Tag: Stan Lee

In an interview with Toofab, Stan Lee talked about upcoming Marvel Studios projects and answered a question about a female Marvel superhero getting her own movie with: “The thing is, the women like these movies as much as the guys. So we don’t have to knock ourselves out finding a female.” He added, with all the convincing commitment I infuse into my promises to do the dishes next time, “But… we will.”  

Stan Lee is 90, so I probably should cut him some slack on his grandpa-ly demeanor here. And he’s more of an historical figurehead than a creative power player at Marvel Studios, so maybe I shouldn’t put too much stock into what he says in an interview with a website I’ve never heard of. 

But this quotation really melts my lipstick because it’s further proof there will always be excuses to not make movies about women. When women aren’t going to movies about dudes, the filmmakers say, “Oh, well, women aren’t really our target audience.” When women ARE going to movies about dudes, the filmmakers say, “Well, the women like it this way, so why change anything?” They’ve developed this convoluted system whereby the logical answer is always more movies about dudes, and they’ll never let it go. 

It also bothers me that Lee’s “knock ourselves out” phrasing makes finding a woman superhero to make a movie about sound like a Herculean task, even though Marvel has no shortage of female characters to work with. Lee himself just casually mentioned the Black Widow as a likely candidate for her own movie, and no one had to be knocked out by that search, because she was THE CENTRAL CHARACTER of a movie made LAST YEAR which made ONE AND A HALF BILLION DOLLARS. Maybe he got knocked out by Captain Obvious’s Clue Stick?

In happier news, The Mary Sue reports Marvel is working on a Peggy Carter TV Series. I hope they have plenty of neurologists on standby to help the television development staff monitor their concussions. 

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