Where Are The Women Of Color?: On Marvel's Problems With Race

It’s no secret that Marvel has a diversity problem. With every new release in film or television, the problem becomes larger and more noticeable. However, many of those that criticize Marvel’s diversity problems, tend to highlight the wrong thing. The large majority of criticism stems from the lack of representation of “women” in the MCU, and while there’s a bit of truth to that condemnation, it’s also another conversation that falsely centers white women.

In Film

Over the course of the last 7 years, there have been 12 films in the MCU, starting with 2008s Iron Man through to this year’s release, Ant-Man, and there is at least one white woman (or a woman that presents as white) in every single one of them. Many of them are exhibited as love interests first and foremost, which is the primary point of contention of the female fan base. But while there are very few female superheroes, none of which have headlined a film thus far, women do exist in the MCU even if they play supporting roles, and nearly all of them are white.

What’s missing from the conversation is what is always glossed over and forgotten about, when we talk about “women”: Women of Color. To date, there has been exactly one WoC character of note with a name and speaking role, out of all 12 Marvel films: Dr. Helen Cho. Dr. Cho makes her appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and thankfully she is not bogged down with the usual tropes and stereotypes that surround Asian women in our media . She is not simply relegated to a love interest, and she does play an important part in the creation of Vision, but her contributions are overlooked by the rest of the characters. She is not what I would consider a “hero” in the traditional sense, and she is primarily a secondary supporting character, with no backstory or development, unlike every single other female character in the entire franchise.

There were two other female characters that appeared alongside Helen Cho, both of whom are white: Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. Both women would fall easily into the “hero(ine)” category. In fact, most of the women in the MCU do in one way or another (eventually at least), whether they are super-powered or not. With the exception of Helen Cho, Jane Foster, and (arguably) Pepper Potts, the women in Marvel films all have fight scenes in which they demonstrate that they can more than handle themselves, even if they may pull double duty as love interests. And even those who are not shown to physically fight, are all in positions of power (Helen Cho and Jane Foster are world leading scientists in their respective fields, and Pepper Potts is the CEO of Stark Industries) And whether with wit or brawn, none of them are entirely helpless (Peggy Carter, Sif, Maria Hill, Hope and Janet Van Dyne, Gamora, Sharon Carter, Frigga, & Nebula).

So really the problem for white female fans is not lack of representation, or even the kinds of representation (because most present the “Strong Female Character” archetype everyone says they’d like to see), but that there has yet to be a Marvel film lead by a woman. And while that is certainly a valid complaint, I can’t help but point out that there are exactly zero WoC (or non-Black MoC) heroes in Marvel films at all, and there have been exactly zero MCU films lead by a Person of Color thus far (and no, Gamora does not count as a WoC because while Zoe Saldana is an Afro-Latina, Gamora is not, nor does she code or present that way. And if you were thinking of a joke about her as a “literal WoC” because she’s green, smack yourself in the face for me).

"She Called Them Anti-Seed": How The Women of Mad Max: Fury Road Divorce Violence From Strength

Imperator Furiosa and the Five Wives look down upon the Citadel.

"Strong female character."

It's a phrase we hear over and over in pop culture, usually in reference to a female character in an action movie who has lots of guns. "Strong female characters" know how to fight, know how to use weapons and they best all the boys in confrontation. "Strong Female Characters" are effectively measured by their capacity for violence and their competence in the theatre of war.

But what does it mean when we equate strength with violence on a cultural level, and especially in relation to women's place in society?

In Mad Max: Fury Road, the "strong female characters" are notable specifically for their aversion to violence. The film portrays its women as emotionally strong people who engage in violence only in self-defense, and only against the system that oppresses them.

The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future desert wasteland where women have been reduced to various forms of slavery and their value is determined by what their bodies can produce. Whether it be breastmilk or babies, women's position in this world is determined by their physical utility to the oppressive system they occupy. Furiosa is the notable exception, an Imperator who has presumably worked her way up the ranks of Immortan Joe's highly patriarchal and hyper-masculine cultish new social order.

How To Be A Bad Bitch Who Recognizes The Intersections Of Amber Rose's Feminism

Amber Rose's new book How To Be A Bad Bitch dropped yesterday and already the white girls are circling, having taken issue with some of the advice Amber gives in the book. While I do think that some of the excerpts from the book are troubling (or at least, don't speak to me), it bothers me that mainstream feminism (read: white feminism) always seems to reserve this kind of intense scrutiny for women of colour. It took conservative media outlets to call Lena Dunham out for the problematic passages in her recent memoir (while feminist publications defended them) and white feminists are still passing around the deeply racist quote from Tina Fey's 2011 outing, Bossypants as a self-empowerment mantra.

Now I'm not saying that Amber shouldn't be criticized. She should. Feminism has never meant that women shouldn't be held accountable when they fuck up. Sometimes we as women make mistakes and I consider it our duty as fellow women in the feminist struggle to help course correct each other when we stray. But we need to be consistent about holding each other's hands to the fire. It's just another unfortunate side-effect of the racial divide in feminism that sees us demonize women of colour when they fuck up, but grasp at every straw imaginable to give white women a pass.

