Spoiler alert: the answer is sexism. But let’s look at the alternatives. Again and again. Every time a female-led Marvel movie is mentioned, these same tired lines get dragged up.
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It’s all about timing.
I seriously am not even sure what this means, but Kevin Feige says it a lot. Presumably if you release a female-led movie in the wrong moon-cycle, you risk the wrath of the gods? But more often it’s…
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The movies are all planned out. There’s a creative vision to be followed, an extra movie can’t just be shoved in.
This is weird, because other movie studios are in charge of their own schedule. Are we seriously supposed to accept “We aren’t ignoring women now, we’ve been ignoring them this whole time!”? That’s not an excuse! That’s basically the opposite of an excuse! There is no “timing” or “planning” reason Marvel couldn’t have chosen Captain Marvel, instead of Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant-Man And The Wasp, instead of Ant-Man And Older Ant-Man.
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A female-led film would be a big risk.
Guardians of the Galaxy. I’m serious. You can’t tell me a Black Widow movie, with an established character played by a box-office-draw actress, and a good advertising campaign, is more of a risk than “those dudes no one’s ever heard of, in space, with two fully-CGI characters, fronted by That Parks And Rec Dude Who Used To Be Chubby”.
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And it’d be soooo expensive. Scarlett Johansson would want lots of money, and Marvel is really cheap with its acting talent.
Marvel has had a tradition of casting relative unknowns in major roles, presumably because it’s easier to get them to sign multi-picture contracts and not have to drive dump-trucks full of money up to their houses. Robert Downey Jr is the exception, he was paid $50 million for Avengers, while Scarlett Johansson took home one-tenth that amount, and Chrises Hemsworth and Evans got even less. (I say “even less”, these numbers are ridiculous!) Even if they had to pay Johansson $25 million, Guardians opened at almost $100 million for its first weekend. Plus, a Widow movie, probably a spy-action thriller type deal, is going to be much cheaper to make than the likes of Avengers or Guardians. They’ll need a couple of million for a Nick Fury and one other Avenger (probably Hawkeye), they’ll probably cast one other big name, and then it’ll be all unknown Russian actors.
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Plus, Scarlett Johansson doesn’t even want to do it.
I dunno. I haven’t spoken with her in person on this topic. But she seems as up for it as any of the others do. For a studio that doesn’t want to pay them much, they sure have a bunch of enthusiastic actors! Anyway, Johansson has said she’s up for it, if they wanted her and there was a good script.
http://screenrant.com/scarlett-johansson-talks-black-widow-solo-film/.
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Anyway, Black Widow was a huge part of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That’s practically like having her own movie!
Seriously, people say this. For maybe a year and a half, Kevin Feige’s go-to answer for “can has woman movie pls?” was “Wait for Captain America 2, wink wink!”. A normal person would interpret this as “We’re setting up a Widow movie to spin off from Cap 2.” but apparently he meant “Look, she gets to have a decent part in a properly dude-fronted movie. Compromise!” No. In case it’s not clear, having a good female character in a movie that takes place in a world closely resembling our own, where women make up a slight majority of the population, is a baseline!! It would be outrageous NOT to have an important female character! As it turns out, the heroes in Cap 2 are Cap, two women and two black guys, so that’s pretty cool. But it’s still Cap’s movie. How is it that grown-ups cannot understand that being allowed play with someone else’s toy is NOT THE SAME as owning your own toy?!
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A new property like Captain Marvel would be too risky. No one knows who she is.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. I am really glad that they made Guardians. Not because it’s perfect (it’s not), not because it’s funny (it is), but because it is undeniable proof that they will gamble on anything, provided it doesn’t upset their Straight White Male Protagonist (preferably played by a buff blonde guy called Chris) streak. Marvel are currently on track to put out TEN WHOLE MOVIES where the main character is a white guy played by a buff Chris before it puts out a single movie fronted by a woman or someone who isn’t white. (It has yet to even feature a significant character who is both a woman and not-Caucasian, and only one major actress isn’t white. She’s a green-skinned alien, though, not a black chick.) Anyway, now that they’ve made Guardians and introduced the Kree, Captain Marvel would be the perfect link between the Avengers and the Guardians.
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Marvel is better than DC! Marvel already has so many awesome female characters. It’s mean-spirited to hate on them when they’re doing better than the other studios.
I think there’s a pretty good chance Marvel gets more ragging on this because (a) they seem like they should know better, while DC seems to mess a lot of stuff up, and (b) more women watch Marvel movies, so there are more women to complain. Guardians had an audience of 44% women. But anyway, just because someone else is worse doesn’t make you good. Marvel has proven that it is capable of delivering well-rounded, interesting, important female characters … and then sidelining them and refusing to give them their own movie. We’re halfway there, that’s why it’s important to keep pushing!
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Ugh, you’re being so PC. Do we have to have quotas now? It’s just some sci-fi movies! Don’t take it so seriously.
(This isn’t really an excuse, it’s an attempt to make the conversation go away.) Um, no. I find it hard to believe that anyone following this stuff was not themselves influenced as a child by sci fi or fantasy or comic books. I do find it easy to believe that anyone saying that always found it really easy to find lots of cool characters who looked like them, to pretend to be and to look up to. No, it’s not the biggest deal ever. But it sucks, if you’re an eight year old girl, and you want to play Avengers and you ALWAYS have to be Black Widow even though she’s kinda boring to play and you’d much rather shoot lightning or fly. Or there’s two girls, so one of them gets to be an Avenger and the other one has to be a girlfriend and get rescued all the time. Also, we’re not supposed to take it seriously that Wasp seems to have been written out or maybe fridged, even though she’s a founding Avenger and named the team, but any deviation from white-maleness has fanboys bursting in from every direction with the battle cry of “But in the comics….!” Anyway, to hell with hypothetical 8-year-olds. _I_ want this. Marvel are growing a female audience, they should step up.
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(Bonus round: Black Panther is too complicated. Wakanda would be difficult to explain or show.
(a) Guardians of the Galaxy.
(b) Use a real African country instead.© Just say Wakanda is a little-known region of, I dunno, Tanzania. Tanzania’s pretty big, and the MCU is clearly in a slightly different universe than ours, what with the aliens.
(d) Guardians of the Galaxy was in imaginary space-land, and that looked pretty good. Probably we could manage Africa.(e) Not that we’d have to spend much time there, if we didn’t want to. T’challa could always show up in New York or whatever. He could be an exile. Or looking for something to save his people. If Tony Stark creates Ultron and Donald Blake was Jane’s ex and Bucky and Natasha didn’t train together, then apparently we’re allowed make changes to the comic mythology.
(f) Have you even SEEN Black Panther?! He’s awesome!)
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It’s sexism. Marvel doesn’t want to do a female-led movie (or one led by a black guy). And they do not have a good reason to provide us. And that’s not good enough.
I’d like to add that this is the same MO that most of Hollywood has and there have already been a few films that have done wonderfully.
I love Marvel, but I won’t deny they have their flaws. Marvel is in a good position to take this step and offer us a female or POC -led movie. They’re actually in a better position than any other franchise out there.
It’s okay to like Marvel and still admit they have their faults. In fact, it’s important to admit that they have faults because if you don’t call people out on this, they won’t be inclined to change.
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