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?
Once female speaking time reaches 30% or more, males believe that the females are dominating the speaking time.
Female encroachment on what has traditionally been considered male spaces is not taken well. Female empowerment is considered taking from deserving males.
Essentially the general male population don’t like females, and only tolerate them as a subservient subclass who should be seen and not heard.
EDIT: This should probably annoy you a little too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4
And it may also explain why people complain that there should only ever be one female character - it minimises the chances of males having to watch two females interact, because that would be excluding the male experience and they couldn’t possibly relate to two females interacting.
EDIT2: comments in that video do claim there are more scenes… whether or not that really adds much is up to you.
Female encroachment on what has traditionally been considered male spaces is not taken well. Female empowerment is considered taking from deserving males.
The problem is that in the context of a “winner-take-all” society it does do that though.
Obviously the general solution is to make a society that is overall more equitable between those who succeed & those who don’t.
But if you aren’t going to do that then you will get a reaction from those who are losing ground, even if that happening is the morally progressive outcome.
This is one reason why shows like Ms Marvel and She Hulk tanked so bad.
Essentially the general male population don’t like females, and only tolerate them as a subservient subclass who should be seen and not heard.
This is a WILD claim to make.
It’s a wild world.
Yes, but not like that
Who complained about the female led movie Alien (93% audience rating on rotten tomatoes)?
I think the issue is that the movies aren’t written well. Rey in the third trilogy never saw a challenge she couldn’t master on the first attempt. A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
I’d say the latest star wars movies were shit. It had nothing to do with Rey being a woman or even naturally gifted. Finn, Grumpy Luke, Swolo Ren (other poorly written characters), the writing team and the plot points (a spacecraft the size of a city needs to refuel but a lightsaber that can cut through anything has an infinite energy source) the writing team chose, should all share the blame. If your criticism is levelled at Rey alone, your argument isn’t worth hearing.
I don’t have a problem with the character, just the way she was written especially in the second film, I didn’t watch the third. And that film was terrible. The plot was bad, all the characters were bad, their adherence to star wars space stuff was bad
I don’t know if the writers were bad at their job or whether they were required to change it
I think the issue is that the movies aren’t written well. Rey in the third trilogy never saw a challenge she couldn’t master on the first attempt. A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
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.
You can’t really compare the two movies,
I’m not exactly, I’m asking why:
A story about a character born perfect and never faltering isn’t fun
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
deleted by creator
Oh don’t you hate that? Happens too often, especially typing on my phone and the cat or the spouse
needsis asking for something so I’m rushing to finish and BLARGH! It’s ruined!
The core complaint is for femwashed stories, where the male lead has been replaced by a woman.
It’s very similar to Hollywood movies taking movies from Japan or China and then turning the Asian lead to a Euro-American.
The level of hatred for this type of content is very strong as it feels like a farce or fraudelent, like someone is trying to sell you a fake designer brand item. Everything that made the item great is absent in the fake one.
On top of that, there’s a clear fascist takeover in the US from the rainbow liberal, evangelical and social capitalists. Fascists have weird superiority and inferiority complexes including towards women. But don’t worry, Chinese movies will become popular soon, so both sides of the US political aisle will have to adjust.
people who are socially functional do not actually complain about this. the internet does not represent humanity
The people who complain about this shit are running governments and corporations and controlling society, wtf are you talking about?
This issue isnt exclusive to the internet. But I agree, these complainers do not represent humanity, because they show none.
I got back into scifi books recently as an adult and was disgusted to find that virtually all of the “great” scifi authors are menwritingwomen trope goldmines.
When there are female main characters that aren’t just the authors fetishs, they’re typically subjected to violence, with rape used so frequently as female “character development” that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
I’ve begun to prefer scifi written by women, because then at least I know its not going to be completely cringe.
Have you read A Memory Called Empire yet? It’s amazing.
I’ve begun to prefer scifi written by women, because then at least I know its not going to be completely cringe.
If you haven’t, check out Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. Absolutely fantastic novel.
