11 Awesome TV Characters That Keep Getting Unfairly Sidelined

4. Amy Farrah Fowler - The Big Bang Theory

The writing of this character provides to a real slap-in-the-face to feminist TV critics. On paper, Amy Farrah Fowler appears to be someone who is well-respected, largely intelligent and anything but ridiculed. She has a PhD and is a neurobiologist who met Sheldon through an online dating website. It's obvious what the writers intended to do with her character at the beginning (be the female equivalent of Sheldon himself) and to match up to his social inabilities and extreme intelligence. However, as the show went on, she began to reshape into a character who only appeared as a girlfriend who puts up with Sheldon's impossible tendencies and - though it is often made clear that she wants more out of the relationship - she continues to be the butt of misogynistic jokes, staying with him regardless. The show makes a clear statement that suggests women who are intelligent can't be conventionally good-looking (Amy) and women who are naturally good-looking can't be intelligent (Penny). Amy Farrah Fowler is often unfairly sidelined in this way and deserves to be written as a character with more self-respect and what's more, less through the eyes of patriarchy.