Is the term “Mary Sue” sexist? Well,
obviously it never occurred to me to consider this angle of the trope. Pesky Y
chromosome. I was looking at it purely as a creative exercise, but the question
is a valid one, especially in these days of angry loud-mouthed tiny nerd boys
behaving horribly because they don’t want no icky cootie fangirls in their
clubhouse.
I was pointed to a couple of
blogs that tackled this criticism. The Adventures of Comicbook Girl’s post, “Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist,”
points up the double standard of how a tragically orphaned character who grows
up to be an attractive, wealthy, genius, Olympic-level athlete who rights
wrongs, is always right, is ten steps ahead of all foes, and has the unreserved
admiration of everyone is a Mary Sue. Except when it’s Batman. The point being
that these characteristics are okay for a male character but are subject to
scorn and ridicule when applied to a female character.
Batman can defeat anyone, given adequate prep time. Here, he has a bat-anti-Darkseid
bullet in his utility belt.
Meanwhile, Feminist Fiction argues that there should be more Mary Sues and points out that there is only one female Avenger in the movie and she is
one of only two members with no super powers. Again, the male
characters—Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk—are all
unapologetically powerful while the Black Widow has to make due with … well,
actually I disagree with the author on that point. The Black Widow is pretty
much awesome every time she’s on screen from the interrogation she conducts
while tied to a chair to being the one who shuts down the stargate in the final
battle. She can basically do anything Captain America can do, only without the
shield and the super soldier formula, plus she’s a master spy. That’s why
everyone on Agents of SHIELD is all “Even Romanoff couldn’t have escaped from
this” and “Only Romanoff ever beat that.”
No, I’m Batman
Those points considered, it’s
important to go back and have a look at the time, circumstances, and intent
under which Paula Smith created the character Lt. Mary Sue, the main character
of “A Trekkie’s Tale.” It was 1973; there was no Internet or desktop publishing.
If the Star Trek fan community wanted to share ideas or stories, it had to be
through hand-made, hand-mailed fanzines created using typewriters and
mimeograph machines. These fanzines, which usually contained ads for other
fanzines, could be mailed to subscribers or traded, passed around, or sold at Star
Trek conventions, the very first of which had been held only a year earlier.
You kids have it so easy with your new-fangled "Internet."
Smith described these early days
of handcrafted fandom and the creation of Lt. Mary Sue in a fascinating 2010
interview (Walker, Cynthia W. 2011. “A Conversation with Paula Smith.” Transformative
Works and Cultures, no. 6. doi:10.3983/twc.2011.0243):
It all goes back to the early 1970s, when Star Trek
fandom was just breaking away from mainstream science fiction fandom. I went to
a lot of conventions around that time and I bought every zine I could lay my
hands on. It was just an explosion of mimeograph and hectograph and ditto; very
few zines were even photocopied back then. I read everything. Some of it was
pretty good. Some of it was extremely good. But an awful lot of it was just
plain awful.
As Theodore Sturgeon said, 90 percent of everything
is crap. The amazing thing was, the crap had so much of a pattern. I’m very
much a pattern seeker, and you could see that every Trek zine at the time had a
main story about this adolescent girl who is the youngest yeoman or lieutenant
or captain ever in Starfleet. She makes her way onto the Enterprise
and the entire crew falls in love with her. They then have adventures, but the
remarkable thing was that all the adventures circled around this character.
Everybody else in the universe bowed down in front of her. Also, she usually
had some unique physical identifier—odd-colored eyes or hair—or else she was
half-Vulcan. The stories read like they were written about half an hour before
the zine was printed; they were generally not very good.
It was the type of story that
begged for a parody, so for the second issue of her Star Trek fanzine, Menagerie,
Smith…
… tossed off “‘Gee, golly gosh, gloriosky,’ thought
Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise.” Lieutenant
Mary Sue—that’s what I called her just to give her a name. And the piece
was—what? Probably two hundred words. It was half of one of our reduced
columns. It wasn’t very much. I really just retold the story of that
quintessential Mary Sue. It was a parody. … it might have died right there, but
I began doing LoCs—letters of comment—and reviews of zines in other zines.
Anyway, because this was still the early 1970s, there were still a ton of these
stories coming out. So, when we wanted a shorthand to refer to them, Sharon and
I began to call them “Lieutenant Mary Sue” stories. We explained why the first
couple of times we used it, but the term caught on …
So, Lt. Mary Sue was a parody of
a poorly written character. Why a female character? According to Smith, 90
percent of Trek fandom at the time was female. That’s who was writing the
stories.
