#also Wilson is a freak and he absolutely would date someone like Amber

[mildlycursedhistoricalobject]

I think with Amber, she’s treated by the show as a plot point and she’s never developed in the way I wanted her to be. I personally do love Amber, but I think it takes people a long time to warm up to her because her screen time is so limited and then there’s the obvious fridging. I wouldn’t say it’s internalised misogyny if you just don’t like her, I mean you can dislike a female character without being motivated by mysoginy, and I think people who try telling you otherwise are limiting female characters in the process of defending them this way. BUT with Amber especially I found it helpful to consider her position within the plot. Like, she’s presented as a mirror to House, but with House we get to warm up to him over time so we tend to side with him over others. Amber, on the other hand, is given a lot less screen time and thus we have a lot less time to warm to her (writers strikes but also I don’t think she was ever really handled as well as she should’ve been) AND it’s super easy to see her through House’s lense: as a threat. I think I mainly realised this when I was rewatching the show and saw how House would do something far worse than what Amber does, but because it’s House, we know and root for him far more; to the degree of being a viewer of what’s essentially House’s story, it’s easy to take his side while seeing Amber as a “cutthroat bitch.” I don’t like the way characters reduce her to a “female version of House” because I think they’re very different in the way they approach things and the ways that they’re seen to care. Amber’s ambitious which I think is cool to see, but she was robbed of the complexity she could’ve had if they’d approached her character as more than just an obstacle for House.

So yeah, I actually like Amber, but hating her isn’t necessarily born from internalised mysoginy. I do think it sometimes is, but tbh I mostly blame the writing and the brevity of her screentime (no matter the reasons for it). Amber’s a really complex, compelling character and, like I mentioned before, it’s refreshing to see a female character be so ambitious, but that complexity is buried underneath layers of dismissal from other characters in show, and a need from the writers to position Amber as a threat to House. Speaking for myself, I’d never call Amber evil, because I don’t think she is, but there’s no reason to feel bad for, you know, disliking her op. As far as the writing goes you were never actually meant to like her.

Hope this helps :))

I wondered, on rewatching House, if I'd have similar revelations as I had rewatching other shows I mostly saw as a preteen, particularly in terms of women characters. I was much less self-conscious of my internalized misogyny back then and hated lots of female characters with my whole heart, for Reasons, some of which were valid and many of which were not. Upon a (very brief, incomplete) revisit of Breaking Bad, for instance, I realized I should never have hated Skylar. This has happened across a few shows, where I've realized I liked a character more than I did as a kid and perhaps more than the writers intended for me to.

I remember mostly liking Cuddy and Cameron and being straight-up obsessed with Thirteen. I remember hating Amber. I wondered if a rewatch would change my perspective. I think if she hadn't pulled that fake-ghost shit with Thirteen... But she did, and I still hate Amber. I like Wilson less for his involvement with her. She pops up and he kisses her and I just want to puke. Does he know how fucking evil she is? Does he not care? Is she as evil as my angry intestines insist? Am I blinded to some good qualities in Amber by my love of Thirteen? Am I still thirteen years old and that's why I'm writing a fucking blog post on Tumblr about it?? If you are a fan of Amber and you see this in the House tags please lmk why. Not super worried about spoilers for the 20 year old show I've already seen but I'm not quite to season 5 yet in the rewatch if that matters.