Marvel’s power shift
Women of colour featured in leading roles
The change seems to arrive not as coincidence: The past four films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe have featured a female lead of colour.
In the 15 months since Doctor Strange faced accusations of “whitewashing” Tilda Swinton’s ancient mystic character in the film, Marvel has embraced its fuller turn toward diversity.
Black Panther spotlights the Oscar-winning Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, a Wakandan spy who fights alongside the title character and his fierce all-female special forces unit, the Dora Milaje. For the Kenyan-raised Nyong’o, it’s a chance to escape the veil of CGI effects in Disney’s Jungle Book and the Star Wars franchise and play a high-profile part in a film that celebrates Africa.
Her arrival was preceded last year by Zoe Saldana as the green-tinted Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2; Zendaya as Peter Parker’s pal Michelle/MJ in Sony’s Spider-Man: Homecoming; and Tessa Thompson’s boozing and battling Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok.
This casting run represents a marked change after years of Marvel’s highest-profile heroines being Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster and Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch.
Plus, a Marvel female superhero won’t get a solo film till early 2019 (Captain Marvel, with Brie Larson as the title character), nearly two years after DC scored big with Wonder Woman — yet it’s part of the same overdue move toward larger diversity at the studio.
Much credit for the course correction must go to Marvel Studios’ president Kevin Feige, who fought his corporate creative battles strategically once 2008’s Iron Man effectively launched Marvel’s current universe. (Feige also has nodded in gratitude to Wonder Woman as a commercial trailblazer.)
But the larger picture was that smart people at Marvel and DC could see how their cinematic worlds needed to grow beyond white male leads in every release — yet only DC was able to get a female superhero film moving forward.
For all its acclaimed vision, what was holding Marvel back? Well, that’s where the timing certainly rings as more than coincidence.
It was in the summer of 2015, fans recall, that Feige, in his 40s, broke free of the rule of Marvel Entertainment chief executive Ike Perlmutter, in his 70s, after “several years of frustration,” as The Hollywood Reporter said when the news broke.
Amid years of swirling rumours over differing creative visions at Marvel Studios, the most damning evidence was an email that emerged just four months before Feige wrested away control.
In May 2015, an email sent by Perlmutter the previous summer came under scrutiny. According to the leaked email, Perlmutter — the famously frugal and secretive mogul who sold his company to Disney for $4 billion in 2009 — said in 2014 that superheroines weren’t profitable.
Writing to Sony chief executive Michael Lynton, Perlmutter cited three femaleled superhero movies — Electra, Catwoman and Supergirl — that he viewed as disasters.
Perlmutter’s email, once leaked, was widely interpreted as his argument against female-led movies — even as the email neglected to mention smash action franchises such as the Hunger Games trilogy or the Alien saga, which were led by female heroes.