A New Hero
Those of you who know me will know that I’m a massive superhero geek and go to all the Marvel and DC films in the cinema, whatever the reviews are. I love them, despite there being the nagging doubt that in this new millennium, there was still only a token girl. Think about it. Scarlet Johanson Black Widows her way through Iron Man, Captain America into The Avengers, never getting her own film, and becoming a random love interest for the Hulk! What happened to Betty? What did I miss? Marvel has LOTS of female heroes to choose from, it’s not like she was the only option. Would it have killed them to drop in a bit of She Hulk or Ms Marvel? For God’s sake, they even stole Kitty Pride’s story in X-Men: Days of Future Past and gave it to Wolverine. Come on, give your audience some credit, are you assuming they wouldn’t go to see it if it was a female lead? DC weren’t fairing much better; the painfully long Batman movies in which nothing seems to happen focused on a brooding Bruce Wayne, with minimal character development for anyone else. The small amount of Cat Woman that we actually got to see, made it appear that she was a lesbian, until meeting Bruce, then she was magically converted to the wonderful world of heterosexual man love, and all was right with the world.
If I’m honest, I could barely bring myself to care who won in Captain America Civil War, none of the characters seemed to be particularly justified, Stark was back to his trademark two dimensional arrogance, even though we were building a solid three dimensional character with the whole PTSD thing working through the other films. The Bromance between Captain America and the Winter Soldier took up way too much of the storyline, and Widow’s sudden flip to the other team was a plot device and completely out of what limited character they had allowed her to develop. There could have been some interesting development of the Scarlet Witch, but nah, let’s not bother. She does mind bendy stuff, let’s stick her in a couple fight scenes, balance the gender dynamic that way.
I was actually more impressed with Batman vs Superman, which despite the mixed reviews, I thought was rather good. I didn’t really have a problem with Clark and Lois being together, let’s face it, it’s what we all wanted, and the whole being apart for her own good thing is just annoying and why we all wanted to throttle Spiderman in those three films no-one wishes to speak of. I was less OK with Batman using guns, Batman does NOT use guns, but it’s a directorial choice, so I’ll cope, and I liked the introduction of Wonder Woman as a solid character in her own right.
Which brings me on to the point of this article, which, believe it or not, was not actually to rant, but to jump up and down for glee about my latest discoveries. Jessica Jones and Supergirl are, for want of a better word, BRILLIANT.
We all know that Netflix original productions are excellent at developing 
strong, diverse characters, and Jessica Jones is waving the flag for women everywhere. She is a strong female character, who has been through trauma, and is broken, which makes her realistically three dimensional. Her support system consists of her sister, and a badass female lawyer (who also happens to be a lesbian O… M… G…). There are men in it, David Tenant does an excellent job of being a really creepy super villian, so don’t watch it before bed, and they introduce Luke Cage as the love interest (eeek! You mean he isn’t the main reason for everything?!). I noticed a lot of men on social media complaining about the lack of men as characters in their own right. Well, welcome to our world, fellas. If you made any of your female friends sit through Transformers, which seemed to assumed that putting a woman in a push up bra was what consisted of making her three dimensional, then you have no right to complain. Seems that people only notice things that affect them directly.
DC does an equally impressive job with Supergirl, who again has a strong female support structure in the form of a badass ARGUS agent sister, and media mogul boss played by the awesome Calista Flockhart, who gets all the best lines about what it’s like to be a woman rising to the top. The male characters have a bit more to say than they do in Jessica Jones, with Jimmy Olsen not only being the love interest (I know, but he is nice to look at), but having some important parts to play in the plot. The thing I liked most was that it not only dealt with the issues faced by millennials, but by women, in an age where it’s harder to claim inequality, because things are so much better than they were, so why are we still moaning? I really liked the fact that no matter how tough things become, Supergirl would not call Superman to help, she needed to handle it herself.
I often come out of the cinema disappointed when there is a lack of strong female characters to identify with in the film, and I find myself wondering whether this is a new thing. After all, as a child I was able to watch superhero films and series and still enjoy them, even though the women were just there to be rescued. Am I newly angry, or is it that as a child you are conditioned to accept a social norm, which as an adult you start to question? One thing, however, is clear, and that is that we don’t have to put up with it any more. These two series have proved that, and I can’t wait for more to follow suit.
