Women in Action – Bitch Flicks

“I Want to Name My Daughter Furiosa”: The Feminist Joys of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’

But don’t let the buzz mislead you into thinking ‘Fury Road’ is some sort of feminist watershed, a 21st century cinematic ‘Feminine Mystique’ with monster trucks. I would have enjoyed this flick even if it had typical gender politics, because I love car chases and over-the-top action sequences and the sort of high camp that yields a vehicular war party having its own flamethrower-enhanced metal guitarist. If you don’t love those things, you probably don’t want to see this movie. But if you are into that kind of action flick, this is a really good one that has the bonus of a thick layer of sweet, sweet feminist icing.

Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in 'Mad Max: Fury Road' — Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in *Mad Max: Fury Road*

This review contains some minor spoilers for Mad Max: Fury Road.

Thank you, MRAs, for calling for a boycott of “”feminist piece of propaganda” Mad Max: Fury Road. You certainly got this feminist fired up to see it opening weekend, and I loved it just as much as you promised me I would.

But don’t let the buzz mislead you into thinking Fury Road is some sort of feminist watershed, a 21st century cinematic Feminine Mystique with monster trucks. I would have enjoyed this flick even if it had typical gender politics, because I love car chases and over-the-top action sequences and the sort of high camp that yields a vehicular war party having its own flamethrower-enhanced metal guitarist. If you don’t love those things, you probably don’t want to see this movie. But if you are into that kind of action flick, this is a really good one that has the bonus of a thick layer of sweet, sweet feminist icing.

If you like double-neck guitar flamethrowers, you'll like 'Fury Road' — If you like double-neck guitar flamethrowers, you’ll like *Fury Road*

Even though it is his franchise and his name is right there in the title, Max (Tom Hardy) is really the sidekick to Fury Road‘s true hero, Charlize Theron’s Furiosa. Furiosa is the one with the mission and the character arc, Max is pretty much just along for her ride. He ends up feeling like a gender-flipped version of the Hot Action Chick, a Studly Action Dude of sorts. Now, Furiosa isn’t the most well-rounded character you ever did see, but there’s precious little downtime between bouts of vehicular warfare for serious character development (though Charlize does put her acting chops to work in the moments she has). But she is 100 percent glorious badass, the kind of female action star I could never get enough even if Hollywood didn’t churn out only a couple every decade.

And what sets Furiosa apart from her cinematic foremothers Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor is that she is surrounded by other strong women. She was raised in what appears to be a matriarchal community, and the women we meet from her home are, like her, fearsome warriors. The plot (other than “cars explode”) of Fury Road concerns Furiosa smuggling out the “wives” (sex slaves/”prized breeders”) of evil warlord Immortan Joe. These five beautiful women (supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and perfect genetic specimen Zoë Kravitz among them) wear strategically placed strips of white fabric, and are the only people in this universe with access to soap, hot wax, and hair brushes.

In a lesser movie, the wives could be an embarrassing cliché of damsels in distress. But in Fury Road, they are women with agency, choosing their own liberation as they experience a feminist awakening (when one considers going back, she’s reminded “we are not things”). They’re not as capable as Furiosa or the other women from her homeland, but they don’t shy away from the fight either. I was surprised to see one (several months pregnant) become a causality of war, not killed off in a particularly dramatic fashion. It’s strangely humanizing to see a pregnant woman be killed among the hoards of other victims in a movie where countless cars crash and things blow up. (However, I did not think her dead son being cut out of her dying body added anything to the film, and suspect it would trigger some people in the audience.) But that death underscored that women are people in Mad Max: Fury Road, not just plot constructs: because people can get killed in a tornado of violence, even if they’re eight months pregnant.

And ultimately, Fury Road is a parable about bringing down the patriarchy, which makes all of its orgiastic destruction a thoroughly satisfying outlet for feminist rage. I saw the movie with a mixed group of male and female friends, who all loved it, but it was the women who walked out saying things like, “I’m so pumped up I could run home right now” and “I might name my daughter Furiosa.”

So is Mad Max: Fury Road going to bring us equal pay, sexual liberation, a woman in the White House, and ladies’ jackets with inside pockets? Probably not. In fact, it’s probably better news for women that Pitch Perfect 2, a film by, about, and marketed to women, soundly beat Fury Road at the box office (HT to my friend @MattMarcotte to pointing this out to me). But a teenage boy leaving the theater behind me shouted that Fury Road was the “MOST F***ING AWESOME MOVIE EVER!” He might not have realized it was about women destroying male power structures, but I can rest easy tonight knowing that he enjoyed his experience with this feminist piece of propaganda. I hope he gets to see many more.

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who was in an improv troupe with one of the stunt performers in this movie. DROP. (Hi, Anneli!)

Black Widow is More Than Just a Pretty Face in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’

Captain America: The Winter Soldier was everything I expected and a little more. Captain America has always been the strait-laced cousin to Iron Man and Thor. It doesn’t have the campy good humour that is so delightful about Thor or the kind of brash arrogance that typifies Iron Man. Captain America is generally the “nice guy” of the Marvel universe. Co-headlining is Scarlett Johansen reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff (alias Black Widow) for this movie. Her character was first introduced to us in the universe in Iron Man 2 where her portrayal was that of a sexed-up femme fatal. However over subsequent movies, particularly The Avengers, she has evolved into a pretty decent three dimensional character.

The movie opens with Cap, aka Steven Rogers (Chris Evans), and Black Widow having to go rescue some hostages from a covert S.H.I.E.L.D boat that had run afoul of pirates. I was quite excited at first because the pirates spoke French and presented as white to my eyes. “Omg the bad guys aren’t brown people,” I whispered excitedly to my partner. This notion was to be destroyed later when someone said something about “French pirates” to be told something along the lines of ‘They’re Algerian actually.” Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. They are mostly a macguffin anyway. The raid on the boat reveals the fundamental difference between Romanoff and the Cap. He always strives to do what is right while she does what she believes (or is told) is necessary. This is an on-going theme throughout the movie. What is necessary is sometimes not what can be considered morally right, but does that make it any less necessary?

From this point on, it is pretty much what you would expect from a superhero flick. Many fights and explosions held together by a storyline that taps into people’s fears about NSA surveillance and how topical the temptation to trade freedom for security is. There is some strong messaging about the value of personal liberties and the consequences that can occur when these are overstepped even on the basis of protecting us from what might be lurking out there in the depths.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier also introduces us to another lesser known hero from the Marvel universe, Falcon. Anthony Mackie does a great job and manages to be funny and endearing while also being totally badass. His introduction also provides a much needed perspective about the difficulties soldiers have on their return home, something most action movies don’t touch with a stick. This follows up neatly from Iron Man 3 where Tony Stark was clearly seen to be suffering from mental health consequences from his time in The Avengers. I really appreciate how the Marvel universe movies manage to slip in every now and then that violence is not without consequences to the one who commits it. I really hope we get to see more of Falcon in subsequent Marvel universe movies. It is really great to have the introduction of a super-hero of colour to the film universe and he is a nice addition to the team of Romanoff and Rogers.