“Trek fandom was the mirror image of science fiction
fandom. I would say 90 percent of science fiction fandom at the time was men
and 10 percent was women, and there was a reverse 10-to-90 men-to-women split
in Trek fandom.”
So, no sexism in the original
intent. However, through use and misuse over the years, the term “Mary Sue” has
gone from a call out of a thinly developed character to an insult leveled at a
female character that has any agency in a story whatsoever. That’s stupid. And
annoying, because I wanted to explore this archetype without getting caught up
in a lot of messy gender politics. Nonetheless, names have power and there are
legitimate reasons to find the name “Mary Sue” off-putting. So let’s go with PC
or “Pat Chris” as a gender-neutral alternative for the sake of this discussion.
Besides literally being “PC,” it can also stand for a character that’s “Poorly
Conceived” or perhaps the author’s “Pet Character.”
(In Dungeons & Dragons, there is no foe more fearsome than the
Dungeonmaster’s Pet Character. I had one in high school: His name was Victor
Anthony Kas. He was a paladin with a tragic backstory and was heir to the Sword
and Armor of Kas, destined to become the evil Kas Dester. Eventually the whole
campaign was about him. Despite that, I guess I had enough going on in that
campaign that everyone was able to stay engaged and have a good time. The story
arc was about getting Kas to his redemption, but in the end, the whole thing
was about my Pet Character and the outcome was pretty much preordained, so,
honestly, it was not very good dungeonmastering.)
So what makes a character a PC
and what is it about PC that induces vision-distorting eye rolls? It’s
important to remember that PC is a native of the fan fiction genre. A PC, in fan
fiction, is often a new main character dropped into a defined setting with established
characters. If that new main character is the center of attention, solves
everyone’s problems, and causes the existing characters to start acting out of
character (for instance, Spock weeping openly at the character’s beauty and
goodness or Kirk suddenly becoming bi-curious), then it’s definitely a PC. Or
as Paula Smith put it in the above-cited interview, “presence of a [PC] in a
story is like a black hole, a neutron star, because it warps everything else
out of their normal orbits.”
Your audience does not love your pet character.
Basically, Pat Chris is in the
story more for the author’s pleasure than any would-be readers. This is
charmingly illustrated in a seven-page comic called “Fan Fiction” by Shaenon K.Garrity and drawn by Phil Foglio.
In it, a girl inserts a new character into a bedtime story about some famous
heroes, much to the annoyance of her younger siblings. Luckily, Mom’s a bit
more sympathetic.
Once we leave the genre of fan
fiction, it’s a little harder to point to the new character that doesn’t belong
and PC gets a little harder to pin down; that’s where the misuse of the term really
gets going. The criticism is leveled, justly or unjustly depending on the
story, that the main character is too good/competent/powerful/whatever. The
implied and/or perceived follow-up “for a woman” isn’t always there in all
discussions, but it’s there often enough and loudly enough that the accusation
of sexism has some merit. Particularly given that a male character displaying
the same properties tends to get a free pass.
Seriously, why does one young,
attractive, charismatic, hyper-competent main character induce eye rolls and
snorts of derision while another becomes a cultural icon? Take the Doctor. Or
Sherlock Holmes. Most stories, they arrive on the scene and resolve the problem
to the great admiration of those around them and then leave, usually with
little or no character development on their part. How is it that no one labels
either of these guys a PC? It’s not just because they’re men. Obviously, the
answer is because they’re British.
What is it that makes these two
interesting characters rather than PCs? Perhaps the key element lies in how
their stories are structured. While Holmes and the Doctor are the main
characters of their respective series, their stories are filtered through the
points of view of their sidekicks, Dr. Watson and the various TARDIS companions,
respectively. Imagine a solo Sherlock Holmes story or a solo Doctor Who story:
The main character is brilliant, a step ahead of everyone else, and fairly smug
about it. That’s when readers or views would start to get annoyed with him.
(The one solo Doctor Who episode
that comes to mind is “The Deadly Assassin” from the classic series starring
Tom Baker. In it, the Doctor returns to Gallifrey and gets caught up in a
deadly game of cat-and-mouse with his arch-nemesis, the Master. In this
instance, going against the formula works and works well, but it’s a very
different kind of story.)
