Marvel has no reason to make a movie about <different character> until what they're doing stops making money. They're plan is to make money, what they've been doing is making money. So it makes sense for them to not change the characters they have and keep making movies as they have. As an example: Black Widow doesn't deserve a movie any more than Hawkeye does, in that they both aren't as interesting as the rest of the crew, so no movies for them. But then again, they're making Ant-Man, so maybe someone will try and cash in on Black Widow after the baby.
But your basically saying that A. Marvel can't make money with female or minority heroes (which is bullshit), or b. Marvel values maximum profit over trying to be a little be more inclusive, which is exactly the kind of thing people are bitching at them about.
Also, Ant-Man happened because they had a director who was really gung-ho on a specific vision and they let him sit on a script long enough that they're now stuck with that vision even though he's gone. I imagine if Edgar Wright bowed out early on, we'd be getting a very different ant-man, or one not at all.
Fair enough. Which female hero would you have made a movie about so far, and which of the existing movies would you scrap in it's place? Are you thinking we burn Thor and put Captain Marvel in his place? Ditch Cap for Black Widow?
Or are you thinking we more just remake one of those characters as a female or minority? Captain America as a black chick, maybe? The Hulk as an Inuit?
Ditching films? Well, Iron Man 2 was the weakest entry, IMO, though It made scads so that may break the bottom line barrier. Plus it was Phase 1, I'll give them a little bit more leeway during Phase 1, just because they were still trying to build this crazy thing. Phase 2, however, Thor 2 could go, IMO. It was easily the weakest phase 2 movie, one of the weakest MCU movies, and probably only made as much as it did due to the avengers bump (which, in theory, all phase 2 movies received)
But beyond dropping movies, as Harry mentioned it also took them five years and five movies to get to Avengers. There wasn't even an MCU movie in 2009. (Though, again, Phase 1) We're getting to Avengers 2 in four movies and 3 years. I'd be totally down with them giving another years wait and fit in a Black Panther or Captain Marvel movie (or both) in there.
As for swapping out people with PoC or women, I'm surprised you skipped the most obvious candidate. Peter Quill is nearly unrecognizable from his comic self; making him Black or Latino (Seriously, for making up 16% of the US population (4% more than african americans) how many MCU character's have been of latino or hispanic descent? Sitwell is the only one who comes to mind) would have probably been the easiest move in the world. You'd get the normal right-wing crybabies of course, but given they would have never heard about the character until the same sentance as "is now hispanic" I can't say I particular care what they think.
But ultimately, you're demonstrating the entire point. It's super easy to come up with excuse after excuse, show why it'd be hard or why it's not in the cards. I know it's easy because it's been going on for decades. Marvel isn't being malicious or callous here; they're part of a system that puts representation as either not-important or of less value than several other factors (every other factor?) and then nothing gets done. That's how this shit keeps propogating. EVERYBODY thinks "well, it's not my job to improve this" or "I'd like to help, but I just can't right now" and then nothing gets done about it.
EDIT: I mean, you can go down the list and justify the existence of every single MCU movie. Why it was chosen and what made it the best movie to go with. And they can all be 100% correct and justified. That is the problem: apparently the best choices are movies with white male leads. That is like the crux of the issue here, that somehow the default "best" option has become to not put women or PoC into lead roles.
Because Marvel has been known for creating a multitude of female and nonwhite characters, some of which succeed, and some of which don't. They've have peaks and lows as far as equality goes just as anyone else.
Currently two of their major sellers are Captain Marvel under Carol Danvers and Ms Marvel under Kamala Khan. Ms Marvel #1 has had 6 printing runs and is probably going to get several more, that just doesn't happen without someone like Batman or Spiderman on the cover.
Ms Marvel has had more printings than Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America comics have had.
So why would they put Carol Danvers or Kamala Khan in there? Because they've got a rabid fanbase, they own the rights, comes complete with it's own social media campaign and hype train, and they know people are going to buy it just because it exists.
"What does it matter?"
50% of the world population is women.
17% of the world is "white".
If you think those don't matter, then you might want to reevaluate.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. A Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel movie would be fucking amazing.
I don't even read comics, but based on the concept alone, it'd be pretty cool (and apparently the source material is fantastic). Plus, if Marvel wants to prove that it has balls, this would be them bringing out a giant set of brass ones.
Maybe I'm coming at this sideways, but I worry that, even if Marvel made a female-lead movie, they'd hire the wrong person to do it. See Catwoman and Elektra and the history of poor portrayal of female main characters in comics (like the creepy Golden Age (?) portrayals of Wonder Woman). That was one of the reasons, I think, Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman was so lauded, because it was the first time a female writer had taken the helm of Wonder Woman for a long period of time.
I mean, though it'd be a feminist statement for Marvel to do such a movie, it'd also be a feminist statement they'd have to do right, and between the male-dominated world of comic books and the male-dominated world of (sci-fi) movie making, there's a lot of room for them to fuck it all up, even if well-intentioned. That is not to say they shouldn't do it, but we might regret what we asked for.
Marvel Studios has had a pretty good track record so far. (Elektra was Fox :P)
The important thing though, is it won't matter if they get it right or wrong if they never try to do it in the first place. "Well, Marvel Studios may not have made a female lead superhero film, but at least that means they haven't made a bad one!" is pretty cold comfort.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. A Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel movie would be fucking amazing.
I don't even read comics, but based on the concept alone, it'd be pretty cool (and apparently the source material is fantastic). Plus, if Marvel wants to prove that it has balls, this would be them bringing out a giant set of brass ones.
