The 10 Most Disappointing Male Characters in Fannish Media
With all these male writers in fannish media, let's face it, it's hard to find a male character to enjoy these days. I mean, a lot of them are just big Mary Sues with boring back stories and uninteresting plots. For every amazing male character like Charles Gunn or Midnighter (more awesome than Batman), we get a slew of disappointing male characters in their wake. At best, most male characters are annoyingly stereotypical and, at worst, are introduced as pointless eye candy.
I could've gone on forever, but here's 10. (Okay, there's actually 12, but we have some pairs who are basically the same characters, only taller or blonder.)
1. Superman
Fuck the "every man." Superman's boring and outdated. He's like Wonder Bread -- white and overly processed -- and if you notice, they discontinued Wonder Bread. Talk about a poor constructed back story: from a different planet whose sun exploded and the last of his kind. (Well, if you don't count Supergirl or Power Girl or Super Boy, or when all the Kryptonians come back.) I fell asleep watching Singer's Superman Returns. Plus, Superman's only weakness is kryptonite, which isn't common and really makes him a big Mary Sue. Every Man = Mary Sue.
2. Dean and Sam Winchester
They come in a pair because I don't want to waste words on just how boring they are. Whine, whine their mother was killed by demons and they spent their childhood being trained to hunt them. And now their girlfriends die all the time. Seriously, Batman had this parents killed in front of him when he was 8 and he learned to be a ninja and ran an empire. Instead of living on the brink of poverty and listening to classic rock. *yawn* Clearly, casting is also a problem, and Dean and Jensen only got the parts because some casting director found them pretty. They're the reason I quit watching the show at episode 3.
3. The Doctor
Jesus, what an asshole? I just want him to stay dead, but after 40+ years and 11 incarnations, he just keeps coming back. He's like a cockroach. Or syphilis. I get a lot of flak for thinking he's an asshole. But he is. The First Doctor left his granddaughter Susan in a post-apocalyptic world as he thought it was best that at 16, she stay stranded there with a man she's supposed to marry, who's clearly not a teenager. And don't even get me started on his more recent incarnations: mind-wiping his "best friend" and killing his own people. Not to mention how many people he says "Trust me. I'll save you; I promise" and then they die. If the Doctor told me that, I'd run the other way. What really tipped me was when he and Martha hid out in an era he knew she would be treated like a ignorant servant given she's black and a woman. And, oh yeah, he didn't have his Time Lord memory, so he treated her the same way. Dick.
4. Bill Adama
Bill "I'm everyone's daddy" Adama is so incredibly self-centered. He's supposed to serve as an inspiration for his community and the survivors of a genocide. Instead, he spends a good part of his time crying over all the bad things that happen to him. And by bad things that happen to him, I mean bad things that happen to others, but he thinks are all about him. See: Roslin's cancer, Tigh killing his wife and then being a Cylon, Kara dying and coming back, his son becoming a lawyer, etc. I swear he had more pain over all those things than when Boomer shot him in the chest. His later season plotlines made me wish they'd kept Cain. At least she didn't cry in her scotch like a baby.
5. Rodney McKay
Sci-fi's biggest Mary Sue brought to you by the writers of Stargate Atlantis. Oh, but Rodney's special because he's a super genius with poor social skills and a lemon allergy so that gives him the right to be a whiney ass. Seriously, the only reason Rodney didn't make me want to gouge my own eyes out every episode is because of David Hewlett's acting skills. Of course, he's been in plenty of craptastic sci-fi original pictures so he's had the practice with bad scripts. If I was John Shepard, I'd have grounded Rodney permanently. I can't imagine how many alien cultures he pissed off with his rude, self-centered behavior. And the writers even had the gall to make him smarter than Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's a real scientist -- not a TV one -- and only ever made small children cry when he downgraded Pluto from planet status, not almost getting their mothers killed.
6. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd
So the guy has nice hair? What's the big deal? He lives on a plot of land on Lake Washington, in the wilderness and rides a ferry boat to work. Any idiot with a map of Seattle knows that 1) there is no undeveloped land around Lake Washington, especially not one with bears and 2) there are no fucking ferry boats on Lake Washington. He'd have to drive to work in Seattle's horrific traffic like the rest of us. Why didn't that bear just eat him? I mean, he keeps getting in the way of the show realizing the true love between Meredith and Cristina. What's a marriage via post-it note shit anyway? Meredith and Cristina are close enough to Canada to get married legally themselves as Washington is Canadian-adjacent. Why are the writers such haters?
7. James T. Kirk
A manwhore in every version. Seriously, Kirk flies around the universe like he owns it. No, it's more like a dog marking the universe by peeing on it. And by peeing, I mean, fucking alien princesses. His one true love always conveniently dies by the end of episode so all the cameras can be on him. When his best friend and lover, Spock dies in the line of duty, Kirk starts a war to get him back just when the Federation's on the verge of peace with the Klingon Empire. Kirk's always interfering with other cultures, breaking direct orders, and messing with time just because he wants to. Or because he wants to stick his penis in it. Slut.
