With summer on our doorstep comes the inevitable flood of summer movies. We’ve reached a point in popular culture where this means that about half, if not more, of what will play in theaters is some kind of take on a comic book super hero. While films like The Dark Knight and Iron Man have raised the bar as far as quality goes when speaking about super hero films, there is one thing that seems especially lacking in the genre: vaginas, or rather super vaginas.
It’s no secret that the film industry is a tough place for women. Roles are often one note, overdone and virtually non-existent for women over 40. Knowing first hand, however, that DC and Marvel universes alone are brimming with badass superwomen, it seems especially unjustifiable that depictions of them on film are so few and far between. Women in super hero films are not full-fledged characters but rather devices for the super men that court them.
One of this season’s earliest comic book films serves as a perfect example of this. Thor stars Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, the brainy yet sexy scientist/love interest to Chris Hemworth’s Thor. As a fangirl of Portman, it was news that excited me. Only bitter disappointment followed, however, as Portman went on to fulfill the rote and played-out role that every love interest in a super hero film ultimately fills. Women, in this world of super human strength, are redeemers and humanizers, accessories to great men, but without any real depth or complexity of character for themselves.
Where once a stint as a tights wearing crime fighter typecast you for life, as scripts and direction have gotten better, that stigma has been lifted. While that means a lot for male actors, it signifies virtually nothing for women. It means that Spiderman and Iron Man get to play with rich backstories, battling that fine line between right and wrong, while the women they surround themselves with are caricatures of innocence and untapped sexuality. It’s a system that becomes increasingly frustrating as more respected actresses (like Portman) step into these lackluster roles and stick with the status quo.
Hollywood seems to have a problem with powerful women. While a blunt statement, it’s one that seems inarguably true when faced with the evidence available. Films where women are featured as super heroines also see them stripped of any feminine power. As a kid I was huge fan of X-Men: The Animated Series. In the X-Men are some of the greatest examples of strong women a young girl could have. The film version did everything in its power to downplay those strengths, however.
When Stan Lee created Storm, he made a woman not only strong in her abilities to control the weather, but in her wisdom, leadership and fearlessness. Revered as a deity in her native Africa and outcast as a monstrous anomaly stateside, Storm is a character rife with delicious possibility. Casting a coquettish Halle Berry, as well as diminishing, if not completely eliminating, her African roots, strips Storm of her power, making her more girl than woman. It’s a method employed more than once in the same film, if we stop to consider the change Rogue undergoes from powerfully tragic woman to unsure of herself, meek teenager.
People will argue that the reason films about super heroines are so few is because there isn’t a market, citing films like Elektra or Catwoman as evidence. I call bullshit. Any movie with poor performances and bad writing will obviously produce a bad film. Somehow, this has had little to no effect on franchises like Batman, Superman or the X-Men. It’s high time we all started calling bullshit. Studios justify this behavior by saying they market this form of entertainment to males, but men don’t go to theaters alone and by now, we can all agree that a love for comic books spans all the sexes. It’s a genre that constitutes at least half of the films we’ll see in theaters this year, and for that reason alone, I’d like to see some fair representation.
Sarah McBride is a self-proclaimed pop-culture enthusiast. Her thoughts on music, film, lit and life can be found at sarahism.com. You can follow her on twitter @sarahism.