It’s been years and I still keep seeing meta in Being Human (UK) tags about Annie not needing love plotlines, and people framing this take as feminism. And I understand where this opinion comes from. Had Annie been a white woman, this opinion would’ve been fair. But the thing is that Annie Sawyer is not a white woman. She’s Black. She’s a Black female character in a TV show that came out in 2009 – at the time when Black women on TV (and movies) were mostly delegated to a desexualized BFF Mammy roles or a disposable Black girlfriend trope.
And here’s a thing, I love Being Human dearly, but also can admit that it’s a product of its time – there’s not much diversity here, only one gay character in s2 and he’s there for only one episode (though, they did kind of the unburied your gays with him and later gave him a HEA in the added bonus material) and only two significant Black characters in the entire 5 season run – Annie being one of them (Milo from s4 is the other and they did him dirty by not bringing back for s5).
It’s also very unlikely that the writers were intentionally trying to be progressive or something. They were simply writing her as they would’ve had, had she been played by a white actress (the pilot!Annie was played by Andrea Riseborough). But despite or because of that Annie’s writing was progressive from the standpoint of the writing for Black female characters at the time. Annie's writing was great for a female character in general.
Annie was the main FC, she was fully rounded, not a stereotype. She went through the full scope of a character development from the show pilot to her exit episode – from a meek and abused girl, who thought that she’s week and powerless to the strong young woman who saved the world. She wasn’t fridged for MC’s manpain, in fact, she was the last of her original cast of trio to leave the show, outlasting her male costars. She wasn’t sidelined by the plot to fade into the background – she was loved by the MC and cherished by her friends. She had her independant plotlines. And, frankly, she’s the only BH character out of the main six that got her full HEA – as much as this show allows HEAs (the fake HEA in 5x06 doesn’t count). Like it or not but Lenora’s Annie was always the girly girl type of a character who loved romance, girly things, wanted a loving boyfriend/husband/family of her own, she wanted to be a mother, and in a way she got all of these things.
It was progressive that Annie wasn’t a strong Black woman that needs no love interest trope. I’m not saying anything new here – many Black BH fans were saying this through years.