You really should do Inhumans and Captain Marvel first, as they are a huge part of Kamala Khan's origin. She's an Inhuman, and she becomes a hero because she thinks Captain Marvel is the greatest and wants to be a hero like her.
But, otherwise, you are 100% right. And her comic is fantastic.
"Lucy" made $350 million world wide on a $40 million budget and it wasn't even that good of a movie. So the whole "a Black Widow movie would be risky" excuse has pretty much been proven to be BS.
Marvel Studios has had a pretty good track record so far. (Elektra was Fox :P)
The important thing though, is it won't matter if they get it right or wrong if they never try to do it in the first place. "Well, Marvel Studios may not have made a female lead superhero film, but at least that means they haven't made a bad one!" is pretty cold comfort.
Oh, I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm just saying, I'm not sure ... if this is a feminist cause we're pursuing here, we might be pursuing it from the wrong end. Or at the wrong angle. Or something like that. I mean, a story about a woman or women is cool for sure, but it's not that feminist if it's a man telling the story about a woman. Right? Not to drag this back, but making Thor a woman for a few months isn't really... I mean, yay, breaking preconceptions of the gender divide, but also, no, not enough, because sticking a woman into a story about a man is not the same as telling a woman's story.
Of course, you could counter by saying that unless we make movies about female superheroes, there won't be female comic book fans to become future female comic-book writers, and you'd be right in that too. I'm just wary of the implication that Marvel has to do this for feminism! Because, 1) I'd probably start elsewhere, and 2) it could just invite well-meaning patriarchy, which is still patriarchy.
"Lucy" made $350 million world wide on a $40 million budget and it wasn't even that good of a movie. So the whole "a Black Widow movie would be risky" excuse has pretty much been proven to be BS.
If you had said "woman in a leading role" I would agree, but the only similarities between a Black Widow movie and Lucy would be the actress. Completely different genre, completely different style, and completely different characters.
It's like comparing Tom Hanks in Turner & Hooch to Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan.
A better comparison to a Black Widow movie would be Pelican Brief or True Lies, with Widow in place of the leads in both.
Nothing's stopping a man from telling a positive, non-sexist story about a woman. Certainly a female's perspective can have a positive influence on the portrayal and could be the ideal candidate to write such a story, but I'm reminded of the old saying "If you want to make a good female character, just make them a good character."
Also, I think you're putting a little too much emphasis on Feminism as a movement rather than as an ideology. Creating a positive female portrayal might not necessarily be done as an act of Feminism, but it's still fitting with the those ethos. Also, nobodies perfect, not even Feminists. It may not be a perfect portrayal, but they'll never perfect the craft if they don't try.
Marvel has no reason to make a movie about <different character> until what they're doing stops making money. They're plan is to make money, what they've been doing is making money. So it makes sense for them to not change the characters they have and keep making movies as they have. As an example: Black Widow doesn't deserve a movie any more than Hawkeye does, in that they both aren't as interesting as the rest of the crew, so no movies for them. But then again, they're making Ant-Man, so maybe someone will try and cash in on Black Widow after the baby.
But your basically saying that A. Marvel can't make money with female or minority heroes (which is bullshit), or b. Marvel values maximum profit over trying to be a little be more inclusive, which is exactly the kind of thing people are bitching at them about.
Also, Ant-Man happened because they had a director who was really gung-ho on a specific vision and they let him sit on a script long enough that they're now stuck with that vision even though he's gone. I imagine if Edgar Wright bowed out early on, we'd be getting a very different ant-man, or one not at all.
Fair enough. Which female hero would you have made a movie about so far, and which of the existing movies would you scrap in it's place? Are you thinking we burn Thor and put Captain Marvel in his place? Ditch Cap for Black Widow?
Or are you thinking we more just remake one of those characters as a female or minority? Captain America as a black chick, maybe? The Hulk as an Inuit?
Ditching films? Well, Iron Man 2 was the weakest entry, IMO, though It made scads so that may break the bottom line barrier. Plus it was Phase 1, I'll give them a little bit more leeway during Phase 1, just because they were still trying to build this crazy thing. Phase 2, however, Thor 2 could go, IMO. It was easily the weakest phase 2 movie, one of the weakest MCU movies, and probably only made as much as it did due to the avengers bump (which, in theory, all phase 2 movies received)
But beyond dropping movies, as Harry mentioned it also took them five years and five movies to get to Avengers. There wasn't even an MCU movie in 2009. (Though, again, Phase 1) We're getting to Avengers 2 in four movies and 3 years. I'd be totally down with them giving another years wait and fit in a Black Panther or Captain Marvel movie (or both) in there.
As for swapping out people with PoC or women, I'm surprised you skipped the most obvious candidate. Peter Quill is nearly unrecognizable from his comic self; making him Black or Latino (Seriously, for making up 16% of the US population (4% more than african americans) how many MCU character's have been of latino or hispanic descent? Sitwell is the only one who comes to mind) would have probably been the easiest move in the world. You'd get the normal right-wing crybabies of course, but given they would have never heard about the character until the same sentance as "is now hispanic" I can't say I particular care what they think.
But ultimately, you're demonstrating the entire point. It's super easy to come up with excuse after excuse, show why it'd be hard or why it's not in the cards. I know it's easy because it's been going on for decades. Marvel isn't being malicious or callous here; they're part of a system that puts representation as either not-important or of less value than several other factors (every other factor?) and then nothing gets done. That's how this shit keeps propogating. EVERYBODY thinks "well, it's not my job to improve this" or "I'd like to help, but I just can't right now" and then nothing gets done about it.