One of the interesting things I have found about the Marvel universe movies is how they play with the heterosexual female gaze. Who can forget the close-up of the Cap’s buttocks while he was working out his frustrations on a punching bag in The Avengers and Thor’s shirtless scenes in both Thor and Thor: The Dark World. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Captain’s body is very much on display. When he is not in uniform he wears an extremely tight white t-shirt that appears to be custom designed to show of each of his muscles. His uniform also appears to be built to highlight his physique.

On the other hand, the movie is blessedly free of a seduction by the Black Widow scene. Unlike in other Marvel movies that she has appeared in (primarily Iron Man 2), she does not need to use her feminine wiles to get her job done. Instead we are treated to a display of Natasha’s tech and problem solving skills. She also kicks ass, Her fighting style tends towards stealthy and efficient in contrast with the Cap’s flashy shield-throwing antics, but that is almost a side note to her intelligence in this movie..

Interestingly and unfortunately, most reviewers have been unable to see this. Her costume is tight, but then so is the captain’s and we are not treated to lingering shots of her butt and cleavage; in fact, most of the time we are looking at her face and not her body. Generally speaking the captain is at least if not more so objectified than she is and yet we do not seem to allow that to interfere with his essential humanity. This is often not the case when it comes to the perception of Johansen’s character. People can’t seem to see past the fact that she wears a cat suit even when she does so much more than look sexy. Like most action movies, this one doesn’t pass the Bechdel test but unlike most action movies it provides us with a female character who is actually a character in her own right. She doesn’t exist merely to reveal plot points about the captain and provide fodder for the heterosexual male gaze. Black Widow tends to gain unfavourable comparisons to Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster in the Thor movies because Jane is a scientist and doesn’t prance around in skin tight leather. However this is a failure to realise that Romanoff’s leather is a distraction from the quick mind, loyal friend and ruthless agent that she is. The movie does a great job with providing tantalising details about Natasha’s past, hopefully because they intend to make a stand alone Black Widow movie. I really hope that this is the case because Romanoff is an interesting character that deserves a thorough exploration in her own right.

If you like superhero movies I think that this is one to watch. While the emphasis is definitely on the effects, it also manages to carry a fairly intelligent engaging storyline and entertain throughout.

Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.

The Curse of Token Women in Action Movies – Katee Sackhoff in ‘Riddick’

This reveals one of the key weaknesses of incorporating token women in action movies. Token women are not real characters, they exist to tick boxes so that filmmakers can point to these characters and say “See we aren’t sexist, we had a woman and she even punched a dude in the face!” However because these aren’t real characters they end up being almost exclusively objects for the male gaze and to be fair, for Dahl this was not nearly as bad as it can sometimes be. She has a functional uniform not much different from her male colleagues and she is only subject to a couple of minutes of gratuitous nudity.

Action movies are perhaps the worst and most consistent offenders when it comes to failing the Bechdel Test, a depressingly bare minimum for assessing the female presence in a given film or TV offering. Riddick is no exception; like the other movies in the franchise, it is very much a one man against the world sort of scenario. Previous Riddick movies Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick have at least managed to have interesting women characters. Pitch Black even managed to pass the Bechdel Test. Sadly Riddick does not even come close as it falls back into the old action movie trap of only having one named female character in a sea of men.

In Riddick, Vin Diesel once again takes on the titular role. It takes place shortly after the end of The Chronicles of Riddick where Riddick was made the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers after having dealt to the previous one due to the Necromonger law of “You keep what you kill.” Over the course of the previous movie, The Chronicles of Riddick, we find out that Riddick is perhaps the sole surviving member of a race called the Furyians and he becomes captivated with the idea of discovering more about the history and demise of his people. Riddick opens with him convincing a Necromonger general to give him the location of his home planet Furya, so that he can go have a nosey. Unsurprisingly he is tricked and ends up on an extremely inhospitable planet all alone struggling to survive. He soon has an urgent need to get off planet when he realises the rain poses a very real threat and so activates a beacon on an abandoned bounty hunter ship that alerts nearby mercenaries to his location. They appear speedily as there is a massive bounty on his head and it is worth double if he is brought in dead.

As I watched the first 30 minutes, I was all like, “Huh. They aren’t going to have even a token woman in this movie, interesting.” This would have been sad as the franchise has had some interesting women characters, historically. Then they revealed that one of the mercenary ships had a female prisoner on board. She was cut loose because if they captured Riddick the ship would be overweight. I think she probably had under a minute of screen time that ended with her being shot for sport by the captain of the ship. I suppose it was meant to underscore just how big of a douche the mercenary captain, Santanna, was. However the killing of women on screen to emphasise the evilness of male characters has become so routine that the scene was more mundane than horrifying, we knew she was going to die the moment she was set free. Her death also serves as motivation for Riddick, the unnamed woman was both brown and a prisoner, two things Riddick can identify with I guess. After she is shot we see Riddick looking grim and presumably deciding to kill all of these mercenaries for being heartless assholes toward pretty ladies.

Clearly by this point it wasn’t looking great for women in this movie. As the second batch of mercenaries arrive we are soon treated to the fact that one of them is Katee Sackhoff, most renowned for playing the tomboyish pilot and complicated woman, Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica. She plays second in command of the second, less vile mercenary ship. Immediately on arrival she is hit on by Santanna in an unsurprisingly crude manner. Her response is to punch him in the face and then tell him that “I don’t fuck guys.” The statement seemed a little out of place and reads as though he is out of line for hitting on her because she is a lesbian, not because it is rude and annoying in a professional context. But OK, I can happily roll with an openly gay heroine on a mainstream action movie even if it is introduced kind of weirdly. Sadly this is as about as good as the character gets. Throughout the rest of the movie she constantly has to use her fists on Santanna, something that actually makes her look ineffectual as a leader, rather than presenting her as an ass-kicking woman as was no doubt intended. Movies seem to have fallen into convenient shorthand where a woman who is able to exact violence on a man is a good female character because she is not a passive victim. This is not the case, a woman can still kick butt (and in this case it is a pretty nominal amount of butt kicking) and still be a terrible female character.

