Turning Scarlet
Dr. Strange movie leans on an old trope: woman on the verge of a superpower-fuelled breakdown
In 2021, Jac Schaeffer, creator of the Marvel streaming series “WandaVision,” told Total Film magazine that the show — in which magical heroine Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch, accidentally traps an entire town in her grief-fuelled fantasy after a mental breakdown — would not be a sexist portrayal of a powerful woman.
“It was extremely important to me that we not do the lazy thing of having a superpowered lady who can’t handle her powers and goes crazy,” she said.
The show won breakout success and multiple award nominations for avoiding that trope, presenting Wanda as a well-meaning but flawed person who made terrible mistakes but learned to process her trauma.
But when Schaeffer gave that interview, Marvel was already filming “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” out in theatres this weekend.
The film has Wanda becoming a villain after using power she can’t handle — and while “WandaVision” ended with her accepting the loss of the family she created in that show, the movie makes her willing to hurt anyone and everyone to get them back.
It may seem strange (no pun intended) that Disney, which likes to cultivate a reputation for progressive representation, greenlit a story in which a powerful woman becomes suddenly unstable because she can’t think straight where her children are concerned. To explain it, we have to go to an even more depressing source: the comic books that inspired producer Kevin Feige and his team.
As Schaeffer’s comments hinted, the powerful heroine who becomes a menace is a familiar presence in superhero comics. The most famous is “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” a storyline from Marvel’s “X-Men” in which the team’s longest-serving heroine becomes a mass murderer due to a huge amount of power that warps her mind.
Readers became so fascinated that the storyline inspired not one but two bad X-Men movies (“XMen: The Last Stand” and “Dark Phoenix”).
But no powerful woman in comics has suffered more from the trope than the Scarlet Witch. For most of her comic book career, she was the primary heroine on the Avengers team and one of the most popular in the company’s relatively small number of heroines. True, she had a bad time for a spell. In a development that will be very familiar to viewers of “WandaVision,” she used magic to conceive twin sons with her non-human husband, the Vision; Canadian writer/artist John Byrne, best known for drawing “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” chose to kill the children off and make her suffer a brief breakdown. But she soon recovered and went back to using her powers for good.
That all changed with “Avengers Disassembled,” the 2004 Marvel comic book story by which the Doctor Strange sequel is heavily influenced. Writer Brian Michael Bendis, trying to pep up the sagging sales of the Avengers comic with some huge, attention-getting shocks, revisited the loss of Wanda’s children by revealing that her mind had snapped completely.
She alternates between hallucinating her children and attacking her teammates for no clear reason, blowing up their headquarters and killing several heroes — including Vision — until Doctor Strange stops her and explains that she was brought to this moment by her trauma and her inability to tell reality from fantasy.
The story inspired a 2005 followup, “House of M,” in which Wanda has become so dangerous that the heroes — among them, Charles Xavier, the character Patrick Stewart played in the X-Men movies — discuss the idea of euthanizing her. After that, she was largely absent from comics for many years.
Even at the time, some commentators noticed that the premise was largely based on sexist clichés about women who can’t be trusted with too much power and are made irrational by their attachment to their children.
Television writer John Rogers (who went on to create the show “Leverage”) wrote a blog post called “Womb Crazy!” in which he pointed out that Wanda is made to go insane for “specifically weak-ass girly reasons. Wanda kills because she wants babies.”
Rogers pinpointed a larger problem with the portrayal of women in comics. Some franchises have a habit of portraying women as strong only if they fit certain stereotypes about what a strong woman should be: Carol Danvers, the heroine of “Captain Marvel,” is in the military, while Black Widow is a spy.
Wanda, on the other hand, is a more old-fashioned type of character who wants a conventional suburban family life and often ends up being portrayed as weak-minded because of it; the fact that she wants children becomes proof enough that she would murder to get them. If a character is portrayed as heroic for doing anything to protect their family, it’s usually a man, especially if Liam Neeson is playing him.