At the very least, we should try not to condescend to each other and try to give criticism in good faith. Refinery29's review of Amber's book took an incredibly nasty approach, upbraiding Rose for what they saw as feminist failings. The intro to the piece discloses that Amber abruptly cancelled a scheduled interview with the publication, and it's hard to see the harsh language as anything more than retaliation for the inconvenience.

Do You Feel Obligated To Support Television Shows With Diverse Casts?

The new fall television season is in full swing and it's been making me think a lot recently about how many new shows this season are noticeably more diverse than previous seasons. The new spate of diversity is encouraging and it's been making me consider that oft-discussed question of whether people of colour are "obligated" to support television shows and movies with people of colour leads.

Obviously there's nothing technically compelling us to watch, but ratings show again and again that black people in particular, and black women specifically watch disproportionate amounts of television, so our viewing choices obviously matter. Gene Demby of NPR's Code Switch made the case that black twitter is directly to be credited for Viola Davis' recent Emmy in and the larger general trend in diversity over the last couple seasons, specifically because we not only watch tv, but because we watch it live, and we talk about it on social media:

Among black female viewers between 35 and 40, Adalian wrote, the show [Empire] is literally the equivalent of a Super Bowl," with one episode "exceeding the rating of some NFL championship games this century."

"As a viewer of both, I can tell you that watching and laughing along with millions of strangers is kind of central to the experience of these shows. Black folks show up and watch like it's a responsibility."

So my dilemma is this: since I'm so fucking fly that my television viewing habits are winning Emmys and shit, do I have a responsibility to support shows with diverse casts in order to signal to the "powers that be" that diversity is something we want to continue? And does that mean slogging through bad shows just because I want to "show up for the cause?"

Case in point: Shondaland. I personally genuinely enjoy all of Aunty Shonda's shows (even Grey's Anatomy!) so watching is not a burden for me, but I'm also fully aware that Scandal went off the rails ages ago and How To Get Away With Murder never made a damn lick of sense, so I don't begrudge people who no longer watch. Conversely, I didn't watch American Crime because it struck me as preachy and mean, and I couldn't get past the pilot.

But Regina won her statue anyway.

For this season, my personal rule has been to at least watch the pilot of each new show starring a PoC lead or with a diverse cast. I'm allowed to drop whatever I don't like, but I have to give everything at least one chance. I struggle with the idea that really great diverse television shows will flounder due to a lack of viewership because their difference somehow makes them novel. (RIP Cristela...) But I also know that I watch upwards of 45 different shows a week depending on the season; I can't singlehandedly save every show I love.

On the other hand, this policy has led me to a lot of great shows that I might not have given a chance otherwise. Shows like Fresh Off The Boat and Jane The Virgin might have completely escaped my notice had I not committed myself  to giving television shows with a diverse cast a chance. And I'd never have become the great evangelical Jane The Virgin fan that I am today.

So far this season I've already dropped the Morris Chesnut led Rosewood and I'm waffling on whether to keep watching Ken Jeong's Dr. Ken. However, Quantico, the first network show starring a South East Asian lead, has completely drawn me in.

I genuinely believe that Scandal can be credited with the noticeable increase in the number of diverse shows that are available today. Suddenly everyone was trying to get a piece of the ratings pie that Shonda was baking, eating and selling all by herself. I mean, do you think it's a coincidence that Empire and Black-ish are on at the same time? Without Scandal's impact we probably wouldn't have Jane The Virgin, Black-ish, Fresh Off The Boat, Minority Report, Sleepy Hollow, American Crime, How To Get Away With Murder, Quantico, Devious Maids or Being Mary Jane. We showed up and showed them that we wanted to see ourselves.

So how should we approach this sudden dearth of options? How do we find the balance between supporting diverse casts without filling up on shows we hate just because the lead character is black?

Viola Davis, Cultivation Theory and the 2015 #Emmy Awards

Viola Davis accepts her Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama at the 2015 Emmy Awards.

I won't pretend I didn't cry this morning. 

I didn't watch the Emmys live last night, so waking up to the news that not only did Viola Davis win herself an Emmy (as I predicted back when she de-wigged on primetime), but two other black women, (Regina King for American Crime and Uzo Aduba for Orange is the New Black) had also left with trophies, has left me floating on a cloud of #blackgirlmagic that has lasted the entire day.

But it has also left me thinking long and hard about why these victories matter on a sociopolitical level. 

I'm currently working on my dissertation for my MA in Mass Communications and I came across a theory recently that I plan to explore in depth. My dissertation focuses on portrayals of rape and sexual assault in American primetime television, but it struck me how relevant the theory is to discussions of racial diversity.

The theory is "cultivation theory" and in layman's terms, it means that over time, people begin to believe that the television universe reflects real life. Essentially, people who watch lots of TV begin to see the social reality of fiction as an accurate account of real life. 

"The primary proposition of cultivation theory states that the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe the social reality portrayed on television." Cultivation leaves people with a misperception of what is true in our world." -Cohen, J.; Weimann, G. (2000). "Cultivation Revisited: Some Genres Have Some Effects on Some Viewers". Communication Reports 13 (2): 99–114.

I hope you can see where I'm going with this...