“Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time . . .”
-Virginia Woolf
Is it strange I’d introduce an article about female superheroes with a quote from an early twentieth-century feminist? Considering the several articles published in recent months, it might be less surprising than at first glance . In 1929, Virginia Woolf wrote the seminal (an ironic choice of adjectives) feminist text, A Room of One’s Own. The work’s governing idea is that women, marginalized for all of history, can never enter the literary canon, create truly great art, if they are never allowed an independence or language of their own. The solution to this problem, even for Woolf, is not so clear. Woolf suggests that women should move beyond tendentious attacks on men’s writing and create a tradition, a canon, and a language of their own. And thankfully, not only has a history of female writers emerged, but many more woman writers have been reclaimed from historical obscurity. So, why are we still talking about this? Nearly a hundred years after Woolf, there is no need to revisit either the contribution of female writers or the portrayal of women in popular narratives, right? We got this. It’s all good now – except for the glaring lack of female writers, directors, and artists – and let’s not forget the glaring lack of women as central characters. One hundred years later and we haven’t fixed much at all. So, where are we as artists?
With so few female superheroes on film, everyone has been in a collective rush to analyze them when they finally appear. How should these characters look? How should they dress? What should be their motivations, their priorities, their backstory? For the writer and creator, society’s list of requirements is long. It should be. It is an act of great responsibility, writing these characters, precisely because of their infrequency. The attacks on Joss Whedon for his portrayal of Black Widow (like CBS’s portrayal of Supergirl) as a hero more concerned about romance and motherhood than saving the world are valid. The frustration with Black Widow’s depiction says a lot about the importance we place on these stories. They define who we are. If we didn’t think these narratives made a difference, we wouldn’t bother complaining so much. And, whether we like it or not, our storytellers wield a great deal of power as purveyors of identity. They both reflect and create who we are, who we should be, and who we might be. These stories can contain truth and lies. They can liberate. But, they can also confine.
The first “woman” problem is simple recognition. As Judith Butler once pointed out, women (or in her example, lesbians) suffer something worse than inaccurate portrayals: they suffer not being represented at all. By default, through negation, they do not exist. This has been Hollywood’s treatment when it comes to female superheroes. Simply getting a female superhero film made seems next to impossible these days. And, when a female character appears (even a minor one) she is marginalized, secondary, barely visible even beyond the film’s themselves. The sole female member of the Avenger’s ensemble was treated to a snubbing by toy manufacturers. In packaging that includes all her male peers, Black Widow is missing. Gone. Negated. Even Whedon has been vocal on the issue. In an interview published by Digital Spy, he condemned Hollywood’s inability to produce standalone female superhero films. “It’s a phenomenon in the industry that we call ‘stupid people,” he said. “There is genuine, recalcitrant, intractable sexism, and old-fashioned quiet misogyny that goes on.” With those comments coming from someone who is, undeniably, Hollywood, it’s difficult to argue that there’s no problem.
Further, female characters must pass litmus test rarely applied to their male counterparts. Viewing sex as an identity at all has several problems. First, there’s the ontological question. If there is to be a “correctly” written female character, what exactly does that require? And if so, who decides what those requirements are? It is entering the nonsensical realm of essentialism. Imposing characteristics on women, even with the best intentions, is no less confining than reinforcing sexist stereotypes. It is just another cage. Jen Yamato at The Daily Beast did just that in her recent article about the Black Widow character. Yamato refers to Black Widow’s portrayal in the Avenger’s film as an act of “slut-shaming”. Her language is used to publicly ridicule, to define and shame the type of woman Black Widow represents. By invoking the word “slut” in connection with the only female superhero we have on the big-screen this year, she (and many others) are telling society that women must be superheroes, just not that kind of woman. What French philosopher, Michel Foucault, understood was that sexual identity was a creation of “power knowledge,” or more simply, a function of discourse by those who controlled language. Critics, in defining what these characters should be, may be doing nothing more than restricting not only the writing of these women characters, but also how they are viewed by the public.
Here, I’ll come back to Woolf. What is clear is that we need more female voices, telling female stories. They cannot just write from the sidelines, criticizing characters written by men. As Woolf explains, women must tell their own stories if they are ever to be told, or told with any truth. Hollywood has to be willing to not only portray female superheroes in title roles, but also hire female writers and directors to produce these films. There are glimmers of hope. Although the upcoming Wonder Woman film lost its original female director, its new director is also an accomplished woman. And despite early criticism of television’s Supergirl, it has Allison Adler in the producer’s chair and has received thoughtful positive feedback (see IGN’s review) on its female superhero. If women creators continue to be excluded, we can expect fewer women in our biggest films and stories. If we continue to require them to match our expectations and not their own, we will continue to see only a limited view of what women can be. We deserve more than that. Women and men deserve more than that from our stories.
Let’s play,
For further reading, this article by Linda Holmes at NPR offers both an intelligent and thorough consideration of the topic.
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