EDIT: I mean, you can go down the list and justify the existence of every single MCU movie. Why it was chosen and what made it the best movie to go with. And they can all be 100% correct and justified. That is the problem: apparently the best choices are movies with white male leads. That is like the crux of the issue here, that somehow the default "best" option has become to not put women or PoC into lead roles.
See, I don't think it's as simple as you say to ditch or swap out movies. Marvel has been slowly ramping up the number of MCU movies until now we're getting about three per year. Saturation or market burn-out was a legitimate concern early on, and no sane company is going to go from 0 to three movies per year without any idea how well those movies will be received. I submit that the number of movies we've been getting is a pretty rational rate. As people watch more movies and get hooked on the concept of a shared universe, they're willing to tolerate more. Early on, probably not. Which means that, "Well, they should have just given us a random movie about a woman and one or two with minorities in addition to all the ones we got," as Harry suggests, strikes me as non-viable.
So then which ones can we do without? I agree that IM2 and Thor 2 were among the weaker entries (though I enjoyed them both), but that's not necessarily a good argument for having scrapped them and given us, say, a BW movie and a Black Panther movie earlier and a... whatever else movie. Again, look at this from a marketing perspective. These films were intended as franchises from the get-go. A direct sequel to a successful MCU film makes a helluva lot more sense than an unproven character film. And that has nothing to do with women or minorities, that just has to do with recognition. IM2 and Thor 2 were safer bets than Doctor Strange, too. They were safer than Ant Man. (Don't forget that Thor 2 began development before The Avengers released, so the popularity of comparatively minor characters - say, Black Widow - was uncertain.)
The MCU began with a core set of heroes that would comprise the Avengers. Once they picked that core set, they were committed to multiple films for each of them, with a relative proximity to designed to capitalize on their popularity.
Basically, once this whole project kicked into gear, you were stuck with Iron Man, Thor, Cap, and Hulk movies for the immediate future. And so criticizing Marvel specifically for not giving us women/minority leads prior to, say, Cap2 or so is kind of short-sighted.
That said, I think criticizing them for not having such heroes now is fair game. Could Peter Quill have been black or hispanic? Sure, I guess. You want to criticize them for passing on this semi-bold move? Okay. I think Ant-Man could've been swapped out for BW or Captain Marvel or someone else, fine. Doctor Strange could be ethnic. At this point, Marvel has the freedom to kind of do what they want. Earlier on, though, they were kind of constrained as far as what movies they could put out, and when.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
"Lucy" made $350 million world wide on a $40 million budget and it wasn't even that good of a movie. So the whole "a Black Widow movie would be risky" excuse has pretty much been proven to be BS.
If you had said "woman in a leading role" I would agree, but the only similarities between a Black Widow movie and Lucy would be the actress. Completely different genre, completely different style, and completely different characters.
It's like comparing Tom Hanks in Turner & Hooch to Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan.
A better comparison to a Black Widow movie would be Pelican Brief or True Lies, with Widow in place of the leads in both.
Lucy is tricky to discuss, because it wasn't even really an action movie so much as an intellectual sci-fi drama with some action beats sprinkled in.
That said, I think most of the people who went to see it did so based on the promise of the trailer, which was "Scarlett Johannsen runs around kicking the shit out of people with her awesome ninja skills," which is basically the premise of a BW film.
The trailer was the proof of concept that illustrates the potential of a Black Widow film, basically.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited September 2014
There's a bit of revisionism going on that seems to think Marvel movies were sure bets from the very beginning of 2008. If anyone says they knew six years ago Marvel was going to be mainly a movie company as opposed to comics/licensing they would be straight up lying to you, they would be nasty, nasty skrulls.
edit: let's nor forget Green Lantern wasn't supposed to bomb, either. GL was so popular in 2005-11 that he basically replaced WW in the DC "Trinity", so him getting a big movie was a no-brainer.
Maybe I'm coming at this sideways, but I worry that, even if Marvel made a female-lead movie, they'd hire the wrong person to do it. See Catwoman and Elektra and the history of poor portrayal of female main characters in comics (like the creepy Golden Age (?) portrayals of Wonder Woman). That was one of the reasons, I think, Gail Simone's run on Wonder Woman was so lauded, because it was the first time a female writer had taken the helm of Wonder Woman for a long period of time.
Those are the same risks male super-heroes have. They've had failures, re: Steel, Green Lantern and no one thinks studios need to stop making movies about them.
I mean, though it'd be a feminist statement for Marvel to do such a movie, it'd also be a feminist statement they'd have to do right, and between the male-dominated world of comic books and the male-dominated world of (sci-fi) movie making, there's a lot of room for them to fuck it all up, even if well-intentioned. That is not to say they shouldn't do it, but we might regret what we asked for.
Yes, they might fuck it up, but at least they'd be trying rather then ducking the subject. That means they need to learn from their mistakes and try again until they do it right. Marvel has an excellent track record with movies, the worst are still fun to watch movies. Black Widow's perfect to start experimenting with on this front.
Nothing's stopping a man from telling a positive, non-sexist story about a woman. Certainly a female's perspective can have a positive influence on the portrayal and could be the ideal candidate to write such a story, but I'm reminded of the old saying "If you want to make a good female character, just make them a good character."
