Gene Meh

Note: Not to be confused with Gene from Wreck-It Ralph.

Gene Meh is the main "protagonist" of the critically panned 2017 film The Emoji Movie. He is an emoji who, unlike the other emojis in Textopolis, is diagnosed with a malfunction that causes him to have multiple expressions. Determined to have a normal expression like all of the other emojis, he enlists the help of Hi-5 (his best friend) and Jailbreak (whom he develops a crush on). He is voiced by T.J. Miller.

Why He's 😒

 * 1) Gene is nothing more than just another overused basic and clichéd "the odd one out misunderstood protagonist". In fact, he is enough of a badly written character that he makes good protagonists like mh:greatcharacters:Emmet Brickowski from The Lego Movie and Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph look bad.
 * 2) He is unfunny, unlikable in some ways (mainly in relation to his irresponsible actions, and in some cases, unintendedly), and clumsy.
 * 3) His design is uncanny, even for Sony Animation standards. He looks like a yellow rejection of Mike Wazowski from the Monsters Inc. franchise, or a Pac-Man that comes out from Chernobyl.
 * 4) His romantic relationship with Jailbreak is just forced, bland and dull.
 * 5) His last name “Meh” is rather lazy but who on earth would name their families after a word of what is supposed to be not great?
 * 6) One of the main complaints with The Emoji Movie is that Gene is supposed to be the main protagonist, but he caused more damage than the main antagonist, almost got everyone killed and deleted, and somehow, we are supposed to root for him.
 * 7) * Speaking of which, the writers did a very awful job representing the characters' roles in the movie. Smiler is depicted as the villain even though all she wanted to do was to protect the Emojis world while Gene, despite being the protagonist, was the one really responsible for all the troubles that happened in the movie, as he actually caused the deaths of many characters such as the trolls and the Just Dance girl and almost caused the entire phone to almost have its data deleted. Basically, the movie tries to force viewers to like the protagonist and to despise the villain without giving the usual proper characterization to them as a reason to do this.

Redeeming Qualities 😃

 * 1) At least he redeemed himself by saving Textopolis by being an animated emoji showing that Alex loves Addie.
 * 2) The only reason Gene is a misunderstood protagonist is that his father was also diagnosed with the malfunction that he has.
 * 3) He does care about other people around him, including his friends. He even explains this to Jailbreak right after Hi-5 goes into the phone's recycle bin.
 * 4) T.J. Miller plays him decently, despite wasting his talents.
 * 5) "Hi-5 don't do it, don't you do it, it's already been there once. Don't do it."