8. Tony "Iron Man" Stark
Speaking of sluts, Tony Stark is the 21st Century's biggest manwhore. He's also a drunk. But we can forgive him because he's a really special genius boy. You know, who's special and a genius and also a good person unlike Stark, Pepper. But she constantly gets side-lined to see our genius paint his suit of armor the same color as his sports car. Also some "futurist" he is. His future vision killed his best friend and my favorite male Marvel superhero, Captain America. Tony killed his best friend. Yeah, I don't care how high of an IQ his privileged ass is supposed to have; I wouldn't let that asshole run national security or the Avengers or a Tonka Truck.
9. James Wilson
James "I'm a good guy" Wilson is actually an unhappy, meddling asshole, who can't keep a wife if all his nurses were suddenly male. He spends the majority of the day playing elaborate practical jokes on/with his best friend, that include cutting his best friend's cane in half. Does Wilson have something against the disabled? Does he get off on pain? I guess he does because he's supposed to be helping those with cancer, including the dying ones. But instead, he makes it all about him and his cancer patients thank and hug him for telling them they're dying. And there was that one time, he boned one of the dying ones. Way to abuse your power and privilege, Wilson, by sexually preying on dying women and hurting the disabled.
10. Angel and Spike
There were just so many bad male characters to put on this list, I guess I'll have to talk about both of them together. Let's start with how they were both not worthy of Buffy, the awesome vampire slayer. They tainted her by thinking they were her one true love. Make me yak. Both are practically the same character anyway.
Angel was all emo from having killed people when he didn't have a soul. So fucking emo all the time. I'm sorry, but being soulless is pretty much a get-out-of-jail free card. But with a soul, Angel lived in the freaking sewer until he started stalking a 15-year-old. The only time Angel was interesting was when he was evil, but he just would've killed everyone and Whedon hadn't gotten that sadistic with random deaths yet. Let's not even talk about his own show where he betrayed his friends and changed the whole entire world just for his son. Later, Angel destroyed an entire city for vengeance. I think he's more evil with the soul. Plus, they did a shit job at casting, I mean, David Boreanaz was an eye candy model, not an actor, and it showed.
Spike, now talk about another badly cast actor. I mean, give the man a freaking sandwich, especially in Season 6 where he's practically a walking skeleton with a sock on his junk. That and we had to listen to James Marsters continually dropping Spike's cockney accent. I'm American and it made my ears bleed; I can't imagine how British fans must've fared. Then there's Spike's "plots." More whining over love, you'd think BtVS had turned into a romantic comedy with all the moping Spike did over Buffy. Well, if the romantic comedy ended with Spike attempting to rape Buffy. When he finally died in the series' finale, I cheered loudly. But then his glowy, peroxided ass came back and ruined AtS Season 5. What an utterly pointless character.
A response to this post.
Who would you nominate?
I could've gone on forever, but here's 10. (Okay, there's actually 12, but we have some pairs who are basically the same characters, only taller or blonder.)
1. Superman
Fuck the "every man." Superman's boring and outdated. He's like Wonder Bread -- white and overly processed -- and if you notice, they discontinued Wonder Bread. Talk about a poor constructed back story: from a different planet whose sun exploded and the last of his kind. (Well, if you don't count Supergirl or Power Girl or Super Boy, or when all the Kryptonians come back.) I fell asleep watching Singer's Superman Returns. Plus, Superman's only weakness is kryptonite, which isn't common and really makes him a big Mary Sue. Every Man = Mary Sue.
2. Dean and Sam Winchester
They come in a pair because I don't want to waste words on just how boring they are. Whine, whine their mother was killed by demons and they spent their childhood being trained to hunt them. And now their girlfriends die all the time. Seriously, Batman had this parents killed in front of him when he was 8 and he learned to be a ninja and ran an empire. Instead of living on the brink of poverty and listening to classic rock. *yawn* Clearly, casting is also a problem, and Dean and Jensen only got the parts because some casting director found them pretty. They're the reason I quit watching the show at episode 3.
3. The Doctor
Jesus, what an asshole? I just want him to stay dead, but after 40+ years and 11 incarnations, he just keeps coming back. He's like a cockroach. Or syphilis. I get a lot of flak for thinking he's an asshole. But he is. The First Doctor left his granddaughter Susan in a post-apocalyptic world as he thought it was best that at 16, she stay stranded there with a man she's supposed to marry, who's clearly not a teenager. And don't even get me started on his more recent incarnations: mind-wiping his "best friend" and killing his own people. Not to mention how many people he says "Trust me. I'll save you; I promise" and then they die. If the Doctor told me that, I'd run the other way. What really tipped me was when he and Martha hid out in an era he knew she would be treated like a ignorant servant given she's black and a woman. And, oh yeah, he didn't have his Time Lord memory, so he treated her the same way. Dick.
4. Bill Adama
Bill "I'm everyone's daddy" Adama is so incredibly self-centered. He's supposed to serve as an inspiration for his community and the survivors of a genocide. Instead, he spends a good part of his time crying over all the bad things that happen to him. And by bad things that happen to him, I mean bad things that happen to others, but he thinks are all about him. See: Roslin's cancer, Tigh killing his wife and then being a Cylon, Kara dying and coming back, his son becoming a lawyer, etc. I swear he had more pain over all those things than when Boomer shot him in the chest. His later season plotlines made me wish they'd kept Cain. At least she didn't cry in her scotch like a baby.
