Jeana's Unpopular Opinion- Infuriating Drama Heroines

As the title suggests, this is a UO = unpopular opinion. If I have unfortunately fired shots at your favourite drama/character, I apologize, but I gotta tell it as I feel it is. If you disagree with something, try to state your opinion in a civil manner. Enjoy! :D 

Hey, gorgeous MDL folks! I am back!

Don't lie, I know you missed me. Don't pretend not to know who I am, alright. Fine, keep playing hard to get. I'll re-introduce myself. I am Jeana, and I am about to dish out some tea here. ;)

For most of you, the female character might make or break the show. Especially for us women. I mean, the FL's actions feel a little bit more personal than the rest of the characters, no?  Girl out there representing our species, you feel me. No? Alright, I am just dramatic. Let's move on.

Just like how a strong female lead can make you feel a major sense of empowerment and put you in a general state of badassery, a weak female lead can make you feel really, really angry. So let's discuss those female characters today, shall we? Let's join in, and air our frustrations and collectively send a prayer that drama writers stop writing characters like these.

Warning: MINOR SPOILERS!

7) Kim Na Na (City Hunter)

Cause crying solves it all.

I know you're surprised to see this name here but wait a minute. Let me explain. Park Min Young is a cute actress, and Kim Na Na is essentially someone that I would really root for, which is why, obviously, the creators had to abuse her character to the maximum. I mean if you're going to sell me the fact that a woman who can fight off eight thugs when her man is in trouble, walk right into the heart of danger without an ounce of fear, is an excellent shooter, a level four in Judo and just a badass, in general, can just as easily be kidnapped, drugged, taken hostage without so much as a mewl in defense by a single man, I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to buy that bullshit.

The only thing that I despise more than spineless damsels in distress (without just cause) is a spineless damsel in distress disguised as a strong and highly intelligent heroine.
Na Na did not deserve to be used as a tool to highlight Yoon Sung's character just so he could appear to be the perfect knight in a shining black mask, rather, she should've been an independent and resilient woman in her own right who could effectively save herself, but alas chivalry trumps all.

6) Kang Ha Ram (Black)

 Cause I can't even get up by myself.

Kang Ha Ram is your everyday damsel in distress/dumb but kind/self-sacrificing/self-blaming/bumbling-fumbling idiotic heroine who should’ve been as unmemorable as they come. And she really was that way as long as Go Ah Ra didn’t attempt to “act” but then somebody gave her the awful idea that she should “try and make an effort” and that’s when things went sour for me. Her acting was so monotonous and try-hard that at times I wanted to stab my eyes with a metallic chopstick. Just at the slightest inclination of danger, she started this weird hyperventilating/gasping/whimpering regime and trust me, nobody wants to hear that kind of constant panting in the ear in, what is supposed to be, an emotionally intense scene. Simply put, it made me feel very frustrated.

5) Oh Yeon Joo (W)

I promise I am not trying to be mean, but Han Hyo Joo sucks so bad here that I am seriously questioning her ability to act. All her character Oh Yeon Joo does in W is open her eyes wide like an idiot, cover her face with her hands and bite her nails. Literally, this is all she does throughout the show. I am not exaggerating. You should take a moment to notice, and you'll see the pattern in a second. Her acting (or lack thereof) is so unimpressive that you can put a cardboard in her place and it would still work. I mean sure the writers didn't give her much to work with but what they did give her, she made sure to leave no effort ruining it.

4) Boon Yi (Six Flying Dragons)

Oh, God! If you thought, Oh Yeon Joo was bad in W, wait when you see Boon Yi in Six Flying Dragons. SFD is one of my favourite shows of all time because of amazingly complex characters, but where it excels in developing the male leads, it fails to highlight female characters.

Shin Se Kyung is purely robotic here. She literally sucked the life out of every scene she was in as she has no expressions at all. At times, I wanted to shake her out of frustration because I wanted her to react some way. Do anything. But nope, she just stood there like a blank canvas. It wasn't even that she wasn't given a chance in terms of writing. Her character was definitely given enough to work with and had pretty substantial dialogues and scenes, but the actress succeeded to make every moment dull. Thank God, for all the other awesome things that happened in SFD, because of which she was pretty easy to ignore if you put your mind to it. And, trust me, you'll want to put your mind to it.

