Dear Mr Feige,
You don’t know me, but I know you. I know you because you are the individual whose signature determines the future of a franchise that is dear to my heart, on which I have spent much of my hard-earned money. I know you because over the years you have made me and my sisters and the brothers of my sisters promises that have yet to be fulfilled.
Mr. Feige, when you say you won’t be “swayed by the backlash”—as if it is a negative thing, for billions of people to want for you to show that they, too, can be superheroes—what reason then should we have to be swayed to see what movies you do deem worthy of your attention? What justification do you have that we have not already heard countless times before and which has not already been disproven?
When, Mr. Feige, is “the right time”? When The Hunger Games: Catching Fire grossed over $800 million the world over—nearly as much as The Avengers and more than Iron Man 3—was that not the right time? When Life of Pi made more than the first Iron Man, and Django Unchained more than The Wolverine—was that not the right time? Or was the right time not when the first Pacific Rim made more money than the first X-Men?
When will the right time be? How many years? What does it look like? Quantify it for me, please, Mr. Feige, so that I might understand. You say you want a Marvel movie every year: what year, then, will we finally begin to see ourselves in starring roles in your films?
Do you believe piracy is wrong, Mr. Feige? Do you believe theft is wrong? Then how do you justify your constant thefts from us, Mr. Feige? You steal from us when you dangle vague promises in front of our noses and refuse to deliver. You steal from us when you promise us that our stories will receive adequate attention in movies that continue to give precedence to white men. You steal our hopes, our loyalty, and our money, and you do not deliver.
How familiar are you with statistics, Mr. Feige? Are you aware that the Motion Picture Association of America determined that 51% of the movie-going audience in 2013 was not white, and that 52% was female? And that is not even taking into account the rest of the world, Mr. Feige, which is far more diverse racially than this country is. The rest of the world accounted for the majority of The Avengers’s total gross earnings.
I work in retail, Mr. Feige. I see your consumer base. When a little girl approaches me after watching The Avengers because she wants to buy Black Widow comics, do you propose to tell her she is any less deserving of seeing herself reflected on the big screen as the little boys you feature in your films, inspiring and being inspired in turn by their heroes brought to life? When my female friends approach me to talk about their newly roused interest in comics and their restraining fear of the reception they’ll receive upon walking into a comic shop: do you wish me to tell them to stay away from the comic shops, Mr. Feige?
It’s time you start treating your female fans and your fans of color with respect, Mr. Feige. It’s time you start acknowledging that the wealth your franchise has made you and your company was made by people like us: made by women and by people of color who go to see superhero movies because we love superheroes. It’s time to acknowledge that we can be superheroes too—super heroes, not super sidekicks.
We’re ready, Mr. Feige. We’ve been ready. The ball is in your court. We’re waiting.
Tag: representation
Ming-na Wen and Retta at NerdHQ’s A Conversation with Badass Women (x)Retta: My parents are from Liberia, and Liberians are ALL about school. It’s like, no joke. Most of them send their kids to the States to go to school because they think that’s where the best schools are, that sort of thing. And I was a math-science girl, I was pre-med. I was supposed to be a neurosurgeon.And I remember when I started doing stand up, I was like, “Shit! My mother is going to be like, ‘Are you fucking kidding me right now?’” And I remember calling my mom and saying, “So I’m going to drive to California and do the stand-up thing so I can get into TV.” And my mom, you know, she didn’t freak out like I thought she was totally going to freak out. My dad freaked out. He was like, “Please get health insurance.” That was his big thing, “GET HEALTH INSURANCE.” But my mom was like, “Just remember you’re carrying around your father’s last name. So don’t embarrass him.” She was like, “Do the best that you can. Don’t go playing. If you’re going to do, do it.” So, I dropped my last name so as not to embarrass my father.But God bless, because a lot of parents wouldn’t…Ming-na: You know, we have to talk. Because I dropped my stage last name Wen for the longest time when I did ER – which, by the way, I got to tell my mom, “I got to be a doctor for 5 years so, write that off the list.” because of same issues, fatherly things.But now, I have it back because I’m proud being who I was born as. And we have so much to talk about, girl.It’s interesting that Nerd HQ’s “A Conversation with Badass Women” is more diverse than the SDCC’s “Women Who Kick Ass” panel…and doesn’t only focus on women who physically kick ass.
