Dear people at Marvel,
Good evening. I’ve been meaning to write this letter for a few weeks and kept delaying it, hoping that something, (anything) would happen to make me not feel like I had to write it. Unsurprisingly, that something didn't happen; Marvel didn't start treating its female fans and female characters as full-fledged members of their universe.
The last communication I had from Marvel said that I should be seeing “female characters come to life in our products in the future.” Great.
Can you tell me when to expect that future?
It’s not the future appearing in time for the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. All I learned from Marvel’s new blockbuster is that they’re quite eager to take the ticket money from the 44% female audience, but that they don’t want our merchandise money.
I know you’ve heard from me before. I know you’re hearing from other people. I’m not sure how many million letters Marvel will have to receive before they start to acknowledge that they have a problem.
I can understand how Marvel doesn’t see the problem, after all, the problem is an ingrained part of comic/geek culture; it’s ubiquitous there--the little things are constant (like the Spider Woman #1 having a concept cover that stars her painted on anatomically impossible butt pose; Marvel’s president giving interviews where he implies it’s passively out of Marvel’s control that they’ve refused to headline a female in a movie; the failure to put Gamora on any of their products, spurring the #WheresGamora;the questions of why the only headliners are white guys named Chris, etc.), but it is well past time when Marvel should be listening to female (actually, all) fans on this.
We all know Marvel has PR people (who are aware of anything I could possibly link), I guess I’m just wondering why Marvel’s PR people aren’t flipping out. Let me put it this way--I expect geek/feminist (and just plain ‘geek/comic’) websites like The Mary Sue to call out these examples of sexism, but when a comic company’s sexism is so blatant that various mainstream media sources l ike Time magazine and the CBC are
discussing the problem, it’s time to re-examine things hard.
When I ask some of the male geeks in my social circle (specifically those who are uninterested in feminist causes) to go to Marvel’s own website and they discover for themselves that *every* featured kids product is labeled ‘for boys’ and that all of the ‘group’ merch from Guardians of the Galaxy fails to feature Gamora; this site where they see the 3 categories are ‘Boys’, ‘Men’, and ‘Women’ (no ‘girls’--and pretty close to no female characters; precious little Gamora on any merchandise) and they have the response of “wow. I can see why you’re starting to think it’s a deliberate effort to exclude women” and “wow, it doesn’t seem like there’s any other explanation!” there’s a problem.
I know Marvel is taking baby steps--the new Ms. Marvel is great; the upcoming Thor is something we have high hopes for, but really, those are the exceptions that prove the rule. I’m excited for these things, but they are in the (relatively) hidden corners of the comics universe where they’ll be seen by those of us who are already into comics and games; the changes to the BIG things--like movies, like merchandise I can find on the shelves, like offering products on your website, there I see no change.
When my daughter wanted superhero favors to give out at her birthday party, we shopped and discovered that in the Marvel universe; there are Spiderman pencils and Avengers pencils--featuring Thor, Hulk, Wolverine, and Captain America (somehow they ‘forgot’ Black Widow). When she wanted a superhero shirt for her birthday, we discovered a lot of ‘boy’ shirts and many shirts with groups of Marvel characters--but those group shots nearly universally neglected to include the female characters (searching Amazon for ‘kid marvel shirt’ brings up shirts with the Avengers [males only], shirts with Superhero Squad [males only--Heck,I’ve seen every episode and haven’t seen some of those characters on the show], shirts with rather random assortments of Marvel Characters [males only]--hell, apparently Marvel can’t even manage to find a female in 1 of 18 characters.
Five pages into the search, when the DC comics’ additions started appearing, the female characters started trickling in), I told her we’d have to make one.
When she wanted to see a superhero movie, I paused. I’m not sure she’s old enough to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. I decided it didn't matter; it was off the table for now--because I know that she’ll love Gamora. And I’ll have to break her hero-worshiping heart once more to say, no, she can’t wear a Gamora shirt to school; it doesn't exist.
Every time she is interested in a new superhero portrayal and wants to explore the portrayal with the merch she sees for the male heroes, I end up having to tell her that the item doesn't exist--not because the character doesn't exist (Marvel has a ton of wonderful female characters) but because female voices (and apparently our money) are apparently not wanted in the Marvel universe.
So when is this elusive future when Marvel will be bringing female characters to life in their products?
I’ve been waiting a very long time; I expect to wait longer...but I’d like to see my daughter able to buy a Gamora shirt in the girl’s section of a store or website in her lifetime.
Thanks, I hope to hear promising things from Marvel on this in the future—I know Marvel is capable of better than it has been producing on this front.
