Unlikable TV Characters: We hate them because they really deserve it
By Sundi Rose
Piper Chapman – Orange is the New Black
Oh Piper. Her intentions might always be in the right place, but she’s so ignorant of her own privilege and expectations of entitlement, that she can’t even see how terrible she is.
What ever the opposite of intersectional feminism is, Piper Chapman is it. Even as she’s surrounded by women of all walks of life, in prison herself for crimes worse than some of the other women, she still sees herself as their savior. Her whole “above it all” attitude is the worst, and her attempts to exert her privilege is hard to watch.
She’s also completely incapable of accepting culpability for her own actions. There is always someone else to blame, another situation to pin it on, or some unfair circumstance at fault. From the moment we met Piper, all I want to do is grab her by the shoulders and shout, “It’s not them! It’s you!!!”
Of course her WASP-y sensibilities fade as she becomes more a part of the system she finds so distasteful. And her character is probably meant to be an indictment of the kind of woman she is. I get that, but it doesn’t mean I don’t hate her a little.