One Woman in the Justice League
Just one woman, maybe two, in a team or group of men.
Also watch Jimmy Kimmel’s "Muscle Man’ superhero skit - “I’m the girly one”
The Avengers:
In Marvel Comics:
“Labeled “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in The Avengers issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him.”
5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Modern films (MCU):
The original 6 Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
Again, 5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Justice League
In DC comics:
“The Justice League originally consisted of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman”
6 / 7 original members are male. Only one is female.
In modern films (DCEU):
The members were/are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (+ introducing Martian Manhunter (in Zack Snyder’s Justice League director’s cut))
5 / 6 main members in both versions of the Justice League film are male, with appearances by a 7th member in the director’s cut who is also male. Only one member is female.
The Umbrella Academy (comics and show)
7 members:
- Luther (Number One / Spaceboy)
- Diego (Number Two / The Kraken)
- Allison (Number Three / The Rumor)
- Klaus (Number Four / The Séance)
- Five (Number Five / The Boy)
- Ben (Number Six / The Horror)
- Vanya (Number Seven / The White Violin) Later becomes known as Viktor and nonbinary in the television adaptation after Elliot Page’s transition but that’s not really relevant to this.
Here, 5 / 7 original members are male. Only two are female. Only slightly better than the other more famous superhero teams, and they had to add another member (compared to Avengers’ 6 members) to improve the ratio (maybe executives still demanded to have 5 males).
Now let’s look at some sitcoms and other stories.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
4 males, and 1 female slightly less prominent character who is abused constantly. The show claims to be politically aware and satirical but gets away with a lot of misogynistic comedy, tbh, that I’m willing to bet a lot of people are finding funny for the wrong reasons.
Community:
Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce, Shirley. This one is a little better, 3/7 are female. Notice it’s always more males though, they never let it become more than 50% female, or else then it’s a “chick flick” or a “female team up” or “gender flipped” story. And of course the main character, and the leading few characters, are almost always male or mostly male.
Stranger Things:
Main original group of kids consisted of: Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and El (Eleven). 1 original female member, who is comparable to an alien and even plays the role of E.T. in direct homage. When they added Max, I saw people complaining that although they liked her, there should be only one female member. 🤦
Why is it ‘iconic’ to have only one female in a group of males? Does that just mean it’s the tradition, the way it’s always been? Can’t we change that? Is it so that all the men can have a chance with the one girl, or so the males can always dominate the discussion with their use of force and manliness? Or so that whenever the team saves the day, it’s mostly a bunch of men doing it, but with ‘a little help’ from a female/a few females (at most), too!
It’s so fucked up and disgusting to me I’ve realised. And men don’t seem to care. I’m a male and this is really disturbing to me now that I’ve woken up to it. How do women feel about this? Am I overreacting?
John Wick gets a pass, though?
You can’t really compare the two movies, John Wick takes the route of being so over the top to the point of becoming funny. I don’t think they were aiming for that with the new SW trilogy.
I’m not exactly, I’m asking why:
Can be true, but also John Wick can never falter and that be fine. Kinda seems like a double standard to me.
The bit I didn’t say was I meant such a character in a hero’s journey style story
John works where Rey doesn’t because he’s had the career and experience to back up what he does. Other characters are terrified of him, he’s been in the setting long enough to become a legend.
Rey a scavenger in the arse end of nowhere goes from knowing literally nothing about the outside world and starting at about the same power as Luke’s ability in new hope to by the end of that first movie Luke’s ability in return of the jedi with no training involved.
John is an example of a legend in action, an unstoppable force, it’s satisfying to watch because the film does such a good job of building him up. That one with the mob boss talking about the pencil comes to mind. Rey gets none of that, she’s just great at everything without trying. She can fly a ship like the falcon on her first go ever flying a space ship well enough to out fly trained fighter pilots. Luke at least has flown similar ships in similar situations before the death star run.
One that is better is when she beats Kylo with the first time using a saber because it shows she is letting the force guide her so it makes much more sense why she can do it.
There is also the fact that John gets punched in the face, kicked and beaten…and then gets back up to wipe the floor with the enemy.
Showing female characters getting their arses handed to them is not as commercially popular.
If there’s any universe in which it makes complete sense for someone to be born ultra powerful completely at random, it’s Star Wars and superhero movies.
I love The Force Awakens but I know someone who complains that it’s really distracting that the three main protagonists have a black guy and a woman, and it’s “trying so hard to be woke” that it spoils the film for him. He really truly honestly believes that he’s not racist or sexist but the “blatant DEI” ruins it.
NONE of the the main 9 star wars films are particularly subtle or deep, but they’re great fun, and if you can’t get over one of the lead characters being female or one of the main characters being ridiculously powerful for no other reason and you try to justify that in terms of consistency or good writing, you’re definitely using double standards.
I think he should reconsider how racist and sexist he is, and I think bleating about Rey being effortlessly at Kylo Ren’s level in the force isn’t worth the effort you put into justifying it.
There’s a thing in movie writing that’s called the suspension of disbelief which is the mechanism of being involved in a story by “what do I have to believe in order for the movie to make sense”.
SW3’s premise is the classical hero’s adventure, where the main character undergoes a journey of betterment. And in this particular case, if you already are the best there is no journey.
John Wick’s premise is “this guy is going to kill everyone” frome the minute one, you just sit down, switch your brain off and enjoy what he’s doing for the next two hours.
It’s not about the sex of the character, is about how the character is written.
It works in that genre. The main guy in Nobody also was pretty good from the start. The fast and furious flicks also don’t do a great deal of character development
Those all have characters presented as good at whatever the movie is about