Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is a popular animated series about teenage superheroes living in France. The show is primarily aimed at younger children and was created by Thomas Astruc, a storyboard artist from W.I.T.C.H. and the storyboard supervisor from Totally Spies! The influence from Astruc’s other works can definitely be seen in Miraculous, as the show focuses on Marinette, a teenage girl, who is granted magical powers from her Kwami Tikki. As well as showing Ladybug and Cat Noir’s fight against the main villain, Hawk Moth, the series also has subplots about high school drama and teenage romance.
However, while Miraculous was clearly created to be a show that could inspire young children, especially young girls, the leading lady isn’t exactly the best role model. Although Marinette is only a teenager and isn’t expected to be perfect, she has definitely committed some major social faux pas that have made her look less than heroic. Marinette also hasn’t received any kind of backlash for her actions so far in the show, which only seems to encourage her to keep acting in the same way.
The main problem with Marinette is her unhealthy obsession with her classmate Adrien. She knows his schedule — both in and out of class — by heart and has photographs of him all over her bedroom. Marinette also stalks Adrien in person, following him to his photoshoots and creepily staring at him when they happen to get on the same train. This is mostly brushed off as a cute teenage crush in the show and dismissed because Marinette is a girl. However, if the roles were reversed, it would definitely come across as much more sinister, which has made many fans of the show question why Marinette has been allowed to get away with this behavior for so long.
Marinette also seems to hold a grudge against any other female character who gets close to Adrien, such as Chloe, Lila and Kagami. While Marinette does manage to stay civil when Adrien and Kagami start dating, she doesn’t always manage to act mature around Chloe and Lila. Chloe and Lila are both inherently flawed characters who have hurt Marinette in multiple ways, but instead of moving on, Marinette seems to provoke them even more. Whenever anything goes wrong at school or with an Akuma, Marinette almost always blames Chloe or Lila first.
This hatred towards some of the other girls in her life has already crossed over into her job as Ladybug, as Marinette decided to publicly humiliate Lila while she was in costume. Although Lila was admittedly lying about being best friends with Ladybug, there were definitely more mature ways to handle the situation that wouldn’t have ended with Lila getting Akumatized. Ladybug did also lead Chloe on with the Bee Miraculous, which also ended with Chloe getting Akumatized. It could be argued that Marinette is technically failing to do her job as Ladybug by provoking the other girls around her, as she causes almost as many Akumatizations as Chloe does.
The Miraculous fandom has definitely picked up on these behavioral issues displayed by Marinette, and she has become one of the most hated characters in the show as a result of this. Her lack of character development has frustrated many people to the point that they’ve stopped watching the series, and the fact that the other characters around her keep enabling her is definitely questionable. Unless Marinette can learn how to grow up, it is very likely that more fans will keep leaving the show.
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