I love superheroes. I remember seeing Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight for the first time when I was in fourth grade, and obsessing over it with my sisters for nothing short of three months afterward. In those two and a half hours we were allowed to believe that good always defeats evil and momentarily forget our concerns over the safety precautions involved in jumping off of a skyscraper. Superhero culture has instilled in each and every spectator the ideas that bravery can stem from even the most unexpected of sources and that anyone can be a superhero- just as long as “anyone” is a young, buff, white male named Chris.
I have nothing against the sexy smolder or rock-solid abs of Chris Evans/Hemsworth/Pratt/Bale and (potentially) Pine; however, it’s discouraging to think that there is currently not one strong, independent female superhero being showcased on the big screen for girls to look up to in her own stand-alone film.
Scarlett Johannson is arguably one of the most interesting and complex members of the Avengers series, and yet she is merely a side character in both the Captain America and Iron Man stand-alone films. Her storyline in the most recent Avengers film consisted of not much more than her newfound relationship with Mark Ruffalo’s The Hulk, rather than the much more intriguing origin story concerning her infertility.
Young girls have plenty of onscreen princesses to idolize, but where’s the fun in emulating a woman who waits around for some sort of cataclysmic, fate-induced event to transform her monotonous life, rather than a woman who does all of the plate-shifting herself? Why does, say, the Black Widow not qualify for her own film when she is clearly as strong and able as her male counterparts?
It is true that superheroes such as Superman, Spider-Man and Batman are far more mainstream than their female counterparts. Simply said, they have been around longer and have a more fervent fan base than most female superheroes. Most people are not aware of the extensive array of female superheroes that are available to comic book fans and bored, curious onlookers alike. The Wasp, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Cyclone and Elektra are only a few of the unknown, complex characters awaiting presentation to the women who so crave a kick-ass role model. Hopefully the Hollywood elite will soon realize the rich array of characters available at their literal fingertips, once looking past the glossy pages of the more popular male superheroes that fly in the way.
The film industry is slowly attempting to right previous wrongdoings with both Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel films in production. Despite these minor wins, producers, directors and Hollywood big-shots alike claim that superhero films starring a female protagonist are a “risky” business venture in terms of profit returnability; however, this patronizing dismissal begs the question, how can such a concept be deemed any more risky than a film starring that of a male superhero whilst following the same model on which every previous film of this nature has been based? Was Ant-Man, a blockbuster about a man whose superpower is exactly as lame as it sounds, really any less risky than Wonder Woman? Why not, at the very least, start with the depiction of a black male superhero? Why not, rather than depicting Captain America as the white “every-man” Steve Rogers, choose to portray the superhero as he was depicted in Marvel’s 2003 African-American revival of the Captain, Isaiah Bradley, instead?
Despite these breakthroughs, it remains disappointing to not have already been introduced to a powerful female superhero who has the potential to inspire women who may feel like they don’t have it in them to, say, fight their own personal villains.
Personally, I can only hope that women continue to inspire the girls in their lives by flying to work each morning without anyone commenting on the color and cut of their cape. I hope that each of your personal female heroes fight the villains who attempt to take away their right to affordable healthcare, amongst other necessities. Ultimately, I hope that the futures of women everywhere are villain-free as a result of the vigilance of all— even if we don’t quite have our own superhero yet.