At some point today, people @Marvel and @Disney will be signing for some of these today. The rest of the letters will just be normal mail.
Somehow, the last 'signed for' letters didn't get a response. Hope these fare better--a response would get me into the Christmas spirit--although not as much as finding a Ms. Marvel fig @Universal studios would have.
Dear Marvel,
Have you ever been told that there's a point where the best response to something beyond the pale is just the word 'wow'? Saying an incredulous 'wow' hammers home that something is so far off the mark it's remarkable, just for extremity and absurdity that there are no words--and it does it without having to spell out all 3 million reasons the response is “wow”.
Wow.
I'd love to have that speak for itself, but somehow, the messages I'm sending, even when they're spelled out, are not getting through. So I probably have to spell it out again. Which is most unfortunate, I had other plans for today and this is going to take way to long and I'm sure whomever had the misfortune to be the person opening this letter has things he or she would rather be doing.
I think, however, that laying things out clearly would help-with a timeline. It will be refreshing for both of us since I'm tired of writing walls of text and Marvel is clearly tired of not reading and throwing away my walls of text.
I'll make anything positive (or even remotely acceptable), that Marvel does purple and italicized.
- Early December, 2013-I try to buy my child superhero-color-wonder pages (specifically looking for ‘girl heroes’ because that’s what has been asked for). Find out (repeatedly) that even lines with awesome heroines who play major roles (Black Widow in the Avengers, Scarlet Witch in Superhero Squad, etc.) have no female heroes in the pages--so I'm repeatedly answering the 'where are the girl heroes?' question with variations on "I don't know/the marketing is done by people who somehow find 50% of the population invisible--but don't let them chase you away! I'm sure they won't be misogynists when you are interested in the topic..." The question of "where are the girls" is a constant one and I have to answer it a lot as my daughter, a young superhero fan, asks it constantly. Once that question is asked and the sexism shows up, it can’t be unseen and the blatant sexism in tons of Marvel merchandise which leaves off all female characters is blindingly obvious.. (I'm not going to say "I see more sexist Marvel merch" throughout this letter. Just assume, if I don't say "the skies opened and angels sang and they included girls" that I saw sexist merchandise every time I shopped)
- January, 2014-I write to Crayola (canned sort of response. Not surprising, not helpful) and Marvel (no response) pointing out that 50% of the population is showing up in less than 5% of their portrayals
- February, 2014-I write to Marvel again. (sending my letter to multiple Marvel addresses)
- April, 2014-I write to Marvel again. (sending my letter to multiple Marvel addresses)
- May, 2014-I write to Marvel again. (sending my letter to multiple Marvel addresses)--This time, Marvel has to sign for it, I send it certified mail. I also, since I'm feeling ignored and annoyed (understandable, I assume), make all of my letters open on a blog, dearmarvel.weebly.com
- April/May 2014, I got a response from Marvel (dated April--things crossed in the mail or were eaten by mailer daemons). It tried to assure me that Marvel was hearing my concerns and was going to look at letter-answering issues.
- June 16, 2014, filed with hope that Marvel was/is paying attention, I wrote again (sending my letter to multiple Marvel addresses), asking for slightly more concrete plans than "in the future" there would be more female characters on merchandise (essentially, wondering what sort of timeline this future was going to be)
- June 26, 2014, I contacted Marvel and Joann Fabrics, annoyed that even DIY merch (ALL of it) was missing women.
- July 14, 2014, I have to confess I'm not sure if I mailed a copy of my observation that every single item that Marvel provided to The Children's Place (clothes, lunchboxes, backpacks, etc) was labeled 'boy' or, since I was just to frustrated for words when I got emails inviting me to buy boys superhero stuff. It was put on the blog, but may not have been mailed
- July 24, 2014, Marvel announces the new Thor. I'm hopeful but suspicious (and I do blog about it, because I'm actually a fan. Obviously, I wouldn't be so frustrated and irritated and invested if I weren't a fan)
- August 3, 2014, Marvel president Kevin Feige does an interview where he discusses the lack of female portrayals and says things like "I hope we do it sooner rather than later". Not impressed with the passive voice non answer, I continue to hope Marvel is paying attention that *everyone* is wondering where the female-led movie is.