I got back into scifi books recently as an adult and was disgusted to find that virtually all of the “great” scifi authors are menwritingwomen trope goldmines.
Asimov is so, so difficult to read through now that I’m older, as the female characters are just… ouch. The ideas are there, but good gods I wish he’d just avoid writing out conversations at all.
Asimov is so, so difficult to read through now that I’m older, as the female characters are just… ouch.
Case in point: Noys Lambent in The End of Eternity. She was added by editor mandate, and she’s hollow: a kept woman who’s secretly a perfid ally of an opposing faction. The hero is somewhat redeemed by his understanding that the rebel cause is just, but she’s pure cardboard and eye candy. 13 y.o. me loved her. Years later… She’s cringeworthy.
I complain about popularity of fantasy romance vis a vis non-fantasy romance, and that now most published (or advertised) fantasy books are fantasy romance.
That genre is typically written for women, with female lead and is heavy in certain tropes.
That genre isn’t for me.
Am I a person that you’re ranting about OP? If not, could you point me to an article or opinion piece that you’re talking about, so I can read it and come back here?
I don’t think you are. The intrusion of “romantasy” is a serious issue with book publishing because they’re chasing what makes the most profits, and right now that’s the trend. No matter that romantasy is not proper fantasy…
I like the ringantasy over romantasy any day. Sometimes I also read sword-and-sandalsantasy.
+Old man grumbles over the youths word usage+
Hey, I’m just the messenger – blame the publishers. They’ve gotten sloppy, too, have you noticed? I’ve seen major grammatical/continuity errors and typesetting issues, even if the book is from the Big Five – even Tor. It’s disappointing, the ‘enshittification’ is happening before my eyes in real time.
I know, I’ve even heard of pages missing from paperbacks published by reputable print houses here in sweden
It’s making me get into book collecting and finding older/out-of-print editions, so at least that is a silver lining.
Is a nice site if you want to expand into Nordic/Swedish books in your collection
Thanks! A great one is also BookFinder - there are a few versions of it, I know .com and .de and I’m sure there are others.
I don’t really talk to anybody
Because when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
I hate when a story is forced into any agenda. Like making Daneel a woman in Foundation is atrocious because it has other implications across all of Asimov's stories like with Gladia and Jander, the relationship with Elijah and family dynamic, how Solarians perceive Daneel, and the nuance and contrast between Daneel and Dors just to name a few off the top of my head.
These are stupid people making last minute frivolous and agenda based pandering nonsense decisions. It is disingenuously stealing from the richness of the story these films are supposedly depicting. If they can’t tell the story they claim, they should be creating an independent work that stands entirely on its own instead of butchering the original art that should be told with full scope in the long term.
If you want to tell a female lead story, awesome. Pick a good one to start with. God Emperor of Dune is all about super strong women in roles. I mean there is an army of all women that outright rape men in battle. There are all levels of women present in that story. Chapterhouse Dune is another all about female leading roles. Tell the story around Susan Calvin in Asimov’s stories. There are tons of these types of stories. Hacking and butchering a universe or fitting a female lead in by committee agenda is absolutely garbage. Like Star Wars is a story about inevitable authoritarianism and exceptionalism where no one else is relevant. Trying to make that into some diversity flick is absurd. It is ultimately the wrong story from the start. I loved it growing up, but it is what it is and nostalgia is often blind. The story has an underlying ethos that is the foundation of the universe. It is flawed. So what, it can still be entertaining. When that ethos is in conflict, the story stops having any relevant value. Build a new story on a better foundation. Reshaping old stories shows that the entire premise is overly conservative bankers that treat art as investment. Bankers are shitty artists. They are incapable of being bold and trying new and novel things. There is no art in such endeavors. I have no problem with female leads. I take issue with terrible art by committee and bankers.
It is disingenuously stealing from the richness of the story these films are supposedly depicting.
Strangely enough, as a woman, I see it generally adding to the richness…
Men doing all of the interesting stuff isn’t rich.
