One Woman in the Justice League
Just one woman, maybe two, in a team or group of men.
Also watch Jimmy Kimmel’s "Muscle Man’ superhero skit - “I’m the girly one”
The Avengers:
In Marvel Comics:
“Labeled “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in The Avengers issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him.”
5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Modern films (MCU):
The original 6 Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.
Again, 5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.
Justice League
In DC comics:
“The Justice League originally consisted of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman”
6 / 7 original members are male. Only one is female.
In modern films (DCEU):
The members were/are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (+ introducing Martian Manhunter (in Zack Snyder’s Justice League director’s cut))
5 / 6 main members in both versions of the Justice League film are male, with appearances by a 7th member in the director’s cut who is also male. Only one member is female.
The Umbrella Academy (comics and show)
7 members:
- Luther (Number One / Spaceboy)
- Diego (Number Two / The Kraken)
- Allison (Number Three / The Rumor)
- Klaus (Number Four / The Séance)
- Five (Number Five / The Boy)
- Ben (Number Six / The Horror)
- Vanya (Number Seven / The White Violin) Later becomes known as Viktor and nonbinary in the television adaptation after Elliot Page’s transition but that’s not really relevant to this.
Here, 5 / 7 original members are male. Only two are female. Only slightly better than the other more famous superhero teams, and they had to add another member (compared to Avengers’ 6 members) to improve the ratio (maybe executives still demanded to have 5 males).
Now let’s look at some sitcoms and other stories.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
4 males, and 1 female slightly less prominent character who is abused constantly. The show claims to be politically aware and satirical but gets away with a lot of misogynistic comedy, tbh, that I’m willing to bet a lot of people are finding funny for the wrong reasons.
Community:
Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce, Shirley. This one is a little better, 3/7 are female. Notice it’s always more males though, they never let it become more than 50% female, or else then it’s a “chick flick” or a “female team up” or “gender flipped” story. And of course the main character, and the leading few characters, are almost always male or mostly male.
Stranger Things:
Main original group of kids consisted of: Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and El (Eleven). 1 original female member, who is comparable to an alien and even plays the role of E.T. in direct homage. When they added Max, I saw people complaining that although they liked her, there should be only one female member. 🤦
Why is it ‘iconic’ to have only one female in a group of males? Does that just mean it’s the tradition, the way it’s always been? Can’t we change that? Is it so that all the men can have a chance with the one girl, or so the males can always dominate the discussion with their use of force and manliness? Or so that whenever the team saves the day, it’s mostly a bunch of men doing it, but with ‘a little help’ from a female/a few females (at most), too!
It’s so fucked up and disgusting to me I’ve realised. And men don’t seem to care. I’m a male and this is really disturbing to me now that I’ve woken up to it. How do women feel about this? Am I overreacting?
An interesting counter point to this.
Kids movies, I’m a dad, I only have boys. Trying to find new movies that have good male parts is challenging. There are plenty of “girl empowerment” movies, but ones with good role models for boys are few and far between.
Everything is based around violence. Like really, is that all boys are good for?
…and not just movies. My partner and I steadfastly try to do all “interacting with kid’s school, extracurricular and social groups” stuff 50/50. We always strive to go to (and host) such important events together. We always indicate we should both be added to mailing lists, and give both our phone numbers as contacts, etc, etc. However, much (sometimes most) of the time people only ever call her about kids playdates, medical professionals default to discussing his issues with her exclusively even though I am sitting next to her and commenting too, when there is a parents’ chat/mail group for his classes or other activities usually she gets added and then has to help me muscle my way in to the group (and the groups are often all women). Once at a preschool party a parent saw me interact with my kid, came and asked me to point out his mother, then went to her to invite our kid to a birthday party. It’s never-ending for a father who strives to be a “caring father”, and not just an infantile “toxically masculine, one-dimensional, emotionally stunted cliché” in terms of “role model”. It is exhausting for both her and me, but is also extremely demoralising for me because trying to be what you believe to be the right kind of role-model is one of the most important yet virtually undocumented parts of parenting, and even more demoralising because it still happens even after I hugely reduced my external workload in order to be the primary “stay at home” parent. One small positive step is that the country we live in introduced “paternity leave at child-birth” legal requirements (much smaller than for maternity leave though, and only introduced after my kid was born [sigh]). In popular culture it has become a trope that women suffer endlessly trying to play the role of both parents to compensate for idiotic (or selfish prick) fathers, but it glosses over the fact that a man who actively tries to “be the change” (and any woman who tries to facilitate that change in solidarity) are so often tripped up at every step by this pervasive (and often subconscious) intellectual and emotional inflexibility. One other small positive is that I occasionally find another father who feels the same way (and who is often just as frustrated and burned out by the state of things) …sometimes - just one or two. Having previously lived in many countries/continents I also know that the country I live in is far from the worst offender for this, which makes it even more pathetic globally.
