The greatest fictional Karens, ranked by how likely they are to call the cops on you...
...if you're a black man and you ask them politely to put their dog on a leash in an on-leash only section of the park
Karen Walker - Will & Grace
Karens are defined as white women who weaponise their privilege against the disenfranchised for personal gain, and this martini swilling friend-of-Trump has a couple of bazookas under her real mink sweater she likes to blast off at parties just for fun. But, honey, no, she doesn’t discriminate against people because of their race. She discriminates against people because they’re poor, or because they’ve run out of vodka. And why would she be walking her own dog? Dogs aren’t to be walked, they’re to be photographed with on the front page of Town & Country and then released into the wilderness to play with their little friends, the wolves, like in that hilarious comedy movie, Old Yeller.
Gretchen Wieners - Mean Girls
This heiress of the toaster strudel fortune enjoys weaponising her own privilege as a fun hobby with her friends, but she’s not going to call the police. Like, police brutality isn’t fetch, and she’s not a violent person. She wouldn’t do something like that, especially not to someone as cute as you. Anyway, maybe you can give her your number, and then she can infiltrate your life, gain your trust, and tell your brother about that time you made out with his wife behind the catering cart at their engagement party.
Moira Rose - Schitt’s Creek
Moira would balk at the suggestion that she might ever do a thing wrong, monologue at you about her most singular oppression building to a high-pitch crescendo-scream designed specifically to attract every dog within a 5 block radius, and then realise quite suddenly that she doesn’t, in fact, own a dog. You would be left alone with the dog, bewildered, but safe.
Dr Elliot Reed - Scrubs
In season 1 of Scrubs, this consequence of WASP parenting would’ve been on the phone to the cops as soon as she saw a black man in a park, let alone if you tried to talk to her. Then she’d ask Carla and Turk if she was racist for doing it, and they’d say yes, she’s racist. Elliot would start crying, and Zach Braff would give Carla and Turk the white guy side-eye. As the only people of colour in the cast, Carla and Turk would be forced by white script writers to make this ‘OK’ for their predominantly white viewership by saying something like ‘look, we all make mistakes’, because it’s apparently their job now to reassure her that she’s still a good person even though she just attempted to murder someone. Snow Patrol would start playing in the background, Braff would walk off down a freshly disinfected hallway with a skip in his step, and we’d hear him in voice-over saying something like ‘maybe we’re all a little bit racist sometimes, but forgiveness is the only way to move forward in a friendship, and maybe the most important friendship we have… is with ourselves.’
In later seasons, Elliot would call her only black friend to check if it’s racist to call the cops, before she called the cops.
Emma - Emma
Jane Austen’s Emma is one of the more dangerous varieties of Karens, mistaking her own privilege as an innate virtue, and therefore considering herself even more virtuous for wielding it against others. Although her story arc is to mature out of Karenhood (kind of), at peak Karen, she’d likely conduct herself in accordance to the laws of propriety, beg your pardon, and then start a rumour that someone — she’s not certain of his name — may have inappropriate intentions on a young local white girl, later sealing your fate by writing an earnest sounding, mildly flirtatious letter to the local lord, detailing her concern for your safety in this small rural village, and explaining that you might be better suited to a more liberal lifestyle in the colonies - “for his own good”.
Charlotte York - Sex & the City
All the women in Sex & the City are a type of Karen. When a white girl says she’s a ‘Samantha’, she’s saying she’s the type of Karen who’d have sex with a person of colour, but never hire one. Carrie is the type of Karen who’d hire a person of colour (for optics), but never fuck one. Miranda is the type of Karen who’d hire, fuck and even be actual friends with people of colour, but still suck up the air by tweeting about how it’s ‘disappointing’ to see people rioting over a cop getting away with murdering yet another black person in America, instead of tweeting about how it’s ‘disappointing’ to see racist serial killers being protected, supported and rewarded by a corrupt system governed under white supremacist ideology and agenda.
Anyway, Charlotte is 100% the type of Karen who would call the cops on a black man if he asked her to put her dog on a leash. You know, if she ever took her dog off the leash, which she would never do.
Tracy Flick - Election
Reese Witherspoon is disturbingly good at portraying Karens (perhaps because she’s a bit of a Karen herself). But her first Karen is still her best. Tracy feeds on that “I want to talk to the manager” energy to take herself from losing a high school election, all the way to the White House. She’s an example of how much one white woman can accomplish if she’s smart enough to understand the true heft of her power, and evil enough push it off a cliff, devastating the populations below. She’s the conductor of an orchestra of privilege, and if she points at you, you’d better bang that fucking triangle or she will destroy your life.
Tracy would think about calling the cops on you, but she’s more into the long game. She’d find a way to change the regulations in the park so she and her fellow Karens can have a laugh while they watch their designer cockapoos rip apart the ecosystem and viciously devour your beloved native birds.
Rose Armitage - Get Out
The only reason this psychopath isn’t ranked number 1 is because she doesn’t need the cops, and that’s why she’s so fucking terrifying. She’d slit her own dog’s throat in front of you, toss the limp body aside, and then chase you through the park with the bloody knife. But, if she accidentally chased you into a crowd, she’d certainly pass the blood off as her own and scream that you attacked her.
Britta Perry - Community
This virtue signaller is the type of Karen who tries very hard to been seen as woke, but secretly thinks you can be racist against white people, and probably also dogs. After a few chardonnays, she’ll bust out a prepared anecdote to ‘prove’ it, one that tangents three times into her incorrectly reciting a bit from Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special, and ends with her trying to cry (but only giving a disturbing yelp sound from her mouth that’s reminiscent of a distressed llama).
Although she says she ‘hates cops’ loudly at parties, she’ll grasp at any opportunity to claim victimhood with those bone white claws she calls hands. The only thing that will save you is her internal debate over whether it’s OK to take off her mask during a pandemic so she can unlock her new phone using the facial recognition software she set up that morning.
Amy March - Little Women
Don’t let Greta Gerwig’s white feminist revisionism detract from the fact that Amy March is the final boss of Karens; a smiling, blonde assassin who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone except herself. The problem isn’t that she spends half her days staring at her own nose in the mirror, or that she wastes her impoverished family’s rag money on pickled fucking limes, or even that she steps on her sister Jo’s dreams so she can travel to Europe, forget about the fact that Beth’s dying, and pretend to be rich for a while. The problem is that her dream is to become a Karen, dedicating her childhood to practicing being a ‘gentlewoman’ so that she too can one day have servants to brush her hair and beat with a hairbrush (to relieve the stress of finding out Laurie’s having an extra-marital affair with Meg).
Amy’s desire for individual privilege makes her reckless with other people’s lives. Never forget that she burned Jo’s entire manuscript - her life’s work - just because she wasn’t allowed to go to a fucking play. Of course she’d call the cops, it wouldn’t even be a question.