Why Tina, Gene, And Louise Belcher Are The Feminist Role Models We Deserve

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Bob's Burgers

When I was around 12 years old, I started watching Adult Swim against my parents’ permission. (Rebellious, I know.)

I quickly feel in love with animated comedies like Family Guy and Futurama because they were unlike anything I had ever seen. To me, they embodied an edgy side of comedy I had never known before. However, I felt like my interest was abnormal.

I was a girl, and animated comedies were clearly a boy’s game.

Most of the adult-animated comedies I grew up watching were driven by male protagonists and resided in Guyland. Sure, South Park has the overtly feminist Wendy Testaburger leading the fight, and The Simpsons has the delightfully insightful Lisa on its team, but these characters fell few and far between in the animated land of one-dimensional female stereotypes. Instead, most of the women on my screen seemed to only fall into one of four categories: the shrewish housewife, the dumb bimbo, the un-pretty freak, or the girl next door. And that was if women were present at all.

This gender gap is what makes Bob’s Burgers so refreshing.

Bob’s Burgers follows the mundane life of the Bob and Linda Belcher and their three kids: Tina, Gene, and Louise. However, instead of ignoring the series’ two daughters to embrace Gene or Bob’s testosterone-laden antics like other family-based comedies (looking at you Family Guy and American Dad), the show works incredibly hard to ensure that every character gets their fair amount of time in the spotlight.

Between these characters’ extended screen time, the show’s incredible writers, and the loving way each character is handled, viewers are treated to genuinely original and funny characters. The humor from the series is above all else character based, and the characters and quirks of the five leads are laid out in detail, right down to Gene’s reoccurring albino friend Ken. Focusing on these characters as the fictional people that they are rather than how they should respond based on gender, race, or sexual orientation, shouldn’t be a refreshing change of pace on today’s screen. But it is.

No characters parade Bob’s Burgers quirky form of individualism more than the Belcher children, namely Internet superstar Tina Belcher.

Tina plays the genderbent version of one of the most common tropes in mainstream comedy – the hypersexual teenager. However, Tina is not just a professional butt-lover and friend fiction writer (it’s like fan fiction, but starring your friends’ butts).

She’s an independent, level-headed young woman with an active imagination and the strongest moral compass in her family. When Tina accidently ran into another car while learning to drive, she was the one who insisted on telling the insurance agent, not her father.

Ultimately, her awkwardness and sexual obsessions do not turn her into a walking punchline. Tina’s humor comes from her confident self-expression and deadpan delivery. Sure, she’s every kind of weird wrapped into a single human being, but she owns it like the goddess she knows she is.

Tina also serves as the direct foil of her troublemaking younger sister, whose identity hinges on being a gender-neutral mastermind.

This is not to say that Louise doesn’t identify as a little girl. She does and often uses that identity to get what she wants. However, she would just as easily use any other perceived weakness to her advantage because above all else, Louise is manipulative. She sees herself in a way I wish more female characters would see themselves – as the undisputed hero.

Louise is unapologetic. Whether it’s bargaining with Linda about getting paid to go to a Mother-Daughter seminar or getting rid of all of her sleepover “friends” Willy Wonka-style so she can be alone, Louise knows exactly what she wants, and nothing prevents the youngest Belcher from achieving her goals. Her determination and controlling nature are so pronounced that her two siblings comment on it often.

However, it’s also important to note that these goals are rarely wholesome. This combination of her fearlessness, outspoken nature, and often complete lack of morality proudly stand in defiance of traditional gender roles, just as prominently as the pink bunny ears stand on her head.

But Bob’s Burgers individualistic and pro-feminist message isn’t merely limited to the Belcher women. Both Bob and Gene treat the estrogen-fueled members of their family equally. For Bob, this involves treating all three of his children with the same apathetic, mildly burnt-out detachment he handles everything not involving burgers or burger puns. For Gene, it’s following his sisters into Girlworld.

Gene, completely in line with his non-confrontational personality and easy-going nature, often joins his sisters in their adventures of the week. However, he doesn’t join with the put-upon frustration most animated comedy leads acquire when they are dragged, groaning, into Girlworld. Instead, he eagerly wants to be a part of his sisters’ lives because, for Gene, drama and adventure is drama and adventure, regardless of gender.

In fact, the moments when Gene is most upset are typically when his gender prevents him from assisting in his sisters’ elaborate plans. In a recent episode entitled “Tina, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” Tina and Louise infiltrate Tina’s old Thundergirls troop to find the troop’s cookie mole. The episode’s B-plot revolves almost completely around Gene desperately trying to insert himself into the espionage action.

I’m not saying that Bob’s Burgers is a perfect animated comedy. Like every other show out there, it has problems – gendered problems. Not to discredit Dan Mintz’s and John Roberts’ superb work as Tina and Linda respectively, but it is a bit disheartening that in a cast of five main characters, Kristen Schaal stands as the only woman.

Likewise, I’m not saying that the animated comedies I grew up watching are sexist pieces of garbage. I’m still discovering Futurama jokes to this day, and the amount of joy I get from a new episode or rerun of South Park or The Simpsons is probably not healthy.

What I’m saying is that it’s possible to create fully formed, funny female characters without sacrificing humor. I hope more shows will remember that.

[You can watch Bob’s Burgers Seasons 1-4 on Netflix or the current season on Hulu]

