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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Female villains or female Big Bads? If it's the former, we have plenty, especially in Phase Three. If it's the latter, unfortunately, pretty much all we have is Hela from Thor: Ragnarok.
But that's just counting movies. Let's go with TV shows:
- From Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., we have Jiaying, the Big Bad of Season 2, and AIDA, the Big Bad of Season 4.
- From The Defenders (2017), we have Elektra, who supplanted Alexandra as the Big Bad of the show.
- From Jessica Jones (2015), we have Alisa Jones, the Big Bad of Season 2, and Trish Walker, who is ultimately the Big Bad of Season 3.
- From Agent Carter, we have Whitney Frost, the Big Bad of Season 2.
- From Runaways (2017), the upcoming third season has Morgan le Fay.
The lack of female Big Bads is a problem in a lot of media, yeah, especially film - where there's still a pretty noticeable traditionalism in regards to villainy. You don't get female Big Bads unless they're The Vamp or something along those lines - characters like Ghost who are sympathetic but not defined by their sensuality or jealousy or Monster Is a Mommy or somesuch are rare, because those are the roles media tends to pigeonhole for female villains.
It's most likely that you'll get a character inserted for the sake of a Designated Girl Fight - even in cases where the character is more than that in the source material, they'll end up like that in the film (Proxima Midnight being a good example in the MCU).
I did, however, like Nebula's run of villainy in GOTG. Not enough to want to undo her awesome Heel–Face Turn, granted (I still wish she had stayed an Avenger).
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 7th 2019 at 10:13:44 AM
And even Nebula wasn't a Big Bad at all and was almost totally defined by her abusive relationship with her father Thanos — though that at least was balanced by her conflicted relationship with her sister Gamora.
Hela is also defined by daddy issues but so are her brothers. Odin was kind of a shit dad.
Edited by M84 on Nov 8th 2019 at 2:17:49 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedThis brings to my mind something I've observed about how mind control is treated in superhero media (at least ones by the Big 2) depending on the gender of the perpetrator.
Male super villains who use mind control are often depicted as scary or unusual (Dr Psycho, Purple Man, Mesmero) while female super villains with mind control powers are often depicted as being sexually appealing to look at (Emma Frost, Amora, Lorelei, Circe, Poison Ivy). To bring this back to the MCU, compare how Lorelei's rape of Grant Ward was treated to how Kilgrave's rape of Jessica and Hope was treated.
Edited by windleopard on Nov 7th 2019 at 10:30:36 AM
There is so much that can be said about the Double Standard concerning female rapists...
Disgusted, but not surprisedThe short of it is that Most Writers Are Male.
Female characters in comic books and action movies, and especially villainesses, are generally characterized by the ways in which male writers perceive women in general. Mostly this means they're motivated by being in love with men, they're motivated by being motherly towards someone or something, in a lot of earlier works they're motivated by envy due to the cultural association of women with jealousy, or they're motivated by being jilted or scorned, and even if none of those things they're often defined by being sexy in a way that appeals to men, usually of the "sexy but incapable of love" type (a la classic Poison Ivy).
They're also the fact that comic books' inaugural years were in the period where Women Are Innocent was the rule of the day, so most villainesses either had an extenuating caveat for being evil. Many villainesses were molls and assistants - one heartfelt plea from the right man away from settling down and giving up crime. Many villainesses were evil for reasons outside their will, either forced or unaware of their actions: as much as I like the Tragic Monster, Jekyll & Hyde or Superpowered Evil Side, it's noticeable that many female villains in classic comics had those characteristics, because it allowed them to be both a baddie to fight and - ultimately - a victim for the hero to save at the same time.
You can see this best with Batman, who - as much as I love him and his rogues gallery - frankly has pretty much no major female villains who aren't in some way evidence of one or more of those problems, even when it comes to his newer villainesses. Or, hell, Black Panther's Rogues Gallery is really damn new and hot damn, the original version of Nakia is pretty awful (the movie straight up completely redesigns her, so that she's not only not a villainess any more, she's not anywhere close to the same character).
And this is one of those things that hits comic books films pretty badly now, because these are mostly adaptations of characters from the 60's. Hollywood only ever seems to want to have female Big Bads face male heroes when they're also sex objects, and they're even rare in female led films (again, you're most likely to find personality-less female minions to be there to fight the supporting heroines). And when they do adapt villainesses from classic characters, they often have to write around those problems. And often, you find they don't - they just pick characters who fit the molds Hollywood is used to (hence no one ever having problems adapting Catwoman).
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 7th 2019 at 10:53:44 AM
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Terra's was less a subversion of Women Are Innocent and more a straight example of the standard Honey Trap: a Femme Fatale (or Fille Fatale in her case) who seduces a male character then rubs his face in it when they inevitably betray him for caring.
Another one based on relationship with a male character, basically, in that case of the "fooled by a pretty face" variety. Nothing new, just the same old crap.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 7th 2019 at 10:52:57 AM
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I think it was common for her to do that in the Golden and Silver Ages. Though admittedly those attempts were a bit light-hearted and involved traps that were easy to escape from as opposed to more pragmatic or scary means.
Also didn't Iron Fist get some flack for changing the Bride of Nine Spiders from a legitimately frightening being to another Dragon Lady / Femme Fatale archetype?
Edited by windleopard on Nov 7th 2019 at 11:11:01 AM
"you can't have a Thor movie without Loki"
But as thor dark world show, you can totally have a loki movie without thor and nothing would change for the worst
"Hank puts in a lot of work cleaning up his own mess, as does Hope. So it doesn't count. "
They just used Scott to do it, because they are terrible people.
"To bring this back to the MCU, compare how Lorelei's rape of Grant Ward was treated to how Kilgrave's rape of Jessica and Hope was treated."
Yeah that was a pretty low point for the show, in fact, if Loreila and killgrave talk at the same time, would both afect each other?.
Also, there is a tendecy with batman in how all their villians are ugly or not atractive...except woman, or how Harley, Selina and Ivy can do pretty crap and treat as "oh, those womans!" rather than....you know, villians.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Wasn't she unceremoniously killed off though?
Though ironically enough she's also the only female Batman villain who actually managed to get into a committed relationship with a normal and apparently decent guy. Too bad we only find this out in the same storyline which unceremoniously killed her off, if memory serves.
Edited by M84 on Nov 8th 2019 at 5:26:26 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
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If I have to guess, this is because Harley was made for the animated series who joker, while bad, wasnt the uber serie killer edgelord he is now in the comics(to the point I wonder why that joker even stick with her anyway), but I will said the series have that the problem of makign Harley never doing anything wrong or inmoral and being pretty much a villain by association, which is harder to do on comics because that joker is worst.
Edited by unknowing on Nov 8th 2019 at 5:29:56 AM
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Orca is one of the weirdest Batman villains, conceptually, because she's a fucking humanoid orca. Like, I know she's actually a marine biologist who got mutated into being a killer whale person somehow, but she's still a killer whale person. You'd think she'd be an Aquaman villain, but I guess he's too far out of her league, so she sticks to Gotham.

Ghost is the Big Bad in the sense that she's the antagonist directly causing conflict in the movie. Sympathetic yes, but still fits the Big Bad role.
Disgusted, but not surprised