This is reinforced when Dahl is subject to gratuitous shower scene where we see one of her nipples and Riddick leering in from the window; he is trying to steal her toiletry kit, not harm her, but the threat is there. The implication is that he could do anything to her at this point and she would be powerless to stop it. The whole scene serves to underline how vulnerable she is as a woman despite her ability to repeatedly punch Santanna in the face.

It does get worse though. When Riddick is captured by the mercenaries, he makes a few predictions, the first is that Santanna will not live for more than five seconds after he is free and the second is that he will end up “balls deep” in Dahl but only after she asks him “real pretty like.” This is pretty gross, but not really surprising in an action movie that revolves around a single hyper-masculine protagonist. What transforms it from pretty gross to slimy homophobic misogynist bullshit is later, when Riddick is stranded on a rock surrounded by many creatures who want to kill him, he is rescued by Dahl from a transporter in a safety harness. He grabs her ass and she says to him, “I have something to ask you, real pretty like…” At the end of the movie Riddick says, “Tell Dahl to keep ‘er warm for me.” This is basically embracing with open arms the myth that every lesbian just hasn’t met the right man. This myth is not only demeaning of a woman’s sexuality, but it is dangerous, it is at least partially responsible for the fact that the incidence of rape for lesbians by men is higher than for women generally. I’m sure people could argue that they are simply joking, but I don’t think that flies in the context that Riddick says to her while making a series of predictions that all come true with grave consequences.

It is hard for me not to wonder, is a token woman in an action movie worse than no woman at all? At least then we would not have to deal with the casual objectification and reinforcement of dangerous myths. Of course that isn’t really the answer–women shouldn’t have to choose between shitty representation and no representation at all. A token woman in an action movie is never a real character; she exists as a box ticking exercise, a device by which we can learn things about male characters and to provide fodder for the male gaze. Obviously not every character in every movie can be fully realised but more often than not these two dimensional parts are the province of women and/or people of colour. Riddick was no exception to this except perhaps in that Vin Diesel is not really read as white. I hope that the next movie will return to the roots of the franchise and provide us with female characters of substance and complexity.

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Gaayathri is a writer currently located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, although this is set to change soon. She is the child of diaspora two times over and is passionate about all forms of social justice. She likes to travel and prefers television to movies; however, she feels a strange compulsion to watch all movies that have fish-eating people in them, no matter how terrible they are. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Studies from the University of Auckland and she has spent her formative years working at various types of feminist organisations from the community to the regional in both New Zealand and around Asia. Her work has been featured around the feminist blogosphere including Flyover Feminism, Feministe, and Leftstream as well as in United Nations and NGO publications. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri.

15 Men On A Mountain…and Evangeline Lilly in ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’

The addition of Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as Tauriel caused some concern among real LOTR fans, mostly because that character never existed in The Hobbit and no one wants to see a beloved a story messed with; but to be fair, if it wasn’t tinkered with and explored, then why go and see the film? You might as well just stay home and read the book then if you’re not interested on gaining a new perspective on the story.

Written by Rachel Redfern

Spoiler Alert

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug premiered on Friday, just in case you didn’t know. And while the film has pulled in $73.7 million and topped the box office this weekend, there have been some mixed reviews–it’s too long, too boring, too overdone, too much action, or it’s fun, it’s brilliant, it’s beautiful. The divisiveness is understandable. Tolkien is a necessary staple to any library and Jackson’s Lord of The Rings, really is a visually-stunning, incredibly acted epic series; in my re-watching of the films last week, I was struck with just how impressive the films still were, perhaps even more so now.

It makes sense that any spinoff of such a beloved and hefty series, could either be a magical dream true (hello, Stephen Colbert), or too much of a good thing.

And here, in this installment especially, there was bound to be naysayers. The addition of Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as Tauriel caused some concern among real LOTR fans, mostly because that character never existed in The Hobbit and no one wants to see a beloved a story messed with; but to be fair, if it wasn’t tinkered with and explored, then why go and see the film? You might as well just stay home and read the book then if you’re not interested on gaining a new perspective on the story. But as was the case with Game of Thrones (at least according to me, don’t get too angry), I thought that the TV show was better with some of the changes and additions to the story, especially in the fleshing out of Margery Tyrell and Shae, both of whom are far more fascinating and interesting in the show than they are in the book. Why couldn’t the same be true in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug?

Tauriel is a playful Captain of the Guard whose fighting skills rival that of the great CGI scenes for Legolas; except seriously though, Lilly actually used to teach archery at summer camp. Besides that, Lilly has a beautiful poise that really is perfect for a Tolkien Elf, and while I don’t speak it so I can’t be sure, her Elvish sounded fantastic. As Lilly is a staunch fan of Tolkien she was worried about adding in a new character, but in one of my favorite quotes from 2013, stated that, “I keep repeatedly telling people that in this day and age, to put nine hours of cinema entertainment in theaters for young girls to go and watch, and not have one female character for them to watch is subliminally telling them, ‘you don’t count.’ You’re not important, and you’re not pivotal to story.”

Which is exactly the attitude that is essential for progress to be made in the representations of women on film and television, and it’s amazing that Lilly was so invested in a larger goal that she was willing to tamper with one of her favorite stories. And she took even one step further; according to Lilly, she originally agreed to the part under one condition: “One condition, and they agreed to the condition, and that condition was in place for two years. The condition was I will not be involved in a love triangle. Right? Because any of you who are fans of Lost, I’ve had it up to here with love triangles.”

But then, that changed, and while Lilly, Jackson, and Phillipa Boyens (writer) all agreed that the love triangle just sort of arose naturally during filming, it was still a bit disappointing (despite Kili [Aiden Turner] being a remarkable rare mix of adorable sexiness). Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Hunger Games–all uber-famous features that are centered around a love triangle, and mostly, it’s just sort of getting old: there are others ways of portraying love than two fantastically handsome men drooling over an unreachable average woman.

I agree with Jackson and Lilly in their decisions to bring in a female character and wish more could have been incorporated, because at it’s core, The Hobbit is just a hairy version of Band of Brothers with a lot of mountains. And in reality, after watching The Desolation of Smaug, I tried to dream up a female version of this film, and I wondered, what would it look like? How would those interactions have changed? And it was really difficult to imagine anyone producing a film about 15 very short women of vary levels of attractiveness, traveling through a forest to kill a dragon with their queen and bossy/optimistic sorceress in tow.

Generally in film, large group female interactions, with or without world-saving levels of adventure, tend to be characterized by passive-aggressive bitchiness. And I’m at a loss for any TV show, miniseries, or film, that has ever been about an all-female group trying to save the world, much less three four-hour films about said adventure.

In all seriousness, would you go to see that movie?

The Women of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

Written by Myrna Waldron.

Spoiler warning.

