On Collider, one of those clickbait sites that comes up on my Facebook, there was an article saying the scene in Avengers: Endgame where all the female heroes gather together was reshot because people thought it was "Pandering," which is true. But apparently they didn't reshoot that scene itself, but add a few more shots of female heroes together, which was supposed to make it seem more organic--it didn't.
Seeing it, you're supposed to go, "Yay, girl power!" Which is fine if you don't know really anything about Marvel or superhero movies in general. But if you do, like I do, it came off as pandering and hollow because Marvel started the revered "MCU" in 2008 but didn't release a solo female superhero title until 2019--just about a year before Endgame. They had ample opportunity to do so, but always held back because they were in that camp that a female superhero movie couldn't make money. Until, of course, Wonder Woman did. They had about an 8-year head start on DC/WB but never made a Black Widow movie until after the character had already died. Never made a solo movie for the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, or any of the other female heroes in their inventory. Hell, in that scene the only character to even appear before 2015 was Pepper Potts and she didn't get her Rescue suit until that very movie! The first 7 years of the MCU, the only female hero was Black Widow.
So, yeah, your record on female empowerment isn't really good enough to be bragging.
More fake female empowerment comes in the form of a DirecTV commercial where Serena Williams merges with Wonder Woman. You go girl! Maybe if I'd just seen the ad one time I'd be fine, but since they show it roughly 50 times every football game, I saw it enough that something bugged me: the only ones who get any lines in the commercial are men!
Serena doesn't get a single line and the woman on the couch just mugs to the camera. I think you're supposed to think the guy next to her is her husband and yet he says, "With DirecTV, I get..." Not "we" get. So does she not live there?
In a follow-up ad a woman screams but still none of the women (including Serena) get to speak. Again it's a man on the couch bragging about his great DirecTV service. Now, really, if they actually cared about women, why not have the woman on the couch speaking and the man mugging and probably getting paid much less?
Again, it rings really hollow once you get past the surface.
Not to sound like Andy Rooney or someone like that, but have you noticed how it seems 90% of ads now feature black people? I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing. It's just funny how after all the protests and stuff last year, just about every ad features a black or multiracial household. A few even feature gay/lesbian multiracial households, which in real life are probably as rare as unicorns.
Again, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Representation is good. It's just the timing that bugs me. It feels like businesses aren't really doing it because they wanted to but because they wanted to earn brownie points with social media by appearing to be inclusive. They didn't want to get cancelled and so they've kind of overcompensated.
And the problem is, if they're doing it for the wrong reasons, how long until they revert back to their old ways? Representation shouldn't be a PR stunt or a fad; it should be something you're doing because you genuinely care. I just don't think Marvel, DirecTV, and these other companies really do and that's what concerns me.
But I'm a middle-aged white guy so what the fuck do I know?
2 comments:
I didn't remember that Avengers scene, but there are a lot of things that seem forced in Marvel movies. I guess they do what they think will be most profitable and convenient for PR and all that
Perhaps it comes across as fake because deep down it's based on a fear. As if everyone has to diverse characters or they might be accused of being a bunch of white supremist men. So instead of really thinking about it, they just say "oh yeah so and so can be gay and we can just group these women together. Then we are covered."
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