- August 4, 2014, I get an email that shows me that Disney Infinity manages to have more marvel non-human characters than female characters. I (rather naively) assumed that since I got a previous response saying they'd work on letter answering procedure, that I'm no longer writing to a black hole--so I don't send something directly to Marvel, I blog and continue to wait for responses to my previous letters.
- August 7 and 8, 2014, I feel incredibly vindicated when the rest of the internet/world notices that somehow, Gamora got left off all of the Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise. There is significant buzz about it and, as far as I can see, Marvel responded by doing nothing to make essential changes.
- Late August, 2014, Marvel releases the incredibly sexist, justifiably maligned variant cover to Spider Woman #1 which gets called out for it quite justifiably and vocally.
- August 25, 2014, I write to Marvel again. (sending my letter to multiple Marvel addresses)
- September 1, 2014, Marvel acknowledges the spider-butt-gate cover was sending the wrong/mixed message and apologizes. (Of course, they also downplay it's importance and pretend they don't have a serious sexism problem, IMO, very incorrectly, but overall, since apparently my bar is set low enough that "a response! hooray!" registers, we'll call this a positive move)
- September, 2014, It's my child's birthday. She wants girl superheroes at her party (I'm so proud. The next generation of geeks--that is if I can keep her interested in spite of never seeing herself in the cast of characters that Marvel and others are making.) I go into Party City and discover that (no surprise) all of the superhero items are labeled "boys" and that, once again, even with teams including prominent female characters (like the avengers), include no female characters on any of the products.
- September 20-25, 2014, I've written to Marvel (several Marvel addresses), Joann Fabrics, and Party City, and Disney about all of the above (again).
- Joann Fabric responds. Nobody else does.
- October 17, 2014, I write to Marvel's several addresses again (and to Party City and Disney). I send them certified so that someone has to sign for them. Someone DOES sign for them.
- Mid October, 2014, I hear awesome stuff about Marvel's female involvement and panels at the NY con. (This doesn't directly affect me at all--but is a good thing and there's precious little positive in this letter, so let's include it, just to pad Marvel's score a bit)
- October 27, 2014, someone at Marvel's New York office signs for the letter.
- October 28, 2014, Marvel announces the plans to do Ms. Marvel in 2018! I jump for joy and blog copiously. (and I fully expected that I'd get a "see, we were listening" response back to my letter—after all, it was sent certified and someone signed for it—so we all know it was received. But I didn't. No response at all.)
- November 6, 2014, Disney responds and the message is that, subsidiary or not, this is Marvel's problem.
- November 11, 2014 Ms. Marvel action figure will exist! As will Scarlet Witch! Huzzah for the "Maidens of Might", whenever they are produced.
- November, 2014, I take a long-awaited family trip to Orlando, where I'm unsurprised at the incredibly sexist offerings in the Universal Studios gift-shops. No female portrayals on shirts (minus the one 'girl power' one, which I, of course, bought), no female action figures. And "Now boys, stop fighting over me" as one of the very few shirts labeled 'girls'? really!?! On the plus side, I do get reading time to catch up on the new Ms. Marvel on the flight down)
- December, 2014, I try to buy Christmas presents for my daughter. When I FINALLY find something (squinkies) with 2 out of 20ish female characters, I jump on buying them. For everything else, books, action figures, pens, pencil cases, I end up buying from the DC comics line because Marvel doesn't make anything.
So, now that I've laid out in copious detail, what I, as a fan and a consumer (and as a person who is all but BEGGING to be able to give you money for female-centric merchandise) am dealing with, I'd really (really) like to see Marvel respond.