Wanda’s transformation into a murderous mom was so obviously incongruent that comic book characters would occasionally lean on the fourth wall to point it out. In “Young Avengers,” a comic series created by Allan Heinberg (co-developer and executive producer of the upcoming Netflix comic adaptation “The Sandman”) and artist Jim Cheung, a group of young superheroes decides to search for Wanda and try to rehabilitate her. When she’s found, one of the characters, Wanda’s son Billy — because no one stays dead in comics either — wonders how she could have done something so out of character, since killing innocent people is “something the Scarlet Witch would never do.”
Why would the MCU take so much from a storyline that was called out for misogyny even at the time and which was criticized as nonsensical by the characters themselves? Some of this just may be that the entire franchise is influenced by the comics of the 2000s, when Feige and his colleagues were getting the MCU up and running. Even the idea of casting Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury comes from a 2000s comic in which the character was redesigned to look like Jackson. If you think that era of comic books is gospel, even a character’s worst story may seem definitive.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” may also be yet another validation of the growing conventional wisdom that an all-male creative team (the movie was directed by Sam Raimi and written by Michael Waldron) is more likely to stumble in its portrayal of women. In his post about “Avengers Disassembled,” Rogers fumed that its understanding of women’s motivations “was supposed to have died out in the 1910’s” and wondered, “are there no female editors?”
Something similar may apply to the MCU. Jac Schaeffer was able to create a nuanced portrayal of Wanda and her strengths and weaknesses in “WandaVision” where her film-world counterparts may have failed.
It could be that to get inside the head of a powerful woman, you need a woman with power.
The atmosphere feels a bit weighty today, as we’re called to focus on more realistic or practical things at hand. As a result, we could end up feeling overwhelmed, tired or unhappy. With boundaries being spotlighted today, we should be mindful of taking on more than we can handle and instead seek out support where needed. We should also aim to be respectful of the boundaries of others while also looking at ways that we can be helpful or supportive. The day calls on us to find a healthier balance between taking care of our own needs and taking care of others.
ARIES (March 21 to April 19)
You might be getting discouraged because things aren’t moving as fast as you’d like. Consider this a lesson in patience.
TAURUS (April 20 to May 20)
Work and responsibilities might be taking a lot out of you. Not everything needs to be your issue to handle.
GEMINI (May 21 to June 20)
It can be easy to see the glass as half empty today. Keep company with the positive people in your life.
CANCER (June 21 to July 22)
It might be time to pay off a big bill or talk to someone about paying their fair share. Either way, be mindful of avoiding the situation.
LEO (July 23 to Aug. 22)
If you need someone to step up and support you a little more, it’s time to ask for it. Don’t assume that they’ll say no or that you can’t get what you need.
VIRGO (Aug. 23 to Sept. 22)
Your daily routine needs to be restructured. More downtime and better ways to manage stress are the goals.
LIBRA (Sept. 23 to Oct. 22)
It’s OK if you’re a little more interested in doing your own thing rather than being involved in what everyone else is doing. Protect your me time.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23 to Nov. 21)
Don’t let bad memories from the past prevent you from pursuing your goals or going after what you want. That was then; this is now.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 to Dec. 21)
Can you be honest or straightforward about something and still do it with tact? The answer is yes. It’s going to take some practice.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 to Jan. 19)
You might be feeling some level of insecurity today. Don’t be too hard on yourself or get stuck in negative thinking.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 to Feb. 18)
Sometimes you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else. How can you best care for yourself today?
PISCES (Feb. 19 to March 20)
It’s time to put some action behind your dreams or ideas. What’s one or two things that you can do to get started?
FOR TODAY’S BIRTHDAY
You’re hardworking and dedicated. Although you’re incredibly passionate and determined in getting what you want, you also do a lot for others. You take your responsibilities on with confidence. You know that you’re the right person to get the job done. You hold yourself to a high standard, and you never do anything half-heartedly. You might not always like to reveal how deeply you feel about things, but those who know you best always manage to see your tenderness and warmth. This year, you’ll find the most happiness and success by establishing a better work-life balance.
BIRTHDATE OF:
Rosario Dawson, actress/producer; Candice Bergen, actress;
Billy Joel, musician/singer.