Miriam Kent - Women in Marvel Films-Edinburgh University Press (2021)

WOMEN IN
MIRIAM KENT
Women in Marvel Films
Women in Marvel Films
Miriam Kent
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Contents
List of Figures xxx

Acknowledgements xxx
Introducing . . . The Mighty Women of Marvel! 1

Comics on Screen: What is at Stake in Representing
Marvel Women? 10
The (Super)Power of Feminist Film Studies 15
We’re In This Together Now: Mediating Womanhood
through Postfeminist Culture 21
1. ‘You Have a Knack for Saving My Life!’: Wives, Girlfriends
and Women in Refrigerators in Marvel Films 29
Damsels in Distress and Women in Refrigerators across
Media 30
Women in Refrigerators in Marvel Film Adaptations 34
2. Pepper Potts and Gwen Stacy: Recuperating the Superhero
Girlfriend47
Iron (Wo)Man 48
The Amazing Gwen Stacy 58
3. With Great Power Comes Great Frustration? Configurations
of Hero(ine)ism in Marvel Films 68
Superheroines and Postfeminist Media Culture 68
With Great Power Comes Great Frustration 75
4. Playing Superheroine: Feminine Subjectivity and
(Postfeminist) Masquerade 93
‘I Want You to Be the Best Version of Yourself’:
Postfeminist Masquerade and Subjectivity in Captain
Marvel 101
5. Marvel Legacy: Girl Heroism and Intergenerationality in
Marvel Films 119
Interconnected Womanhood in Elektra 120
All-New, All-Different: The Legacy of Wolverine in Logan 123
6. Mad With Power: Female Villainy in Marvel Films 145
Wicked Witches and Poisonous Women 150
vi wo me n in ma r v e l f i l m s
Disease, Toxicity and Poison in Marvel’s Evil Women 156

Make Asgard Great Again: Villainy and the Feminine
Spectre of White Supremacy in Thor: Ragnarok 161
7. Mutants, Cyborgs and Femininity Unfixed? Addressing the
Gendered Bodies of Mystique and Nebula 171
Fluid Gender and the Politics of the X-Men Films 173
The Strangest Superhero of All: Nebula’s Cyborg
Subjectivity 184
8. Disrupting the Rainbow Bridge: Dysfunctional
Heterosexuality and Reinforcing Gender Difference in
Marvel Adaptations 193
Dysfunctional Heterosexuality in Marvel Films 199
9. Black Skin, Blue Skin: Race and Femininity in Marvel Films 210
The Politics of ‘Diversity’ in Marvel Properties 214
10. The (Afro)Future of a Diverse Marvel: Gender, Race and
Empire in Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther 233
Asgard as a People:Racial Ambiguity in Thor: Ragnarok’s
Heroines 236
Wakanda Forever: Black Femininity and the (Afro)Future 241
Afterword: Some Concluding Remarks on Marvel Women
. . . Thus Far! 260
Filmography 264
Bibliography 267
Index307
Figures
1.1 Frank Castle’s fist alongside the photograph of his wife and
son signifies his call to action in The Punisher (2004) 36
1.2 Peter Parker’s clenched fist signifies his commitment to
being Spider-Man after Mary Jane Watson is kidnapped in
Spider-Man 2 40
1.3 Mary Jane Watson falls in Spider-Man 42
1.4 Gwen Stacy falls in Spider-Man 3 42
2.1 Iron Man’s signature landing stance as demonstrated in Iron
Man 2 57
2.2 Pepper Potts emulating the Iron Man landing while infected
by Extremis in Iron Man 3 57
2.3 Mary Jane Watson poses for Peter Parker’s camera in a
point-of-view shot in Spider-Man 59
2.4 Gwen Stacy is photographed in Spider-Man 3 60
2.5 Peter Parker secretly photographs Gwen Stacy from afar in
The Amazing Spider-Man 60
2.6 Gwen Stacy falls to her death in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 64
3.1 ‘That’s messed up’: Elektra discusses her job as an assassin
with Abby Miller in Elektra 79
3.2 ‘I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn’t
very nice’: Logan explains himself to Kayla Silverfox in
X-Men Origins: Wolverine 79
4.1 Princess Sparklefists: Brie Larson as Carol Danvers in
Captain Marvel 109
5.1 Laura faces Donald Pierce and his militaristic Reavers in
Logan’s western-inspired wasteland 139
5.2 Laura heralds a new generation of mutants by turning
Logan’s grave-marking cross into an ‘X’ in Logan 142
6.1 The darkening of Jean Grey’s eyes and her veiny complexion
marks her as abject in X-Men: The Last Stand 153
6.2 Viper sheds her skin in The Wolverine 161
6.3 Demonic femininity in Thor: Ragnarok’s Hela 163
7.1 Rebecca Romijn as Mystique in X2 176
viii wo me n in ma r v e l f i l m s
7.2 Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future

