As much as my 19-year-old English-major self is loath to admit it to my current self, I鈥檓 a pop-culture junkie. Red-carpet interviews, the latest tweet about Miley Cyrus, reasons to hate Twilight, the next Hollywood blockbuster, you name it.
I鈥檓 also a devoted fan of Marvel鈥檚 Avengers movies. I鈥檒l defend that series of giddy, overblown superhero films until I die. I鈥檓 counting down the sleeps until the premi猫re of Thor 2. (I鈥檓 sorry, 19-year-old self.)
Unfortunately, a major flaw of this much-adored juggernaut series is that we鈥檙e seven movies in and only one of them has featured a main female hero. Even worse, she was only the fifth or sixth most important character in The Avengers cast, at best. Women are in these movies, sure, and are sort of well-written, I guess, but they exist as love interests, sidekicks or helpless civilians. They鈥檙e not heroes.
On the posters, our main female characters are forced into spine-breaking contortions intended to indicate either sex appeal or fawning adulation for the male hero.
Meanwhile, attempts to bring a Wonder Woman film to screen have failed over and over again, victims of the attitude that in order to have a female-fronted superhero movie, everything must be absolutely perfect, instead of simply being what almost every male-fronted superhero movie of the last decade has been, which is simply a fun movie.
Perhaps it鈥檚 the sense that there鈥檚 so much riding on such a venture 鈥� but then again, we鈥檝e already survived Elektra and Catwoman. The bar couldn鈥檛 be set any lower.
It鈥檚 a long-standing problem, a convergence of sexism in nerd culture and sexism in Hollywood that鈥檚 given us a dearth of female characters and countless fictional worlds that depict our gender as a minor complication at best and completely negligible at worst.
This is no secret: The amount of criticism about sexism in Hollywood blockbusters has exploded over the last two years, and most of it boils down to the same incredulous refrain: Why is this so hard?
Spoiler: It isn鈥檛.
Last week my friend and I went to see Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning, Juliet) at the Belfry Theatre. It was revisionist Shakespeare, performed in truly bawdy Elizabethan fashion, with a good dollop of academic jargon on top (you鈥檙e welcome, 19-year-old self).
It was fantastic. Belfry performances almost always are, but it had been a while since I鈥檇 been to a live show, and I was reminded what degree of excellence you find in the Victoria arts scene. It had three main female characters and our protagonist was a woman. Some of her problems were uniquely female, some were not, and she remained an accessible, identifiable character, deeply flawed but ultimately heroic. And everybody laughed.
See? Not so hard.
The whole sexism-in-movies thing is a bit like watching American politicians talk gun control. They go round and round arguing about freedom and rights, never for a moment thinking to take a look at other countries鈥� success in decreasing gun fatalities.
The same can be said for superhero sexism: There are solutions all around, and people who are pushing for them, but time and time again the refrain goes: 鈥淲e鈥檝e never done this before鈥� or 鈥淭he timing just isn鈥檛 right.鈥� There鈥檚 a solution, I swear! It鈥檚 sitting right next to you!
This isn鈥檛 to say that there鈥檚 no sexism in the theatre; that would be a silly thing to claim. Still, the joy of Goodnight, Desdemona was in watching innocent Juliet decide that she really liked sex and that Romeo was sort of dull, or in seeing Desdemona behave like a bloodthirsty Amazon rather than a wilting flower. Perhaps it was because the play was written by a woman, and Hollywood films almost never have a female writer on staff. It鈥檚 one thing to have more female characters onscreen, but if all those parts are being written by men, are women鈥檚 experiences really being represented?
This isn鈥檛 a call for a boycott (Thor 2! So excited!) and it鈥檚 not a call for action, per se. It鈥檚 just a reminder that women鈥檚 stories are all around us, often hiding in plain sight, because we鈥檝e been trained to think that only men鈥檚 stories 鈥渃ount,鈥� or that Hollywood is the sole arbiter of entertainment.
So go to ground. Go local. Our stories are here, right in front of us.
