One Woman in the Justice League
Just one woman, maybe two, in a team or group of men.
Also watch Jimmy Kimmel’s "Muscle Man’ superhero skit - “I’m the girly one”
The Avengers:
In Marvel Comics:
“Labeled “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in The Avengers issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him.”
5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Modern films (MCU):
The original 6 Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
Again, 5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Justice League
In DC comics:
“The Justice League originally consisted of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman”
6 / 7 original members are male. Only one is female.
In modern films (DCEU):
The members were/are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (+ introducing Martian Manhunter (in Zack Snyder’s Justice League director’s cut))
5 / 6 main members in both versions of the Justice League film are male, with appearances by a 7th member in the director’s cut who is also male. Only one member is female.
The Umbrella Academy (comics and show)
7 members:
- Luther (Number One / Spaceboy)
- Diego (Number Two / The Kraken)
- Allison (Number Three / The Rumor)
- Klaus (Number Four / The Séance)
- Five (Number Five / The Boy)
- Ben (Number Six / The Horror)
- Vanya (Number Seven / The White Violin) Later becomes known as Viktor and nonbinary in the television adaptation after Elliot Page’s transition but that’s not really relevant to this.
Here, 5 / 7 original members are male. Only two are female. Only slightly better than the other more famous superhero teams, and they had to add another member (compared to Avengers’ 6 members) to improve the ratio (maybe executives still demanded to have 5 males).
Now let’s look at some sitcoms and other stories.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
4 males, and 1 female slightly less prominent character who is abused constantly. The show claims to be politically aware and satirical but gets away with a lot of misogynistic comedy, tbh, that I’m willing to bet a lot of people are finding funny for the wrong reasons.
Community:
Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce, Shirley. This one is a little better, 3/7 are female. Notice it’s always more males though, they never let it become more than 50% female, or else then it’s a “chick flick” or a “female team up” or “gender flipped” story. And of course the main character, and the leading few characters, are almost always male or mostly male.
Stranger Things:
Main original group of kids consisted of: Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and El (Eleven). 1 original female member, who is comparable to an alien and even plays the role of E.T. in direct homage. When they added Max, I saw people complaining that although they liked her, there should be only one female member. 🤦
Why is it ‘iconic’ to have only one female in a group of males? Does that just mean it’s the tradition, the way it’s always been? Can’t we change that? Is it so that all the men can have a chance with the one girl, or so the males can always dominate the discussion with their use of force and manliness? Or so that whenever the team saves the day, it’s mostly a bunch of men doing it, but with ‘a little help’ from a female/a few females (at most), too!
It’s so fucked up and disgusting to me I’ve realised. And men don’t seem to care. I’m a male and this is really disturbing to me now that I’ve woken up to it. How do women feel about this? Am I overreacting?
Because the majority of dudes complaining are incel man babies who need to feel like they are the focus of society. If its not exactly how they like it its not right. Its time we start shouting down on them loudly.
And if you dare question their masculinity by suggesting a woman might be able to do something other than be eye candy then they’ll… well I don’t know what they’ll do. Probably just complain about it on social media.
I found they usually huff until nearly shitting themselves before schoffing once more.
An interesting counter point to this.
Kids movies, I’m a dad, I only have boys. Trying to find new movies that have good male parts is challenging. There are plenty of “girl empowerment” movies, but ones with good role models for boys are few and far between.
Everything is based around violence. Like really, is that all boys are good for?
Same for kids books. It’s great for my daughter, but it’s hard to find good movies and books for her younger brother.
First, I’m confused as to why you’d need to segregate books and film by gender, these all have either a male or non-gendered lead: Captain Underpants, Nate the Great, Hal The 3rd Class Hero, The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, Treasure Island, Danny the Champion of the World, The Outsiders, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Percy Jackson (all 40 billion of the series), The Giving Tree, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Bridge to Terabithia, James and the Giant Peach, Holes (series), Where The Wild Things Are, The Heroes of Olympus (more Percy Jackson I think), Ender’s Game, Winnie The Pooh, Narnia (series), The Wind In The Willows, The Indian in the Cupboard, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Neverending Story, I Am Every Good Thing, Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like it), King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Wild Robot (series), Stuart Little, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Lord of The Flies, Calvin and Hobbes (series), The Dangerous Book for Boys, The American Boys Handy Book.
(You didn’t specify age, so I tried to add our family suggestions for about 4-12. Once he’s older, depending on your thoughts on the language, we also have a lot of suggestions for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn)
We don’t need to, but I noticed at one point that he’s mostly seeing female leads. We read a bunch of the books in your list, many others we avoided because they’re no longer in line with current times (and they’re not old enough to understand the historical context), and a bunch of them are not for their age yet.
I appreciate what you’re saying, however:
Women are, regardless of any other stat, still under-represented. 2000-2009 is depressing.
Yes, it’s not a counter point but rather an also important parallel discussion. We need to have higher standards for male role models, or we will continue to have incels fill the space.
