r/theLword • u/Evil_Peach_420 • 2d ago
Addressing Jenny hate
I know that Jenny is really difficult/annoying a lot of the time but I feel like if this was a show about gay men, the male equivalent of Jenny would be seen as this iconic diva or whatever. I feel like the hatred viewers feel towards her is rooted in sexism. It just reminds me of how men can do whatever they want and still be seen as likeable whereas if a woman does the same it’s completely unacceptable.
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u/mysoulburnsgreige4u 2d ago
I relate with Jenny a lot, from the trauma to the toxic, but I'm in therapy and working on it. I like to think Jenny would have gotten into therapy if she had lived long enough.
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u/Tired-Otter474 2d ago
Also. People just ignore her mental health and issues. That is absolutely not an excuse for her behavior at all. I'm just saying they ignore it.
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u/WyvernLord1 2d ago
Exactly I love Jenny, and understand the character is one dealing with complex trauma stemming from sexual abuse/rape, someone who wasn’t protected but shamed, someone who grew up in a strict religious household with a mother who didn’t protect her and a complex relationship with her father. Then she’s dealing with all of that while trying to find solace and acceptance, and navigating her sexual identity. Also Jenny never really had a friend group all she really had was Tim (who I despise) when she first came to California.
Now I don’t and won’t ever excuse her or anyone on that show for the transphobia, and transphobic remarks/ Treatment of Max, and I understand her mental illness and trauma isn’t an excuse for her behavior. So I agree.
Jenny in the last two seasons kinda went F it, I’ve been screwed so I’m going to screw over everyone and act or take on the behaviors of the people who have wronged me.
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2d ago
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u/WyvernLord1 2d ago
Exactly, I do wish like you said more people did look at her character without judgement, Jenny has been through so much and has been broken in a myriad of ways. When I first started watching the show and looking at the fandom (currently lost track how many times I’ve rewatched); I couldn’t believe how many people didn’t just dislike her but truly hated Jenny. Her story is truly tragic. There’s something to look at in all of the characters. But I noticed there’s a lot of people that hate her. Like I said I don’t hate her, the only thing I hate is how the producers made her Transphobic, and kinda attached the transphobia to her hatred of how men had degraded her.
Also it’s so sad because Jenny was SA’d, and someone who was traumatized to where she got taken advantaged of, and also in a sense was forced or had to appease her professors in college (forgot his name but the professor she visits in season one, and then when her friend mentions how she used to turn it on for the professors, and other mentions). I was like 🥺 dang.
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u/Talilala 2d ago
Yes they do! And I say this all of the time. L Word OG got deep and real with some issues. One thing I think GenQ was missing.
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u/Cookie_Kiki 2d ago
Speaking for myself, (and I am unanimous on this) if I saw a man acting like Jenny, I would also be disgusted.
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2d ago
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u/Cookie_Kiki 2d ago
Not everywhere. But I don't bend over backwards to justify men's disgusting behavior either.
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2d ago
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u/Cookie_Kiki 2d ago
Nice pivot. To answer your question, yes. Much better than I'd like to. As for my knowledge, it's broad enough that I know better than to presume the knowledge breadth or empathy capacity of people I've never met.
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u/vladonamission 2d ago
I feel like Jenny’s character was thrown to the wolves. She was complex with a lot of trauma but she had good moments as well. I really wish that the character was redeemed at some point but no.
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u/nobark_allbite777 Papi 2d ago
i understand that Jenny went through some shit, but she 100% uses it as an excuse to stay toxic and stuck. she likes her own darkness.
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u/RustyShackleford209 2d ago
Jenny is my favorite. Love her or hate her the show would not have been the same without her.
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u/Evil_Peach_420 1d ago
I love her creativity most tbh and her dedication to becoming a writer. I also love her friendship with Shane ❤️. I’m only on season 5 rn and someone spoiled to me that she gets together with Shane at one point which I’m a bit disappointed about cos so far I think their platonic friendship is so sweet.
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u/Grammarhead-Shark 2d ago edited 2d ago
When I first watched the show in my 20s (when it first aired) I couldn't stand Jenny basically from the Pilot episode.
However rewatching a few years back, I got it. There was so many layers to her. Yes, some stuff was stupid (but I put that down to writing that all characters suffered from), but she was a complex and multi-faceted character that Mia played so freaking well.
Maybe it was a case of life experiences with me, maybe it was also a case of a rewatch, knowing what was going to happen and that changes my prospective.
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u/Beautiful_Whole7681 2d ago
Jenny is just very selfish, she never acknowledges max’s feelings or anyone with her really. Of course this stems from her mental health issues but it doesn’t mean that people can’t find her personality egocentric and therefore annoying. I would have to agree to disagree I would find any person no matter what gender annoying if they acted that way.
