In her essay collection "Bad Feminist," Roxane Gay addresses the tendency to label unlikable characters with psychological disorders. She argues that this reaction reveals societal habits of pathologizing traits that don't conform to our ideals of likability, especially in female characters. The expectation for these characters to be relatable often leads to a critical misinterpretation of their complexities and flaws.
Gay suggests that this phenomenon is a reflexive response, akin to...