Content warning: This story contains mentions of sexual assault and violence.

I am an Amy Dunne apologist — it isn’t because I love murderers or aspire to crime, it’s that when I see stories like hers depicted in popular media, I’m not used to a woman being at the center of it. I’m not used to female characters who are completely, unapologetically evil. 

As a lifelong reader, I have found literature to be perhaps a more expansive resource through which to find such characters. Favorite literary villains of mine include Cathy Ames of “East of Eden,” the protagonist in “Eileen,” Amma and Adora in “Sharp Objects” (another by Gillian Flynn) and Lady Macbeth in “Macbeth.”

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Film characters like Harley Quinn, Bellatrix Lestrange, Maleficent and Cruella de Vil are also notable. Something I’ve noted in many of these stories, however, is that a woman’s evil nature often is necessitated by a man in her life. 

Bellatrix follows Voldemort wholeheartedly, and Harley Quinn’s entire creation — despite given a more independent trajectory in the “Suicide Squad” film series — revolves around the Joker. Maleficent is scorned by a lover, in a metaphorical moment that strongly implies sexual assault. Even Amy Dunne — cold, calculating and chilling — enacts her greatest evil after being cheated on.

I am not saying that female villains can never have a story involving a man; I know most, if not all, compelling villains need an origin story. I merely mean to ask: Where are the stories for female characters like the Joker? Where are the stories in which women become so unhinged, so terrifying, that there is no justifying their actions? I am exhausted by female villains who are merely misunderstood anti-heroes. 

I recognize making a villain sympathetic is not something unique to women, but I do feel that it happens disproportionately — even to the extent that we can’t accept female villains unless their malevolence is a reaction to something they have undergone in the past. I have to ask myself sometimes, “Would a female Patrick Bateman be so accepted into the mainstream?” Perhaps the answer is not a definitive no, but I feel we have yet to see her. 

While complex, evil women do exist in many popular stories, they still don’t seem to be depicted nor celebrated to the same extent as their male counterparts. On social media, content surrounding characters like Patrick Bateman, Anakin Skywalker, Tyler Durden and the Joker is widespread; these characters have become imbued in our cultural consciousness, celebrated as flawed but compelling. Some fans have even begun self-identifying with them, in infamous, semi-ironic “I’m him” comments. 

I often wonder if there are fewer extreme examples of female villains because, historically, the bar for women to be seen as crazy or evil has been much lower. When female villains are presented, often they are in some way justified, making their antagonistic nature at least, in part, logical. This makes me feel as if it doesn’t take quite as much for women to be hated. In this same vein, I often wonder if the arrogant Tony Stark would be so universally beloved if he were a woman. The same traits we love to hate in male characters are the ones that we condemn in women. 

Writer Gillian Flynn clarifies what she means by the type of female villains she wants to see: “Not ill-tempered women who scheme about landing good men and better shoes … not chilly WASP mothers (emotionally distant isn’t necessarily evil), not soapy vixens (merely bitchy doesn’t qualify either). I’m talking violent, wicked women. Scary women.” 

I am tired of women having to show restraint in everything, having to be a little kinder than necessary in order to be likable. When I feel the reverberations of this in media, and notice that even female villains often have to have some reason to their ways, I want to scream, “That’s not a villain at all!” 

The definition of a villain is broad and subjective, and oftentimes a villain is compelling because they are misunderstood — because they are merely the hero of their own story. Other times, though, we need someone completely unhinged or immoral to represent the darkest depths of humanity. 

I am excited by what can happen when a female character is written not to be palatable or sympathetic, but to be absolutely, utterly terrifying. When I celebrate characters like Amy Dunne, or feel joy when Hela comes on screen in “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017), it isn’t because I admire them, but because I am excited to see this rare representation of unbridled evil in a woman.