Hell, even I Robot, a movie that should have had a female lead, turned Calvin in to a supporting role to put a man in the lead.
If men in a story are doing all the interesting stuff, the story is the bad choice. Adding oil paints to an existing watercolor does not make art. Paint a beautiful oil painting.
You’ve just shifted the goal posts here.
First, you said it’s stealing richness from a story if you add more women to make up for the lack of representation in the original source material.
And when challenged on that, you’re now saying it wasn’t rich to begin with, and the story itself is broken if women are underrepresented.
You are
projectionprojecting a position I neither stated nor hold*spelling
But you surely agree that both of your statements to be are at odds with each other.
You can’t simultaneously claim that an increase in diversity leads to a “reduction in richness” of a work, whilst also claiming that the work itself is the problem if it lacks diversity.
First, you are claiming that good works are diminished by after the fact alterations, but then you also claim that after the fact alterations are a bad idea, because the work was never good in the first place if it lacked diversity.
It more looks like you are finding post hoc validation to support something you already believe, rather than explaining the actual reasons you believe it, because those reasons contradict each other
I see your nuance better now. I’m saying that diversity is not a qualifier for total artistic value. I believe it is okay to tell flawed stories as art. I do not believe that all stories should be flawed, they should be an exception not the rule.
This is where we are likely strongly aligned versus any potential for difference. I believe telling better stories is the failure of the entertainment industry. There are plenty of better stories to tell. The real prejudice is happening by the cowardice of choosing misogynistic stories to tell. Really, there is not enough value placed on the big picture abstract overview. People are playing with the trees when they should be managing the forest. Old familiar stories with foundations built in an era of a lack of diversity are ripe to abandon for a new era of better stories.
Hell, even I Robot, a movie that should have had a female lead, turned Calvin in to a supporting role to put a man in the lead.
That’s exactly the point, arbitrarily changing the characters is unsatisfying. I, Robot should have been about Calvin.
I have seen this kind of behavior only on the internet. Maybe I just know people who aren’t stupid misogynist or then people are hiding their opinions in real life because they know that what they are thinking is wrong. There should absolutely be more females on major roles in movies, series and videogames.
Men that are scared of women leads are pussies
I’ve had excellent and poor women leaders. The difference with a poor male leader, I could argue with them head-to-head, no harm no foul. But with a poor female leader, if I argue head-to-head I’m suddenly hurting their feelings or being misogynistic.
Some people see themselves as the default, and any change is abnormal or pandering. Same thing happens in video games. Anything that brings attention to the idea that they aren’t the default audience is seen as a an offense. They assume these stories are an attack, an expensive way for people to say their way of doing things is wrong and therefore they are wrong, so they get defensive. In reality, it just someone else telling a story for another audience.
To them, the argument is, “why add more poc/genders if we’re all the same? Are you saying something is wrong with people like me so they have to be gotten rid of? How come it’s always me that’s getting removed? Why am I under attack!” They see the addition as the erasure of some, like, Schrodinger’s self-insert that would have been there if they didn’t have to force a" woke" choice.
Gamers complain about cancel culture, but they’re the first to demand changes and threaten to boycott a game for daring to include any “woke” (diverse character) content.
It’s absurdly ironic and hypocritical.
There are reasons women have very often chosen not to use voice chat in games for decades now. You will get some sort of harassment. Often that harassment is framed as being well-intentioned (“I’m not part of the problem–I talk to girls!” -“Okay, but maybe talking to them just because they have vaginas is still not desirable.”)
Because the majority of dudes complaining are incel man babies who need to feel like they are the focus of society. If its not exactly how they like it its not right. Its time we start shouting down on them loudly.
And if you dare question their masculinity by suggesting a woman might be able to do something other than be eye candy then they’ll… well I don’t know what they’ll do. Probably just complain about it on social media.
I found they usually huff until nearly shitting themselves before schoffing once more.
Sometimes, they’ll start a podcast or a YouTube channel. Those ones are the worst.
