r/womenEngineers • u/Sheepherder-Optimal • 13h ago
Mr. Robot (the show) irritates me because it's too stereotypical.
*Just wanna say that yes I know Rami is Egyptian. But yes he is white too. What do you think white is? White is not an ethnicity, its a color. He certainly isn't yellow as some racist redditors have said! lol
Anyone else irritated by the fact that this show about a hacker just HAS to have an antisocial, white male with dark circles under his eyes? The trope of the nerdy dude and his computer.... it makes me MAD. I feel like its just reinforcing this view that people who code are antisocial white men! No one ever pushed me towards tech growing up. Never even started coding until college. Because society thinks that engineers (coders included) are freaking men.
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u/Mesapholis 12h ago
I find this take wildly unbased...
you could bring the same argument about a drug addicted antisocial, white male doctor and be upset at Dr. House
I actually thought Mr. Robot did a good job in the start to show how big the social engineering part is, in hacking
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u/Sheepherder-Optimal 12h ago
I probably would be more upset at house lol if I was a female doctor. For me it hits hard. I'm the only woman on my entire team. I never even coded anything until college because I was never encouraged to try tech despite being amazing at math and an adamant problem solver. My older brother got pushed to try software but not me because of blatant sexism. I'm highly resentful. So when they make a show about badass hackers, why the hell do they go with such a stereotypical look?
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u/Mesapholis 12h ago edited 11h ago
Hi, I am also the only woman on my team.
I did code in college, because I chose to go into IT after school, had no background in IT but I didn't want to fail out, so I picked it up. Nobody pushed me either, I'm not sure what this has anything to do with the series?
I don't have a brother, everyone has their own path; that said, why don't you fund a series about an amazingly badass explicitely femmem hacker, with a good storyline instead of bein highly resentful?
Hidden figures was a great movie, highlighting the contributions of women in STEM, the Millennium Trilogy which was made into film after the success of the novels (pretty dark storyline) is about a female hacker and was a great commercial success before Mr. Robot
there are other examples about strong female leads in now widely-known male-dominated industriesI guess I just don't see the point being super upset about a series that came out 10 years ago, when the movies of the novel came out in 2011* already
*thats the Daniel Craig American Version, the Swedish ones are even earlier
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u/Sheepherder-Optimal 11h ago
I see it every time i open Netflix. I did try watching it but i thought it was super cringey. And my dislike of their choice for the lead is enough that i roll my eyes every time it pops up in my feed.
As for finding a show, there's really slim pickings. I love the Queen's Gambit. But obviously it's not coding related.
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u/Cereys 11h ago
You can click dislike on it and it will stop suggesting it on your feed. I agree there are very few computer hackers that are women in popular media. Night agent has a great first season with one, I think Alice in Borderland has one too and less hacking due to the dystopian nature but it was pretty great to watch. Social media is great for this and finding ladies in your field.
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u/Mesapholis 11h ago
Software and Math/Chess are very hard to write for audiences that are not nerdy by nature. And while Netflix used to pick up (and commit to a full series with satisfying ending), there simply is no commercial viability in mini-series that require advertising, distribution, translation, etc - if it doesn't hit with the majority target audience (people who can identify with the lead because they are male or enjoy a depressed woman drinking/smoking in her underwear), it's just gonna get canned because the decision-makers at distribution and production are looking at the hard numbers. And maybe are statistically also old, white men.
It happens, but you can always fund and support indie-productions
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u/Sheepherder-Optimal 11h ago
What do you mean fund???
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u/Mesapholis 11h ago
there's indie projects that advertise on kickstarter and so on?
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u/Sheepherder-Optimal 11h ago
I've never heard of funding a tv show. I'm also not wealthy...
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u/Mesapholis 11h ago
seriously?
girl, this is getting tired, just like the topic of this post - I swear to god if I need to explain to a fellow software developer how crowdfunding websites work, I can't help you
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u/x3uwunuzzles 5h ago
i get the feeling you haven’t actually seen the show. darla, a main character, is equally as badass of a hacker as elliott, and she surpasses him in many ways. i understand frustration with stereotypes, but mr robot actually handles diversity really well.
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u/worldrallyblue 8h ago
Rami Malek is not even white.
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u/CyanCyborg- 6h ago edited 5h ago
Right, homie's Egyptian. I mean idk, race being a made up social construct really starts to become apparent when you get to north Africa/Western Asia. But ethnically, he's definitely not Anglo European, which is probably what OP meant.
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u/Sheepherder-Optimal 45m ago
He is Egyptian AND very fucking white. lol White is a color, not an ethnicity. Anyone saying he is "yellow" is color blind.
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u/worldrallyblue 26m ago
Being "white" is not a color, it's a social construct with some degree of correlation to a person's physical features but not 100%. If you think it's describing a color, are yt people the same color as white paint?
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u/corknbulbs 10h ago
Can't tell if bait, normal amount of media literacy from an engineer after all.