People have been asking me for a long time to cover this series, and it’s easy to tell why. A genre-blending young adult animated series, it is by far one of the most inclusive and feminist television series I have ever encountered. Unusually for an American television series, the cast is entirely populated by people of colour; the Four Nations are fantasy versions of Asian (mostly Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan) and Inuit cultures. The male and female characters are given equal attention and developed realistically, and, most miraculously, disabled characters are depicted with tact, understanding and dignity.

As a feminist, it gave me particular pleasure to see a cast full of women with diverse personalities, as well as both emotional and physical strength. The show even directly addresses issues of sexism by allowing its female characters to confront it head-on, and convince their detractors that women are just as capable as men, particularly in reference to physical strength and Bending skill. The series has a lot going for it, but this particular review will focus on the main female characters of A:TLA, Katara, Toph, Azula, Suki, Mai and Ty Lee, and how each character explicitly demonstrates the feminist ideals of skilled abilities, emotional depth, diverse and realistic characterizations, and, as appropriate for a series combining fantasy and martial arts, sheer physical power.

Katara

Katara is introduced at the beginning of the series as the Southern Water Tribe’s last remaining Waterbender, the others having been murdered, kidnapped, or gone off to war. She starts off quite unskilled, as there was no one left to instruct her, but this changes very quickly once she joins Aang on his quest to master the four elements. Like the dual nature of water’s abilities to heal and to harm, Katara is a multifaceted person who in one instance can be motherly and kind, and in another to have a formidably steely determination. She is the most traditionally feminine of the female characters in this series, which often led to her male opponents to underestimate her abilities. Notably, she directly confronts her brother Sokka (who as the eldest male remaining in their village, had a bit of a macho He Man complex) and the Northern Water Tribe’s Waterbending Master’s sexism. Sokka gradually learns for himself to appreciate the skill and determination of women (more on that later) but she must directly prove to Master Pakku her considerable skill. The Northern Water Tribe is a paternalistic society, where only the males are taught to Bend in combat; the women are only allowed to receive instruction in healing. Katara appreciates healing Waterbending (especially since it is a rare gift) but she wishes to master all the possibilities of Waterbending, tradition be damned. After Master Pakku discovers that Katara is the granddaughter of his first love and wears the necklace he gave her, he agrees to teach Katara, and later tells her that she has mastered Waterbending faster than any other pupil he’s ever taught.

As mentioned earlier, Katara is an example of how a person’s being traditionally feminine does not equal weakness. For the first third of the series, she is very much the Team Mom to her immature companions, as Sokka can be very lazy and Aang very impulsive. One of her biggest flaws is that she holds on to anger for long periods and finds it difficult to forgive; it is not until Zuko accompanies her on her search for her mother’s murderer that she learns that compassion and forgiveness require tremendous strength, as she makes the difficult decision not to take revenge on the murderer, and learns to forgive Zuko for his betrayal in a moment of weakness. As the main female protagonist, it was a foregone conclusion from the first episode that she would be Aang’s love interest, though his initial attraction to her beauty grows into a deep love and respect for her abilities over time. If Aang is the soul of the group, Toph the muscle, and Sokka the brains, then Katara is the heart…and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Toph

Toph is the second female protagonist introduced in the series, and for a while serves as a counterpoint/foil to Katara and offers a sense of gender balance to Aang’s group. Where Katara is feminine and motherly, Toph is tomboyish, cocky and often lazy. The character was originally intended to be male (the Earthbender in the series’ opening sequence is the character’s original design), but her gender role thwarting characterization is a far more interesting result. Of course, the most important aspect of her characterization is that she is blind, a great example of a character with a disability who is treated with tact, dignity, and even a sense of humour. As the only daughter of the Bei Fongs, a wealthy and prominent Earth Kingdom family, they have coddled and shielded her from the world as they think people would take advantage of her due to her disability. Their efforts are unnecessary, because Toph is arguably the most powerful Earthbender in the world. She has the unique ability to sense the vibrations in the earth, and this not only serves her well as a Bender, but also grants her a certain degree of “sight.” She is not without her limitations, however, as she feels extremely uncomfortable while flying on Appa, and has some difficulty with sand (as it is fluid rather than solid like regular earth) for a while. She becomes truly blind when Zuko accidentally burns the soles of her feet, but even this setback does not hinder her for long. Her unique abilities are what make her a particularly effective teacher for Aang; since Earth is the opposite of his natural ability, it would take a special Earthbending Master to teach him a special understanding of the element. Of the three elements Aang must learn to master, it is notable that two out of his three teachers are female. Like Katara, Toph is a primarily self-taught Bender, who before going off with Aang used to sneak off to participate in Earthbending tournaments (that amusingly parody pro-wrestling) and remained undefeated in them. She is arguably the strongest Earthbender because along with her formidable bending skill, she invents the metalbending technique by sensing impurities within iron; only King Bumi could possibly match her skills.

In the first batch of episodes after her introduction, Toph clashes with Katara because they are opposites of each other. Katara has a need to order people around and keep things efficient and organized (as she was basically forced into that role after her mother’s death), but Toph is laid back and messy (to put it mildly). It seems to be a deliberate rejection of the rigid and opulent lifestyle which she was raised in. Toph can be refined and does know the ideal moments to exploit her social rank, but her true personality is as earthy as her element. As the series goes on, Katara and Toph gradually become more comfortable around each other, and grow to understand each others’ idiosyncrasies. They also learn how to combine their bending abilities to create mud, which is both a useful tool as well as a weapon. Toph’s inclusion in the group offers an important balance to the character relationships, as Katara can be overbearing, and I am of the biased belief that the more strong female characters are included in a show, the better the show becomes. Toph also shares the comedy relief role with Sokka, though while Sokka prefers wordplay and sarcasm, she jokes about her own disability. She is so capable and confident that her traveling companions repeatedly forget that she’s blind, and she isn’t afraid to poke fun at that. She is an unusual and very welcomed depiction of a disabled character; many times characters with disabilities are involved in cloying and condescending ‘inspirational’ stories about ‘overcoming’ their disability, as if the whole reason for a disability to exist is for it to make able-bodied people feel guilty. Toph understands that her blindness does limit her in many ways, and although she has a particularly effective way of compensating for her blindness, she accepts her limitations.

