#DearMarvel,
Up until now, you have always gotten a letter and I didn't make it public until this past week.
So this is the first time that I'm making something public before you get it. I sent it to all 4 addresses on Marvel's website--I know you'll get it soon; I sent the copy to the NY office special delivery with delivery confirmation, so I can see when someone signs for it on Monday morning.
Up until now, you have always gotten a letter and I didn't make it public until this past week.
So this is the first time that I'm making something public before you get it. I sent it to all 4 addresses on Marvel's website--I know you'll get it soon; I sent the copy to the NY office special delivery with delivery confirmation, so I can see when someone signs for it on Monday morning.
So, without further ado:
Dear people at Marvel,
Hi, how are you? Is your spring/summer off to a wonderful start? Has the snow all melted for you? I know those of you in New York had the same sort of messy winter that we had here.
I am still working to figure out why my letters apparently don’t get any reply (even a form letter reply would be something). I figured I’d make this one more chatty and personable and see if that helps; heaven knows being the employee who has to open (and answer, if you happened to be working somewhere that actually answers) the mail is a thankless (and probably routinely boring) job, where you’re constantly buried in mail from fans who are a touch crazy and crackpots like me.
I just wanted to let you know that, as I stated might happen in my April letter, after my January and February letters were ignored (sorry about March—it’s a busy time of year for me, so I skipped a month—I’m sure Marvel was equal parts disappointed that they hadn’t heard from me and hoping that I’d forgotten the whole issue, right?), I am making my letters to you and my complaint in the blatant sexism to the public. On the positive side of ‘going public’, if you’re the new intern stuck with the miserable opening of the mail job, you can go to the website (http://dearmarvel.weebly.com/) and see the exciting letters you missed by not being at the desk in January.
I’m not much of a social-media expert, and I do have other things to do (I may be a crackpot fan, but I am a crackpot fan with a life), so I haven’t been smashingly successful yet—but I also only started the public campaign this week—my numbers of followers and such is fairly successful, considering it has only been a few days I’m having to catch up with the learning curve (for both Twitter and Tumblr). And don’t worry—I have a long attention span about such things; as evidenced by me still actually attempting to engage Marvel about this .
Beyond being a fan, I’m also the mother to one of Marvel’s little fans—she loves ‘Superhero Squad’ and Ms. Marvel. She also, at age 3, is becoming increasingly aware of the gender roles society assigns. The gender roles are, obviously, bigger than just Marvel; there is at age 3, already absurd emphasis on a (false) gender binary that limits the roles available for young women--even for preschoolers. That is actually one of the reasons my husband and I are keen to share our love of comics and such with our daughter—because in these geeky hobbies, princesses use blasters, a young woman can shape-shift into a superhero, and people have alter-egos whose interests include photography and biology—what’s not to love about that?
Well, what’s not to love about it is that companies like Marvel are cutting her out of the picture in EVERY product. There are 2 recurring female squaddies in ‘Superhero Squad’—Scarlett Witch and Ms. Marvel. Yet when I look for ‘Superhero Squad’ Chutes and ladders or the ‘Superhero Squad’ Play-Doh set, neither of these female characters shows up—they cut them out to put in Spiderman (who never shows up in the show) instead. The coloring books like Avengers, where ¼ of the main characters are female has 1/20 drawings featuring a female.
The numbers are bad enough that it ceases to be excused with ‘oops, that was an accident’. And starts to look like a concerted effort to remove girls from everything you produce.
Look, we all know the ‘old’ wisdom was that boys wouldn’t buy things that featured girls—but we also all know that ‘Frozen’ was a blockbuster success with both genders, and that nearly 50% of the viewers of shows like “Doc McStuffins” and ‘Sophia the First’ are boys. The ‘old’ wisdom has been seriously debunked. And even if it WASN’T debunked, it’s still irresponsible to try to push girls off the edge of the page. Marvel was the company that put Peter Parker in a mixed-race school. Marvel was the company that has made LGBT characters somewhat normalized. Marvel is BETTER than this—or at least it should be.
I’ll look forward to your response.