Also, I think you're putting a little too much emphasis on Feminism as a movement rather than as an ideology. Creating a positive female portrayal might not necessarily be done as an act of Feminism, but it's still fitting with the those ethos. Also, nobodies perfect, not even Feminists. It may not be a perfect portrayal, but they'll never perfect the craft if they don't try.
Marvel Studios has had a pretty good track record so far. (Elektra was Fox :P)
The important thing though, is it won't matter if they get it right or wrong if they never try to do it in the first place. "Well, Marvel Studios may not have made a female lead superhero film, but at least that means they haven't made a bad one!" is pretty cold comfort.
Oh, I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm just saying, I'm not sure ... if this is a feminist cause we're pursuing here, we might be pursuing it from the wrong end. Or at the wrong angle. Or something like that. I mean, a story about a woman or women is cool for sure, but it's not that feminist if it's a man telling the story about a woman. Right?
Men can be feminists and write feminists stories about women.
Joss Whedon did this
Not to drag this back, but making Thor a woman for a few months isn't really... I mean, yay, breaking preconceptions of the gender divide, but also, no, not enough, because sticking a woman into a story about a man is not the same as telling a woman's story.
They're not making Thor a woman (Loki was a woman in JMS run), a woman is inheriting his mantle and taking his name. Captain Marvel has had 4 men and 3 women - did you think the comics with Carol being Marvel aren't telling a woman's story?
Of course, you could counter by saying that unless we make movies about female superheroes, there won't be female comic book fans to become future female comic-book writers, and you'd be right in that too. I'm just wary of the implication that Marvel has to do this for feminism! Because, 1) I'd probably start elsewhere, and 2) it could just invite well-meaning patriarchy, which is still patriarchy.
How about doing it because it's the right thing to do? Feminism is not an excuse to avoid making female lead movies, it's the opposite. Marvel is tapping into the female audience as it is, but they can do so much more then what they are doing. What's amusing is that the tv division is doing exactly that with AoS and now the Netflix series.
I think Angel is the one show he's been involved in where the most bad-ass, kick-your-shit-in character was not a woman.
Until the final season, when the most bad-ass, kick-your-shit-in character actually was a woman.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I think Angel is the one show he's been involved in where the most bad-ass, kick-your-shit-in character was not a woman.
Until the final season, when the most bad-ass, kick-your-shit-in character actually was a woman.
Not a show really, but Dr Horrible. However, I don't count that one since the hero of the movie is supposed to be Penny, and the PoV character is not the hero of the story..
Marvel has no reason to make a movie about <different character> until what they're doing stops making money. They're plan is to make money, what they've been doing is making money. So it makes sense for them to not change the characters they have and keep making movies as they have.
Marvel did this this year
Not a single Avenger was in it.
They're making an Ant-Man movie as we speak and Dr. Strange got a director. Marvel is changing and evolving since it can't expect to only make movies about Avengers forever. So why can't they add movies about Black Panther and Carol Danvers?
They've had successful minority heroes in movies before. Not made by Marvel Studios, though.
As an example: Black Widow doesn't deserve a movie any more than Hawkeye does, in that they both aren't as interesting as the rest of the crew, so no movies for them. But then again, they're making Ant-Man, so maybe someone will try and cash in on Black Widow after the baby.
Black Widow was a major character in Iron Man 2 and had a larger role than Hawkeye did in Avengers. Widow and Hawkeye are both interesting enough to star in their own movies.
I wouldn't say BW was a major character in IM2. She was only slightly more prominent than Tony's chauffeur.
She's definitely interesting enough to get her own film, though. Her implied backstory is compelling and she's fun to watch. Renner's Hawkeye is boring as fuck, though. I'm not a big Renner fan anyway, but if I was just going on his portrayal in the movies I would have no interest in watching him for two hours.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I wouldn't say BW was a major character in IM2. She was only slightly more prominent than Tony's chauffeur.
She was a character in the supporting cast that did major shit through the movie.
She's definitely interesting enough to get her own film, though. Her implied backstory is compelling and she's fun to watch. Renner's Hawkeye is boring as fuck, though. I'm not a big Renner fan anyway, but if I was just going on his portrayal in the movies I would have no interest in watching him for two hours.
Hawkeye needs someone to put him in the spotlight, which hasn't happened yet.
I'm not saying Marvel shouldn't do a movie with a female lead. But for every Joss Whedon, there's probably 5+ Greg Lands. Hell, probably more, given Joss Whedon's uniqueness in the overall media landscape. Marvel ain't exactly got a history of representing women well. What progressiveness I see in mainstream comics nowadays, I attribute more to individual writers/artists/editors pushing boundaries more than an overarching company ethos. That is to say, if you told me Joss Whedon was doing Ms. Marvel, I'd be like, "Fuck yeah, I'd like to see that," but if you're telling me Marvel's going to do Ms. Marvel, I'm like, "Oh... boy... I hope they got the right people on it because I really don't want them to fuck that one up."
I will totally admit that they've done better than Fox, with Elektra, and X-Men 3 being basically "boo hoo, Wolverine had to kill Jean Grey, poor him". Which might be affecting my perception of how a female lead Marvel movie would turn out. (There's also significant feminist criticism out there on Black Widow being the only female Avenger, and being the only one that shows fear, being unpowered, and perhaps be a marketing gimmick for pouring Scarlet Johannson into a skintight leather suit. I'm not purporting here to assert its validity, but I'm just noting that a Black Widow movie might not be that "awesome" for women either.)
