With the release of Jessica Jones on November 20th, media outlets across the country are discussing how we are finally in the age of female superheroes. This television season alone we have Jessica Jones and Supergirl, and Agent Carter in its second season, all series with not only female superhero leads, but also their own distinct flavor.
In the past, female superhero movies have failed to capture the intricacies of the female voice and have instead left us with overly sexualized or dull characters. (Or even both. Have you seen Catwoman?) What sets Jones, Carter, and Supergirl apart is that they each have their own voice, their own style, and own desires. They are not cookie cutter women and so their shows are not cookie cutter either. Carter is playful, witty. Supergirl bubbly, smart. Jones is darker, more hard-boiled. We're in the age when women are more fully developed characters in general, making it a prime time for the rise of the female superhero.
Here are ten contributing factors.
Television is open to non-traditional heroes
Thanks to the New Golden Age of Television, television networks have been dishing out more complex story lines and featuring characters who have much more on the line and at stake. In the past decade we have been introduced to imperfect heroes and anti-heroes who are painfully easy to sympathize with. We're given well-rounded characters who remind us of ourselves and are so vivid we often refer them in conversation like old friends.
With the proper stage now set, we have savvier viewers who are trained to accept imperfect, less-than-shiny characters, and who are willing to get to know someone unlikable for the sake of a good story or with the hope that they'll soften and show their other sides. We now have an audience who is ready to accept a scowling Jessica Jones for who she is, an audience that can wrap their minds around a strong, female superhero, and an audience that is open to new ideas because the reward with past shows has been so good.
Television’s risk-taking has paid off
With the success of such shows, programs with complex characters and strong female leads outside of the comic book genre, more and more edgier and riskier shows are being made. Television networks are looking for the next Breaking Bad or The Sopranos.
With an audience ready to be challenged and networks who want to keep making hits, the time is ripe to create brilliant, intricate shows about our beloved female superheroes. In short, the world is finally ready to accept these characters in a way that hasn't been available before now.
Strong Female Leads are part of the deal now
When movie producers figured out that a female-led action movie could make them money in the box office, the industry changed. Movies like the Hunger Games and Mad Max: Fury Road proved that an action flick could be carried by female character. With the failures of movies like Catwoman and Elektra, each now over a decade old, it seems that studios were afraid to approach female superhero movies again. The movies were poorly written and poorly made, hardly a reflection of our love for these characters who were, in the lightest of terms, mishandled completely. Given the care and attention each deserves from writing to casting to directing, could have rendered completely different movies. But with the recent success of non-comic book movies and their female leads, the time is right for studios to try it again.
Movies are slowly following suit
And try it again they will, albeit a little late to the game. It seems that DC and Marvel are feeling brave enough to dip a toe in and try again, embracing the female-lead instead of shying away from it. Katniss and Furiosa paved the way for female comic book superheroes to try again. DC's Wonder Woman will make her movie debut in 2016 in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and then have her own movie not long after. In 2018 Marvel will have their first female title role with The Wasp in Ant-Man and The Wasp. And let's not forget next year's Suicide Squad with four female leads in the super villain flick.
Having female leads helps fight comic fatigue
Roles are being changed for women
Both television and film are embracing the gender swaps of certain comic book characters by taking formerly male characters from the page and making them into female characters for the screen. In Jessica Jones, it's Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth, a male lawyer in the comic books but flipped to a female for the Netflix show. Also groundbreaking is that Hogarth is a lesbian, a first for the Marvel universe. Following her will be Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One in Doctor Strange. Little is known for now what kind of further spins will be put on these characters but starting with their gender is a pretty big step. By opening up the availability of these key roles to women shows a strong shift in the comic book movie genre to be inclusive, diverse, and intriguing. They will keep us guessing with each movie they make.
Even the writers and directors are women
Not only are we seeing a shift of more powerful women on screen, but we're seeing a mega shift behind as well. DC hired their first female director, Patty Jenkins, to direct Wonder Woman. Jenkins picked up the job when Michelle MacLaren dropped out citing creative differences. Warner Bros. were looking for a female director from the get go, in a response to fans who were, and are still, eager for diversity in the DCU and MCU movies. The universes are rich with so many different characters and flavors of personality, that fans were getting antsy to see that brought to the big screen and to the general non-comic book fan public.
In that same vein, Nicole Perlman, writer of Guardians of the Galaxy, has been tapped to write Captain Marvel. With women in front of and behind the cameras, the universes are finally getting the much needed diversity that they need, slowly but surely.
They're building female fans from a young age
This fall DC launched DC Super Hero Girls an entire universe created with young girls in mind, featuring 7 DC superheroes as younger versions of themselves. This is an obvious effort on DC's part not just to recover from bad PR the past couple of years involving the lack of Black Widow merchandise, Wonder Woman's removal from the Justice League merchandise and several other branding blunders, but also as a response to the female fan base they already have. Women are looking to share this world with their daughters and women have proven to be an important part of the comic book and comic book movie world. Giving them and and female characters the same kind of interest and screen time is good for business as is capturing fans at a young age. Which DC Super Hero Girls is setting out to do.
It's been 40 years since the last female superhero
Despite all of the cultural shifts I've mentioned, we tend to forget that the time is right for female superheroes because we've been without any strong ones for so long. It's simply a change in the tide. We cannot forget that it has been nearly 40 years since Wonder Woman was on television. We did not have a female superhero on television until Supergirl this year. Television and film are finally ready to embrace their female leads and heroes, again.
It's 2015
I hate to be that kid but really, it's 2015, we've come a long way in forty years. It seems ludicrous for both DCU and MCU to have a nearly endless supply of characters to choose from but to ignore an entire group based on gender. It’s clearly bad for business and bad for fans, who are desperate to get their hands on some equally amazing women.
