The Media

Thanks to social media, discussions of equal gender representation in movies has become much more visible in the public eye. Take a look at what people have been talking about.

Invisible Women (#wheresnatasha #wheresgamora)

Although there are almost no academic articles looking into gender disparity in film franchises specifically in regards to promotional materials and merchandise, many members of the media have commented on this issue.

For example- in the Daily Dot article “Why is Gamora missing from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ merchandise?”, journalist Gavia Baker-Whitelaw pointed out that although there are plenty of options for girls interested in Disney Princesses at the Disney Store, the only merchandise for female characters in Star Wars, The Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy, were female shirts with the slogan “I Need A Hero”, while the male shirts had the slogan “Be A Hero”. Along with her questions, a hashtag has actually popped up on Twitter discussing the lack of options for these characters- #wheresnatasha and #wheresgamora.

In “Hasbro Is Actually CANCELING Female STAR WARS Action Figures”, Devin Faraci wrote about how she went to Toys R’ Us in March 2015 in search of a Princess Leia action figurine and found that “the only female toy in the Marvel or Star Wars aisles was a Slave Leia figure…there were a hundred variations on Iron Man, no Black Widow or Captain Marvel…looking through all the figures and all the playsets I couldn't find a female toy except for the one that depicted a powerful politician and warrior reduced to the position of sex slave.” When she contacted Hasbro, she also learned that Hasbro was actually cancelling the addition of Princess Leia to future toy releases.

Conscious Exclusion

In her article on The Mary Sue, “Invisible Women: Why Marvel’s Gamora & Black Widow Were Missing From Merchandise, And What We Can Do About It”, Annie Mouse presented the account of an anonymous former female Marvel employee who stated that after Marvel was acquired by Disney, she saw a deck circulated by Disney’s Brand Marketing team and found that although the actual demographics of Marvel fans had a significant amount of women, the desired demographics had no females in it at all. Upon asking her supervisor why that was the case, he responded, “That’s not why Disney bought us. They already have the girls’ market on lockdown.”

For his article “The Dollars-And-Cents Case Against Hollywood’s Exclusion of Women”, Walt Hickey conducted an analysis of 1,615 films released from 1990 to 2013 and found that even though films featuring meaningful interactions between women potentially have a better return on investment than films that do not, they are rarely funded. He suggested that part of the reason behind this was that in Hollywood, “men control the creative process and the purse strings, and [hold] a pervasive belief that audiences—both in the U.S. and internationally—just don’t like films with strong female characters.”

New Ventures Targeting Girls

Despite the overwhelming lack of merchandise and promotional support, there have been recent efforts from other companies to appeal to girls—in fact, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Bros. Consumer Products and Mattel, have partnered up to create a new franchise focused on targeting girls aged 6-12. The franchise will be called DC Super Hero Girls and will be centered on teenage female superheroes, and according to the official press release, “each character has her own storyline that explores what teen life is like as a Super Hero, including discovering her unique abilities, nurturing her remarkable powers and mastering the fundamentals of being a hero.”

The strategy feels reminiscent of Lego’s efforts to appeal to girls in a specific way in 2007 after their research showed that the way girls play with toys is much different from the way boys play with Legos, and it is likely that DC, WB, and Mattel will face similar criticisms of perpetuating gender stereotypes, despite the fact that Lego’s research indicated that “girls needed a figure they could identify with, that looks like them…[and] to break down old stereotypes about how girls play, it risks reinforcing others," as pointed out by Brad Weiners in his Bloomberg Business article "Lego Is for Girls."