The problem with the way Helena Bertinelli was portrayed on Arrow

As many of you who know me are quite aware of, I am not a fan of the way Helena Bertinelli was portrayed on Arrow. I though the show did a great disservice to her character, and got more people to hate her rather than become fans of her. The way she was portrayed on Arrow was one of the worst forms of essentialism I have ever seen. What I mean by that is: the show basically stripped Helena of all her admirable traits and instead, reduced her to the 'psycho bitch ex-girlfriend' trope. And it did so in order to move a contrived plot along, and to get one of the minor characters to move to another city.

Below the cut will be an examination of everything the show did wrong, in terms of her character.

For starters, I sort of had a problem with them bringing in Helena as Oliver Queen's love interest, as Helena as a character is one who is strong enough, and has a rich back story, one that is so strong that it should have been enough to bring her into the show on its own merits, and not because Ollie needed internal conflict. I did not like the whole love triangle between Oliver, Laurel and Helena, mainly because it set up this good girl/bad girl dynamic which in itself, is quite problematic. Even if it did last only for a few episodes, with Helena admitting that Laurel and Oliver do in fact, love each other, it was still not very comfortable to watch.

However, I was willing to overlook this one small thing as long as they wrote Helena well. They didn't. It started out strong enough, but quickly fizzled by her final appearance on the show.

On the show, she was written as almost one-dimensional, in terms of violence. While it is true Helena gets angry quite easily, and is prone to this violent streak, there's more to her than this. Helena doesn't just aimlessly hurt or shoot people. She usually attacks if she's attacked first. She also takes great care to avoid hurting civilians, and she also goes out of her way to help them. Her conduct during the crossover event, No Man's Land, would attest to this, as, despite the horrible treatment she received from others during it, she still went to great lengths to help the people of Gotham during their time of need, and nearly gave her life for it. I know it's a show, and there's only so much you can compress into 42 minutes, but I'm hoping later episodes show a different side to Helena who's much more compassionate and multi-layered than what was presented.

I also had a problem with Oliver judging her for killing when he pretty much does the same thing. To me, it smacks of hypocrisy, the same hypocrisy she was often subjected to in the comics. One could speculate that the point of Oliver judging Helena was that it was supposed to create some sort of internal conflict inside Oliver, as he knows he's not being fair and that she's [Helena] some sort of dark mirror of himself, but unfortunately, I don't think a lot of the people who watch TV shows like this are perceptible enough to realize this, so Oliver's words towards Helena lead to this distorted perception of her. Some of the audience members think Helena is bad for what she does, despite the fact that Oliver pretty much does the same thing.

To a lesser extent, I also had a bit of a problem with Helena's fighting prowess and how it was displayed on the show. Helena's a better fighter than Oliver is, but they were shown as fairly and evenly matched. Helena's in the top 20 or top 25 in terms of fighters in the DCU, and Ollie's nowhere near as skilled as she is. Oliver is however, a better marksman than Helena is, as his accuracy is so great that he's been shown to be able to shoot water as it comes out a tap [source]. This point conveniently leads me to another segueway. Helena was shown as a rather sloppy shooter when she nearly assassinated Moira Queen. That couldn't be further from the truth, as Helena is an avid markswoman whose accuracy is quite deft. But they sort of downplayed that on the show so they could get Ollie to train her, and that's not something I'm too keen on.

Helena as a less better, or equal fighter to Ollie bothers me less than the other things presented because Oliver is the star of the show, so I can understand him being presented as the best. However, it still bugs me a little. Another thing worth noting is that Laurel (Dinah Lance) is actually one of the best martial artists in the DCU, yet they have yet to show how powerful she is. One has to wonder if she’s deliberately being held back in order to make Ollie look good. If that’s the case, then that’s not cool, as it's a very bad idea to downplay the prowess of the women on the show in order to make the male character look better. If Arrow had any faith that Oliver Queen is as great of a character as they claim he is, then he should be able to stand on his own merits, and not have to have his skills slightly exaggerated in order to look really good.

Another thing worth noting is the fact that Helena also made a [paraphrase] vow to not succumb to the same criminal elements that governed her father, and that led to the death of both her mother and fiancé at the hands of her said father. One would think that would include not being reckless with a great disregard for civilians, as her father casually killed her fiancé Michael in order to avoid having him snitch. And yet, Helena was shown as off-kilter ('crazy') with reckless abandon, willing to hurt anyone who stood in her way. This unfortunate turn in her storyline stripped Helena of all of her great traits, and instead, made her a prop in order to move the plot along. Having her shoot McKenna Hall was just a convenient way for the producers of Arrow to get McKenna to move to another city, so they could push the Oliver/Felicity and Oliver/Laurel storyline. It was lazy, and contrived writing at its finest, and Helena Bertinelli was the unfortunate victim of it.

Speaking of Helena being labeled as 'crazy', both by the fans and the show's producers, that in itself is problematic because it reinforces an unfortunate stigma when it comes to mental health. Labeling Helena 'crazy' when she's really not is somewhat ableist in nature.

There's lots of other things I could add to this, in terms of the problems with the way Helena Bertinelli was portrayed Arrow. I could also add the fact that I was severely disappointed that Helena and Laurel didn't do a Birds of Prey style team-up, with Felicity serving as their Oracle. I could also lament that changing Helena's origins from the original, established origins in the comics, lacked the same emotional impact that watching her family die before her eyes did. I could lament about all that, but this post is long enough already. I should add to this that I don't however, wholly blame the writers of Arrow for this. It's not entirely their fault, as they have several mountains to climb and their scripts tend to get watered down before production begins. For more, I defer you to here.

It's a combination of several factors that led to what was aired. I do however, retain a small modicum of hope they might bring Helena Bertinelli back to redeem her. If they don't, then that show will forever be at the bottom of my favorite appearances of her, in terms of other mediums.

To counteract the way she was portrayed on Arrow, I have begun a campaign where I've made several posts that show a different side to Helena Bertinelli. One them includes my favorite story featuring her of all time. It's one where she helps out an autistic boy being bullied by reaching out to the kid bullying him, and she never hits him during it. Instead, she shows him the error of his ways, and advises him against using an ableist slur like 'retarded'. And in the end, the bully (named Alejandro) has a change of heart, and Helena becomes the very angel she says she could never be. [DCU Holiday Special 2008] 

If you’re interested in exploring Helena Bertinelli further, specifically in her comic book variant, then I defer you to a list of recommendations here. Perhaps I’ll give Arrow another chance if they bring Helena Bertinelli back and redeem her. And given the fact that it’s recently been announced that the Birds of Prey will appear on Arrow, there may be a slim chance of this happening. However, until it does, I’ll continue to deem her guest appearances on the show as being one of the most unflattering representations of her I have ever seen.