Why Female Superheroes Are Uncommon in Movies or Comic Books (Essay Sample)

Why Female Superheroes Are Uncommon in Movies or Comic Books Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Why Female Superheroes Are Uncommon in Movies or Comic Books The overrepresentation of male superheroes in comic books and movies has been a standardized sexist act within the entertainment industry for eons. Consequently, the likability and popularity of male superheroes, especially among hero-centric movies and comic books enthusiasts, such as Superman, Spiderman, Black Panther, Thor, Green Lantern, and the Hulk, has invariably been higher than that of their female contemporaries. Thus female standalone superhero comic books or movies have often been uncommon since the advent of the previously mentioned film genre. Such low numbers of women with lead-acting roles in Detective Comic (DC) and Marvel-produced movies and comic books can be solely attributed to two primary factors. The pre-existing stereotype of women as femmes fatales and the discovery that superhero motion pictures and comic books with females as lead actors perform undesirably at the United States Box Office compared to those with men as main characters. The Femmes Fatale Stereotype Women have invariably featured in superhero comic books and movies. However, women are habitually misrepresented as incapable of leading and as mere adjuncts to their male counterparts. The abovementioned misconception has vastly incentivized people's embracement of a culture that undignifies women through retrogressive gender stereotypes, primarily in superhero comic books and films. As innately sexualized beings, women are inherently assigned supporting roles as love interests of their male counterparts. The Harvard Political Review (2014) posits that even though characters like Mary Jane and Lois Lane are irrefutably tough and even exuberant personas, their primary purposes are to act as Spiderman's and Superman's sexual partners, respectively. Within the X-Men’s trilogy, Mystique, for example, is showcased throughout the movie in a skin-resembling tight blue suit that showcases, though non-explicitly, the curvature of her chest and genitalia areas. Similarly, these women’s fighting modalities lean vastly on female sexuality. Mystique and Avenger’s Black Widow often wrap their thighs around villains’ necks to choke such antagonists (Harvard Political Review, 2014). Moreover, these women, including The Dark Knight’s Catwoman and X-Men: First Class’s Emma Frost, typically utilize seduction as their primary coercion and interrogation paradigm. In minute doses, the formerly described examples may positively showcase women's intelligence through their judicious employment of eroticism as a viable modality of furthering their individualistic agendas in superhero films and comic books. Nonetheless, the over objectification of women in superhero movies and comic books often negatively portrays these characters as mare femmes fatales. The latter stereotype vastly limits female superheroes’ dynamism in comic books and films of the formerly mentioned genre, consequently lowering audiences' affinity for these characters. Thus a vast percentile of superhero-centric movie enthusiasts attaches more relevance and active entertainment-based value to films with male superheroes as lead characters than those with females as main actors (Ndalianis, 2020). Subsequently, men get more lead actor roles than women, thereby engendering the latter's underrepresentation in superhero films and comic books. The Profit Rationale Furthermore, Hollywood strategically strives to please the male population, which is its largest target audience. According to Moloney (2014), young men constitute the highest percentage of superhero movies’ viewers. Incentivized by the formerly presented statement, Hollywood content producers are often convinced that young men and adolescent boys would not be entirely interested in films with female superheroes as lead actors (Moloney, 2014). Since movie and comic book production organizations like Marvel and DC are profit-oriented enterprises, these firms are less inclined to invest in creating films than would likely not sell well in theatres worldwide. For instance, Hollywood has repeatedly employed the failures of female-led superhero movies like Electra, Catwoman, and Supergirl at the United States Box office as its...