Azula

Azula is an example of a female antagonist that is just as multifaceted and well-developed as a protagonist should be. The third Bender of the three main female characters, Azula is a prodigy Firebender, which is particularly notable as she is the Princess of the Fire Nation, and the Fire Lord’s family is infamous for their prodigious Bending skills. Like the other two female Benders, Azula has a special ability that sets her apart from other Benders of her element; her fire blazes so hot it is blue. Since Firebending derives some of its power from the passionate emotions of the Bender, her blue fire is a visual clue to a great depth of her rage and fury. She is also one of the few people with the ability to Bend lightning. But she is not only formidable as a Bender, but in hand-to-hand combat as well, making her an arguably even more deadly foe than her father. Of all the antagonists in A:TLA, she is the only character who even came close to defeating Aang, having mortally wounded him with lightning while he was trying to enter into the Avatar State. Though Katara was able to save his life with special healing water, he would have the scars of Azula’s attack on his back and foot for the rest of his life.
As an antagonist, Azula is both a tragic and frightening character. Having internalized the imperalistic propaganda that the Fire Nation concentrates on in their war effort, she is a Machiavellian perfectionist obsessed with furthering her father’s agenda, and rooting out any threats to the Fire Nation, whether they be her brother Zuko’s wavering loyalty, or Aang’s mission to stop the war at all costs. While Zuko bears an enormous facial scar as physical proof of their father’s abusive parenting, Azula’s scars are mental. As the series goes on, she becomes so obsessed with the Fire Nation’s cause, and pleasing her unpleasable father, that she becomes unhinged, paranoiac, and with an almost unstoppable rage. However, her mother Ursa also shares some blame for the deterioration of Azula’s mental state; it is revealed at the end of the series that Azula deeply resents her mother for seeing her as a monster and rejecting her while blatantly favouring Zuko. Although it is unfortunate that the show’s depiction of mental illness is that of an antagonist’s (furthering the stigma against the condition), it is important that Azula’s tragic fate shows the damage that parental abuse and neglect can sometimes cause.

Suki

Suki is a secondary character introduced near the beginning of the series who returns later and becomes a part of Aang’s travelling group. A non-Bender, Suki is a leader of the Kyoshi Island Warriors, a group of female martial artists established by and named for Avatar Kyoshi, the most recent Earth Kingdom Avatar. The Kyoshi Warriors have a specific green uniform, fight with metal bladed fans, and all wear a Kabuki-like face paint that was favoured by Kyoshi. Her duties as a Kyoshi Warrior make her a kind of guardian – when she is reintroduced in the series she is performing a security guard-like function at an Earth Kingdom customs office. Even without her weapon, Suki is an exceptional martial artist and tactical planner. Azula recognizes her talents, and after defeating the Kyoshi Warriors separates Suki from her group and places her in a maximum security Fire Nation prison. She organizes a prison break-out with Zuko, Sokka, and his father Hakoda. Her absolute skill with martial arts, and sheer bravery, impresses Hakoda enough to comment on it to Sokka, who similarly reacts with pride, adoration and admiration. “That’s some girl.” “Tell me about it.”
Suki’s relationship with Sokka is one of the more naturally progressing romantic relationships in the series. When they first meet, she is one of the first people besides Katara to directly confront Sokka’s tendency towards a sexist dismissal of women’s abilities. By teaching him the ways of the Kyoshi Warriors, Sokka learns a new appreciation for the talents of women. She is also naturally confident, and makes her attraction to him clear by kissing him on the cheek. When they reunite, Sokka has matured, and has even experienced heartbreak after losing Princess Yue so quickly after their relationship began. Suki is understanding of his natural hesitation towards her, but it’s not long before teenage hormones take over and they decide to start a relationship. After he releases her from the Fire Nation prison, she remains at his side, and is his intellectual and physical equal as the two highly skilled non-Benders of Aang’s group.

Mai

Mai is another non-Bending supporting character, who along with Ty Lee starts off as an antagonist after being recruited by their friend Azula, but gradually becomes a protagonist as she becomes disillusioned by Azula’s hatred and rage. The closest thing the series has to a “Goth,” she is a quiet and seemingly emotionless teenager who has sadly accepted her parents’ preference for her much younger brother. A member of an aristocratic Fire Nation family, she was Zuko’s girlfriend before his banishment, and quickly reunites with him after he is welcomed back to the Fire Nation. She compliments him well, as she keeps her emotions very guarded, and Zuko longs to be able to have the emotional control that she does. While they are stiff and formal around friends and family members, when they are alone together they are able to relax. People around Mai tend to make the mistaken assumption that she has no emotions at all, when in fact her true emotions run as deeply and passionately as any other Fire Nation native. Rather than letting her emotions quickly burn, they instead smoulder. Her defining moment is when she turns on Azula and helps Zuko to escape the Fire Nation prison despite his betrayal of her country. She tells Azula, “I love Zuko…more than I fear you.” As a warrior, her knife-throwing abilities are as steely as her emotional resolve. She possesses an almost supernatural skill with the knives, so it is easy to see why Azula recruited her to her cause (besides the pretense of childhood friendship). Like Sokka when it comes to Suki, Zuko also possesses a deep admiration for Mai’s skills, confidently praising her to others such as the prison guard needlessly assigned for her protection.

Ty Lee

Lastly, Ty Lee is another non-Bender who serves as a contrast and foil to Mai. Where Mai is quiet and stoic, Ty Lee is exuberant and cheerful. Azula comes across Ty Lee after she has joined a traveling circus, and, knowing Ty Lee’s particularly formidable skills, invites her to leave the circus and join her on her travels. Ty Lee is a traditional martial artist who has the ability to quickly strike the vital pressure points that temporarily disable Bending. As many of the people traveling with Aang do not have non-Bending combat skills, her attacks neutralize her opponents entirely and leave them vulnerable. In terms of her personality, Ty Lee is unlike any other Fire Nation native, especially those in the upper classes. Where the Fire Lord’s family is full of rage, and Mai is sad and withdrawn, she is energetic and almost always has a smile, even in combat. She eventually reveals that her cheerful exterior is a facade she puts on, and that her impulsively joining the circus was a desperate attempt at differentiating herself from her six identical sisters. Ty Lee exhibits a deep-set motivation towards individuality, which in her case is successful since Aang is the only other A:TLA character with a comparably cheerful personality. She also shares the deep moral beliefs that Mai has, and betrays Azula at the same time Mai does. She is also unusually sexually confident, as she is both comfortable with her body and with the boys that approach her. Ty Lee’s approach to sexuality is notable in that it is a positive depiction of a female character who is popular with the opposite sex (particularly for a teenage character); she is not ridiculed, shamed, or jealously made a rival for it.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a triumph in almost every aspect. As an action/adventure epic, it has a compelling and exciting story that grips you and leaves you dying to know what happens next, even after the story has ended. The animation, voice acting and music are excellent. There is a great deal of care and research given to the series, particularly in its representation of Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan and Inuit cultures and of various martial arts techniques. It is about as inclusive and diverse as a North American series can get, as the cast is entirely people of colour, and individuals with disabilities are fairly represented as well – the only group missing in representation are LGBTQ individuals, but perhaps sequel series The Legend of Korra can rectify that. Most importantly for this review, A:TLA has some of the most well written female characters I have ever seen. Its female cast not only shows the diverse amount of personalities women can have, but also how neither adherence nor thwarting of gender roles has anything to do with strength and ability. Each female character is an incredible warrior with a special ability that sets her apart from others, and even demonstrates to the males in their lives about the capability and strength of women. A:TLA is already almost the perfect television series, but it is also refreshingly feminist.