Oh yeah, you are so right. It feels at times like - when I’m not teaching him to play football (violently), and not egging him on to emulate (violent) action figures, and not buying him fake guns to play with (violently), and not telling him to “man up” instead of taking time to understand his feelings, etc - there seems to be a degree of subliminal judgmentalism directed at me for not “sticking to the job description”. It seems many people will prefer to see the world burn in preference to accepting someone disregarding parts of the “normality” rulebook based on rational introspection, including those who would never admit it out loud, and even some who haven’t yet consciously realised they are standing on that side of history - perhaps because it holds up a mirror to them not doing so (out of fear?, laziness?, bitterness-fueled pulling-up the ladder?).
Just for a specific example. Bluey vs Paw Patrol. Both HUGE kids shows, about dog-based characters.
In Bluey all of the important characters except Bandit are female. The stories are awesome, they revolve around family, caring and over coming challenges. They are almost never violent, the stories are rich and interesting and somewhat entertaining even for an adult watching for the infinity+1th time.
In Paw Patrol; all the important characters are male except Mayor Goodway and Skye. The stories are repetitive and boring, they revolve around working together, being heroic and solving problems. They are regularly violent, and as the show has progressed it has gotten stupid with massive power creep and a group of antagonists. Paw Patrol just kinda sucks.
In Bluey often Bandit is used for comic relief; none of the female characters are. In Paw Patrol, the comic relief is handled by Mayor Humdinger who is often the antagonist, Mayor Goodway is often scatterbrained but rarely is the comic punching bag.
This is valid but I want to non-judgmentally laugh at the concept of power creep in Paw Patrol
Same for kids books. It’s great for my daughter, but it’s hard to find good movies and books for her younger brother.
First, I’m confused as to why you’d need to segregate books and film by gender, these all have either a male or non-gendered lead: Captain Underpants, Nate the Great, Hal The 3rd Class Hero, The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, Treasure Island, Danny the Champion of the World, The Outsiders, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Percy Jackson (all 40 billion of the series), The Giving Tree, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Bridge to Terabithia, James and the Giant Peach, Holes (series), Where The Wild Things Are, The Heroes of Olympus (more Percy Jackson I think), Ender’s Game, Winnie The Pooh, Narnia (series), The Wind In The Willows, The Indian in the Cupboard, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Neverending Story, I Am Every Good Thing, Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like it), King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Wild Robot (series), Stuart Little, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Lord of The Flies, Calvin and Hobbes (series), The Dangerous Book for Boys, The American Boys Handy Book.
(You didn’t specify age, so I tried to add our family suggestions for about 4-12. Once he’s older, depending on your thoughts on the language, we also have a lot of suggestions for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn)
We don’t need to, but I noticed at one point that he’s mostly seeing female leads. We read a bunch of the books in your list, many others we avoided because they’re no longer in line with current times (and they’re not old enough to understand the historical context), and a bunch of them are not for their age yet.
I appreciate what you’re saying, however:
Women are, regardless of any other stat, still under-represented. 2000-2009 is depressing.
No problem with the stats.
But I’m really interested in movies aimed at the under 10yo segment
Branch out of American media; European and Asian media have much less tolerance for on-screen hardcore violence. American media freaks out over a nipple in children’s media, but war and graphic fighting are A-OK!
Totally.
I love Shaun the Sheep.
Must not be an anime fan.
Anime is great if you want you kids to think they are supposed to surrounded by a harem of women so possessive of their crush that they can’t function for themselves without that crush their site reason for existing, more often than not
Why can’t a girl be a good role model for a boy?
(I’m not completely disagreeing with you btw - if all the boy leads are “stereotypical boy” then it’s just perpetrating the problem)
For the same reason we want diverse casts in media.
Kids learn by putting themselves into the story. I don’t want to see only girls kicking arse and boys being relegated into two dimensional villains or stupid sidekicks.
I recommend Onward, especially if they’re a little older enough to really resonate with the ending