5. Rodney McKay
Sci-fi's biggest Mary Sue brought to you by the writers of Stargate Atlantis. Oh, but Rodney's special because he's a super genius with poor social skills and a lemon allergy so that gives him the right to be a whiney ass. Seriously, the only reason Rodney didn't make me want to gouge my own eyes out every episode is because of David Hewlett's acting skills. Of course, he's been in plenty of craptastic sci-fi original pictures so he's had the practice with bad scripts. If I was John Shepard, I'd have grounded Rodney permanently. I can't imagine how many alien cultures he pissed off with his rude, self-centered behavior. And the writers even had the gall to make him smarter than Neil deGrasse Tyson, who's a real scientist -- not a TV one -- and only ever made small children cry when he downgraded Pluto from planet status, not almost getting their mothers killed.
6. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd
So the guy has nice hair? What's the big deal? He lives on a plot of land on Lake Washington, in the wilderness and rides a ferry boat to work. Any idiot with a map of Seattle knows that 1) there is no undeveloped land around Lake Washington, especially not one with bears and 2) there are no fucking ferry boats on Lake Washington. He'd have to drive to work in Seattle's horrific traffic like the rest of us. Why didn't that bear just eat him? I mean, he keeps getting in the way of the show realizing the true love between Meredith and Cristina. What's a marriage via post-it note shit anyway? Meredith and Cristina are close enough to Canada to get married legally themselves as Washington is Canadian-adjacent. Why are the writers such haters?
7. James T. Kirk
A manwhore in every version. Seriously, Kirk flies around the universe like he owns it. No, it's more like a dog marking the universe by peeing on it. And by peeing, I mean, fucking alien princesses. His one true love always conveniently dies by the end of episode so all the cameras can be on him. When his best friend and lover, Spock dies in the line of duty, Kirk starts a war to get him back just when the Federation's on the verge of peace with the Klingon Empire. Kirk's always interfering with other cultures, breaking direct orders, and messing with time just because he wants to. Or because he wants to stick his penis in it. Slut.
8. Tony "Iron Man" Stark
Speaking of sluts, Tony Stark is the 21st Century's biggest manwhore. He's also a drunk. But we can forgive him because he's a really special genius boy. You know, who's special and a genius and also a good person unlike Stark, Pepper. But she constantly gets side-lined to see our genius paint his suit of armor the same color as his sports car. Also some "futurist" he is. His future vision killed his best friend and my favorite male Marvel superhero, Captain America. Tony killed his best friend. Yeah, I don't care how high of an IQ his privileged ass is supposed to have; I wouldn't let that asshole run national security or the Avengers or a Tonka Truck.
9. James Wilson
James "I'm a good guy" Wilson is actually an unhappy, meddling asshole, who can't keep a wife if all his nurses were suddenly male. He spends the majority of the day playing elaborate practical jokes on/with his best friend, that include cutting his best friend's cane in half. Does Wilson have something against the disabled? Does he get off on pain? I guess he does because he's supposed to be helping those with cancer, including the dying ones. But instead, he makes it all about him and his cancer patients thank and hug him for telling them they're dying. And there was that one time, he boned one of the dying ones. Way to abuse your power and privilege, Wilson, by sexually preying on dying women and hurting the disabled.
10. Angel and Spike
There were just so many bad male characters to put on this list, I guess I'll have to talk about both of them together. Let's start with how they were both not worthy of Buffy, the awesome vampire slayer. They tainted her by thinking they were her one true love. Make me yak. Both are practically the same character anyway.
Angel was all emo from having killed people when he didn't have a soul. So fucking emo all the time. I'm sorry, but being soulless is pretty much a get-out-of-jail free card. But with a soul, Angel lived in the freaking sewer until he started stalking a 15-year-old. The only time Angel was interesting was when he was evil, but he just would've killed everyone and Whedon hadn't gotten that sadistic with random deaths yet. Let's not even talk about his own show where he betrayed his friends and changed the whole entire world just for his son. Later, Angel destroyed an entire city for vengeance. I think he's more evil with the soul. Plus, they did a shit job at casting, I mean, David Boreanaz was an eye candy model, not an actor, and it showed.
Spike, now talk about another badly cast actor. I mean, give the man a freaking sandwich, especially in Season 6 where he's practically a walking skeleton with a sock on his junk. That and we had to listen to James Marsters continually dropping Spike's cockney accent. I'm American and it made my ears bleed; I can't imagine how British fans must've fared. Then there's Spike's "plots." More whining over love, you'd think BtVS had turned into a romantic comedy with all the moping Spike did over Buffy. Well, if the romantic comedy ended with Spike attempting to rape Buffy. When he finally died in the series' finale, I cheered loudly. But then his glowy, peroxided ass came back and ruined AtS Season 5. What an utterly pointless character.
A response to this post.
Who would you nominate?