I'm not saying Marvel shouldn't do a movie with a female lead. But for every Joss Whedon, there's probably 5+ Greg Lands. Hell, probably more, given Joss Whedon's uniqueness in the overall media landscape. Marvel ain't exactly got a history of representing women well. What progressiveness I see in mainstream comics nowadays, I attribute more to individual writers/artists/editors pushing boundaries more than an overarching company ethos. That is to say, if you told me Joss Whedon was doing Ms. Marvel, I'd be like, "Fuck yeah, I'd like to see that," but if you're telling me Marvel's going to do Ms. Marvel, I'm like, "Oh... boy... I hope they got the right people on it because I really don't want to fuck that one up."
That's why they need to try and work on that shit, not acting like the problem will go away by not addressing it. They've improved with every other movie, why would they suddenly stop do that with a female lead? They also have Joss Whedon on the pay roll, get his opinions and recommendations and try to hire Mutant Enemy employees for these movies. They're not powerless.
The comic division is different from the movie division. The movie division has its own shit to deal with. They should take notes from the tv division.
I will totally admit that they've done better than Fox, with Elektra and X-Men 3 being basically "boo hoo, Wolverine had to kill Jean Grey, poor him". Which might be affecting my perception of how a female lead Marvel movie would turn out. (There's also significant feminist criticism out there on Black Widow being the only female Avenger, and being the only one that shows fear, being unpowered, and perhaps be a marketing gimmick for pouring Scarlet Johannson into a skintight leather suit. I'm not purporting here to assert its validity, but I'm just noting that a Black Widow movie might not be that "awesome" for women either.)
Marvel's not perfect with female characters in the movies, which is why they need to keep on improving. I don't see why that would not make a Black Widow movie awesome. Give it a good budget, hire talented actors and get directors (Russo Brothers?) and screenwriters who know what they're doing and they're golden. A good first step that they can learn from. Fox and WB do have one advantage over Marvel Studios with this and minorities, they made solo movies about them. They may be terrible but they still tried.
@hippofant
I thought you were going to post one of the two worst cases of Marvel's misplays with female characters, but instead you post an example from...green lantern? You know he's DC right?
Let me help you out.
Death of Gwen Stacey
Rape of Ms Marvel.
There, you've got the two best cases of Marvel mishandling female characters. However, both happened several decades ago under completely different writers and creative teams.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Whoa whoa, Gwen Stacy dying isn't bad at all. People die all the time in comics.
Norman Osborn sleeping with her through goblin pheromones, and then she had spider-kids who rapidly aged, that's bad.
Whoa whoa, Gwen Stacy dying isn't bad at all. People die all the time in comics.
Norman Osborn sleeping with her through goblin pheromones, and then she had spider-kids who rapidly aged, that's bad.
Gwen was a character they never bothered to flesh out or give a solid personality, and they killed her off for the purposes of eliciting a reaction from Spiderman. To this day she's only notable for her death, and not anything about her character. As she was Spiderman's girlfriend for about a decade, this is a pretty big misstep.
Whoa whoa, Gwen Stacy dying isn't bad at all. People die all the time in comics.
Norman Osborn sleeping with her through goblin pheromones, and then she had spider-kids who rapidly aged, that's bad.
Gwen was a character they never bothered to flesh out or give a solid personality, and they killed her off for the purposes of eliciting a reaction from Spiderman. To this day she's only notable for her death, and not anything about her character. As she was Spiderman's girlfriend for about a decade, this is a pretty big misstep.
The cartoons and movies have made her a solid character.
Whoa whoa, Gwen Stacy dying isn't bad at all. People die all the time in comics.
Norman Osborn sleeping with her through goblin pheromones, and then she had spider-kids who rapidly aged, that's bad.
Gwen was a character they never bothered to flesh out or give a solid personality, and they killed her off for the purposes of eliciting a reaction from Spiderman. To this day she's only notable for her death, and not anything about her character. As she was Spiderman's girlfriend for about a decade, this is a pretty big misstep.
The cartoons and movies have made her a solid character.
Yes, every other iteration of the character has been an intentional improvement on the character. Except the movies
She was only ever in the movies for them to kill off, but they lucked out in that her actress and the leading man were dating and had real chemistry on screen. However, they still killed her as an intentional move to motivate the male lead, so not that much better. This is Marvel's classic example of fridging, and Sony decided to jump on it instead of subverting it. So, I can't give them props for lucking into a good actress.
Whoa whoa, Gwen Stacy dying isn't bad at all. People die all the time in comics.
Norman Osborn sleeping with her through goblin pheromones, and then she had spider-kids who rapidly aged, that's bad.
Gwen was a character they never bothered to flesh out or give a solid personality, and they killed her off for the purposes of eliciting a reaction from Spiderman. To this day she's only notable for her death, and not anything about her character. As she was Spiderman's girlfriend for about a decade, this is a pretty big misstep.
The cartoons and movies have made her a solid character.
Yes, every other iteration of the character has been an intentional improvement on the character. Except the movies
She was only ever in the movies for them to kill off, but they lucked out in that her actress and the leading man were dating and had real chemistry on screen. However, they still killed her as an intentional move to motivate the male lead, so not that much better.
(There's also significant feminist criticism out there on Black Widow being the only female Avenger, and being the only one that shows fear, being unpowered, and perhaps be a marketing gimmick for pouring Scarlet Johannson into a skintight leather suit. I'm not purporting here to assert its validity, but I'm just noting that a Black Widow movie might not be that "awesome" for women either.)
When does she show fear? All I remember is when she pretended to be scared to trick Loki.
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(There's also significant feminist criticism out there on Black Widow being the only female Avenger, and being the only one that shows fear, being unpowered, and perhaps be a marketing gimmick for pouring Scarlet Johannson into a skintight leather suit. I'm not purporting here to assert its validity, but I'm just noting that a Black Widow movie might not be that "awesome" for women either.)
When does she show fear? All I remember is when she pretended to be scared to trick Loki.
When she was stuck in the Helicarrier with an angry Hulk. I thought that humanized her.
(There's also significant feminist criticism out there on Black Widow being the only female Avenger, and being the only one that shows fear, being unpowered, and perhaps be a marketing gimmick for pouring Scarlet Johannson into a skintight leather suit. I'm not purporting here to assert its validity, but I'm just noting that a Black Widow movie might not be that "awesome" for women either.)
When does she show fear? All I remember is when she pretended to be scared to trick Loki.
When she was stuck in the Helicarrier with an angry Hulk. I thought that humanized her.
Also when she initially recruited Banner and he spooked her to see her reaction.
And there's nothing wrong with fear in either situation if you ask me. It's a short list of people on the planet who wouldn't shit their pants in those situations, assuming they knew what she knew.
(There's also significant feminist criticism out there on Black Widow being the only female Avenger, and being the only one that shows fear, being unpowered, and perhaps be a marketing gimmick for pouring Scarlet Johannson into a skintight leather suit. I'm not purporting here to assert its validity, but I'm just noting that a Black Widow movie might not be that "awesome" for women either.)
When does she show fear? All I remember is when she pretended to be scared to trick Loki.
Facing Hulk.
Tony showed fear at the end when he thought he was going to die.
Thor showed doubt when he hesitated to grab Mjolnir.
Banner was full of nervous fear throughout the movie.
I really want a Hulk movie where they touch on why the Hulk exists. Avengers got reeeeeally close to this, but only just. I'm thinking "coming of age movie" (but with middle aged Banner) meets "disaster flick"
well clearly marvel has carte blanche to do what they want now after guardians. I mean a lot of disney's films have moved along quite nicely empowering women. I see no reason why that won't happen with marvel it just takes time for stuff to work out. Hell 10 years ago people would have called marvel crazy for attempting to create their cinematic universe.
Personally I am interested as to what their first bomb at the box office will be. Scratch that not bomb just less quality than we're used too. Even pixar which has the highest aggregate critical and public reception has slipped up a few times
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But your basically saying that A. Marvel can't make money with female or minority heroes (which is bullshit), or b. Marvel values maximum profit over trying to be a little be more inclusive, which is exactly the kind of thing people are bitching at them about.
Also, Ant-Man happened because they had a director who was really gung-ho on a specific vision and they let him sit on a script long enough that they're now stuck with that vision even though he's gone. I imagine if Edgar Wright bowed out early on, we'd be getting a very different ant-man, or one not at all.
The can still do that, technically. Strange hasn't been cast quite yet as far as we know.
Ditching films? Well, Iron Man 2 was the weakest entry, IMO, though It made scads so that may break the bottom line barrier. Plus it was Phase 1, I'll give them a little bit more leeway during Phase 1, just because they were still trying to build this crazy thing. Phase 2, however, Thor 2 could go, IMO. It was easily the weakest phase 2 movie, one of the weakest MCU movies, and probably only made as much as it did due to the avengers bump (which, in theory, all phase 2 movies received)
But beyond dropping movies, as Harry mentioned it also took them five years and five movies to get to Avengers. There wasn't even an MCU movie in 2009. (Though, again, Phase 1) We're getting to Avengers 2 in four movies and 3 years. I'd be totally down with them giving another years wait and fit in a Black Panther or Captain Marvel movie (or both) in there.
As for swapping out people with PoC or women, I'm surprised you skipped the most obvious candidate. Peter Quill is nearly unrecognizable from his comic self; making him Black or Latino (Seriously, for making up 16% of the US population (4% more than african americans) how many MCU character's have been of latino or hispanic descent? Sitwell is the only one who comes to mind) would have probably been the easiest move in the world. You'd get the normal right-wing crybabies of course, but given they would have never heard about the character until the same sentance as "is now hispanic" I can't say I particular care what they think.
But ultimately, you're demonstrating the entire point. It's super easy to come up with excuse after excuse, show why it'd be hard or why it's not in the cards. I know it's easy because it's been going on for decades. Marvel isn't being malicious or callous here; they're part of a system that puts representation as either not-important or of less value than several other factors (every other factor?) and then nothing gets done. That's how this shit keeps propogating. EVERYBODY thinks "well, it's not my job to improve this" or "I'd like to help, but I just can't right now" and then nothing gets done about it.
EDIT: I mean, you can go down the list and justify the existence of every single MCU movie. Why it was chosen and what made it the best movie to go with. And they can all be 100% correct and justified. That is the problem: apparently the best choices are movies with white male leads. That is like the crux of the issue here, that somehow the default "best" option has become to not put women or PoC into lead roles.
"Why would they do this?"
Because Marvel has been known for creating a multitude of female and nonwhite characters, some of which succeed, and some of which don't. They've have peaks and lows as far as equality goes just as anyone else.
Currently two of their major sellers are Captain Marvel under Carol Danvers and Ms Marvel under Kamala Khan. Ms Marvel #1 has had 6 printing runs and is probably going to get several more, that just doesn't happen without someone like Batman or Spiderman on the cover.
Ms Marvel has had more printings than Iron Man, Thor, or Captain America comics have had.
So why would they put Carol Danvers or Kamala Khan in there? Because they've got a rabid fanbase, they own the rights, comes complete with it's own social media campaign and hype train, and they know people are going to buy it just because it exists.
"What does it matter?"
50% of the world population is women.
17% of the world is "white".
If you think those don't matter, then you might want to reevaluate.
I don't even read comics, but based on the concept alone, it'd be pretty cool (and apparently the source material is fantastic). Plus, if Marvel wants to prove that it has balls, this would be them bringing out a giant set of brass ones.
I mean, though it'd be a feminist statement for Marvel to do such a movie, it'd also be a feminist statement they'd have to do right, and between the male-dominated world of comic books and the male-dominated world of (sci-fi) movie making, there's a lot of room for them to fuck it all up, even if well-intentioned. That is not to say they shouldn't do it, but we might regret what we asked for.
The important thing though, is it won't matter if they get it right or wrong if they never try to do it in the first place. "Well, Marvel Studios may not have made a female lead superhero film, but at least that means they haven't made a bad one!" is pretty cold comfort.
You really should do Inhumans and Captain Marvel first, as they are a huge part of Kamala Khan's origin. She's an Inhuman, and she becomes a hero because she thinks Captain Marvel is the greatest and wants to be a hero like her.
But, otherwise, you are 100% right. And her comic is fantastic.
Oh, I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm just saying, I'm not sure ... if this is a feminist cause we're pursuing here, we might be pursuing it from the wrong end. Or at the wrong angle. Or something like that. I mean, a story about a woman or women is cool for sure, but it's not that feminist if it's a man telling the story about a woman. Right? Not to drag this back, but making Thor a woman for a few months isn't really... I mean, yay, breaking preconceptions of the gender divide, but also, no, not enough, because sticking a woman into a story about a man is not the same as telling a woman's story.
Of course, you could counter by saying that unless we make movies about female superheroes, there won't be female comic book fans to become future female comic-book writers, and you'd be right in that too. I'm just wary of the implication that Marvel has to do this for feminism! Because, 1) I'd probably start elsewhere, and 2) it could just invite well-meaning patriarchy, which is still patriarchy.
It's like comparing Tom Hanks in Turner & Hooch to Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan.
A better comparison to a Black Widow movie would be Pelican Brief or True Lies, with Widow in place of the leads in both.
Also, I think you're putting a little too much emphasis on Feminism as a movement rather than as an ideology. Creating a positive female portrayal might not necessarily be done as an act of Feminism, but it's still fitting with the those ethos. Also, nobodies perfect, not even Feminists. It may not be a perfect portrayal, but they'll never perfect the craft if they don't try.
See, I don't think it's as simple as you say to ditch or swap out movies. Marvel has been slowly ramping up the number of MCU movies until now we're getting about three per year. Saturation or market burn-out was a legitimate concern early on, and no sane company is going to go from 0 to three movies per year without any idea how well those movies will be received. I submit that the number of movies we've been getting is a pretty rational rate. As people watch more movies and get hooked on the concept of a shared universe, they're willing to tolerate more. Early on, probably not. Which means that, "Well, they should have just given us a random movie about a woman and one or two with minorities in addition to all the ones we got," as Harry suggests, strikes me as non-viable.
So then which ones can we do without? I agree that IM2 and Thor 2 were among the weaker entries (though I enjoyed them both), but that's not necessarily a good argument for having scrapped them and given us, say, a BW movie and a Black Panther movie earlier and a... whatever else movie. Again, look at this from a marketing perspective. These films were intended as franchises from the get-go. A direct sequel to a successful MCU film makes a helluva lot more sense than an unproven character film. And that has nothing to do with women or minorities, that just has to do with recognition. IM2 and Thor 2 were safer bets than Doctor Strange, too. They were safer than Ant Man. (Don't forget that Thor 2 began development before The Avengers released, so the popularity of comparatively minor characters - say, Black Widow - was uncertain.)
The MCU began with a core set of heroes that would comprise the Avengers. Once they picked that core set, they were committed to multiple films for each of them, with a relative proximity to designed to capitalize on their popularity.
Basically, once this whole project kicked into gear, you were stuck with Iron Man, Thor, Cap, and Hulk movies for the immediate future. And so criticizing Marvel specifically for not giving us women/minority leads prior to, say, Cap2 or so is kind of short-sighted.
That said, I think criticizing them for not having such heroes now is fair game. Could Peter Quill have been black or hispanic? Sure, I guess. You want to criticize them for passing on this semi-bold move? Okay. I think Ant-Man could've been swapped out for BW or Captain Marvel or someone else, fine. Doctor Strange could be ethnic. At this point, Marvel has the freedom to kind of do what they want. Earlier on, though, they were kind of constrained as far as what movies they could put out, and when.
Lucy is tricky to discuss, because it wasn't even really an action movie so much as an intellectual sci-fi drama with some action beats sprinkled in.
That said, I think most of the people who went to see it did so based on the promise of the trailer, which was "Scarlett Johannsen runs around kicking the shit out of people with her awesome ninja skills," which is basically the premise of a BW film.
The trailer was the proof of concept that illustrates the potential of a Black Widow film, basically.
edit: let's nor forget Green Lantern wasn't supposed to bomb, either. GL was so popular in 2005-11 that he basically replaced WW in the DC "Trinity", so him getting a big movie was a no-brainer.