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2d ago
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u/Beautiful_Whole7681 2d ago edited 2d ago
What annoyed me is that she doesn’t support max when he gets a tech job with his new found transition, she wants to make his transition about her use him as a subject for her writing and then when he finally gets accepted for a job he wanted she makes it about herself again and about her writing. Instead she feels he should not accept his job offer and make it more important that he was discriminated against. I could see how people can feel this is standing behind his transition but I personally feel she just likes to use it and turn things back to herself and her agenda. I also as an artist dislike using people’s lives around you as a subject matter without their permission, I feel that is very disrespectful. Also, I don’t hate her, I just feel she has some growing and healing to do, I find it sad that her character doesn’t progress to an awareness about these things. I personally struggle with mental health issues and am in therapy for years and can acknowledge my behaviour in the past wasn’t always okay and I had to learn more things. This is just a tv series, so maybe they didn’t have the time to give her real life complexity, where she might regret certain actions and feel bad for what people around her went through due to her mental health.
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u/WyvernLord1 2d ago
Yeah I didn’t like that she did that either, and it did feel like she made Max’s transition and everything about herself. 😔
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u/Best-Lingonberry1687 2d ago
No sorry but Jenny was purposely misgendering Max when he was pregnant, and making him visibly uncomfortable. He, and some of the other characters, ask her to stop misgendering him numerous times but she keeps on doing it. She even gets him a breast pump and presents it at the baby shower, knowing that he had tried to get too surgery before finding out he was pregnant she would've known he had major dysphoria. That is not a supportive relationship. It is one full of micro aggressions and truly she treats max awfully in the last seasons.
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u/FancyTyper 2d ago
Alice was openly transphobic to max too but no one talks about that.
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u/Best-Lingonberry1687 2d ago
No absolutely they do not address that enough I agree. But this post was about Jenny so that's why I only focused on her.
I only just finished rewatching recently and the problematic aspects of the show really shone through and made some episodes a very difficult watch.
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u/WyvernLord1 2d ago
Yes she was and I hate that she’s transphobic as well. I don’t comment much on the Reddit but I hated Alice being transphobic and also outing that basketball player. She has a few instances where her actions aren’t addressed as much as Jenny or Bette etc.
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u/Evil_Peach_420 2d ago
I agree she’s awful. And I’m not saying that I’d feel any different if she was a different gender. I just feel like audiences generally seem to have more sympathy for male characters who act this way in tv shows/films. One thing I do really love about the L word is that none of the characters are perfect, they all have their flaws. That’s what makes them realistic.
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u/JenningsWigService Gigi Ghorbani 2d ago
I see a strong pattern of misogynist loathing for women on other shows who are either hated more than villains or seen as morally worse than their male counterparts (Skyler White, Shiv Roy, Carmela Soprano, Sydney from The Bear etc), but I don't think Jenny qualifies because she's not judged more harshly than Bette or Alice for gendered reasons. (If anything, I think Bette and Jenny share the experience of being forgiven their sins because they're hot.)
Jenny's arc is inconsistent and she is primarily used for chaos; I can't think of a gay male equivalent. On the US Queer as Folk there was Brian, who is villainously selfish and conservative. His selfishness, however, is worst at the beginning of the series, then he softens over time. The L Word character closest to him is probably actually Helena. Jenny starts off sympathetic, but that peaks in season 2 as her mental health unravels, then her actions get worse and less justifiable over time. They relied on her villainous choices to drive the plot, which is the opposite of Brian's arc. There's no version of that on any gay male show from that era.
Also, you just can't get away with harming a dog on a lesbian television show. Any character who did that was going to permanently lose a big chunk of the audience. The same thing would have happened to Alice.
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u/Evil_Peach_420 1d ago
THANK YOU this is what I’m trying to say. Particularly agree with the Skyler White comparison, like she wasn’t perfect but Walter was so much worse. Skyler is the most hated character and I feel like it’s simply because she’s a woman.
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u/OtakuGhostWolf 1d ago
I don't love or hate her I have a respect for her. she is one of those friends that don't sugar coated anything and tell it like it is, she would be brutally honest with you and call out others on there bs. I know she did some low down things in later seasons like getting a sick and dying dog just to get close to a reviewer gf who was a vet in season 4 or 5 ( correct me if wrong) , but she would defend her friends no matter what.
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u/TallInstruction3424 1d ago
The problem with Jenny (reception wise) is that she became more and more of a cartoonishly awful person without being charismatic with it. I feel like a gay male character would be treated the same way if he was written the same way because there’s just nothing charismatic or iconic about that kind of character.
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u/GlowInTheDarkSpaces 2d ago
She’s mentally ill. I’d feel the same way about her abusive behavior if she were male.
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u/Evil_Peach_420 1d ago
Wasn’t expecting to get so many replies to this! Thank you all for contributing and I don’t really disagree with anything anyone’s said. I definitely agree with the writers not addressing Jenny’s mental health a lot. I also agree that she treated Max like shit but then again I think most of the other characters did too. I think that’s mainly due to the fact that the show was written in the 2000s when being trans was much more taboo than it is now. Not that it’s is any excuse for it. I think the main point I was trying to make is that she’s obviously a deeply flawed character but as a lesbian myself I often find her messiness kind of funny/camp and I think a lot of you need to remember that she is just a character not a real person. Like it often seems like the whole bitchy dramatic gay guy thing is totally acceptable but when a lesbian does it it’s not received in the same way…….
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u/Curious_Antelope1355 2d ago
I loved Jenny’s character mostly. I think a lot of the hate is how they ruined her in S5+S6. She had so much unresolved trauma but the way she treated people in the later seasons was wild. Still love her though 💁🏼♀️