I think my favorite thing about the fandom culture on tumblr are the headcanon posts. They’re all revolutionary, because they almost invariably come from marginalized voices. We who have been unloved by the world imagine our favorite characters loving us, fighting for us. Where their creators expect us to exalt them through uncritical worship, we do it by humbling them instead. We make them better by making them one of us.
We racebend, or we explore and celebrate the cultural backgrounds of non-white characters whose ethnicities have been canonically overlooked. We reclaim them as queer or non-binary or neurotypical or disabled, and then we imagine them loving themselves and being loved by their communities. We take characters who have been broken in their battles and envision for them days of quiet happiness, of rest and healing and small comforts, because we’ve been there and we know exactly what you need. We turn them into the role models we should have, that we desperately need, and I think it helps us love ourselves more too.
So don’t ever stop writing posts about Scott McCall hearing his mother sing lullabies in Spanish or Bucky Barnes helping kids get prosthetics or charity-starting bisexual Steve Rogers who stands up for women’s rights or Hogwarts houses validating their trans students. Give me all your fan art of fat Feferi and hijabi Rose Lalonde and the Avengers in a big cuddle pile of mutual self care. This is so important, don’t let anybody tell you differently. I appreciate it all so much.
As a queer person of color, I have been told all my life that I will never play the romantic lead, and that’s fucked up. When they say that, what they’re actually telling you is that your love story doesn’t exist.
Dylan Marron, SDCC 2014 (via ivory-spirals)
I want to bring some positivity into the world today, because I REALLY want to move away from all this awfulness, so let me talk for a little while about MCU!Pepper Potts.
Pepper Potts is a woman whom I have absolutely nothing in common with. She is tall, graceful, and effortlessly feminine; I am a petite punk girl with a lot of tattoos. She enjoys expensive high heels; I spend a lot of time wearing tactical boots. I’m not her, and I don’t aspire to be her, and in the face of women like Natasha Romanoff and Peggy Carter, who are more obviously admirable for someone like me, it’s easy for her to get overlooked.
But I love Pepper Potts. To me, what stands out about her is the way she negotiates a path between love and necessity. She is a character who consistently offers real kindness to those around her, regardless of their flaws, and also while having to overcome her own impatience: to Tony at his most unbearable, to Maya as Maya betrays her, to “Natalie” after the two of them have been put at odds, to Happy when he’s being ridiculous. You get the sense that what she wants to offer to the world, always, is this kindness.
And I don’t think that kindness ever really abates— but it doesn’t prevent her from doing what needs to be done, even when that’s unpleasant.
Because I matter.
Hi, regarding the Remender thing about the ‘m-word’ – have you been reading the All-New X-Men? If not, you should- if just for how Kitty Pryde responded to Alex’s little announcement.
I have, and how shocking! A Jewish woman, who happens to also be a mutant and a superhero, and is written by a Jewish man, has a slightly different view on the matter. 8)
Warning for racial slurs at the bottom of the page, and Remender being a GIGANTIC JACKASS at the top of the page, but the important points are here. http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/06/26/kitty-pryde-talks-about-the-m-word/
And yeah, seriously. I will disdain Remender for the rest of my life for the ‘hobo piss’ comment.
Agents of SHIELD + female guest stars
The awkward moment when you’re trying to tell your parents that you’re a super hero but you come out instead
#FAV#A FAV BECAUSE THEY’RE ACTUALLY GAY#SO ITS NOT A ”HAHA GAY” JOKE OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE BEING MISTAKEN AS GAY
My favorite part of this is that Billy is like, “?!” but Teddy is just like, “Hell yes, eggs!”
avengerss-deactivated20140819:
Superman, black would be the coolest dude in the world. Imagine Sam Jackson in a cape. Running around. That would be a good movie.
I think what a lot of people don’t get is, these people aren’t real. If you cast a black dude as John F Kennedy, that’s wrong. If you cast a white dude as Martin Luther King, that’s wrong. These people aren’t real. The suits aren’t real. There aren’t really superheroes in the world.
At some point in time, you have to steep yourself in reality and say, ‘hey, it’s not about what they look like, it’s about casting a good actor in the role. If you’re sitting at home and you can’t see a black guy as Nick Fury, maybe there’s something wrong with you.
knitting in the dark 