MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS ENDGAME. I REPEAT, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS ENDGAME. ONE LAST REPEAT, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS ENDGAME. SO STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT ALREADY. OR DON’T, YOUR CALL. I’M NOT HERE TO TELL YOU HOW TO LIVE YOUR LIFE.
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OK, can we talk about how Marvel in general and The Avengers in particular have a thing with killing its women? First, Gamora dies in “Avengers: Infinity War.” Then Black Widow dies in “Avengers: Endgame.” And, guess what, they both died some dude (or, in Thanos’ case, some big purple dude) can get the Soul Stone. Women. Souls. Get it, guys. We’ve seen this all before. It’s called fridging. Women dying is the personal sacrifice men need to motivate them to be better and/or redeem their own souls. I know, gross. Besides being, let's see, sexist as fuck, fridging is also just lazy storytelling. Period.
(Yes, I know, 2014 timeline Gamora is still out there, maybe, but present her is definitely dead now. So, yeah, fridged. And, totally unrelated, what is with only showing Tony’s funeral?)
So, Marvel, what you’re telling me is that in the past 11 years you have made 22 superhero movies. Men have been the solo or joint leads of all but one – yes, I said one – of those superhero movies. Yet still, somehow, you’ve managed to kill off the main female character in two of these franchises (well, actually three, because after the first “Captain America” movie, Peggy Carter was out of the picture and Black Widow was the main female character).
And Natasha died to save Clint? Seriously? That dude? I mean, literally zero people would have missed Hawkeye, except maybe Jeremy Renner. And even so, eh, he’s got other franchises.
Look, I enjoyed the woman power moment when all the remaining Marvel ladies lined up to provide their true Captain an assist across the battlefield toward the end of Endgame as much as the next lesbian. And, yes, there even was an actual gay moment (thank, nameless dude in the grief support group) which I appreciate – sorta (again, nameless guy in a support group…) But, come on. There are like 25 extraneous superdudes you could have offed instead of these two Marvel ladies.
But then, I guess it’s just too hard to ask straight white guys who write and direct superhero movies to think of what the deaths of non-male, non-white, non-straight characters means to those underrepresented groups.
But, at least Valkyrie gets to rule Asgard. Pepper Potts is now single. Scarlet Witch remains decidedly on the market. And Captain Marvel got that haircut. We take what we can get in superhero land, I guess.
5 comments:
Problem isn't so much Marvel. Problem is the public. My male friends that are normally happy to watch superhero movies with me weren't so keen on Captain Marvel, because, well, she was female, they didn't particularly like her superhero suit (probably not revealing enough), and there were just too many women in the movie for their liking. And I'm talking of men that consider themselves all for feminism. But only up to a point, it seems. Their definition of feminism seems to be that women should be allowed to do almost as much as men. But doing more than men in a movie? Of course not!
Not a fan of superhero movies. Give me a good old fashioned tear jerker. Something realistic. Or a well written comedy. Everything seeme to be helpless these days in Hollywood. The same trite story lines
The gay support group guy was one of the Russo brothers, who directed.
Not to mention that Black Widow sacrificed herself because she doesn’t have a family and Hawkeye does. So if you’re not a wife and mother that means you’re useless, disposable. And there was no funeral or big grief for her, like there was for Iron Man...
You are forgetting Vision and Loki, who both died in Infinity Wars. It's possible, Loki pulled a Gamora and is around somewhere in the new timeline. So you got, Black Widow, Vision and Iron Man. Honestly, you could even throw in Heimdall's death in Infinity Wars. As for the seeing the Stark funeral only...I would say that is simply a cinematic nod to the character that started this massive movie universe. Sometimes it is nice to watch a movie where the women aren't playing the damsel in distress, instead they are helping to save the universe, without deconstructing the fate of every female character. I might add, I saw Black Widow's sacrifice for Hawkeye as noble, not disposable.
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