Bring on the Female Superheroes!

The major upwelling of superhero films in the cinema has raised some eyebrows. Sure, they are great, but do you realize what they are missing? Strong female characters. So, before you get agitated on the feminism topic, realize that this is one of the reasons why society is as divided as it is right now. I’m not going to preach about what is right or wrong.

All I want are movies with my favorite female superheroes as the stars, not in secondary roles and hyper-sexualized. Women can be just as strong and inspiring as men, so what is so wrong with having them portrayed as the protagonist once in awhile?

The Female Role in Society
In a 2015 TED featuring Christopher Bell, he discusses how his daughter is growing up with a love of superheroes and Star Wars. Her idols are the Hulk, Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, and either Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Maul depending on her mood. Though this is the very essence of raising a strong and independent young woman, Bell makes a strong point: where are the superheroines in his daughter’s world?

When Guardians of the Galaxy came out, Zoe Saldana’s character, Gamora, was extremely popular. Bell went to the store to get his daughter a backpack with Gamora on it. However, the heroine wasn’t on the backpack. Nor was she featured on any of the Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise. Bell also notes that when Disney purchased LucasFilm in 2012 and brought in Star Wars merchandise, there was nothing devoted to Princess Leia.

The reason, he explains, was because “this princess [Leia] messes up the public pedagogy for these princesses.” Leia was never a Snow White. She didn’t wait to be saved. Sometimes, she was more strong-willed than Luke Skywalker.

That is not a Disney princess, which is marketed to so many young girls as the “ideal.”

What is the “ideal” heroine, anyway? There was actually study done in 2016 titled “Gender Differences in Movie Superheroes’ Roles, Appearances, and Violence.” The research look at 147 superheroes in 80 movies and found that “male heroes appeared much more frequently than female heroes. Females were more likely to work in a group” and while “males were more powerful, muscular, violent, and evil,” the female superheroes were “more attractive, thin, sexy/seductive, innocent, afraid, and helpless.”

The analysis of the data collected from the movies is fascinating. Since superhero films are often noted as a direct communication of societal values and norms, it says a lot about how people are portrayed. Further, the study looked at previous research that revealed how females in the media were usually “non-essential or passive characters” that were “more likely than males to have a mentor.” The researchers concluded that this is a suggestion of women being “less important, knowledgeable and capable than” their male counterparts.

I hope you realize that is completely ridiculous. More often than not, when a woman kicks ass on screen, it is because she is just as, if not more, capable than the men. For example, Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman, Katniss Everdeen, Abigail from Blade: Trinity, Black Widow, Wonder Woman, and Selene from Underworld are all ridiculously strong.

Hollywood’s Take
Interestingly, in 2015, when the question for why Marvel (also now owned by Disney) is not doing more superheroine films, the CEO Ike Perlmutter responded in email about how movies like Elektra, Catwoman, and Supergirl were all disasters because of how terribly they did in the box office. Because of this, Marvel is disinclined to film another female superhero “disaster.” That said, there were male superhero film that were total train wrecks, like Green Lantern and Daredevil, and that has not stopped Hollywood from making more superhero films.

If superheroes are depictions of society, then heroines deserve their own time in the spotlight. We need to start highlighting the strength of men and women equally. One gender is no less capable of unleashing potential than the other. So bring on the female superheroes!