3) Jang Se Yeon (Mistress)

Despite there being four female leads, it’s very clear that Jang Se Yeon - single mother/widower- was the main protagonist which in Mistress translates to being the main simpleton of the lot of them. If we somehow ignore the fact, that for the most part, she was a fumbling idiot who literally had her mouth parted open like a sputtering fish all the freaking time, we still won’t find her character likeable.

See, here’s the thing, if you are going to show me a mother who is dumb enough to leave her child in the care of an unknown babysitter for more than 24 hours, repeatedly trusting said babysitter after she has been proven to be shady a couple of times, leaving your child unattended in parks, hotels, shopping malls, e.t.c, spending literally no time with your child to the extent that you’re unaware your child is freaking dying and then in the next second you’re going to feed me the “concerned mother who loves her child to no end” bullshit where I am supposed to sympathize with the “suffering” she has to go through in order to save her  kid from all those nasty villains - sorry, but I’m not buying it. 

And before you bring up the “oh but she is a single mother who has to work to pay the bills, and that keeps her busy” shit with me- she works in a cafe where the only customers seem to be her friends. For f**k’s sake, say no more. The other two female leads in the brainless bunch consist of a therapist (who is like a walking talking cardboard because of how expressionless she is) and a supposedly tech-savvy/law-savvy stalker -(?) somebody, please tell me her damn profession- whose sole purpose in life is unsuccessfully tailing people and looking pretty. No depth to either of them, their career is used as plot devices, and they are there just for the sake of being there.

2) Rong Jin Xue (Cruel Romance)

Oh God, here comes one of the most aggravating heroines of all time. She is a horrendously stupid and weak damsel disguised as a smart female lead. It's convenient how she's apparently good at almost everything except, things that matter. 

Like, literally the only time she takes out her claws is in front of the man who loves her with his all, which was hilarious because, for all her bark, she's so irrelevant and has no bite. She's always saved by the hero, and even when she apparently becomes this badass out of nowhere later, she does nothing except create problems for the guy. Like, there was no scene in the entire show where I was like "Go, Girl, that's some mojo". Nope, she's useless. 

Plus, towards the end, she commits one of the most brainless acts ever committed in the history of dumb acts committed by brainless heroines and has to pay heavily for it, just because she thought to trust a shady man who she met a couple of times was better than trusting someone who was there for her through thick and thin. I really don't understand what the male lead saw in her and how he was capable of loving such an ungrateful person so unconditionally that he forgave her for her selfishness time and time again. Which is sad, considering the actress playing her (Joe Chen) actually did a good job and had amazing chemistry with the lead.

1) Oh Hae Young (Another Miss Oh)

I was beyond frustrated with Seo Hyun Jin's character. In the beginning, I found Oh Hae Young quite quirky and straightforward, but as the episodes progressed, I wanted to throw her around by her hair. Her constant whining, crying and screaming got on my nerves. She was always the most pitiful person in the room, and her life revolved around men. It didn't help that she was mediocre (by choice) in every aspect of her life and all she knew was to be a boy crazy victim who's literally desperate for men and had zero self-respect.

I would empathize with what she was going through if she didn't have to be an idiot all. the. freaking. time. There's a limit to what level of cringy is cute and relatable, but when you cross that, then you just appear a fool. That's Oh Hae Young in a nutshell.

There is a part in dramas where I want the women wronged by men to leave and come back stronger. Instead, literally ALL the time, they choose to forgive the dude and end up getting together with him without improving themselves at all. I actually dropped this show even though I was at the last couple of episodes because I couldn't take her sorry self any more. The character development I was sticking around for never came — a hard pass.

That's it! Before, you all term me a hater, trust me that's not the case. For some shows, a supposedly weak female character works. What happened in Bali for example, has one of the most annoying female characters to exist and yet, that is what the drama demanded, and Ha Ji Won made that character work by giving it depth, won a Daesang and turned the show into a hit. You can also check out these amazing female characters that make you wanna jump up and act cool yourself 'cause their badassery is infectious but others, like the ones mentioned above, are a big no-no.

Let me know which female characters got on your last nerves, and what could the writers have done to make them better?

Enjoy!

_{Edited by: Yuanwei (1st editor) & Jojo (2nd editor)}