THEY DON'T NEED SAVINGS
FROM BACKGROUND TO BADASS, FEMALE CHARACTERS FINALLY GET THE TREATMENT THEY DESERVE - AND WE WANT MORE
THE PHRASE “STRONG FEMALE character” is one so oft repeated that it has lost its meaning. All the women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are strong. Punch-men-through-walls strong. Dodge-laser-guns-anddisassemble-nuclear-reactorswhile-wearing-leather-pants strong. It’s a strength that doesn’t necessarily translate into emotional depth or control. But over the past 10 years of Marvel films, there’s been a gradual but significant evolution in the way female characters have existed on screen. Slowly (maybe too slowly) but surely, MCU women have managed to go from “strong female characters” to actual characters.
“For me, the strength of the character has to do with how finely drawn they are, that any page space that they occupy feels essential,” says Tessa Thompson, whose Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok became a fan favourite. “It means they have agency and that they’re complex and they feel like women that you know and that you’ve seen before. They feel like humans.”
Zoe Saldana, who plays the green-skinned Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, has been gratified to see Marvel’s female characters— including her own—become three-dimensional. “To be able to live off of what you love to do is a blessing,” Saldana says. “But there are limitations of just playing someone else’s other. When all that you do in a scene is to serve another character but you’re not really serving the story, it becomes very disheartening. I believe the Marvel women are changing. I’m so grateful for Infinity War because we’re really diving into [Gamora’s] life and her past, and I don’t think we had that opportunity in Guardians.”
Early Marvel films scarcely drifted beyond tropes for their female characters. There’s “The Girlfriend” (see: Pepper Potts, Jane Foster). Or “The Femme Fatale” (Black Widow, Sharon Carter). But fast-forward to 2017, and Valkyrie is not only not a love interest for Thor, she’s a messy, fully developed character with a past and goals unrelated to the male protagonist.
“I continue to enjoy peeling back the layers of Natasha,” says Scarlett Johansson, whose Black Widow has become increasingly complex and nuanced since her debut in Iron Man 2. “As long as the audience is game to go on her emotional journey with me, I’ll keep digging deeper.”
And this year’s Black Panther had a record three women— Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), Okoye (Danai Gurira), and Shuri (Letitia Wright)—each with a distinct identity and perspective, and all cool enough to execute killer stunt sequences.
“It’s such an exciting time to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” Thompson says, “because there will be some young women who’ll look at me and don’t see themselves. And now Black Panther comes and they can hopefully see themselves in Letitia or Danai or Lupita.”