-D
#WheresGamora, #WheresStanLee, #DearMarvel, #ISTHISTHINGON
Good evening. I’ve been meaning to write this letter for a few weeks and kept delaying it, hoping that something, (anything) would happen to make me not feel like I had to write it. Unsurprisingly, that something didn't happen; Marvel didn't start treating its female fans and female characters as full-fledged members of their universe.
The last communication I had from Marvel said that I should be seeing “female characters come to life in our products in the future.” Great.
Can you tell me when to expect that future?
It’s not the future appearing in time for the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. All I learned from Marvel’s new blockbuster is that they’re quite eager to take the ticket money from the 44% female audience, but that they don’t want our merchandise money.
I know you’ve heard from me before. I know you’re hearing from other people. I’m not sure how many million letters Marvel will have to receive before they start to acknowledge that they have a problem.
I can understand how Marvel doesn’t see the problem, after all, the problem is an ingrained part of comic/geek culture; it’s ubiquitous there--the little things are constant (like the Spider Woman #1 having a concept cover that stars her painted on anatomically impossible butt pose; Marvel’s president giving interviews where he implies it’s passively out of Marvel’s control that they’ve refused to headline a female in a movie; the failure to put Gamora on any of their products, spurring the #WheresGamora;the questions of why the only headliners are white guys named Chris, etc.), but it is well past time when Marvel should be listening to female (actually, all) fans on this.
We all know Marvel has PR people (who are aware of anything I could possibly link), I guess I’m just wondering why Marvel’s PR people aren’t flipping out. Let me put it this way--I expect geek/feminist (and just plain ‘geek/comic’) websites like The Mary Sue to call out these examples of sexism, but when a comic company’s sexism is so blatant that various mainstream media sources l ike Time magazine and the CBC are
discussing the problem, it’s time to re-examine things hard.
When I ask some of the male geeks in my social circle (specifically those who are uninterested in feminist causes) to go to Marvel’s own website and they discover for themselves that *every* featured kids product is labeled ‘for boys’ and that all of the ‘group’ merch from Guardians of the Galaxy fails to feature Gamora; this site where they see the 3 categories are ‘Boys’, ‘Men’, and ‘Women’ (no ‘girls’--and pretty close to no female characters; precious little Gamora on any merchandise) and they have the response of “wow. I can see why you’re starting to think it’s a deliberate effort to exclude women” and “wow, it doesn’t seem like there’s any other explanation!” there’s a problem.
I know Marvel is taking baby steps--the new Ms. Marvel is great; the upcoming Thor is something we have high hopes for, but really, those are the exceptions that prove the rule. I’m excited for these things, but they are in the (relatively) hidden corners of the comics universe where they’ll be seen by those of us who are already into comics and games; the changes to the BIG things--like movies, like merchandise I can find on the shelves, like offering products on your website, there I see no change.
When my daughter wanted superhero favors to give out at her birthday party, we shopped and discovered that in the Marvel universe; there are Spiderman pencils and Avengers pencils--featuring Thor, Hulk, Wolverine, and Captain America (somehow they ‘forgot’ Black Widow). When she wanted a superhero shirt for her birthday, we discovered a lot of ‘boy’ shirts and many shirts with groups of Marvel characters--but those group shots nearly universally neglected to include the female characters (searching Amazon for ‘kid marvel shirt’ brings up shirts with the Avengers [males only], shirts with Superhero Squad [males only--Heck,I’ve seen every episode and haven’t seen some of those characters on the show], shirts with rather random assortments of Marvel Characters [males only]--hell, apparently Marvel can’t even manage to find a female in 1 of 18 characters.
Five pages into the search, when the DC comics’ additions started appearing, the female characters started trickling in), I told her we’d have to make one.
When she wanted to see a superhero movie, I paused. I’m not sure she’s old enough to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. I decided it didn't matter; it was off the table for now--because I know that she’ll love Gamora. And I’ll have to break her hero-worshiping heart once more to say, no, she can’t wear a Gamora shirt to school; it doesn't exist.
Every time she is interested in a new superhero portrayal and wants to explore the portrayal with the merch she sees for the male heroes, I end up having to tell her that the item doesn't exist--not because the character doesn't exist (Marvel has a ton of wonderful female characters) but because female voices (and apparently our money) are apparently not wanted in the Marvel universe.
So when is this elusive future when Marvel will be bringing female characters to life in their products?
I’ve been waiting a very long time; I expect to wait longer...but I’d like to see my daughter able to buy a Gamora shirt in the girl’s section of a store or website in her lifetime.
Thanks, I hope to hear promising things from Marvel on this in the future—I know Marvel is capable of better than it has been producing on this front.
-D
#WheresGamora, #WheresStanLee, #DearMarvel, #ISTHISTHINGON