All images taken from the Avatar Wiki, and edited by me.

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and tweets with reckless pottymouthed abandon at @SoapboxingGeek.

The Resident Evil Series Proves The Bechdel Test Does Not Measure Quality

Resident Evil DVD Cover

Feminist film discussion so often turns to the Bechdel Test—for the uninitiated, it asks if 1) a movie has more than one female character 2) if two female characters have a conversation 3) if that conversation is about something other than a man—that it is easy to forget the test is not meant to be a benchmark of quality. Passing the Bechdel Test does not make a movie good. It does not even make a movie particularly feminist. It’s a bare minimum requirement for movies at all interested in portraying women as part of its story.

I’d love it if more movies passed the Bechdel test, but don’t count on The Rule as the savior of cinema. Movies can easily pass the Bechdel test and be beyond terrible. Which is abundantly illustrated by the Resident Evil franchise; which releases its fifth installment, Resident Evil: Retribution, today. The first four Resident Evil films pass the Bechdel Test. They even pass the Sarkeesian Corollary—that women characters speak to each other about something other than a man for at least 60 seconds—which is fairly remarkable for action-heavy movies without much dialogue at all. The first four Resident Evil films also pass Alaya Dawn Johnson’s adaptation of the Bechdel test to evaluate the representation of people of color in movies.

[By the way, it’s very easy to pass the third prong of these tests when there’s a gender-neutral ZOMG ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! to dominate conversation.]

Zombies: something to talk about

Additionally, the Resident Evil films pass what I would call The Ripley Test, in that many of the female characters’ gender is not essential to their character or to the plot, and a male character could have filled that “slot” just as easily. The series protagonist, Alice, played by Milla Jovovich, was not a character in the video game series but was invented for the films.

The second film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, starts bringing over characters from the game series, and notably chooses Jill Valentine, the female of the pair of main characters from the original game, over Chris Redfield, who doesn’t appear until the fourth movie (one film after his sister Claire appears as the leader of a band of surviving humans.) [Author’s note: I’ve never played the Resident Evil games and relied heavily on the Resident Evil Wiki to write this piece.]

Jill Valentine in Resident Evil video game and film

One could cynically dismiss the choice to create the character Alice and select Jill Valentine as one of the first crossover characters as the result of Hot Action Chicks putting butts in movie seats. They do both make incredibly impractical clothing decisions (or in the case of Alice in Resident Evil, have incredibly impractical clothing decisions made for them). But the first film also has Michelle Rodriguez as badass S.T.A.R.S (think S.W.A.T, but working for an evil corporation) officer Rain Ocampo, who could just have easily been another tough dude to leave Alice our Smurfette.

Michelle Rodriguez as Rain in Resident Evil

Resident Evil: Extinction finds Alice, Claire Redfield, and secondary female characters Betty and K-Mart (seriously) dressing and acting much more like people whose primary concern is avoiding grisly death by zombie attack, give or take a little eyeliner.

Spencer Locke as K-Mart and Ali Larter as Claire in Extinction

So the Resident Evil franchise does not have an inclusiveness problem. Unfortunately, it has a problem with pretty much everything else that makes a movie enjoyable: storytelling, logic, consistent mythology, characterization, visual finesse. Zombie genre inventor George A. Romero was fired from the first Resident Evil movie over “creative differences.” Firing Romero from your zombie movie is like firing Zeus from your thunderstorm. His absence is profoundly felt in the Resident Evil films’ total inability to make up their mind about their internal Rules of Zombification (Resident Evil‘s zombie apocalypse is caused by the spread of a biological weapon called the T-virus, which sometimes seems airborne and other times not so much, which when exposed to living tissue either causes superpowers or horrific mutations depending on the will of the plot, and sometimes causes your traditional death and subsequent reanimation as a zombie, or maybe a gigantic Super Zombie if we’ve reached the end of ~~a level~~ an act).

The Resident Evil movies would also have benefited from Romero’s transparency when it comes to social commentary: it’s one thing to have the primary antagonist be the gigantic and sinister Umbrella Corporation, but that lack of subtlety offers no help in understanding the actual meat of your message when Umbrella Corporation’s apparent corporate mission is to be as moustache-twirlingly eeeeevil as possible, rather than, you know, normal corporate goals like making money.

Warning: this teaser trailer is infinitely better than the actual movies.

But the main problem with the Resident Evil series unfortunately is one that severely undercuts is Bechdel-busting assets, and that is that series protagonist Alice is a total cipher. In every film she is re-set, like a video game character reverting to the start of the level. In the beginning of Resident Evil, she awakes (naked in the shower) with no memories. In Resident Evil: Apocalypse, she begins and ends the film waking up in Umbrella Corporation lab with new sets of superpowers as the subject of unknown experimentation.

Alice wakes up in an Umbrella Corporation lab. Get used to it, Alice.

In Resident Evil: Extinction, she’s revealed to be one of hundreds of Alice clones. In Resident Evil: Afterlife, all the clones are quickly killed off in a massive explosion, and the surviving Alice is somehow stripped over her superpowers, only to act more or less exactly as tough as she was when she still had them.

Before the consequences of any of these changes to the nature of Alice’s character can be explored, the series hits the reset button yet again. Meanwhile, Alice’s personality can bizarrely and dramatically shift at any time, and we’re supposed to dismiss it because she’s always just had her memories erased or been genetically modified or remotely activated by satellite or cloned or de-powered or something wackadoo and scifi like that.

