When I was younger, watching a superhero movie wasn’t something girls did. They played house, watched Sleeping Beauty, and played with Barbies. For many years, the closest I ever got to superheroes was through subtle marveling (pun intended) at the Batman shirts and Spiderman backpacks of the boys in my classes. I was never explicitly told that I shouldn’t watch superhero movies. But since all the figures jumping off buildings and fighting villains were male, I assumed that enjoying superhero stories, jumping off buildings, and fighting villains were activities reserved for men.
As I grew older, I began to recognize a few female superheroes — most notably, Wonder Woman. In 1942, William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman to promote an alternative to the “blood-curdling masculinity” of comics. Wonder Woman encouraged many women to work during World War II, but after the war, women were culled from the workforce, and Wonder Woman reflected this rejection. She assumed her identity as Diana Prince, owned a flower shop, and received a marriage proposal from Steve Trevor, who would go on to save her from danger.
This storyline implies that women are good enough to do things for themselves only when a man isn’t around to do it better. It’s no wonder that young girls dreamed for years only about getting married. During the 1990s, John Byrne revamped Wonder Woman into a sex icon, feeding the stereotype that women are objects to feed a man’s testosterone high. The costumes of female superheroes advertise an unattainable, stereotypically sexy body that, to a young girl, is presented as the ideal. I watched friends become devastated when they didn’t meet the body standards of these female superheroes — a full chest, tiny waist, and proportional hips. They began to believe that only women who fit that standard could have “superpowers,” and that those women’s stories were the only important ones.
Female superheroes became increasingly popular as I reached high school. The new Wonder Woman movie, which was released in 2017, was a female-directed film that showed that women could save themselves while still maintaining a sense of vulnerability and empathy. In fact, it was Wonder Woman’s traditionally feminine characteristics that saved humanity. In Black Panther, released in 2018, one strong female main character maintained a respectful relationship with her ex-boyfriend; however, unlike in many other superhero films, he was in no way diminished by the strength and intelligence of the women around him. In this film, women were celebrated for their own superpowers instead of being set against and compared with men.
Despite these advancements, the recently released Captain Marvel movie, starring Brie Larson as a former female air force pilot and superhero heroine, pushes this cause back a few steps. Although it is great to see Captain Marvel’s resilience against the blows she takes for her gender, Captain Marvel gives feminism a bad rap by making it seem like a female superhero is a threat to men. That “girls are just as good as boys,” an idea clearly broadcast in Captain Marvel, implies that women’s worth and strength must be measured only as it compares to men’s. This trivializes the unique superpowers of women.
Superhero movies have the power to inspire and influence our children. And so it is essential that the media give a voice to all children. If young people can find a superhero they identify with, they can be genuinely inspired to become their own superhero.