Those are the same risks male super-heroes have. They've had failures, re: Steel, Green Lantern and no one thinks studios need to stop making movies about them.
Yes, they might fuck it up, but at least they'd be trying rather then ducking the subject. That means they need to learn from their mistakes and try again until they do it right. Marvel has an excellent track record with movies, the worst are still fun to watch movies. Black Widow's perfect to start experimenting with on this front.
Joss Whedon made his career doing this.
Men can be feminists and write feminists stories about women.
Joss Whedon did this
They're not making Thor a woman (Loki was a woman in JMS run), a woman is inheriting his mantle and taking his name. Captain Marvel has had 4 men and 3 women - did you think the comics with Carol being Marvel aren't telling a woman's story?
How about doing it because it's the right thing to do? Feminism is not an excuse to avoid making female lead movies, it's the opposite. Marvel is tapping into the female audience as it is, but they can do so much more then what they are doing. What's amusing is that the tv division is doing exactly that with AoS and now the Netflix series.
I think Angel is the one show he's been involved in where the most bad-ass, kick-your-shit-in character was not a woman.
Until the final season, when the most bad-ass, kick-your-shit-in character actually was a woman.
Not a show really, but Dr Horrible. However, I don't count that one since the hero of the movie is supposed to be Penny, and the PoV character is not the hero of the story..
Marvel did this this year
Not a single Avenger was in it.
They're making an Ant-Man movie as we speak and Dr. Strange got a director. Marvel is changing and evolving since it can't expect to only make movies about Avengers forever. So why can't they add movies about Black Panther and Carol Danvers?
They've had successful minority heroes in movies before. Not made by Marvel Studios, though.
Black Widow was a major character in Iron Man 2 and had a larger role than Hawkeye did in Avengers. Widow and Hawkeye are both interesting enough to star in their own movies.
She's definitely interesting enough to get her own film, though. Her implied backstory is compelling and she's fun to watch. Renner's Hawkeye is boring as fuck, though. I'm not a big Renner fan anyway, but if I was just going on his portrayal in the movies I would have no interest in watching him for two hours.
She was a character in the supporting cast that did major shit through the movie.
Hawkeye needs someone to put him in the spotlight, which hasn't happened yet.
I will totally admit that they've done better than Fox, with Elektra, and X-Men 3 being basically "boo hoo, Wolverine had to kill Jean Grey, poor him". Which might be affecting my perception of how a female lead Marvel movie would turn out. (There's also significant feminist criticism out there on Black Widow being the only female Avenger, and being the only one that shows fear, being unpowered, and perhaps be a marketing gimmick for pouring Scarlet Johannson into a skintight leather suit. I'm not purporting here to assert its validity, but I'm just noting that a Black Widow movie might not be that "awesome" for women either.)
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That's why they need to try and work on that shit, not acting like the problem will go away by not addressing it. They've improved with every other movie, why would they suddenly stop do that with a female lead? They also have Joss Whedon on the pay roll, get his opinions and recommendations and try to hire Mutant Enemy employees for these movies. They're not powerless.
The comic division is different from the movie division. The movie division has its own shit to deal with. They should take notes from the tv division.
Marvel's not perfect with female characters in the movies, which is why they need to keep on improving. I don't see why that would not make a Black Widow movie awesome. Give it a good budget, hire talented actors and get directors (Russo Brothers?) and screenwriters who know what they're doing and they're golden. A good first step that they can learn from. Fox and WB do have one advantage over Marvel Studios with this and minorities, they made solo movies about them. They may be terrible but they still tried.
I thought you were going to post one of the two worst cases of Marvel's misplays with female characters, but instead you post an example from...green lantern? You know he's DC right?
Let me help you out.
Death of Gwen Stacey
Rape of Ms Marvel.
There, you've got the two best cases of Marvel mishandling female characters. However, both happened several decades ago under completely different writers and creative teams.
Norman Osborn sleeping with her through goblin pheromones, and then she had spider-kids who rapidly aged, that's bad.
Gwen was a character they never bothered to flesh out or give a solid personality, and they killed her off for the purposes of eliciting a reaction from Spiderman. To this day she's only notable for her death, and not anything about her character. As she was Spiderman's girlfriend for about a decade, this is a pretty big misstep.
The cartoons and movies have made her a solid character.
Yes, every other iteration of the character has been an intentional improvement on the character. Except the movies
I liked Stone's Gwen in both movies.
When does she show fear? All I remember is when she pretended to be scared to trick Loki.
When she was stuck in the Helicarrier with an angry Hulk. I thought that humanized her.
Also when she initially recruited Banner and he spooked her to see her reaction.
And there's nothing wrong with fear in either situation if you ask me. It's a short list of people on the planet who wouldn't shit their pants in those situations, assuming they knew what she knew.
We all saw what happened to the guy who wasn't afraid of the Hulk.
Facing Hulk.
Tony showed fear at the end when he thought he was going to die.
Thor showed doubt when he hesitated to grab Mjolnir.
Banner was full of nervous fear throughout the movie.
Thor wasn't because he's a dufus
Thor's an alien that can fight the Hulk and win.
While this is true...
Seeing, Thor smile after being punched by the Hulk was the BEST THING.
Personally I am interested as to what their first bomb at the box office will be. Scratch that not bomb just less quality than we're used too. Even pixar which has the highest aggregate critical and public reception has slipped up a few times