You know, I really thought that with Joss Whedon at the helm of a major, AAA property with a cavalcade of Hollywood talent that we would see action/superhero movies begin to move in a more progressive direction. At the very least I was hoping that some of what Whedon has been celebrated for saying in terms of his engagement with social justice issues would rub off a bit on some extremely privileged Hollywood actors.
I don't know why I thought this.
Naive optimism?
Probably.
I am legitimately disappointed but I'm not all surprised at the comments that were made by Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans about Black Widow; fictional or not, what they said was hurtful and the faux-pology did not help things.
For the record, I'm not the biggest superhero fan. I did watch the 90s Spiderman and X-Men as a kid, I thoroughly enjoyed the Nolan Batman Trilogy, and do turn to the marvel superhero movies now and then for a bit of brainless entertainment. I do like big, overarching, consistent stories and the movies that have come out of the marvel universe have certainly been intriguing in that respect. I was also very happy to hear that someone like Joss Whedon had been tapped to helm the movies that bring together several different stories and would appeal to a great number of people that probably were not part of the Whedonverse (Firefly, Buffy, Angel). Joss Whedon isn't without his faults as he's certainly had some questionable and problematic engagements with Feminism and social justice stuff (the whole "why I hate feminist" speech comes to mind), but he's thrown support behind Anita Sarkeesian with regards to bringing more awareness to the harassment she's experiencing. I also recognize that Whedon had much more flexibility with his own stuff than he does with something as long-established as marvel superheroes, but all of this amounts to nothing more than nice excuses for ignoring the lack of progress being shown.
Black Widow is the only Avenger in the current run of movies, apart from Hawkeye, to not have her own movie about her own adventures. Moreover, from weird contortions that magically display Black Widow's butt and cleavage simultaneously to extremely sexist questions about Scarlett Johansson's underwear and diet, movie posters, costuming, and panel interviews have revealed all manner of systemic sexism directed at both Scarlett Johansson and the character she plays; she's even being left off of the merchandise for the latest iteration of the Avengers-Marvelverse installment "Age of Ultron." And now we have some pretty standard slut-shamming coming from Johansson's costars to round it all out. Awesome...
The usual script for this sort of thing is playing out as I write this: feminists are calling out the comment, anti-feminists/anti-sjws are whining that feminists are too sensitive or just don't get the "satire," fence sitters are, well, sitting quietly on their fence, and mainstream media outlets are rolling with the article in a non-committal way because they know they'll get a couple extra clicks for the next few days or so. But here's why I'm writing something about this: representation matters.
For millions of girls and women who love comics the comic world, and greater geekdom, really sucks for representation; moreover, anyone trying to change it is subjected to a mob of hateful, ignorant people (who are mostly men, lets be honest here) who feel that sending rape and death threats to the change-makers is a good way to prove that there's not a culture of hatred and misogyny in the community. Any representation that the millions of girls and women do get within this community is fraught with problems involving body type, sexuality, sexual orientation, objectification/sexualization, racism, and, in many cases, are only incorporated to supplement the story-lines of the white, cis-het, male heroes. Finally, the representation is often an escape-hatch excuse for people that are actively resisting the efforts to improve representation in the greater geekdom. It usually shows up like, "the comic industry isn't sexist because [insert name of one of a small number of female led comics] has her own book."
When Renner and Evans make comments like the one they issued the faux-pology for they directly contribute to the problem that girls and women are facing in the greater geekdom. Their comments maintain the sexist status quo and validates the opinions of the hateful people sending the rape and death threats to those advocating for social change. For many, what they said probably doesn't seem that bad considering other incidents; however, the fact that something like this doesn't seem like a big deal is part of the problem.
So I was just about to post this when a link to an awesome new tumblr came across my dash and it's in direct response to the comments that have come to light. It's called #ProjectRomanoff and it's created by the Agent Romanoff fandom as a way to get some positivity going around the character they love, here's the first post:
"Okay all, so as I said last night, I think we need to get some positivity going in our fandom right now. Natasha Romanoff is a mutlifacted and complex character we have all come to love and I think, in light of what’s happened recently, we should spread that Natasha love. God knows I’m sure we all need it.
So I’m proposing #projectromanoff. Often times, female characters are sidelined as love interests, placed in male dominated spaces by their creators, and then blamed at their closeness with those male characters. For so many women, who find themselves in characters like Natasha, those criticisms are hurtful in the real world because so many of us have experienced them in our own lives. When characters like Natasha become the butt of sexist jokes, it can be exhausting for fans because those words hit so closed to home. So lets spread some love, not only for our fav ex soviet assassin but for each other. Tag your works as #projectromanoff, meta, art, fic, playlists, photosets, edits, anything you want, anything Natasha centric, and fill each other’s dashes with Natasha love! "
Sources:
http://www.themarysue.com/grossvengers-age-of-dolton/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/chris-evans-jeremy-renner-apologize-791013
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