Especially as a woman. In the prevalence of cancel culture, a celebrity is forced to curate themselves into what caters into the general public and what they want to see. And these days, the audience wants relatability but to a limit. Lacking self-awareness and not recognizing privilege is something that has struck the public as unrelatable. As media consumers, we want to feel seen. We want to be able to see ourselves in these people that we look up to. We want their lives but we want them to be somewhat attainable.
However, there’s a striking contradiction between how we, the public, craves authenticity in women in the spotlight, while we also simultaneously hold them to the standards set my how the media has continuously portrayed women. The public commends when female celebrities are honest and bare, showing themselves at their core. Whether it’s Millie Bobby Brown showing up to a talk show without makeup or Selena Gomez talking about her health struggles. In cruel fashion, the public eats that up completely and praises them for being raw and honest, without realizing the systematic issues within and how the public is the source of them keeping up the facade and hiding in the first place. This is because, as much as the audience craves authenticity, women in the spotlight are expected to conform to what the media has been telling us about how they should act. In cinema, women’s portrayals have been molded to fit into only a few nameable archetypes, despite the range of representations women have. We’ve seen mainstream media limit women to simple categories of how they should act. There’s barely a range, that goes from femme fatales, like Jessica Rabbit, to the highly critiqued manic pixie dream girl, like Ramona Flowers. These archetypes usually conform to the male gaze, and while we, as a public, have mostly moved on from those direct stereotypes, the portrayal of women hasn’t changed much, with only a few breakthroughs in the last decade. It’s within this framework that the resurgence of the ‘insufferable girl’ trope in recent media has become both an authentic and controversial topic. The ‘insufferable girl’ is a character that refuses to fit into any of the neat, acceptable boxes the media has historically assigned to women. Unapologetically loud, abrasive, and, at times, exasperating, qualities that challenge the traditional narratives around femininity. But as we've seen, this character sparks intense debate. There’s only a few to be able to name that fit into this category but the distinctions between this, the traditional archetypes women fit into, and actual people deserving of controversy are a wide line.
Distinguishing RAW vs INSUFFERABLE:
“I am not for everyone, and I’m OK with that,” Chappell Roan in a 2023 interview with Rolling Stone.
Being able to distinguish the difference between authenticity and boundaries from being insufferable is something the public has continuously failed at. Chappell Roan becomes the centerpoint of this conversation, because she’s sparked the profound conversations of what the public tolerates from a woman in the spotlight. When we go back to the topic of contradictions of the public and how they set standards for women, it’s important to understand the inconsistencies and limits of what the public allows. When we look at how we praise female celebrities, we only do it at surface level. We see a Taylor Swift tell paparazzi to move in a gentle tone and we raise our hands in admiration for how she set boundaries. When we see Chappell Roan tell her fans in a TikTok not approach her for photos and give her some space, she’s spat on for being insufferable and rude. The double standards truly glow when referencing the difference in tone between these two celebrities in the limelight. While some may perceive her as in such way for speaking her mind so directly and blunt, it's crucial to remember that setting boundaries is a healthy part of self-expression, regardless of the tone in which it’s delivered. Her tone is an extension of her personal autonomy, a way of asserting control over how she is perceived and treated. Chappell is regarded as this unapologetic public figure, who speaks on all topics and doesn’t shy away from truths, especially in her music. So why would she timid herself down when addressing another topic? It doesn’t align with her message and her character, which is why the source of controversy is so weak. Though the tone may vary, the boundary being set remains the same, personal space is their right. This plays into the standards of women we see in the media and why Chappell Roan’s actions became so alarming. While the public is accustomed to accepting more gentle requests for boundaries from celebrities, directness or a blunt tone from someone like her shouldn’t invalidate the need for personal safety.
So is it fair to group people like Chappell Roan into the same category as people like Gwyneth Paltrow? When people assert their boundaries become subject to comparison of people who are actually insufferable. When we group women in categories of difficult versus sweet, what is the public really saying? When we see celebrities or people in the spotlight, we know their lives are so much more privileged and complicated than ours, we know the differences. So when the public continues to project their wants and needs of what they want to see in a public figure, it’s a seesaw game of whether we want them to reflect us or reflect something unattainable. And there really is no middle. Think of Chappell Roan again. She asserts her boundaries as a public figure that reflect the same boundaries we as people want for ourselves; this is relatable. But then it’s twisted and she’s ungrateful, not recognizing her own fame and the so-called debt she owes her fans; this is now privileged?
The contradictory expectations for people in the spotlight, more often women, highlights perhaps the deepest issue embedded in celebrity culture today. We, the public, demand authenticity and transparency. But when it doesn’t fit the mold we created and continue to say we’re against, it’s condemned. The public loves to see people defy the status quo. In fact, we praise it. But when it’s repeated or reinforced, suddenly it’s rejection of acknowledging privilege. It’s a spiral of expecting these public figures to mirror ourselves, so we, as people, feel validation of our own selves because we are being represented in the spotlight versus an obvious unrelatability their career has over our lives, so we want them to recognize how much better they have it. The public demands them to recognize their privilege, and while this is so important, it’s also not fair to project onto them.
Female Rebellion as Self Expression:
“A powerful woman is someone who exudes confidence and can be tough but fair and kind. And also knows how to get what she wants”
The internet doesn’t really know whether that quote came from Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lawrence, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. Both of them are exactly the core of what has been prevalent in the media and how it ties into this. The constant pull and push between what’s expected of women in the limelight brings focus to a larger conversation of how women have presented themselves (and been presented by others) over the years. When female celebrities push back against these societal expectations and contradictions, it can be portrayed in a number of ways. Like talked about above, Chappell Roan and the category she’s pushed into. But what happens when these female celebrities use this pushback as their trademark in the form of rebellion. And what line is drawn from strictly the visuals of revolt and unrest versus the actual rebellion carried out to fight against the systematic cruelty they endure?
This idea of rebellion, on the surface, can really be a seed of growth for change. But really, it’s become simply a marketing tactic. A strategy to create a brand for the artist to thrive. Something that’s continuously labeled as “new” and “out there”, but really not. Think Olivia Rodrigo, her brand being pushback against her Disney Channel roots and becoming something different. Something that’s said to be unconforming to society’s standards of a teenage girl. But is it really? Is her brand of being an angsty teenager who wears fishnets deep? Honestly, it can be. But is it new? No, of course not. But why are we setting her up to this standard and comparing her to others in anticipation of her to be sophisticated. How much do we rely on artists to be deep when it’s all surface level. Her rebellion is on her outside but says nothing about the systematic issues. But this isn’t a bad thing. How much do we expect an artist to say? The public wants substance but can’t handle it when a female artist is actually speaking up about her ideas. When the self expression of revolt goes deeper than just surface level, that’s when we see real change. Change we can sometimes handle and sometimes not. I think Lorde’s “I don’t give a f-ck” attitude attributed to why I liked her so much. Her pushback against tradition feminity was unconventional in the way where she didn’t really appeal to appease any audience, just those who listened to her music and understood it. She didn’t fit her revolt into an archetype of “not super girly girl” like how the media and film liked to portray people like Megan Fox or Jennifer Lawrence, who’s roles usually don’t fit into feminine portrayals and are more rough around the edges. But this is constantly lost in the way the media hyper-sexualizes them, so the things they say are overshadowed. In fact, this, especially in the 2010s, was one of the biggest obstacles the women in the media faced. When you say what you need to say, you’re either blacklisted or called insufferable. Given the Chappell Roan discourse, it’s important to recognize that this is nothing new. It’s been going on for years, just in a different font in a new time when we “condemn how the media treated female celebrities in the past and learn from it” while continuing to do the same thing. Why is it so easy to forget how Jennifer Lawrence disappeared from the public eye for a short few years because of her humorous and quirky attitude in interviews. Why was she so quickly labeled “annoying” and “unfunny” for expressing her personality and relatability? When Megan Fox spoke up against her experience with Michael Bay on the set of Transformers, she was labeled difficult and ungrateful. And it’s disgusting considering her continuous objectification throughout the years. Even Angelina Jolie, who’s revolutionary work with activism and speaking out against issues was previously hidden and overshadowed by the surface level of her appearance.
The resistance the public wants from these women continue to be superficial. We raise our hands in support of female celebrities who make rebellion their brand, who take it on the surface level and lay it out on magazine covers. But when it goes past the outside and comes out of their mouths, no one knows what to say. We love when she says it gently but what if it’s not gentle. What if the issues should not be approached with softness? When the media craves realness and conversations about real issues, responding to them and labeling them limits how conducive these conversations should be and negates all the change they want to talk about. We ask and beg for them to speak on certain issues because their voice echoes louder than our own but then spit at them and remark that these female celebrities will never understand the struggle and can’t relate to the cause.
As Charli xcx says in the groundbreaking Lorde collaboration:
“Girl, it’s so confusing sometimes to be a girl”
The generation wide treatment of women in the spotlight highlights the deeper systematic issues they face. As we recognize women’s strength and achievements in the limelight, we often lose focus of the losses and obstacles we place in front of them. It’s like the public makes it their very job to place these challenges in front of these women just to see how they navigate, heckling at them as they try. But when a woman takes control of the situation, it’s not her conversation to join anymore. It’s no longer about being a woman and a voice, and more about being a celebrity and privileged.
Ultimately, the conversations aroused around women in the spotlight should take a shift from the superficial expectations of how one should behave and what they should say, and recognize that the change the public continues to desire and wants these women to promote can only grow from challenging the standards we’ve set. It’s important to recognize when the public should take a step back from the constant and unnecessary attacks of women and allow them to flourish in their own voices. The labels that are stuck onto them limits the expression that must go deeper than surface level for any change. If we truly want change, we must stop reducing these women to archetypes and instead embrace the complexity and depth of their voices. Only then can we move beyond the surface level and foster the genuine, systemic change that is needed.
thank you for reading !!
