Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

I don't know. I tried to reread that part a couple times over, and it just feels very confusing to me. Not only does the writer treat villains and heroes like they are the exact same thing, but the way he says that Jean Grey, while possessed by the Phoenix Force, "willingly turns on her fellow X-Men", makes me think he doesn't even know that much about the superhero genre. I mean, Jean Grey was an unambiguously heroic character in the previous two X-Men films. Do those not count?

In my opinion, a lot of these problems are caused by the simple fact that there are so few female superheroes that have made their way on the big screen. There are plenty of different types of female characters in the original comics. Sure, there's still a lot of pigeonholing, but at least superhero teams have more than just one female character (seriously, what the hell Avengers?).

edited 12th May '16 8:07:39 AM by Paradisesnake

Oh that's defiantly the root of the problem, when female superheroes a so few and far between its easy for them to all end up similar, especially when you often make female characters simply be supporting characters in male lead films.

It's especially problematic when you realize that a lot of these characters have been making appearances in the pages of comic books for decades and went through countless different phases and narrative roles in the process. Then the filmmakers choose to adapt one Dark Phoenix Saga for the big screen and the whole series and the way it treats its characters gets judged by that one storyline alone.

Also, in the case of Wanda, it a) ignores that Pietro made the same switch as she did, and b) Wanda is amazingly moral, she just didn't agree with the protagonists. Wanda consistently makes her decisions based on what she thinks will be the best for her country and the world. She just ends up against the Avengers because she doesn't think they're it.

Hell Black Widow has never had a dark arc, she has dark stuff in her background but she's actually done less evil then plenty of others.

I wouldn't be surprised if the writer's pop culture knowledge was a few years out of date, X-Men aren't exactly the big thing anymore and I'm pretty sure guys crashing weddings has slipped into parody only in the last few years (though I could be wrong).

Woooondeeeeer woooooomaaaaaan!

Every single female X-Man character is undoubtedly good, but in the area of female super hero cast I think that DC as a much greater variety of female protagonists.

If you don't fully understand everything with the Phoinex Force I can see how one would see Jean not as brainwashing but as being corrupted to the dark side. Likewise with how First Class spun things that also applies to Mystique, and to Angel. Storm and Kitty are pure good but there's less prominent, that leaves Rouge who hovers in the middle.

As for Wonder Women, I haven't been Bvs S so I can't comment on her.

edited 12th May '16 9:29:45 AM by Silasw

DC has Wonder Woman who hardly gets characterization and Catwoman, several times. Both of them are supporting characters.

There will be Harley Quinn soon enough. If Suicide Squad is good and successful she is bound to get a solo movie.

edited 12th May '16 9:38:47 AM by Julep

A) The movie's not out yet. B) She's yet another supporting character. C) All the solo movie talk is contingent on a film that's having to be reshot not tanking. D) The trailer doesn't put her as all that different from Catwoman.

You can't claim they're doing a better job based on some vague speculation that maybe they might at some point in the future.

edited 12th May '16 9:43:30 AM by shimaspawn

The Movie Universe are virtually lacking heroic female leads mostly because in the realm of blockbuster hero movies, they are fairly decent. Only now they are beginning to explore the female cast of comic book heroes. The comic book universe most major female characters either have their own arch or their own comic series.

Supergirl on the Nextflix is getting a decent following and it is meshing every well with Flash and the other live action series in Netflix, this show getting a good success is a nice way to show to movie producers that betting in well written female led super hero movies and series isn't a losing bet.

I think we can thank the horrendous Catwoman and Elektra films for killing Hollywood's interest in films starring female superheroes... it took only, what, a decade for them to get over those flops?

edited 12th May '16 10:07:00 AM by Paradisesnake

Yeah and that was shortly after Daredevil and Batman: Forever nearly killed super hero franchises.

Methinks the only reason why Batman movies kept being made is thanks to the long running TV show.

@shimaspawn: A., she's either the protagonist or one of the two main characters with Deadshot. Anything else is just a ridiculous claim, look at how much billing she gets in the trailers. B. Similar to Catwoman? Either you haven't seen Catwoman, you haven't seen the trailers, or you haven't seen either because they are pretty clearly distinct.

Regardless, there's a topic on the Film board all about this and I'd rather not have that talk spill into this.

And no, I don't see being morally complex as "pigeonholing". That's called "being morally complex" and "writing well thought out characters", and I don't see any meaningful difference between the depiction of female characters and the depiction of male characters in that aspect that can't be summed up as "there are a limited amount of female characters in these universes, don't pigeonhole them (further) by complaining that they aren't a perfect kaleidoscope of every potential female character".

I don't want to get this too off-topic but as far as I know a film having a few reshoots is fairly common and not a sign that it's going to be horrible or tank, so this is mostly irrelevant.

Or Shima is talking about Catwomen in Batman, what with that being her recent silver screen appearance.

edited 12th May '16 11:11:38 AM by Silasw

I was referring to Catwoman in Batman. I like to pretend the other movie never happened.

It's also a good idea to make clear whether you're talking about Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in Batman Returns or Anne Hathaway's Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises...

EDIT: Or even Lee Meriwether's in Batman: The Movie?

edited 12th May '16 10:57:38 AM by Paradisesnake

She and Pietro both had a vengeance element to their characters. Their primary motivation in Age of Ultron is that they resent Tony Stark for the trauma his weapons caused them. They just don't resent him so much that they're willing to watch the world burn to get even.

They served Hydra together, they helped Ultron together, they set the Hulk upon a population center together, and then they Face Heel Turned together. And then Redemption Equals Death only hit one of them.

This could be taken as evidence that film is more lenient on women who commit unspeakable crimes than men, but there are other factors at play as well. Wanda is one of two female Avengers at this point in time. The gender balance is already screwed enough without killing her off.

They still aren't. Ike Perlmutter, CEO of Marvel Entertainment, still uses them as examples of why you should never make a superhero movie starring a woman. Thankfully he no longer has creative control over the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but that's a recent development.

edited 12th May '16 12:00:14 PM by TobiasDrake

It annoys me to no end how the world of Hollywood cinema is like this weird microcosm that's ruled by its own laws.

It doesn't matter how many issues of comic books starring female superheroes are published every year; if two shitty superhero films that happen to have a female lead (and one of them was converted into a superhero film only as an afterthought) flop then that's solid proof that people don't want to see female superheroes.

It doesn't matter that today's animated shows have practically all moved from The Smurfette Principle to having two female leads at the very least per team; Hollywood is still satisfied with having Black Widow be the sole representation of women in a group of six heroes... and before they give even her a movie of her own they give one to a group of C-tier superheroes most people have never even heard about.

Fucking Hollywood, man...

From what I understand, it's just that hollywood executives are EXTREMELY risk averse, which is understandable given how much money is on the line, but it gets silly because they really will find ANY excuse to do things the way they've been done in the last few decades even if the premise isn't something that really presents a risk by itself.

In fairness I'm not sure this is the best example because comic books are pretty damn niche, so their publishing habits and their readership aren't necessarily reflective of what the larger audience wants or prefers.

With that said, the runaway success of stuff like Jessica Jones and the warm reception to Wonder Woman in Bv S suggests audiences DO want to see female characters in leading roles and executives just aren't providing them.

edited 12th May '16 1:26:44 PM by wehrmacht

It can be hard to determine if a film flops because it stars a woman as the lead, or simply because it's just crap. Better not take any chances and ignore any possibilities to attract new audiences.

Yes, I'm aware of that, but what makes the situation extremely frustrating from a writer's point of view is that being different is more likely to earn you success than doing the same thing over and over again. Still, I can kind of understand the producers' attitude what it comes to having a movie with a sole female star because for that you at least have some kind of sample size to draw conclusions from.

But having only one female superhero in The Avengers and apparently also in the upcoming Justice League film... both Justice League and The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes had two female leads (Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl in the former and the Wasp and Ms. Marvel in the latter) + some odd appearances from other characters like Black Widow, Huntress, Zatanna etc.

Same goes with Teen Titans (Starfire and Raven + Terra, Bumblebee, Jinx), and Young Justice (Artemis, Miss Martian, Wonder Girl + Black Canary, Zatanna, Wonder Woman).

There are literally no excuses for limiting the amount of female superheroes to just one.

edited 12th May '16 1:46:13 PM by Paradisesnake

JL 1 apparently also has Mera.

Is she confirmed to actually be part of the League or is she just kind of tagging along as a supporting character?