Marvel has had a reputation, in the past, for not giving an equal seat at the table to their female superhero characters. Many celebrities who portrayed these characters have spoken on this, stating that they have experienced extreme misogyny, not only at the hands of the studio but from interviewers and fans as well, which might have a lot to do with the way that they are portrayed on screen. This has not only existed in the films themselves but also extended into the real world, with marketing campaigns having an extremely sexist history, which has changed only recently.
In MCU: The Reign of Marvel, it was revealed that in the early phases of Marvel Studios, their priorities of catering to a female audience were slim to none. So much so that the merchandise that was made, was made of male characters and very few, or none, were made for female characters. There was a lot of internal politics on this matter, however, the general consensus was that they did not believe that these products would sell, and in order to reinforce this, they were produced in smaller numbers. This managed to fly under the radar for quite some time until a certain green-skinned alien entered the picture.
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Gamora’s Absence Haunted Marvel Studios
When the character of Gamora was introduced in 2014 with The Guardians of the Galaxy, audiences were over the moon regarding what Zoe Saldaña’s character represented. Many parents, wanting positive role models for their children, went into children’s toy stores to get them action figures and merchandise for one of the central characters of the film. Upon reaching the stores, they were met with an awful revelation. A woman revealed that in every toy from this film that she saw in the toy store, the Children’s Place, Gamora’s character was absent, with only four of the Guardians being featured. Upon seeing this, she wrote a complaint to the store.
“We rely on advice from our licensors on our licensed tees. The Guardians of the Galaxy shirt in particular is a boy’s shirt, which is why it does not include the female character Gamora. We try to have a diverse assortment but unfortunately cannot represent each movie and character.”
The response that she received was even more disappointing than the character’s absence. This sparked a widespread feeling of disappointment and outrage among fans of the franchise, who went online to express their feelings. Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow was brought into this conversation, with many stating that something similar happened when The Avengers was released, and her absence from toy stores was also noted. This was widely talked about and the hashtag ‘wheresgamora’ went viral all over social media.
Marvel Didn’t Learn
While there was no response from Marvel on this matter, this would not be the end of this topic as nine months after this, Avengers: Age of Ultron came out and the exact same thing was noticed again. While it is important to note that this much time would not have been enough for them to make the required changes, with toy designing, manufacturing, and distribution taking a lot longer, it is still disappointing to see the level of sexism in these toys, which are often used to teach and send positive messages to children.
“When Marvel saturated the planet with Age of Ultron merchandise, the only Black Widow action figure on sale was part of a large Lego set. The only clothing item the Widow appeared on was a men’s T-shirt. She was, however, featured on a tote bag. Soon #WheresNatasha started trending on social media, often accompanied by photos of toy aisles filled with merchandise from Marvel’s billion-dollar Avengers franchise, always lacking the Black Widow. Four days before the release of Age of Ultron, Mark Ruffalo joined the cause, tweeting, “@Marvel we need more #BlackWidow merchandise for my daughters and nieces. Pretty please.””
A similar wave took over social media, this time, Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff relapsing the name of Gamora, however, this gained a lot more traction. A few days before the release of the film, Mark Ruffalo himself, who played the role of Bruce Banner in the film, put out a tweet, supporting this sentiment, stating that he wanted his daughters and nieces to play with the Black Widow as well as the other Avengers.
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