On Gallifrey, being smug and brilliant is one of the entrance
requirements.
I mentioned Batman earlier. Very
early in his career, Batman got paired with Robin, and that was purposely to
make him more accessible to readers. Batman goes long stretches without a
sidekick, but inevitably the writer or editor will come to decide that it’s
time for him to have a Robin again. I haven’t kept close count in recent years,
but there are at least a half-dozen characters who have taken on the role of
Robin.
Robert Langdon, the main
character of The Da Vinci Code and
other best-selling novels by Dan Brown, is described as a fit, rugged Harvard
professor all the hot young coeds are in love with. Beyond that, there is not
much that’s memorable about him, even with Tom Hanks playing him in the movie.
That actually works to the story’s advantage. Langdon’s discussed a bit in the
comments thread of Laura Miller’s Salon.com article of April 21, 2010, “A reader’s advice to writers: Beware of Mary Sue."
Miller speculates that “Since
Brown’s books are all treasure hunt and chase scenes, Langdon isn’t that
intrusive. His character or personality isn’t ever a focus, and a lot of Brown’s
readers can’t even remember his name. So I think he’s close, but not really a [PC];
he just doesn’t take up enough of the book’s attention. However, it’s true that
certain kinds of very plot-driven genre fiction seem able to get away with
pretty flagrant [PCs].” Brown doesn’t invest a lot in his main character. Would
it have been better with a stronger main character? Sure, but that’s not what
drives these stories. What drives these stories are the cryptography, keys,
symbols, codes, and conspiracy theories. Langdon’s function is to prevent the
novel from being a long essay.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension,
gets away with having an improbably competent main character who’s a brilliant
inventor, brain surgeon, rock star and adventurer by hanging a lampshade on the
trope; it’s presented with a wink and a nudge. Buckaroo Banzai’s associates
have worked with him long enough that they’ve all become pretty jaded about his
exceptionalism. Jeff Goldlbum plays team newbie New Jersey to be the POV
character. The other thing that gives the movie a free pass is that 1980s Peter
Weller is just that awesome.
"No matter where you go, there you are."
Let’s look at a few female
characters now: For example, here’s one whose name is actually Mary and she’s
practically perfect in every way. It says so right on the label. She too sweeps
in, is much beloved, solves everyone’s problems, and then leaves at the end
with little or no character development on her part.
 |
| I don't have character arcs. I cause them. |
However, Mary Poppins is more of
a plot device than a main character. (I refer to the Disney movie here.) She’s
something that happens to the other characters in the movie. Specifically, even
more than to the children, she happens to this guy:
 |
| However, “Saving Mr. Banks” would not be workable as a movie title until
many, many years later. |
The story is all about Mr. Banks’
character arc. So, Mary Poppins is no PC. Besides, she’s also British.
Here’s another one: She’s the one
girl in all the world with the power to fight the vampires and demons. Although
her backstory is not as tragic as the trope usually calls for, it does feature
her parents’ messy divorce, a brief stay in a mental institution after trying
to convince people that vampires are real, and pretty much being run out of her
home town. Fortunately, she’s got a couple of broody vampire boyfriends to help
distract her from her troubles. So what is it that makes Buffy the Vampire Slayer so successful? Unlike Holmes or the Doctor,
Buffy is the POV character throughout most of the series.
She’s got her sidekicks/supporting characters, but they’re not there for the
purpose of making the main character more accessible to the viewer. Buffy’s
plenty accessible as she is. Being a young, strong, attractive chosen one doesn’t
necessarily make a character a PC; those are things we look for in our heroes.
However, a hero, as opposed to a PC, has one other key ingredient: In her
interview, Paula Smith called it “headspace … you have to give the reader
somewhere to fit into in the character.” Buffy has real flaws and doubts with
which viewers can identify; she has the headspace that makes it easy to see the
action through her eyes. Even though it’s series television and you know she’s
going to survive the episode (or in those instances where she doesn’t, it will
still work out somehow), the stakes still feel genuine. There’s no guarantee
that her supporting cast will come out unscathed or that she’ll save the innocent
bystander or that the bad guy will get away and later return as a fan-favorite
regular.
 |
Buffy’s relationship with her supporting characters works textually as
well as meta-textually as seen in the season three episode, “The Wish.” Buffy
without her friends is cold, humorless, scarred, and ultimately gets chomped on
by the Master.
|
Another thing that makes Buffy
work where a similarly situated PC might fail is her relationships with the
other characters and, more importantly, theirs with her. Willow, Xander, and
Giles are each fully realized characters who have their own problems and
motivations. Said problems and motivations do not exclusively revolve around
Buffy. Likewise, Buffy is not the solution or necessarily even involved in the
solution to their problems. Each character from stalwart allies to vampiric
love interests to the Big Bad of the season to minor villains has some
headspace to latch onto.
