Today’s post was sparked by a stubby little article I read on Emily’s Facebook wall last week. It was a bit of speculation concerning an interview with Kevin Feige (President of Production at Marvel Studios) from moviepilot.com. In the interview, Feige was asked about a movie with a female super-hero lead (Captain Marvel, maybe?). His response was non-committal and mostly amounted to no.
I poked around a little more and keep finding rage-inducing pussyfooting from the studio execs. They’ll be happy to acknowledge Thor 3, a Doctor Strange movie, and a re-vamp of Fantastic Four (which presents another interesting set of issues, which we won’t get into today), but heaven forbid we get a movie about a girl. And one of the most irritating things is that we have an established girl-character (oh, btw, I use “boy” and “girl” for adults, “man” and “woman” feels weird in my head) in the current Marvel movies: Black Widow. She’s been around for several movies, and has been in more Marvel movies than any other Avenger. In fact, her and Hawkeye are the only two Avengers we’ve met so far WITHOUT their own movies. So why don’t we get a Black Widow standalone? Well, mostly because studio execs are afraid of girls (I mean, look at the track records: how many times was Buffy cancelled?, where is a Wonder Woman movie?, how about a DC girl-hero CW show?, anyone remember Young Justice getting cancelled because the viewership was primarily tween and teen girls?).
Of course, the reasons we’re given aren’t much better. Taken from a slashfilm.com and a screenrant.com article: we’re unlikely to see a Black Widow solo for two reasons (both articles are allegedly quoting Feige). The first is (paraphrased) “she does such a good job as an ensemble character! It’s not fair to remove her from a proven formula!” The second is pathetic: (verbatim) “I don’t think we’d get the quote unquote credit for it”. Wait. What?! You don’t want to do a Black Widow standalone because you “won’t get credit for it”? The only reason you’d consider a girl-lead flick is to “get credit for it”? I am ashamed. Fortunately, there’s plenty of buzz that Scarlet Johansson is poking the bear for her own movie.
Meanwhile, we’re still not seeing a Captain Marvel movie, or a Wonder Woman movie, or maybe Storm getting a solo story? I know there aren’t a lot of solo girl-characters out there, but the X-MEN world is full of badass ladies. Let’s pick one of them and give her a solo movie. Anyone want to watch a movie about a telepathic ninja who can manifest psionic weapons? How about a mutant sorceress who claims rulership over a dimension of hell?
I know that a few of you are trying to point out that we got a Cat Woman solo movie a few years back. And that totally doesn’t count. One, it wasn’t really the same character, it was Halle Berry in Bondage gear. Two, that’s been forever ago! Let’s get some current stuff happening! Let’s get some awesome characters in a great storyline that can get new people interested in comic books!
And, just in case I haven’t convinced you that execs are afraid of girls, both as lead characters and as viewers, I’d like to point out that Marvel is super-excited to be giving us a new ensemble movie and have been promoting the crap out of two of the characters more than the others. They are: a talking raccoon with a big gun, and a walking, talking (barely) tree. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen! It is easier to write and sell a talking raccoon and a mobile tree than it is to accept that women are just as awesome as men (or more so, if the ratio of my friends is any indicator).
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The articles mentioned above can be found at:
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