I can't come up with a better reaction to the take away from that timeline – a message of "wow, you contacted a company essentially monthly, for a year and got 1 response? And then ignored again? And they continue to show females on often less than 1% of merch. portrayals? and their answer to that is to do NOTHING-not even write back?” than “wow”. I’d really like that reaction to be changed to “wow, they screwed up badly—but are taking ownership of both their fan reaction system and their sexism and stepping up now.”
I know that one of the questions I'll be asked is, “what do you expect Marvel to do?”. At this point, my expectations are awfully and terribly low
What I would *like* them to do is, first and foremost, respond. Make it clear fans heard. Write a ding-dangity letter back. Don't throw away letters without responding. I’ve said before, and I’m saying again, I’m not writing because I hate Marvel, I’m writing because I’m a fan who is feeling maligned and who is seeing my daughter being shunted away from the love of comics we share because of sexism.
What I would like to see Marvel do, secondly (and more importantly) is include female characters in merchandise-In shows, on t-shirts, in movies, on merchandise. And I’d like to see these female characters not as an afterthought, but as full characters, who show up and DO stuff.
What I would like for Marvel to do is make a plan and publicize a plan for including their for female characters that's more concrete than "you'll see some in the future". I know Marvel can't say "oh, we're planning, next week, to announce the Squirrel Girl thing--shhh, don't tell anyone"; there are plans invisible to fans, as always, but a vague 'changes are coming' means nothing if we don't see those changes. When I shop on Marvel's website and that 50% of the population with XX chromosomes shows up on 3/83 items (<yes, those are the real numbers from Marvel's toy website this winter when I last commented), those promises feel an awful lot like empty lip service.
What I would *REALLY* like is for Marvel to acknowledge it's a problem and attempt to fix it. Until Marvel can say "yeah, 3/83 or 3.61% female depiction is a problem. We need to work on this", fans are going to hear the promises to do better ring pretty hollow.
I know that it takes time to create merchandise, but I don’t see any reason Marvel can't 'fix' things that exist?
As 'Daniel Tiger' teaches preschoolers every day, "saying I'm sorry is the first step. Then 'how can I help?'"
Marvel probably can't/won't re-make entire lines, but there are small 'corrections' that could be made. For example, one of the products I complained about was "Superhero Squad Chutes and Ladders"--with all male pawns (including males not even a part of the show). Marvel probably isn't going to be able to remake the game tomorrow, but could have printable female character play pieces of Ms. Marvel and Scarlet Witch.
The coloring books leave out female characters and characters of color; provide some printable coloring sheets to parents who want their kids to be able to color someone other than a white male.
Honestly, if, as a person with just access to a computer and a printer, I can come up with fixes like that off the top of my head, Marvel should be able to figure out how to put Gamora into some of their merchandise with their available resources.
I'm a fan of Marvel because Marvel has awesome characters and has historically been at the forefront with things like diversity. I love the characters produced and the fandom I get to be a part of. And the Marvel that was able to put characters of color into integrated settings, that was able to refocus the comics code so they could warn about dangers of drugs, that has the anti-bullying message out right now is capable of combating sexism.
So, to sign off, I'd just like to say that all I really want for Christmas is peace on Earth, goodwill to everyone, a heaping helping of equality, and my daughter to see herself reflected in the heroines she plays with. (And a response to this letter.)
Thanks for your time and attention. You can reach me in any of the ways listed in the header here.
-Me
P.S. I’m not sure which address and email addresses I should send this to, so I’m sending it to several. Please assume that a quick email of “hey, we got your letter, we will respond shortly” which is followed up upon later is preferable to waiting a long time to respond—because feeling ignored is how we got here in the first place.
P.P. S. Happy Holidays!
#DearMarvel, #GeekSexism, #IsThisThingOn, #LousyCustomerService, #WheresBlackWidow,