#why did you write them like that HB staff. Why. What warranted a Valent*no tier portrayal of one dimensionalness

[verosikastrikerstellaexcuser]

Helluva Boss and its consistent dedication to portraying those who are financially disadvantaged or female as one dimensional bad guys

There is something so genuinely insidious to me in how HB treats financially or otherwise socially disadvantaged characters and makes them the bigots and villains of the show.

Striker is "just a bigot". The one who consistently recognizes and verbally calls out the sham that is the classism of their society, hes selected to be the bigoted character. The one who recognizes that imps are at the bottom despite farming everybody's food and who recognizes the higher classes fetishize them like toys, he's the problem. He's the villain that needs to be defeated.

Striker DOES exert toxic masculinity, no doubt. But toxic masculinity can often be the result of poverty. In my eyes, while they're not excused, it is easier to understand why working class men would believe in toxic masculinity (I say this as a feminist). Their living conditions mean either be masculine or you can't provide and you let down others relying on you. You don't survive, while the most masculine survive the best. Striker has likely learned that being better off relies on frequently exerting toxic masculinity and violence. Does the show humanize him and show this? No, it does not. Instead he is reduced to being a bigot that gets tormented with sex jokes against his will, "like he deserves".

You know maybe there could have even been a plot or something in which he gets hurt and needs to be cared for and he's treated kindly and that makes him realize the value of not always being hyper masculine. Or maybe we could even get to see how him being softer lead to someone he used to care about dying GASP. Oh wait, but they would never extend that kind of humanity or development towards him. Why? Because he antagonized Stolitz, he pointed out the fucked up things about it - an unforgivable crime. Send in the hounds sex jokes.

Striker being treated as just a joke ultimately weakens the writing as it would have been far more satisfying for him to be an antagonist with a point, that really challenges our leads and makes them think. But to do that he would have had to be taken seriously, and there's no way someone in the way of an mlm ship can be taken seriously in this show.

The only way a character can get away with antagonizing Stolitz without becoming one dimensional plot fodder with no humanization is if they're something like Fizz and Ozzie - aka a gay pairing in their own right (that also later make up with Stolitz anyway). It is so telling that out of all the antagonists we've had, Fizz and Ozzie were the first to be redeemed.

Now lets talk about Ozzie. Ozzie, who is a lord with boatloads of money and a sex toy production and club empire, is humanized and seen as a good guy. He is even contrasted by Mammon as "one of the good ones". I will admit I love Ozzie, he is fun. The show at least doesn't guilt you into seeing him as a poor victim like it does with Stolas. But what is it with HB consistently presenting wealthy rich men like they're not part of a larger system of oppression? Why does the show twist itself into knots to ignore their contributions to classism and the harm they do? Ozzie can threaten his worker imps and that's fine/understandable. Meanwhile the only way imps are worth having their own lives and stories explored seems to be if they're paired with one of these rich ruling class "good ones" men.

And aren't they cute, these imps and their ruling class lovers? Just don't think too hard about how, while Ozzie's love may be able to lift Fizz, one single imp, out of being lower class, the system as a whole is designed to keep imps down. If Fizz didn't have Ozzie then he'd still be exploited for profit by another member of the ruling class, he had to rely on a member of the oppressive class falling in love with him to save him - no no, don't think about that, focus on the cute gay!

Verosika is another notable example though I will only talk about her briefly as we don't know too much about her yet and she doesn't tie into the shows thing with those who are financially disadvantaged like Striker (and someone else I'm going to talk about after Verosika). Though Verosika hasn't been totally made into a one dimensional villain with the Ozzie's episode showing her sympathetically (for which I am very thankful), she also has barely been explored. Fizz has had so much time dedicated to showing us his own life. Practically more than Millie has gotten. I do understand he had a huge impact on Blitz's entire life and Blitz is the main character. However, Verosika is still a big chapter, and was wronged by Blitz due to his issues. She was hurt by that, which haunts him. And then she got screwed over again by him in Spring Broken with the bet. So now where is she? Why does Fizz get all extra stuff about the life hes now built for himself while Verosika only exists to be drama in Blitz's past? Oh, right. Verosika's a woman, not a man with a sexy bf. So while she can show up, shes never going to be explored outside of Blitz.

A lot of this strange standard of one dimensionalism being applied to characters depending on whether they either appeal to the shows weird mlm fetishization or gets in the way of it can also be seen with Stella. Stella's treatment is honestly appalling to me.

Just like Stolas, she was also trapped in an arranged marriage from childhood. She had to have sex she didn't want and had to get pregnant and produce a child with a man she didn't love. Except, its not just that. Everything that could be said about Stolas applies to her, and on top of that EVEN MORE does - due to her financial status.

Andrealphus states that now shes produced an heir, she "would get nothing" if Stolas died. So this basically confirms Stella has no real assets. Despite them both being forced into the arranged marriage, its Stolas that owns everything. Her home is Stolas', and without the marriage, she has no home. Now I'm sure there's a good chance she could go and live with Andrealphus or some other relative and would be allowed to do so. But is it really so crazy to still see that her situation is demeaning and awful? From what we can see in the show, the way the Goetia seem to operate is like how it used to be in olden times for women - men own everything. If you don't have a husband who gives to you, then you own nothing. So Stella is even more disadvantaged by the arranged marriage than Stolas is. The only reason she has her wealth and privilege is because she was married off to him and used as a tool. All of her assets belong to the men in her life and she never had any choice in it being that way because she was set up to be put in an arranged marriage with a man that would own everything from childhood.

And yet the show thinks instead of exploring how Stella feels about all that, given the very real world parallels to what women throughout history have faced, apparently it was more appropriate to make her one dimensional so that she could exist for the male characters. She sticks around to torture Stolas with no motivation beyond being hateful for seemingly no reason - because that's all her character got to be. Something for the show's obsession with Stolas torture porn, something to make us feel bad for him, so that Stolitz looks better. If she's a one dimensional abuser then that means we don't have to think about her lack of property ownership and how she was a victim of the arranged marriage even more so than Stolas was. Now we don't have to feel guilty when Stella is left with nothing to her name in the divorce, and she deserves being cheated on too! Yay! Phew! That saved us from thinking about a female character for more than five seconds and from being critical of our rich male fave, thank God!

This show refuses to humanize any characters that oppose Stolitz in any way, especially not if they're female. And its noticeable and obnoxious. The consistent way in which it makes its one dimensional bad guys impoverished or women while also churning out "one of the good ones" woobified rich men that benefit from hell's class system is. Well, its really fucking annoying and skeevy, in my eyes. It reveals that this show at its core is about its mlm pairings and nothing else - the class struggle stuff is there just to add flavour and drama to the mlm pairings. Women are powerful and accomplished but only so they can build and be used for the male characters stories. If you have all this time and all these resources to over and over again show another side to the guy who lauded Blitz's business over his head and said "Continually have fuck sessions with me or I'll end your business" then you can also bother to humanize impoverished imps fed up with the class system and women with no property rights trapped in arranged marriages.