I suppose the counter point is actually.
Why are there so many female leads in kid focused movies and so few female leads in adult focused movies.
What changes? Why do we lose out on these stories?
Yes, it’s not a counter point but rather an also important parallel discussion. We need to have higher standards for male role models, or we will continue to have incels fill the space.
I feel like it’s awfully interesting though that we have ‘parallel discussions’ whenever someone says “hey this specific thing sucks for women.” The original question posited here was:
Why do males complain about female-led stories or too many female characters when the majority are still dominated by males?
The question is why do men complain about female leads, which they do, when the majority of leads are still male, which they are. The answer to that isn’t “we need better male role models in movies” (though it would obviously help as well) as it’s dodging the original question.
…and not just movies. My partner and I steadfastly try to do all “interacting with kid’s school, extracurricular and social groups” stuff 50/50. We always strive to go to (and host) such important events together. We always indicate we should both be added to mailing lists, and give both our phone numbers as contacts, etc, etc. However, much (sometimes most) of the time people only ever call her about kids playdates, medical professionals default to discussing his issues with her exclusively even though I am sitting next to her and commenting too, when there is a parents’ chat/mail group for his classes or other activities usually she gets added and then has to help me muscle my way in to the group (and the groups are often all women). Once at a preschool party a parent saw me interact with my kid, came and asked me to point out his mother, then went to her to invite our kid to a birthday party. It’s never-ending for a father who strives to be a “caring father”, and not just an infantile “toxically masculine, one-dimensional, emotionally stunted cliché” in terms of “role model”. It is exhausting for both her and me, but is also extremely demoralising for me because trying to be what you believe to be the right kind of role-model is one of the most important yet virtually undocumented parts of parenting, and even more demoralising because it still happens even after I hugely reduced my external workload in order to be the primary “stay at home” parent. One small positive step is that the country we live in introduced “paternity leave at child-birth” legal requirements (much smaller than for maternity leave though, and only introduced after my kid was born [sigh]). In popular culture it has become a trope that women suffer endlessly trying to play the role of both parents to compensate for idiotic (or selfish prick) fathers, but it glosses over the fact that a man who actively tries to “be the change” (and any woman who tries to facilitate that change in solidarity) are so often tripped up at every step by this pervasive (and often subconscious) intellectual and emotional inflexibility. One other small positive is that I occasionally find another father who feels the same way (and who is often just as frustrated and burned out by the state of things) …sometimes - just one or two. Having previously lived in many countries/continents I also know that the country I live in is far from the worst offender for this, which makes it even more pathetic globally.
Everything is based around violence. Like really, is that all boys are good for?
Oh yeah, you are so right. It feels at times like - when I’m not teaching him to play football (violently), and not egging him on to emulate (violent) action figures, and not buying him fake guns to play with (violently), and not telling him to “man up” instead of taking time to understand his feelings, etc - there seems to be a degree of subliminal judgmentalism directed at me for not “sticking to the job description”. It seems many people will prefer to see the world burn in preference to accepting someone disregarding parts of the “normality” rulebook based on rational introspection, including those who would never admit it out loud, and even some who haven’t yet consciously realised they are standing on that side of history - perhaps because it holds up a mirror to them not doing so (out of fear?, laziness?, bitterness-fueled pulling-up the ladder?).
Just for a specific example. Bluey vs Paw Patrol. Both HUGE kids shows, about dog-based characters.
In Bluey all of the important characters except Bandit are female. The stories are awesome, they revolve around family, caring and over coming challenges. They are almost never violent, the stories are rich and interesting and somewhat entertaining even for an adult watching for the infinity+1th time.
In Paw Patrol; all the important characters are male except Mayor Goodway and Skye. The stories are repetitive and boring, they revolve around working together, being heroic and solving problems. They are regularly violent, and as the show has progressed it has gotten stupid with massive power creep and a group of antagonists. Paw Patrol just kinda sucks.
In Bluey often Bandit is used for comic relief; none of the female characters are. In Paw Patrol, the comic relief is handled by Mayor Humdinger who is often the antagonist, Mayor Goodway is often scatterbrained but rarely is the comic punching bag.
Branch out of American media; European and Asian media have much less tolerance for on-screen hardcore violence. American media freaks out over a nipple in children’s media, but war and graphic fighting are A-OK!
Why can’t a girl be a good role model for a boy?
(I’m not completely disagreeing with you btw - if all the boy leads are “stereotypical boy” then it’s just perpetrating the problem)
I don’t accept the premise of the question. People don’t complain about female led movies, as long as those movies are well written. What people complain about (and this should include people looking for increased female representation) is projects that prioritise having female leads over having good writing.
Take the trend of gender swapped existing male characters into female ones. If, as a writer, you’re prepared to follow through on that concept and explore how it changes the story, then it can be interesting. A chance to experiment with the differences in motivation between genders and how obstacles can be navigated in different ways.
