She is an Amazonian demigoddess with abil-ities to rival Superman’s, but Wonder Wom-an has always been a second-class cit-
izen in the superhero world. Even when she made her comic book debut in the 1940s, she was only a secretary for the Justice Society of America.While male DC Comics heroes received fea-
ture films over the years, Wonder Woman has been continually ignored to the dismay of fe-male superhero fans—an audience that continues to grow.“I’ve been waiting for Wonder Woman to get
a movie since I was in high school, and that was almost 20 years ago,” said Regine Sawyer, founder and coordinator of Women in Comics Collective, a group of women who work in vari-ous parts of the comics industry. To the delight of many DC superhero fans like
Sawyer, “Wonder Woman”—starring Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins—is scheduled to open in theaters June 2017, 76 years after her comic book debut. With an action-packed trailer un-veiled at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, “Wonder Woman” already sets itself apart from previous superhero movies: It stars a woman. The movie’s budget of $150 million is about
$100 million less than the “Batman vs. Super-man: Dawn of Justice” budget and $75 million less than “Man of Steel.” Still, it is better funded than most films featuring female su-perheroes, indicating Hollywood is making room for super ladies but very slowly. Nearly a year before it opens, the movie is already facing criticism. Jenkins took to Twitter to defend “Wonder Woman” from rumors started by someone claiming to be from Warner Bros who called the film “a mess.”“Zero about the movie we are making has been
called a mess by anyone in the know. Fact,” Jenkins said in one of her Aug. 12 tweets re-futing the rumors.
Though Jenkins said the rumors were un-founded, if the highly anticipated and well-funded film ends up being a box-office flop, female superheroes may be kicked back to where they started: fighting even for small spots on Marvel and DC slates.According to a study published in Feb-
ruary by the Institute for Diversity and Empowerment at Annenberg titled “INCLUSION
or INVISIBILITY? Comprehensive Annenberg Re-port on Diversity in Entertainment,” female characters make up only 26.5 percent of leading characters in TV and film. The superhero and action film industry falls far behind this, as the combined five previous and upcoming fe-male-led titles make up only a small fraction of all superhero movies.
“The producers and studio heads—many of them are men, and they operate from fear, because as soon as you have a bomb that comes out, every-one’s worried for their lives,” said Seth Soul-stein, a Cornell University instructor who has taught courses on superhero films. Out of a combined 25 confirmed
upcoming movie projects from Mar-vel and DC Comics, the only fe-males represented in titular roles are Wonder Woman and Cap-tain Marvel, whose movie has al-ready been pushed from a summer 2018 release to spring 2019. Marvel’s 2018 movie “Ant-Man and The Wasp” will star a male-and-female duo.The lack of female heroes is a striking part
of film history. Between 1984 and present day, only three films featured a female lead super-hero—“Supergirl,” “Catwoman” and “Elektra”—and all of them were underbudgeted, underdeveloped and seen as box-office failures.The financial failure of these films has been
used to excuse the lack of female-led superhero movies since then.“[Studios] are hesitant because they don’t un-
derstand what it means for a girl to be sit-ting in a theater or sitting at home and to see herself represented as the hero of the film,” Soulstein said.The Wikileaks Sony Pictures Hack in November
2014 indicated some studio heads do not think female heroes can draw audiences and make money. An email from Aug. 7, 2014, revealed that Mar-vel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter spoke with Sony CEO Michael Lynton about those movies, cit-ing them as reasons for not making more.To get more movies with female leads, film-
makers have to be able to point to similar mov-ies that have been successful and made money in the past, said Leslie Combemale, who created and moderated the panel “Women Rocking Holly-wood” for 2016’s San Diego Comic-Con. The panel included official Marvel and DC representatives Victoria Alonso and Deborah Snyder. However, if no one puts faith in a woman’s
ability to star in an action movie, there will never be successful examples to imitate.“We [have to] start making conscious deci-
sions to include women,” said Snyder, a produc-er for “Wonder Woman,” during the July 23 panel.According to the Motion Picture Association
of America’s Theatrical Market Statistics from 2015, 51 percent of moviegoers are female. De-spite these demographics, studios and filmmak-ers continue to ignore what women want, accord-ing to Sawyer.Lexi Chayer, a junior fashion studies major,
said she loves superhero and action movies, but she does not want to spend money to see them if they lack proper female repre-sentation in which the charac-ters aren’t overly sexualized.
Story by Zoë EitelDesign by Zoë Haworth “The world
isn’t all men—it doesn
’t look like
that,” Chayer said.
Historically, people in
Hollywood who fund ex
-
pensive projects haven’t
seen movies starring wo
m-
en as moneymaking oppo
rtunities, Combemale s
aid.
“Over and over, [that
idea] is proven wrong,
”
Combemale said, citing
“The Hunger Games” fr
an-
chise as an example wi
th a female hero who w
as a
difficult sell at firs
t but ended up carryin
g a
blockbuster series. Wh
ile Katniss does not h
ave
superpowers like Wonde
r Woman, she uses the
pow-
er she does have to he
lp people and overthro
w a
dystopian government.
Jessica Jones is anoth
er female hero who gai
ned
a large fanbase and
received critical prai
se.
