I’m not going to lie, I have a huge soft spot for superhero movies. When I was a little girl, I owned equally as many princess movies as I did superhero movies. My favorite toys were these two action figures of Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. When I was four, which would have been about 2003, this would still have been seen as a bad thing to a lot of people. Girls were supposed to like barbies and boys were supposed to like superheroes. We’ve come a long way since 2003.
In 1966 the first Batman film hit theatres. At the early stages of superhero movies, it was all about this larger than life hero who defeats villains and saves damsels in distress. Well, at least it was something like this. Mostly it was just grown men in colorful tights with cheesy special effects, but at the time, this was revolutionary. They made action figures of these heroes, put them on the cover of candy bars and cereal boxes, and little boys all over the world wanted to become a superhero when they grew up. Soon film directors latched onto the idea and started bombarding Marvel and DC comics for superhero stories they could put on the big screen.
In the 70s was Superman and Captain America. The 80s were the Hulk and more Superman and Batman. Then came X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Man of Steel, the new Batman and Captain America series, Thor, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool, The Avengers, and Justice League. Ask yourself, what do all of these have in common? Each one of these movies has a white male in their leading role. Yes, there were superhero movies that featured women such as Wonder Woman and Supergirl, but the difference between those and superhero movies with a white male directing and starring was what was being advertised and what actually made it to theaters at all. If a woman was in the movie, they were shown as inferior to the male and dressed in tight black jumpsuits or revealing lingerie-like outfits that sexualized them. This was the case with female characters such as Catwoman or Black Widow. People of color were featured even less, and if they were it was as a villain. Jamie Foxx, who played the villain Electro In The Amazing Spider-Man, wasn’t even truly represented as a person of color. They turned him blue at the very beginning of the movie for crying out loud. It was not until 2017, less than one year ago, that this changed.
You might think, well maybe there just weren’t any comics with people of color or women as the heroes. Maybe it wasn’t necessarily the film industry’s fault. Sadly, this is not the case. The first Wonder Woman comic came out in 1941, and Black Panther, an African superhero, was first featured in a comic by Stan Lee in 1966, the same year that the first Batman hit theaters. All the stories were there, they just didn’t choose to tell them until now.
In 2017 Wonder Woman hit theaters and become the fifth high grossing superhero movie ever. Wonder Woman was the first superhero movie ever to be directed by a woman. It also starred an Israeli actress who has since been a strong advocate in the world of film in the struggle for more representation from women and people of color. But, this film not only starred a woman. It presented this woman as a strong, brave leader. Personally, what I loved most was that they did not shy away from showing the muscular arms and legs of these women. They weren’t depicted as sexualized or delicate, they were shown as warriors. It took this long for change to happen in the industry and since that milestone was met, it has sparked inspiration and change in the way we make movies.
This past weekend we hit another milestone in the world of superhero movies. Black Panther is the first African superhero and was the first Marvel movie to be directed by an African American. To say this movie was inspired would be a dramatic understatement. Marvel knew that this movie had the potential to create social change in not only the film industry but our society as a whole. It could not have been more perfect. Black Panther did something incredible in the way that it sent a universal message about equality because they spread their truth in a beautifully honest and proud way. The lack of western culture also made this film so unique, because it let African culture have the spotlight it so desperately deserves.
Superhero movies have come a long way since the men in tights era. It took us a very long time to get to this point, and we still have a long way to go in the struggle for representation and equality in the entertainment industry. My hope is this: we keep this momentum going and continue to tell stories that have not yet been told. What we can and should do is continue this progress and strive for equal representation of other minorities that are still in the dark.