2016 was a good year for female-led movies. We had Rogue One, Hidden Figures and Arrival. CNN reported that 29% of protagionists in the top 100 films in the US box office were female. That’s great! It still doesn’t reflect the country’s actual gender proportion, but thirty percent is still really good for female repsresentation in film.
One area that I’ve noticed, though, that really lacks female representation is superhero movies. There are only two popular female superheroes currently slated for movies and both of them, Black Widow and Gamora, have never had their own movie. Gamora has only been in one movie and it was an ensemble film, but she had to compete for screentime with four other male characters. And one of them was Chris Pratt! No one can compete with Chris Pratt, he just eats screentime up. There is no excuse for Black Widow. She debuted in an Iron Man movie, was in both Avengers films, and now is a supporting character for Captain America. How could we go seven years without a Black Widow solo movie?
Lynda Carter was the first live-action Wonder Woman and starred in the 1975 show.
The unfortunate fact for superhero movies is that female heroes made for crappy movies. Catwoman, Electra, and Supergirl were all objectivly bad movies. But instead of looking at literally anything else, Hollywood blamed their failures on the superheroes gender. Supergirl came out in 1984, back when the only superhero movie was Superman and five years before Tim Burton’s Batman. It was twenty years later when we were graced with Catwoman and Electra, in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Since then there has been no female-led superhero movies. The characters Catwoman, Electra and Supergirl didn’t disapear. Catwoman had a big boost from the Batman Returns, before it was squandered on Halle Berry in the movie. But then she popped up again in The Dark Knight Rises and is now in the show, Gotham. Supergirl has had her own show since 2015. Electra is in the second season of Netflix’s Daredevil. These were not bad characters for film and it wasn’t their gender that made the movies bad.
Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman for the 2017 film.
I honest to God pray that Wonder Woman is great. She’s the ace in the hole for female representation in film. Everyone knows her, what she looks like, how she fights. And there is even a justification for an origin story! People know Wonder Woman, but most people wouldn’t know how Princess Diana of Themyscira became Wonder Woman. Sure there was the TV show, but that ended in the seventies. I may be biased because I love Wonder Woman, but so does Gloria Steinem therefore it makes my bias legitimate and feminist! Seriously though, Wonder Woman has so much pressure riding on it. Sure, Marvel has already promised to make the Brie Larson-Captain Marvel movie, but if Wonder Woman fails how long will it be before we see another female-led superhero movie?
Shout out to my girl, Gloria Steinem, for choosing Wonder Woman for the first issue of Ms. Magazine.
If people do not like Wonder Woman then we may never get a Black Widow movie. Wonder Woman’s success may potentially have a huge impact on female representation in movies just by changing how female-led movies are perceived in the superhero genre, and it makes it so we get the chance at seeing many more movies like it! Go buy a ticket for Wonder Woman so that we can buy a ticket for Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Batgirl, Wasp, Harley Quinn, Black Canary and Zatanna. See you in theaters June 2nd!