At the other end of the spectrum,
let’s have a look at the girl voted most likely to be called a “Mary Sue” by
people who find the term “Mary Sue” demeaning to women, Twilight’s Bella Swan. Bella is attractive, very much the focus of
other characters’ attention, largely pure of heart, and the creation of a
first-time novelist housewife, so she certainly hits those PC tropes. However,
if writing a PC is wrong, then Stephenie Meyer’s bank account doesn’t want to
be right. How does Bella Swan succeed where so many others like her fail, and
so many others wish she had failed? Her character has been described as
lacking, passive, irritating, and the descriptors get less charitable from
there. The one thing she does have though is headspace. In fact, Bella is
mostly headspace; she’s a pair of eyes to check out and react to the
hot-looking vampire and werewolf competing for her affection. It’s not a new
formula; a Bella Swan is the main character of a good many of the paperbacks in
the Romance section of the bookstore or airport newsstand.
 |
| You tolerate me because my boyfriends are so, so pretty. |
For my last two character
studies, I’m going to turn to the world of web comics. The first is Phil and
Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius. Agatha
Heterodyne starts out as an ordinary university student who discovers that, in
fact, she’s the latest in a long line of brilliant (and mostly evil) mad
scientists, or “sparks.” Her father and uncle, both mysteriously missing since
she was a child, were the legendary and heroic Heterodyne Boys. Her mother was
the villainous Lucrezia Mongfish, also known as the Other, who started a war
that nearly enslaved/destroyed all Europa. By the thirteenth volume of her
adventures, she’s mastered her powers of mad science, been trained as an expert
hand-to-hand combatant, is reclaiming her ancestral castle and homeland, has an
army of loyal monsters at her command, along with a town full of adoring
minions, and her suitors are two of the most powerful and brilliant (and
handsome) sparks in Europa (and they’re also princes).
 |
| "Mary Sue?" Why, my three consecutive Hugo awards and I would be delighted to have that conversation with you. |
Put that way, it sounds like a
checklist for PC; you can hear the eyes rolling across the floor and down the
hall. The thing is, Girl Genius is
excellent. It’s funny, it’s smart (selected as one of Mensa’s top 50 web
sites), and boasts three Hugo awards in a row for Best Graphic Story (after which the Foglios voluntarily took themselves out of the running) along with
shelves full of other awards.
Stories of improbably exceptional characters predate
actual literature. We love them. The take away here is that there’s nothing
wrong with writing about an improbably exceptional character as long as you
write her well.
Finally, let’s bring this long
discussion full circle to the adventures of Ensign Mary Amethyst Star Enoby
Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue by Claire Moseley and Kevin Bolk. Ensign Sue Must Die!
is a parody of PC tropes that opens with the arrival on the Enterprise of a lovely young new medical
officer. Spock Prime is familiar with her type and makes the logical decision
to make himself scarce.
 |
| Terrifying. |
Ensign Sue proceeds to make
herself the center of attention, much to the annoyance of the hapless Enterprise crew despite their efforts to
get rid of her. Like any good satire, Ensign
Sue Must Die! and its sequels, Ensign
Two: The Wrath of Sue and Ensign3:
Crisis of Infinite Sues, has a point underneath the laughs. As the story
goes on, Ensign Sue begins to develop as a character, becoming not just someone
to laugh at, but someone you feel for.
 |
| Here. Here is where it starts happening. |
That headspace Paula Smith was
talking about comes to Ensign Sue as she realizes the people she loves don’t
love her back and doesn’t know what to do next. That’s something a reader can latch onto. Personally, I’ve come
from enjoying the Enterprise crew’s
futile attempts to get rid of Ensign Sue to actually rooting for her.
So, maybe there are no bad
characters, only badly written ones. Who knows? Maybe even the fall and
redemption of Victor Anthony Kas is a story that deserves to be told. Even a PC
has a story to tell; it just needs to be told well.
References Cited:
