Comic-book movies have had a woman problem for, oh, forever. But this past week has been a particularly notable low for Marvel, which seems incapable of understanding that its superhero movies are laughably sexist. Let’s take a look back at the week of the studio’s tone-deafness:
Marvel released the sequel “Avengers: Age of Ultron” last Friday to criticism over its portrayal of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. She was seen by many as overly domesticated and feminized — and grossly underrepresented in the movie’s action figures, a fact noted by “Avengers” star Mark Ruffalo on Twitter.
Director Joss Whedon deactivated his Twitter account after the film opened, leading a chorus of angry fanboys to gin up accusations that he’d been “driven off” by deranged feminists.
Whedon, an avowed feminist, issued a statement calling those accusations “horses - - t” — but the anger rages on (go on, just Google “Black Widow” and “feminists”), underscoring the idea that Marvel’s content fosters dismissiveness or outright hatred of women.
Relatedly, two other “Avengers” stars, Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner, slammed Black Widow as a “slut” and “whore” during the film’s press junket, for which they apologized — but which Renner repeated later on “Conan.”
Where could they be getting the message that female Marvel characters are marginal and fair game for slut-shaming? Maybe right from the top. Earlier this week, the site Women and Hollywood (full disclosure: I’ve written for this site) called out an exchange between the CEOs of Marvel and Sony — made public via WikiLeaks — about their views on female-driven superhero movies. Marvel’s chief, Ike Perlmutter, wrote of “Supergirl”: “One of the most important female super hero [sic] in [the] Superman franchise . . . Again, another disaster.” (He failed to mention the many male-superhero movies that have tanked, such as “Green Lantern,” “The Green Hornet,” “Daredevil” and “Batman & Robin.”)
Two days later, in a spectacular display of bad timing, Marvel and Sony released the list of directors contending for their 2017 “Spider-Man” reboot. Surprise: It was entirely male.
In a world where the audience for comics and their movie adaptations was overwhelmingly male, this might make sense. But last year’s market research showed 46 percent of all comics readers are female, and a recent MPAA study showed more than half of all moviegoers are women.
As it happens, this is supposedly “the year of women” in movies: “We have so much more to come, with big female roles in horror, comedy, science fiction, animation, family, Western, thriller and action,” John Fithian, CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners, said recently at Las Vegas’ CinemaCon.
Hmm, you’ll notice there’s one specific genre not mentioned there. Are you listening, Marvel?