It is not particularly hard to notice that as time goes on, comic book movies are recognizing that the superhero of yesterday is not the same superhero of today. The roles women play in these films cannot just be diluted down to archaic tropes like the damsel in distress. Black, Asian and gay superheroes exist, and they’re not just props or representation points.
One of comic book company Marvel’s biggest faults happened this year in the Captain America comics, when they decided to make their title character, one created by two Jewish men, a secret Nazi division supporter all along. Which is just as bad as it sounds.
This fall will include the release of Dr. Strange, a completely white-washed film that casts Tilda Swinton, a white actress, as the role of The Ancient One. Unfortunately, this has become a habit to the company as the Maximoff twins in "Age of Ultron" were stripped of their Jewish faith and Romani heritage, something essential to their background.
Marvel has a sliver of track record when it comes to representation for people of color and just even putting their characters of color on screen. The most you will get will be the archetype best friend character, James Rhodes and Sam Wilson for example. However, this year Civil War brought the introduction of T’Challa, or Black Panther. The company is taken a step in the right direction with the announcement of a stand-alone film for the character in 2018, the first on screen black lead for the company.
Earlier this summer, Marvel released its long anticipated third installment of the Captain America films, "Captain America: Civil War." The movie received stellar reviews and again refueled my favoritism of Captain America out of the Avengers, it also attempted to fix the wrongs done to female characters in "Avengers: Age of Ultron."
In last year’s "Avengers: Age of Ultron," the super powerful Black Widow’s storyline is entirely devoted to her suddenly becoming a hopeless romantic, scraping away at characterization and instead replacing the mysterious spy turned superhero with a subplot equivalent to that of a low-budget romantic comedy.
Fans, critics and Scarlett Johansson herself have been adamant about wanting a stand-alone Black Widow movie since her first film appearance in "Iron Man 2." Even as Black Widow is continually shown to be a significant player in the Marvel Universe and received very well by fans, a stand-alone film has still yet to be announced.
On the other hand, earlier this year in DC’s "Batman vs Superman," Wonder Woman manages to earn a small amount of screen time and did not even appear in costume until the end, however, the character still appeared heavily in merchandise and is getting her own movie next year.
In "Suicide Squad," all four women featured in the cast are leads, they are given screen time, have names, and all four actresses have gone on press tours and have done countless interviews promoting the film. Point being, they are not ‘token’ characters.
In no way am I saying that "Suicide Squad" is delivering us the feminist superhero movie, anyone can see that Harley and Joker’s abusive relationship is alive and well. In contrast, characters like Amanda Waller are angry and just plain mean, but this cruelty is not present because a boy broke her heart, an element used far too often when a female character displays an attitude that isn’t carefree or romantic. Katana is not sexualized in a way that female Japanese characters tend to be when they are in positions of power. As well as June Moone not falling victim to another cringe worthy sexist trope of being too powerful for her own good.
Meanwhile back to Marvel, last month at Comic-Con Brie Larson was revealed as the actress who will portray Captain Marvel. However, back in October, the company announced that they would push "Captain Marvel" back another year. Marvel’s first female lead movie is being put on the backburner for the sake of another male lead sequel, this time it’s "Ant-man."
This is not meant to be an article made up of receipts on Marvel, I still deeply enjoy these films, it’s just getting hard to ignore the relatively large disservice that is being done canonically to these characters. Although, I do believe that in 2017, "Wonder Woman" will be that movie.