If you’re just going to swap “he” for “she” in the script and call it a day… Well that’s boring and doesn’t deserve anyone’s time. It’s not interesting or clever. In fact it’s often bad take. You can end up with a woman on screen showing that to be a hero they have to display hyper-masculine traits. How is that a good female role model?
I prefer it when the gender doesn’t matter, and that the hero doesn’t need to prove anything to the audience. They’re just well-written and we’re invested in their motivations and the wider story around them.
A good example of this is the excellent She-Ra cartoon. I can’t think of many good examples beyond that sadly…
Ellen Ripley’s gender doesn’t matter until Resurrection, which isn’t the highlight of the movie.
A lot of media have strong female characters but their gender or sex does matter for the story so can’t easily be replaced
Susan in the book Soul Music (plus some others) as well as the Witches, Tiffany Achings and more from Pratchett
Death from Sandman (even though the author is very controversial, but you could check the books out from sources that doesn’t give him a kick back)
Was a long time since I read them but the Polgara books feature a strong female protagonist
We got classic youth/kids media that shows strong female characters even if some stuff are coloured by weird takes (Such as Xander Harris): Xena, Buffy and Pippi Longstockings
Ripley being a woman didn’t matter much in the first film. It’s crucial to her character in the second. It’s her maternal instincts that drive her protection of Newt and that drive her into direct conflict with the alien queen.
The final battle is two mothers fighting for their children.
Oh true – Alien did it pretty good
I do find cartoons the best examples here. Pippi Långstrump is an interesting choice since I think that’s aimed primarily at girls, but PepperAnn did it pretty well with an ambiguous audience. Daria (arguably, though she’s a bit of a toxic character). Kim Possible maybe? Again probably mostly aimed at valley girls, but the show was interesting enough that anyone could watch it.
Books wise, plenty of examples. Lyra, Matilda, Anne of Green Gables, etc.
I think issue is just hollywood. They pander to the lower common denominator which tends to be alpha males looking to justify their existence
I mean, there is definitely a crowd that don’t like women as lead characters. While not directly related to movies, just see how a bit of peach fuzz on Aloy upset people when they showed off the new Horizon game. And that’s not a poorly written game or character.
Something like Captain Marvel does suit your argument; a poorly written character and movie, so people who criticise it get lumped in with the “women are bad” crowd. But there definitely are people who just hate things that put women in the spotlight.
Edit: fix shockingly poor grammar and spelling.
I mean, there is definitely a crowd that don’t like women as lead characters…
There are always crazies, but I don’t think that’s a large number of voices. I seriously think that most people just want well written characters that are true to themselves and the situation and don’t give a shit if its a man / a woman / black person / white person / pig or sentient blob of jelly.
To prove this point, The Marvels was received better than Captain Marvel, and it had 3x as many women in leading roles
I personally think Ms Marvel is the best disney+ marvel show and I’m a white guy.
Once female speaking time reaches 30% or more, males believe that the females are dominating the speaking time.
Female encroachment on what has traditionally been considered male spaces is not taken well. Female empowerment is considered taking from deserving males.
Essentially the general male population don’t like females, and only tolerate them as a subservient subclass who should be seen and not heard.
EDIT: This should probably annoy you a little too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt2qCjL6-n4
And it may also explain why people complain that there should only ever be one female character - it minimises the chances of males having to watch two females interact, because that would be excluding the male experience and they couldn’t possibly relate to two females interacting.
EDIT2: comments in that video do claim there are more scenes… whether or not that really adds much is up to you.
Essentially the general male population don’t like females, and only tolerate them as a subservient subclass who should be seen and not heard.
This is a WILD claim to make.
Female encroachment on what has traditionally been considered male spaces is not taken well. Female empowerment is considered taking from deserving males.
The problem is that in the context of a “winner-take-all” society it does do that though.
Obviously the general solution is to make a society that is overall more equitable between those who succeed & those who don’t.
But if you aren’t going to do that then you will get a reaction from those who are losing ground, even if that happening is the morally progressive outcome.
imo
Main Points
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most people (including most men) do not actually give a fuck.
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a tiny insignificant group mumbling in a dark corner probably do care, but noone should give a shit or listen to them.
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instead their voice is amplified in social/legacy media as a typical divide and conquer tactic (men vs women is ‘powerful’ as its half the planet vs the other half).
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unoriginal drones parrot those amplifications because they’ll get angry about whatever their screens tell them to this week.
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society has leaned male-dominant for too long, so genuine efforts to be fair are perceived by some idiots (see #2,#4) as “unfair”.
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corporations don’t actually give a shit about equality, so their maliciously half-arsed pretense at fairness rings hollow, adding more fuel to the flames.
Bonus
If you want to know more about this problem in general, see the Bechdel test, once you see it, you can’t unsee it everywhere you go:
The test asks whether a work features at least two female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man.
Apparently LoTR - which gets major bonus points for depicting its male protagonists as consistently not toxic - fails the Bechdel Test, HARD.
Enjoy this compilation of every scene from the trilogy that holds up to the test:
