Tim Curry is still my idol.

And the misogyny debate rolls around again! Why do I feel like I’ve done this particular portion of the debate before? Oh, right! Because I have. In fact, it was remarkably similar in situation. The big difference being that Elena actually got 15 minutes of an episode before fans went wacko about her appearance. In SPN, people are going wacko at just the hint of new reoccurring female characters.

It’s funny the way the debate comes up right now.

See, I’ve been semi-marathoning Ugly Betty this week. I just finished episode 19, so I’m almost finished with S1. I have great love for this show. I also have great disgust for this show.

Ugly Betty is awesome in its explicit portrayal of relationships between characters, both platonic and romantic. Betty herself has had two primary love interests in the series so far: Walter and Henry. Neither character has much in the way of background or, well, character beyond what’s necessary for their relation to the plot as love interests. I love Betty/Henry. I would ship Betty/Henry all day long. I think they’re adorable. I also think Charlie/Henry is adorable.

But I am also leery of the show and this relationship in particular because it really just reinforces ideas about being “worthy” of a partner. Daniel and Betty would make an awesome couple, for example (though I think they have one of the greatest examples of a platonic female/male relationship on tv too). But Betty is either not “worthy” of Daniel because she’s ugly (and I could rant all day long about how they took a very beautiful actress and put her in glasses and braces and clothes that look like a color-blind cat threw up on them and that’s supposed to be “ugly” but, uh, we’re not going to go there or I’ll be late for work) or Daniel is not “worthy” of Betty because he’s occasionally a jackass. Though, given the show, it’s the former, not the latter that would be portrayed. Betty handles his jackassery with amazing gumption and pluck and aplomb and total mastery.

So my question is, for the love of god, why do the writers have to justify a character — especially a female character’s — “worth” to be a love interest?

That bothers me more than anything when this debate comes up. Either you love someone or you don’t. Either you have reasons for it or you don’t. The whole reason Betty and Walter lasted so long was because staying with him was logical, even if she wasn’t happy. (Which is such an interesting contortion of the abuse trap it’s no wonder Betty stays with Daniel.)

The point is that when you even start talking about a female character having to prove their “worth,” you’ve dipped into misogyny. Male characters just get to exist. Female characters have to “prove their worth.”

I use Ugly Betty as an example because this is the entire point of the show. “Don’t get above your place.” “Like should be with like.” It’d be fine, if a little worrying, if just Betty saw the issue this way. But this is the entire latent meaning of the show. You hear it explicitly, through Betty and Hilda, and you see it over and over again just in the reactions to relationships. Henry has no character whatsoever except to be a nerd, which is somehow “perfect” for Betty. Walter had no character except to be loyal to Betty to the point of stalking her (barring the Gina Gambarro thing). Ted LeBeau, a love interest for Wilhemina Slater, breaks the mold a little. He’s “Texan” and Wilhemina’s “Milan.” Yet when she gets involved with him emotionally (besides physically), he leaves her for the wife he’s been separated from. Jerry O’Connell has a guest starring spot as a random guy in a sports bar type place who hits on Alexis. Alexis gets interested in him and it turns out that Jerry O’Connell is a jackass who was bet he couldn’t get the “trannie’s” number. (Wilhemina comes in and punches him out in one of my favorite scenes of the show so far but the point is still made.) Don’t mix. Over and over and over, that’s the point they’re making. Don’t get above yourself. Don’t lower yourself. Geeks for geeks, beautiful people for beautiful people. They’re not our kind of people.

Let’s move it beyond just the idea of class status. (And yes, there’s a huge class element to the show in terms of beauty, right up to the actions of Grace Chin and Sofia Reyes.) Let’s take a look at Angel. Gunn is a love interest character too. Obviously he didn’t start out that way (he was the “Black Muscle,” which is an issue all of its own) but eventually that became his purpose. He was Fred’s love interest. And he and Fred eventually break up because Gunn did something Fred was actually going to do herself. And it’s an interesting thing that she eventually ends up with Wes.

Let’s look at Gunn and Wes. They’re parallels, even in their mistakes. In S3, Wes steals Connor and gives him to Holtz. Connor does eventually return, but not in the same form he left. In S5, Gunn does the same thing, sparking the transformation of Fred into Illyria. In the end, of the two, Wes is the one welcomed back into the team and valued. In fact, his entire mistake is erased. It’s essentially retconned so it never even happens. Gunn just literally… goes to hell.

This is another place where you get those problematic issues of “worth.” Metatextually, Angel was telling us that Wes and Gunn were unequal, despite taking parallel courses. We can really only point to their differences in terms of class, race and education to tease out what makes Wes better than Gunn. So are we supposed to be taking this message at face value here?

It’s the same when you start talking about “worth” in romantic relationships. As soon as you declare someone “unworthy,” you’ve automatically valued one character over another.

And while there may be exceptions (I’ve seen people point to Lorelai and Rory’s love interests on Gilmore Girls, for example), by far you’re only going to see that word, “worth,” associated with female characters. And as soon as you make that statement, especially when the female character hasn’t even appeared on the show yet, saying that a female character isn’t going to be “worthy” of a male character or a show, you’ve already internalized view that men are inherently better than women. You’ve already accepted it as a cultural fact.

Okay, now I’m hungry. Hmm. Toast sounds good.