Thanks
-D
P.S. I truly am expecting a response—and I will be continuing the social-media call out at LEAST until I get one. It truly speaks poorly of Marvel’s relationship with fans that this is my 4th letter (er, if we’re counting # of copies mailed, we’re close to 10) and Marvel has yet to respond. Does that mean that all fan reflection is unwelcome, or does it just mean that Marvel is dismissing any call outs by women, about women’s roles?
Dear people at Marvel,
Hi, how are you? Is your spring/summer off to a wonderful start? Has the snow all melted for you? I know those of you in New York had the same sort of messy winter that we had here.
I am still working to figure out why my letters apparently don’t get any reply (even a form letter reply would be something). I figured I’d make this one more chatty and personable and see if that helps; heaven knows being the employee who has to open (and answer, if you happened to be working somewhere that actually answers) the mail is a thankless (and probably routinely boring) job, where you’re constantly buried in mail from fans who are a touch crazy and crackpots like me.
I just wanted to let you know that, as I stated might happen in my April letter, after my January and February letters were ignored (sorry about March—it’s a busy time of year for me, so I skipped a month—I’m sure Marvel was equal parts disappointed that they hadn’t heard from me and hoping that I’d forgotten the whole issue, right?), I am making my letters to you and my complaint in the blatant sexism to the public. On the positive side of ‘going public’, if you’re the new intern stuck with the miserable opening of the mail job, you can go to the website (http://dearmarvel.weebly.com/) and see the exciting letters you missed by not being at the desk in January.
I’m not much of a social-media expert, and I do have other things to do (I may be a crackpot fan, but I am a crackpot fan with a life), so I haven’t been smashingly successful yet—but I also only started the public campaign this week—my numbers of followers and such is fairly successful, considering it has only been a few days I’m having to catch up with the learning curve (for both Twitter and Tumblr). And don’t worry—I have a long attention span about such things; as evidenced by me still actually attempting to engage Marvel about this .
Beyond being a fan, I’m also the mother to one of Marvel’s little fans—she loves ‘Superhero Squad’ and Ms. Marvel. She also, at age 3, is becoming increasingly aware of the gender roles society assigns. The gender roles are, obviously, bigger than just Marvel; there is at age 3, already absurd emphasis on a (false) gender binary that limits the roles available for young women--even for preschoolers. That is actually one of the reasons my husband and I are keen to share our love of comics and such with our daughter—because in these geeky hobbies, princesses use blasters, a young woman can shape-shift into a superhero, and people have alter-egos whose interests include photography and biology—what’s not to love about that?
Well, what’s not to love about it is that companies like Marvel are cutting her out of the picture in EVERY product. There are 2 recurring female squaddies in ‘Superhero Squad’—Scarlett Witch and Ms. Marvel. Yet when I look for ‘Superhero Squad’ Chutes and ladders or the ‘Superhero Squad’ Play-Doh set, neither of these female characters shows up—they cut them out to put in Spiderman (who never shows up in the show) instead. The coloring books like Avengers, where ¼ of the main characters are female has 1/20 drawings featuring a female.
The numbers are bad enough that it ceases to be excused with ‘oops, that was an accident’. And starts to look like a concerted effort to remove girls from everything you produce.
Look, we all know the ‘old’ wisdom was that boys wouldn’t buy things that featured girls—but we also all know that ‘Frozen’ was a blockbuster success with both genders, and that nearly 50% of the viewers of shows like “Doc McStuffins” and ‘Sophia the First’ are boys. The ‘old’ wisdom has been seriously debunked. And even if it WASN’T debunked, it’s still irresponsible to try to push girls off the edge of the page. Marvel was the company that put Peter Parker in a mixed-race school. Marvel was the company that has made LGBT characters somewhat normalized. Marvel is BETTER than this—or at least it should be.
I’ll look forward to your response.
Thanks
-D
P.S. I truly am expecting a response—and I will be continuing the social-media call out at LEAST until I get one. It truly speaks poorly of Marvel’s relationship with fans that this is my 4th letter (er, if we’re counting # of copies mailed, we’re close to 10) and Marvel has yet to respond. Does that mean that all fan reflection is unwelcome, or does it just mean that Marvel is dismissing any call outs by women, about women’s roles?