The series—which focus
es on serious topics s
uch
as rape, murder, child abuse, post-traumatic
stress disorder and ab
usive relationships—ha
s a
93 percent approval ra
ting on Rotten Tomato
es.
The show can thank its
producer Netflix for
the
freedom to take risks
for part of its succes
s.
“It says everything
that the advent of n
ew
platforms that aren’t a
s easily controlled by
the
white-male mentality a
re there,” said David
Lav-
ery, chair of the Grad
uate Program and profe
ssor
of English at Middle
Tennessee State Univer
si-
ty who taught “Special
Topics in Film Studie
s:
Superhero Movies.”
Unfortunately, not all
female-led shows have
as
much luck as “Jessica
Jones,” which was quic
kly
renewed for a second s
eason after its releas
e.
Marvel’s “Agent Carter
,” a British period-pi
ece
starring Hayley Atwell
as Peggy Carter, one
of
the original S.H.I.E.L.
D. agents, ran on ABC
for
two seasons. Members o
f the show’s fanbase c
re-
ated a Change.org peti
tion to get the show p
icked
up by Netflix after
the cancellation and
has
gathered more than 1
25,000 signatures so
far,
though the cancellatio
n was attributed to a
drop
in viewership between
the two seasons.
“Supergirl,” a show ab
out Superman’s cousin w
ho
grew up on Earth, wa
s forced to jump fro
m CBS
to The CW after the fi
rst season to stay on
the
air. The show started
out with great viewers
hip,
but interest tapered o
ff after the first few
ep-
isodes, and The CW has
had success with mult
iple
superhero dramas in th
e past.
The cancellation of “Agent Carter” and the
near-cancellation of “S
upergirl” do not bode w
ell
for the creation of othe
r female-driven hero sho
ws.
“Ninety-nine percent
of the time, if given
a
choice, a studio is n
ot going to choose t
o do
anything new if they
can just put out ano
ther
thing that looks exact
ly like the other th
ing
they just did,” said A
rnold T. Blum-
berg, adjunct faculty
at Univer-
sity of Baltimore and
University
of Maryland, Baltimore
County,
who taught “Media Ge
nres: Media
Marvels,” focusing on
the Marvel
Cinematic Universe.
The female heroes wh
o are in-
cluded in male-led mo
vies and TV
shows are usually ove
rsimplified
and oversexualized, ac
cording to
Bren Ortega Murphy, W
omen’s Stud-
ies and Gender Studies
professor at
Loyola University.
“How about just being interested
in her being a crusa
der for justice and
fighting evil?” Blumbe
rg said.
Suicide Squad member H
arley Quinn, Wonder Wo
m-
an, Supergirl and many
other female heroes h
ave
been made to fight cri
me and the forces of e
vil
in outfits resembling bathing suits or skin-
tight jumpsuits. The r
evealing costumes fema
le
heroes wear perpetuate
the idea that no mat
ter
who a woman is or what
she does, she also ha
s to
be sexually attractive
, Ortega Murphy said.
“Until very recently,
it’s just been assume
d
that women weren’t stro
ng. The woman was the
love
interest, the woman wa
s the comforter, the w
oman
was the prize at the e
nd,” Ortega Murphy sai
d.
Even strong female cha
racters wind up as th
e
token female group mem
ber.
Introduced in “Iron Ma
n 2” in 2010, Black Wid
ow
is a former Russian s
py turned superhero-w
ith-
out-powers who, despit
e not being granted
her
own movie and only hol
ding a secondary role,
can
hold her own next to t
he likes of Thor and T
he
Hulk and is an incredi
bly popular character,
ac-
cording to Lavery.
A poll conducted by Fa
ndango for USA Today b
e-
fore the release of “C
aptain America: Civil
War”
found that of all of t
he Avengers team membe
rs,
48 percent of fans mos
t wanted to see Black
Wid-
ow starring in a stand
alone movie.
“In the recent Avenger
s films, Black Widow i
s
there, but she doesn’t
add to the story as m
uch
as she does in the com
ic books, said Misha W
ood-
ward, a junior dance m
ajor who grew up readi
ng
comics and looking up
to heroes like DC’s Ba
t-
girl. “All the other
Avengers have their
own
movies, they have thei
r own stories, they h
ave
so much more depth to
them.”
Jessica Jones remains
the best example of
a
female hero who has de
pth and character.
“One of the things tha
t was so winning abou
t
Jessica Jones was her vulnerability,” Lavery
said. “She was constan
tly compromised—consta
ntly
anything but all-power
ful.”
Jones spends the show’s
first season making mi
s-
takes and showing her
flaws and humanity des
pite
her superpowers—someth
ing Sawyer said allows
au-
dience members to rela
te to and sympathize.
If “Wonder Woman,” “Su
pergirl” and the new s
ea-
son of “Jessica Jones”
are successful, it co
uld
convince Hollywood to
put out more female-
led
projects until the num
bers are equal.
“Will it happen in ou
r lifetime? I hope so
,”
Blumberg said.
24 THE CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 SEPTEMBER 12, 2016 THE CHRONICLE 25
FEATURE
om
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s ingrained gender roles
