Why Marvel Superhero Movies Need More Women
Superhero movies have now become so successful that no summer goes by without a new one being released. They are ubiquitous, featured on everything from children's clothing to earrings on Etsy.
For Marvel, making a movie (or television show) about a superhero with extra-human powers means blockbuster success. But one has to wonder: where are the women?
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is hugely successful. But all their superhero movies have white men starring -- from 2008's suprise hit Iron Man to relative failures like this year's Ant Man. That's not to take away from supporting characters like Black Widow or Falcon. But they've yet to receive their own films.
Although Marvel has released their calendar for future films (and inserted a SpiderMan film in the mix once they bought the rights from Sony), we won't be seeing a female-led superhero movie from Marvel until the end of 2018 with Captain Marvel a full year after DC is set to release Wonder Woman.
(photo courtesy of Marvel)
What's the reason for this? Why is Hollywood so reluctant to produce a superhero film with a woman in the leading role? Some will reference the poor box office showings of female superhero movies in the past, backing it up with the example of the leaked email from Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter who mentioned Elektra, Catwoman, and Supergirl as examples of failures. This claim ignores that there have been as many (if not more) male-led superhero movies with less-than-impressive box office showings (Green Lantern, Daredevil, Hulk, even the most recent Fantastic Four) not to mention the fact that not one of the female superhero films is less than ten years old. These excuses also ignore the relative success of female-led action movies such as the recent Scarlett Johansson-led Lucy, which was a box-office success and proved Johansson's bankability as a superhero star.
Even with movies led by a team of characters, women are still left out, pushed aside, or flat out ignored. There was a wave of backlash after retailer The Children's Place sold a shirt featuring The Guardians of the Galaxy without the only female member, Gamora. When a mother contacted the retailer, their response was less than impressive:
"The Guardians of the Galaxy shirt in particular is a boy's shirt, which is why it does not include the female character Gamora."
(quote and photo courtesy of Business Insider)
This is not the only instance of a female member of a superhero team being left out of merchandising. The same goes with action figure sets of The Avengers missing Black Widow, wich prompted even the stars of the film to speak out.
If our boys can't wear shirts with girls on them and we simply don't make the female superhero toys for girls to play with too, is it really any surprise we are unwilling to make movies with girls in them for boys to watch?
The prevailing notion in Hollywood is still one of the male gaze. Films, especially action films (or superhero ones) are largely created for a male audience. This happens despite the fact that women are going out to see these movies in droves, and making up nearly half of the audience for last summer's Guardians of the Galaxy. Although the movie only featured two female leads -- Gamora and her sister Nebula were better represented in the movie when compared with The Avengers which featured Black Widow and an occasional snark from Maria Hill.
So this begs the question. If we make a female-led superhero movie, will it draw huge audiences and become a blockbuster hit? It looks like, at least for Marvel, we'll have to wait until 2018 to find out.