They become president and burn the country down
I can’t speak for anyone else. But for me personally. I don’t mind if they have a female or male lead. What I care about is if the story and characters are believable. Many times it’s like they just said well here we are going to have a female lead just because. Yet when you look at the story and at the character it doesn’t make sense.
Ex :
A strong female lead who is supposed to be commanding people and yet when she gives commands it just comes across as bitchy not assertive. And when you look at the story the character wouldn’t have the training to be able to know even what to do.
It’s like the director and writers just had to put a female on the screen.
The above example is just an example not meant to point at a specific movie or show.
A few of movies where they did it right.
The women in the movie Red. That was excellent writing and acting. The original Alien movie was awesome. Oh yeah and Mr and Mrs Smith kicked ass Angelina was awesome in that movie
To many current movies just feel like a board room full of people with an agenda of let’s make a movie with a female lead without asking if the scenario makes sense.
This is just my opinion as I can’t speak for others.
A strong female lead
Women are strong in a different way to men and writers just gender swapping a male character is always fucking obnoxious.
A lot of writers apparently have no idea how to write interesting female characters. Some of the pushback from viewers / readers to increasing the number of female characters isn’t about the characters being female, it’s about them being bad characters. Boring, annoying, quippy, etc.
Nobody wants to admit that their movie flopped because it wasn’t very good, so they blame sexism. Or piracy, that one’s always popular.
it just comes across as bitchy and not assertive
The problem is men get way more leeway than women in this regard. Their voice, their demeanor, the way they dress, everything must perfectly match whatever the dude is expecting or “it’s not believable.“ Male characters are rarely as scrutinized.
as bitchy not assertive
Too often, a behavior is considered bossy or bitchy in a woman, but would be considered assertive or commanding in a man.
A woman crying is emotional and can’t be trusted to ‘do what needs to be done’, a man punching holes in walls is just frustrated and can be relied upon when the going gets tough.
…or at least that’s what our rather misogynistic culture likes to tell us.
I think this guy says it well.
My favorite example of this is when Scrubs added Dr. Grace Miller, she was literally written to be Dr. Cox, if he was a woman.
And people despised her.
Too often, I would agree with you yes. But it’s also in the context of how they’re crying and the way that they are crying. There’s a type of crying where for example, a commander is leading troops across the battlefield, watched longtime friends get blown apart and the commander sits down and just quietly cries after the battle. Whether the commander is male or female isn’t going to matter. Most people would say OK that’s reasonable level of emotion for the commander.
That little context, there is what too many directors and producers don’t understand. The emotion has to fit the character and has to fit the scene In order for it to be believable…
As far as the whole bossy and bitchy versus assertive comparing men to women. Again, I can’t speak for what other people think and say
can only speak for my personal point of view. Where I have a real problem with it is when actors and actresses aren’t taught appropriately to be assertive without being bitchy. Men generally are able to pick up on it easier. Women sometimes they don’t pick up on it and they’ve gotta have voice Training. Now that is not saying all women are that way so I don’t want somebody coming back and saying hey this guy just said all women arethis way. Well no I didn’t. But many times women don’t have the role models needed in their life to understand how to be assertive. Well, how do you act assertive on a movie screen if nobody’s ever taught you how to be assertive?
It would be no different than if somebody asked me to lead troops and combat well I don’t know how to do that. I wouldn’t knowhow to be assertive in that manner so I doubt I’d do it very well. Or for example, if somebody said hey, go repair that engine well if nobody’s ever showing me how to do it I don’t think I’d be able todo it. Given ones a technical skill and one’s a skill of how to project your voice, but if you’ve never had somebody show you howto do it or teach you how to do it and you’ve never had a role model in that manner. You might have a hard time it.
I think that’s it. I was taught how to project my voice, how to use an authoritative tone and it has helped me get leadership roles. It’s a skill, and it’s a skill that any leader ought to have, in a film, at least.
Both men and women can do it, but you need to learn and I haven’t seen nearly as many girls trying to learn it as boys
