This post contains spoilers about the most recent episode of The Walking Dead.
This morning I was on board with all the Andrea hate. She’s a dumb bitch who will toss aside her friendship with the woman who nursed her back to health just so she can get some dick from a shady megalomaniac with a messiah complex. Further, she has a history of hooking up with psychotics.
But is she really all bad? I’ve been thinking about this today and I wonder: how much of our frustration with Andrea is a result of us being trained by this show to treat the women as antagonists? This might be part of it but we’ve discussed this previously so I’ll move on.
Is it because she is stubborn? Andrea is a stubborn person. But so is Rick. I think we can safely say that we consider Rick to be a bad person but we still feel bad when bad things happen to him. Andrea is actually less stubborn than Rick. In this last episode when the Governor ordered her around, did we not wish she would actually be a little more headstrong about it?
Maybe it’s because she bangs so many dudes. But does she really? In a period of 10 months to a year, she has sex with 2 people. 2 people! Jump back! For an unattached person with no commitments, that is not unreasonable at all.
Maybe it’s because she has bad taste in men. We call her stupid because she is attracted to the Governor. We question her taste when she has sex with Shane in the fully loaded, all-wheel drive, well-engineered Hyundai. But attraction is not a choice. We don’t villainize someone for a lack of attraction they feel towards someone. Should we villainize someone for feeling attracted to a type of person? Perhaps not. Andrea is a strong woman in her own right and it appears she is attracted to Type As. I’d be willing to bet she’d have sex with Rick given the chance.
Should we blame her for acting on this attraction? There is a reverse Baltic Effect that occurs when we experience attraction. When we like someone a lot, we allow a lot of bad behavior that we simply can not see. When I fall for someone, they can do no wrong in my eyes. Andrea’s vision is clouded with lust.
Sure, Andrea is stupid and inconsistent and can be irritating. Her choices are dumb. But does she really deserve so much hate? I don’t know.