While the Resident Evil movies make it abundantly clear that passing the Bechdel Test is not enough to make a movie any good, ultimately I must say I like this series more than I would if it were another male-dominated action franchise. It’s not like video game adaptations are generally known for nuanced characterization anyway. I know I’m going to keep watching these terrible flicks because I like zombie movies and action movies, and if I’m going to keep punishing myself with crap movies, it’s at least nice to see some what-passes-for-“characters” of my own gender represented some of the time. Representing women doesn’t necessarily make a movie any good, but it at least makes it a little different.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Stephanie‘s Picks:

Irish Women in Film Series: Vittoria Colonna via Film Ireland

Does Lena Dunham’s “Casual Racism” Matter? by Samhita Mukhopadhyay via Feministing

The London Feminist Film Festival Seeks Submissions from African Women Filmmakers via Spectra Speaks

Brussels to Introduce Fines for Sexual Intimidation via Expatica

This Is Perfect and That Is Not Sarcasm by Melissa McEwan via Shakesville

Nina Simone’s Daughter on Her Mother’s REAL Legacy by Dream Hampton via Ebony

Megan‘s Picks:

Zoe Saldana to Star in Nina Simone Biopic: How the Dark vs. Light Skin Debate Misses the Point about Black Women in the Media by Spectra via Spectra Speaks

Dear Mr. Akin, I Want You to Imagine… by Eve Ensler via The Huffington Post

The Glamorous Lure of Hollywood Violence by Madeleine Gyory via Women’s Media Center

Remembering Phyllis Diller by Kelsey Wallace via Bitch Magazine Blog

Brenda Chapman on Writing Brave by Susan J. Morris via Women and Hollywood

Breaking: The Next Expendables Film Will Feature a Female Action Star Cast by Jill Pantozzi via The Mary Sue

Women Can’t Gain Influence in Hollywood Because Women Don’t Look Like Men by Liz Garcia via Forbes

Amy Poehler Stands Up for Domestic Workers by Alyssa Rosenberg via ThinkProgress

What have you been reading this week?? Tell us in the comments!

Three Reasons to Like Gwen Stacy

I have now seen The ~~Redundant~~ Amazing Spider-Man twice in theaters – the first time with friends, and the second time with my brothers when it was a rainy day and we didn’t have time to see The Dark Knight Rises. I liked the film more than the previous Spider-Man movies, largely because of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, but I also liked the film’s treatment of Gwen Stacy.

Women in superhero movies don’t often get much to do. If they’re not completely invented for the film for the sake of throwing a bone to female viewers (Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins), they’re left in the role of damsel in distress who do nothing but get into trouble and get rescued (Mary Jane Watson in the original Spider-Man trilogy). Female superheroes and anti-heroes, like the Black Widow in The Avengers or Catwoman in Batman Returns and The Dark Knight Rises, are more complex, but if you’re not a hero and simply dating one, forget it – no good characterization for you.

That is, unless you’re Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man. (Note: I haven’t read the comics and this post will only talk about Gwen in the film.)

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man

As far as superhero love interests go, Gwen Stacy is very cool. Here are three reasons why:

1) She’s intelligent for her own sake, not just for Peter’s.

In The Amazing Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy is a student at Midtown Science High School with Peter Parker, as well as an intern at OsCorp. She’s gifted in the field of science, hard-working, and has a good sense of humor, gently ribbing Peter after Flash Thompson beats him up in front of the school.

But she doesn’t come across as the Token Smart Female, the one-dimensional character archetype who’s thrown in the story so the hero can have a love interest and the female viewers can stop complaining about lack of female representation. She’s smart in a way that makes sense to the character and to the plot. Of course Gwen Stacy is smart; she’s a student at a magnet high school! She’s also shown researching and working at her computer in several different scenes, and the direction indicates that she’s a girl with an active life outside of Peter Parker and Spider-Man. We don’t get to see much of it, but we can tell it’s there.

Gwen in the hallway of Midtown Science High School

2. Gwen helps save the day.

The main hero of the movie is, of course, Spider-Man/Peter Parker himself, as it should be – it’s his name in the title, after all. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how active Gwen was in the plot of the film. When the Lizard tried to turn all of New York City into reptile-people, Gwen was the one who cooked the antidote. Captain Stacy passed it to Spider-Man, who released the antidote in the air and cured not only the people of New York, but Dr. Connors/The Lizard himself.

Again, I’m not used to seeing the superhero love interest take an active role in saving the world. Spider-Man could not have saved the world without Gwen’s help. She wasn’t just a participant in Spider-Man’s plot; she played a vital role – and she did it using her brain and applied knowledge.

Gwen working at OsCorp

3. Gwen has Peter Parker’s number. I loved that Peter told Gwen about his secret identity halfway through the movie. It felt like a fresh take on the story to have the love interest learn of the hero’s identity early in the story. But I groaned near the end of the movie where [spoiler alert!] a dying Captain Stacy asked Peter not to involve Gwen in his heroics anymore. I could see the plot of the next film playing before my eyes: Gwen would have hurt feelings that Peter was ignoring her, and there would be a Classic Misunderstanding between the two of them until the very end of the movie.

I should have given the screenwriters more credit. It takes about sixty seconds for Gwen to realize what’s going on after Peter tells her he can’t see her anymore. She understands very quickly that her father must have asked Peter to stay away from her and keep her safe. She doesn’t like it, but she gets it.

Gwen and Peter (Andrew Garfield)

I’m happy that The Amazing Spider-Man made Gwen Stacy an actual character instead of turning her into a nameless, faceless love interest. I hope the writers continue with Gwen’s strong characterization and put equal care and attention into writing Mary Jane Watson, if and when they introduce her. (And if they can have a red-haired Emma Stone play Mary Jane as well, that would be great, because Emma Stone makes everything better.)

‘The Avengers,’ Strong Female Characters and Failing the Bechdel Test

Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in The Avengers

Cross-posted at Fem2pt0.

Smashing box office records, audiences have been swept up in The Avengers hullabaloo. Interesting and compelling, the epic superhero film based on the Marvel comics unites Black Widow, Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Hulk and Thor “to form a team that must stop Thor’s brother Loki from enslaving the human race.” It was good. Really good. It contained complex characters and funny, clever dialogue. In a genre that exhibits strong female characters yet often objectifies women’s bodies or reduces them to ancillary love interests…how was The Avengers’ portrayal of women?

With Joss Whedon, a proud feminist and Equality Now supporter, at the helm directing and screenwriting, I eagerly hoped for a feminist film. I absolutely adore Firefly, only watched a handful of Buffy episodes (I know, I know…I need to watch more), and I couldn’t stand Dollhouse (don’t even get me started on the predication of rape, objectification and misogyny…but I digress). Forever inspired by his radical feminist mother and his love for X-Men character Kitty Pryde, Whedon shows an adept talent for creating and writing strong female characters.

The lone female Avenger is Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a “highly trained spy,” assassin and martial arts master. Haunted by a dark past, she’s a fearless warrior possessing a razor sharp mind and an impressive knack for interrogation. In one of the best scenes, she goes head to head with the film’s villainous nemesis Loki (and Thor’s brother) in a labyrinthine mind game. While I’m not thrilled that Black Widow uses “feminine wiles” as a method of manipulation, her opponents anticipate vulnerability in her because of her gender. Natasha deftly uses and exploits their stereotypical gender biases to her advantage.