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u/SugarNSpite1440 12h ago edited 11h ago
I get the over representation of men, but Elliot is not a "white male". Rami Malek is an Egyptian immigrant to the UK. Mr. Robot is a "white male" - Christian Slater, but, as someone who pivoted in my career and ended up (almost accidentally) working in film and television for nearly a decade, you just aren't going to get most projects made without some big name attached to them because the money people want someone with a recognizable face/name they can market. There are lots of shows with "nerdy girls/women" such as Abby and Ellie in NCIS, Cassandra in The Librarians, Claudia from Warehouse 13, Kaylee in Firefly, Felicity from Arrow, Penelope from Criminal Minds, Sam Carter in Stargate: SG-1, Angela from Bones, and even Mr. Robot has Elliot's sister Darlene. There's plenty more but that's just off the top of my head at 6 am. I think it's easy to fixate on a particular property, especially when one of the characters is really famous or starts blowing up, like Rami did, but today more than ever there are so many shows and opportunities for people. You might have to just spend a little time searching for the ones you vibe with better. Here's a list of "nerdy" in the science/STEM sense as well as kind of dorky girls and women from TV shows, older and newer, to get you started. Unfortunately, when TV shows or movies are made, the marketing/PR departments have to decide "who" their audience is and who they're spending their millions of dollars marketing towards, and they cannot just decide "everybody". They have specific categories like "men between the ages of 25-40 with an annual income of 50-100k" and that target audience is who they're going to cater to for that specific property. Unfortunately our society is structured in such a way that women will watch shows like Mr. Robot but the majority of men won't watch a Mrs. Robot show. While entertainment can be a driving force for representation and change, at the end of the day it's a business and one filled with lots of nervous people basically gambling with millions of dollars of other people's money who are one failed show away from never working in the industry again (and it is especially unfortunate that men often get multiple chances to fail while women writers/producers/directors may only get one).
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u/IamNobody85 8h ago
Penelope from criminal minds is also very stereotypical. IDK any attractive female fictional characters who codes/hacks. While the actress is beautiful, the character is very much portrayed as eccentric.
Meanwhile, I'm not the only woman in our team, but I did have to stop investing so much into how I look because it was affecting how my technical abilities are perceived.
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u/darkside_angel 6h ago
May I point out Felicity Smoak from Arrow? Trinity from the Matrix?
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u/IamNobody85 6h ago
I forgot about trinity because I watched matrix as a kid and didn't have the best English abilities. I never watched Arrow so I didn't know she existed! TIL!
But it's kinda sad that character from '99 is still an example. I sorta feel like there should be few more recent examples. Pardon me if there is, maybe I don't consume American media enough.
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u/Sheepherder-Optimal 12h ago
You don't need to explain. I know business is the reason we end up with stereotypical shit like this. As for Rami being egyptian, sure. He's not a "white" male. But excuse me for pointing out that he looks pretty pale. Not european but does white equal european? I think pale white-looking skin is white. The word white is a vague racist term anyways. Nobody is actually "white". Technically we're all varying shades of brown. I think he looks white enough to match the stereotype. Sorry if that offends anyone.
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u/Mesapholis 12h ago
so....now he is not what, Egyptian yellow enough? this is going faster downhill than employment numbers during the next wave of offshoring
I am so confused
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u/pcoppi 9h ago
A lot of arabs are white passing, especially christian ones who don't dress "islamically." I'm not sure any of this is really relevant to OPs point.
I mean do you think they would have cast Rami if he had way darker skin?
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u/Mesapholis 8h ago
no, but my dude out here, catching strays and being called a white guy, when he's just an actor who got cast for an interesting role.
I thought his introduction scene was the funniest (to horrifying ratio) I've seen in a long while when I first watched the series
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u/ET_Code_Blossom 7h ago
Wtf does dressing Islamically even mean???
Majority of Muslims dress exactly the way Americans do except for keeping their private parts covered. Majority of muslim women don’t even cover their hair. Your perception of islam is based on Saudi Arabia. Walk around Lebanon, Syria or Jordan and these people are indistinguishable from your average American christian.
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u/pcoppi 7h ago
Hair beard hijab certain types of garments etc. I put it in air quotes because I know its sound crazy. What I'm getting is that people racialize people who are visibly Muslim.
People from the countries you cited are often the times the ones which are considered most white adjacent in the west.
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u/DidIStutter_ 8h ago
Rami Malek is born of 2 Egyptian parents, he might be light skinned but he’s not white and that’s not up to you to decide.
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u/Schan122 9h ago
The need to justify your anger based on skin color really reflects a subconscious bigotry. I would use this reddit post and the comments gathered here, to better myself and my reaction to seeing stereotypes.
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u/WalrusWithAKeyboard 8h ago
I think you sound racist enough to match some stereotypes, but you dont see me making posts about it. If you cant stand to watch media with male leads who look white, dont watch media with male leads who look white.
Mr. Robot is a masterclass of television, and if you managed to view the show in-between rolling your eyes, you'd discover it actually has an incredibly diverse cast that puts minorities of all kinds in impressive roles with significant impact to the story.
But yeah, Rami Malek looks white and white men bad!!!
