Desperately seeking female superheroes

September 16, 2008

Desperately seeking female superheroes

Check out this great article over at The American Prospect:

“Progress is slow and often nonexistent,” [Joss, of Buffy fame] Whedon said. “There’s plenty of cool comics with female characters. … But all it takes is one Catwoman to set the cause back a decade.”

He was bemoaning failed superheroine movies that slathered on high camp and special effects while dumbing down their characters. Both 2004’s Catwoman (starring Halle Berry) and 2005’s Elektra (starring Jennifer Garner) were critical and commercial flops because they didn’t embrace the fact that their characters are complicated anti-heroes; neither movie dares to make its heroine really bad or really good and neither movie ends up being very interesting.

Movie studios put out female-led superhero films with poor character writing (and in bad calendar timing, as the article goes on to say), then says there’s no market.

Reminds me of the crappy games put out for women that don’t have much playership, or noting that women don’t want to buy the sexist action games, then saying there’s no female market.

Someone needs to read the Halthor Legacy.

Related previous post: Entertainment and ‘Choice’

I want a female superheroine.  I just hope she’s wearing clothes and cool, sensible shoes.

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