Black Widow could have easily become a one dimensional character. Yet she embodies strength and depth. She’s decisive and forever in control of her emotions. Although I don’t like the implication that being emotional equates weakness. She’s not technically a superhero (nor is her partner archer Hawkeye) as she doesn’t have special powers. Yet she arguably had the best fighting sequences with her nimble and dexterous prowess. There’s one where she’s tied to a chair and kicks ass…it’s seriously amazing! Johansson talked about how she would be delighted to do a Black Widow film in the realm and style of The Bourne Series. That sounds freaking awesome.

Black Widow / Natasha Romanoff

In most films and TV series, the media objectifies and commodifies women’s bodies for the male gaze, reducing a woman to her sexuality. While she dons tight costumes, that doesn’t happen here. She’s not merely a sex object. Black Widow is an integral part of the team. She’s the one who thinks they should all work together when petty arguments and inflated egos threaten to divide them. SPOILER!!! -> Natasha ultimately ends the climactic epic battle as she’s the only one who realizes they need to close the portal in order to halt the influx of the alien army. <- END SPOILER Black Widow plays with gender stereotypes but doesn’t wield her sexuality as a weapon. She uses her ridiculously impressive martial arts ass-kicking skills for that.

Aside from Black Widow, The Avengers film depicts S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders, my favorite actor on HIMYM) and two brief scenes with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Maria is one of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)’s Chief Lieutenants. She’s calm, collected and authoritative, even in dangerous situations. We see Maria run the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. But she doesn’t approve of controlling people as we see when she criticizes Fury for manipulating The Avengers’ emotions to finagle a specific response. Pepper is the CEO of Stark Industries (Iron Man/Tony Stark’s company), as well as his girlfriend. She’s intelligent, precise, organized and charming.

When asked about Whedon’s strong female characters, Johansson called him “gender blind:”

“He wants his female characters to be dynamic and competitive and assured and confident. And it has nothing to do with anything but the fact that he just celebrates those kinds of strong female characters.”

S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)

AlterNet’s Julianne Escobedo Shepherd thinks The Avengers possesses a “stark feminist perspective” as it differs from so many other superhero films. Even in movies with multiple female characters like X-Men, the women often orbit the male characters. Not so in The Avengers. Escobedo Shepherd goes further asserting Johansson portrays Black Widow’s “talent for manipulation as a boon for the art of spying, rather than any kind of femme fatale cliché.”

Despite three strong female characters and Black Widow’s awesomeness, I didn’t find the movie overtly feminist. I can’t help but wonder if people are looking to find feminism where not a whole lot actually exists because of Whedon’s reputation. The Avengers contains some gender problems.

Loki hurls a misogynistic insult at Black Widow, calling her a “mewling quim.” Translation, a “whining cunt.” Lovely. He reduces her to her vagina. Now, not everyone’s going to get the inference right away. I know I didn’t. Although something about the condescending tone made me suspect a gendered insult. Whedon says he often “abuses” language, depicting different vernaculars, including Shakespearan dialogue, to reveal character traits. It’s interesting that instead of writing an overt insult, Whedon subversively portrayed Loki’s sexism.

Some people apparently accused Whedon of “not being macho enough” to direct the superhero bonanza. So let me get this straight. If a guy is a proud feminist and writes strong female characters, that makes him unmanly to direct an action movie? And what does that say about women…that female directors possess too much estrogen to direct? Ugh.

Many critics and bloggers have focused on the Hulk, thanks in large part to Mark Ruffalo’s fantastic talent and the hilarious snarky dialogue, thanks to Robert Downey Jr.’s quick wit as Iron Man. Interestingly, of the 6 Avengers, Black Widow gets the 3^rd most screen time. Yet she still remains the only female Avenger in the film. And that’s a problem.

(L-R): Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chirs Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) – The Avengers…and Black Widow as the one female

In the comics, The Avengers had a rotating line-up of superheroes. Couldn’t the movie portray an additional female Avenger, like Wasp or Scarlet Witch or She-Hulk? Maybe they didn’t want two green Hulks. Fair enough. Although She-Hulk, a brilliant attorney, is pretty badass. Whedon even said that when they weren’t sure if they could accommodate Scarlett Johansson’s tight schedule, an early script contained the female superhero (and founding Avenger) Wasp. He “fell in love with the character.”

So here’s my question: why did they have to scrap the role of Wasp the minute they secured Johansson’s Black Widow? Why not have 2 female superheroes in one film?? Sadly, the movie suffers from the Smurfette Principle.

Coined by feminist writer Katha Pollitt in looking at children’s entertainment, the Smurfette Principle is when a male ensemble features one female character. Think the Smurfs (before the introduction of Sassy), the Muppets and Voltron (I’m clearly showing I’m a child of the 80s here). Pollitt asserts that the problem with this trope is that “boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.” As the articulate Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency points out, it transcends children’s entertainment as we see in films like Star Wars, Star Trek, Watchmen and even Inception as well as TV shows like early seasons of Big Bang Theoryand It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Films and TV relegate women to “sidekicks or sexy decorations.” Luckily, Black Widow suffers neither of these fates. She holds her own as a fierce and capable character, neither shoved aside nor reduced to a dude’s love interest. But it’s still problematic that Black Widow is the only female team member. The male Avengers contain multiple male personalities: a sarcastic genius playboy, a lonely selfless soldier, a skilled sniper, and a tortured brilliant scientist. But as far as women’s representation, there’s just one female Avenger. Granted, she’s a badass. But it would have been nice to see more diverse personalities…which might have been rectified with another female superhero.

(L-R): Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)

But my biggest problem? No women talked to each other. At all. What the hell is up with that??

Like Film School Rejects’ Gwenn Reyes, I too found the glaring lack of women talking to each other to be The Avengers “greatest flaw.” Maria talks to the other Avengers. As Nick Fury’s right-hand person, it makes sense she would interact with the Avengers. Plus Maria and Natasha have probably crossed paths before since Black Widow already worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Couldn’t the two women have talked about the upcoming battle? Or strategized, commiserated…anything??

Just because the portrayals of the female characters were positive, doesn’t mean I think the movie smashed the Bechdel Test, a simple test that asks that two named female characters talk to each other about something other than men. With women comprising only 33% of speaking roles on-screen, The Avengers failing the Bechdel Test proves the cavernous gender gap in film and how far we still need to go.

Let me be clear. Most movies — superhero or otherwise — couldn’t care less about portraying complex, intelligent, strong, dimensional women or gender equitable roles. So The Avengersis a step in the right direction. But if you only depict your two female characters (no matter how empowered they are) talking to men, it subtly reinforces the notion that women’s lives revolve around men.

While it’s a really good action movie with strong female roles, I still expected more feminism from you, Joss Whedon.