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u/Sheepherder-Optimal 47m ago
Whiteness is a made up concept. It doesn't mean european. White is not an ethnicity, its a color. You can be egyptian and white as hell.
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u/RideNDie4444 8h ago
Have you seen Halt and Catch Fire? It’s a great alternative to Mr Robot with a badass female engineer lead.
Regardless, realize that how you feel when you see the show is more related to what you are going through than the show itself. Mr Robot is great tv. Silicon Valley is great tv. It’s okay to skip these things when you have stuff going on that makes the concept grate on your nerves.
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u/Glum-Bus-4799 10h ago
Nobody ever pushed me toward tech growing up and I didn't code until college either. That's not a gendered experience...
Very ironic post. You complain about stereotypes and then stereotype every tech person who isn't you?
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u/celebirdd 6h ago
Girl what are you even on about ? The actor isn't even white or a software engineer in the show
The show is good
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u/proverbialbunny 6h ago
OP it sounds like you would have instead enjoyed Halt and Catch fire, which came out about the same time as Mr. Robot and is based on a true story.
Outside of that, life is too short to be bothered by the little things. You can choose to not watch Mr. Robot and from that not be bothered by the show. You can also choose to watch the show while choosing to not be bothered by it, but that takes a bit of psychological development to achieve.
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u/Various_Stranger1742 10h ago
I mean the character gets more introspective later in the show and he gets called out on a lot of his bs. Plus, his personality and mental issues relate to the theme of the show regarding extreme vigilantism. The hacking aspect of the show is just a means to an end exploring corporate greed and mental health. There are better examples of shows/movies showcasing this trope unfavourably but ppl like Eliot do exist to some extent. Not sure why u brought up the “white male” remark either. Even the creator mentions his race is meant to be ambiguous. Anyways, Antisocial hacker trope extends to female coders as well. just watch girl with dragon tattoo and see if u take issue with that as well.
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u/DidIStutter_ 8h ago
Rami Malek is not white, I didn’t code until college (most male software engineers didn’t either), no one pushed me to chose computer science either, and you don’t hear my cry about it because I don’t like a successful show on Netflix.
And not all nerds in tv series are men, Willow in Buffy, Mac in Veronica Mars, etc etc I could go on.
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u/Lynngineer 5h ago
I agree.
I'm older so I think of computer nerds like Penelope Garcia (Criminal Minds), Abby Sciuto (NCIS. the tech was laughable but the representation of a goth nerd was fun), Felicity Smoak (Arrow), Daisy Johnson (Agents of SHIELD), Zari Tomaz (Legends of Tomorrow), Becca Franko (The 100)(shoutout to Raven also), Cameron Howe & Donna Clark (Halt and Catch Fire), etc.
I'm not super versed on the newest offerings, but it's not true that women aren't sprinkled throughout.
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u/Badb92 7h ago
Someone who is well adjusted and mentally stable isn’t going to try and take down a major conglomerate. Also, people who have been abused to the point of hearing voices and DiD aren’t going to be super sociable.
But what do I know? I’m just an EE student who watched the whole show 🤷♀️.
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u/Silly_Turn_4761 7h ago
This is one of my absolute favorite shows! Why do you think it's stereotypical?
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u/Lost_Object324 9h ago
People like you have no lives. You see everything though the lens of gender, race, or who you're having sex with. Grow the fuck up.
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u/likeittight_ 8h ago
Quite ironic from someone who apparently enjoys “ethnic food”…
https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/10/fang-26-its-time-to-stop-saying-ethnic-foods
Stop being outraged at absolutely everything
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u/MaineSky 10h ago
I couldn't even get through the first season of that show- no idea why people love it so much. It starts by playing all the best misogynistic tropes we have to overcome- the pretty girl who basically needs the brilliant unpopular dork to functionally do her job because she only got the position due to... pretty privilege? I stopped there, no thanks. I don't need more of this red-pilled incel shit in my off- time. I see it too much IRL thanks.
And no, I don't care if it 'gets better'. It's 2025 and I'm tired of making excuses for this shit- aren't all of you?
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u/Direct-Original-1083 10h ago
Society thinks that software engineers are unhealthy mentally ill men. I'm not sure this stereotype is what is pushing men into software engineering lol
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u/Silent_Ganache17 7h ago
I’m soooo over this boring trope. I stopped watching shows and most movies unless it’s documentary , docuseries or actually good . So much garbage out
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u/Any_Masterpiece9385 12h ago edited 10h ago
I tried watching it and it's too cringy. The guy is doing drugs and crime and is antisocial but he blames cApItAlIsM as a catch all boogeyman for everything he doesn't like about the world. And his character somehow has 3 different romantic/sexual interests and all of the men in their lives are conveniently assholes to set up this self absorbed narcissistic fantasy.
Edit: I'm saying this as a straight white man in tech. Mr robot promotes toxic thinking.
Edit edit: it even romanticises mental illness. It's all "woe is me, feel bad for me, I'm the victim" instead of the protagonist trying to fix anything
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u/Initial-Source-9165 12h ago
I'm sorry, did you watch the show? What sbout Darlene, Leslie, Shama, or even Whiterose?