Past 177
7.3 Nebula’s distorted cyborg body reconfigures itself after she
has been in an explosion in Guardians of the Galaxy 188
9.1 Rila Fukushima as Yukio in The Wolverine 229
10.1 Asgard as a people: Thor and his multicultural and
multispecies subjects in Thor: Ragnarok 241
10.2 Black Panther’s Dora Milaje Ayo, Queen Mother Ramonda
and Shuri 251
10.3 Inventor-scientist Shuri alongside T’Challa in Black Panther 255
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the support of the Arts
and Humanities Research Council, who generously provided funding for
my doctoral research, which forms the basis of this work. To them, I
express my gratitude, as well as to the University of East Anglia, for allow-
ing me to carry out my project.
My sincere thanks go to my former colleagues in the Department of
Film, Television and Media Studies at UEA and the Feminist Media
Studies Research Group. I could not have done without their intellec-
tual insights, words of encouragement and reviews of drafts. I am also
indebted to Gillian Leslie of Edinburgh University Press for making this a
smoother writing and publication experience than I could have wished for.
Many thanks also to my super PhD supervisors Eylem Atakav and
Melanie Williams. I particularly thank Eylem for supporting me for over
a decade and mentoring me along each step of the way throughout my
undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral activities. I am immensely
grateful to scholars of all levels who have provided insight and expertise,
including: Su Holmes, Yvonne Tasker, Rayna Denison, Christine Cornea,
Sanna Inthorn, Hannah Hamad, Peter Krämer, Richard Farmer, Carolyn
Cocca, members of the Comics Studies Society and anyone who attended
the talks and presentations I gave to try out my ideas throughout this
time. For sharing their experiences with me and supporting my research,
I thank my PhD friends. And Tony, for being Tony.
Many thanks to my family, loved ones and cats.
This book is for all superwomen, both fictional and real.
Introducing . . .
The Mighty Women of Marvel!
Marvel’s Kamala Khan, the teenage Pakistani-American Muslim super-

heroine whose uniform is a refashioned burkini, was characterised by
both the popular and comic book press as a watershed moment for Marvel
Comics. The introduction of a new incarnation of the Ms. Marvel super-
heroine as a young, Pakistani-American Muslim girl made headlines in
US and UK media outlets before the first issue of the book by G. Willow
Wilson and Adrian Alphona (2014) had even been released (see Gustines
2013; Janmohamed 2013; Jebreal 2013; Robinson 2013; Wheeler 2013).
Marvel had recast the previously blonde bombshell heroine Ms. Marvel as
a racial and religious minority and a teenage girl, apparently normalising
the possibility for marginalised people to embody both heroism and the
mundanity of American teen life as encompassing conceptions of difference
that map onto the lived experiences of subjectivities not included in tradi-
tional representations of white, masculine heroism. In 2015, Kamala Khan
became a symbol for political activism against racism and Islamophobia
on the sides of San Francisco city buses (Letamendi 2015). By the end
of the year, a fanmade homage (Stefani 2015) to Captain America’s 1941
comic book debut, in which the superhero punches Adolf Hitler in the
face, gained wide exposure in the popular media. The image portrayed
Ms. Marvel similarly punching the then-Republican presidential front
runner Donald Trump after he called for a ‘total and complete shutdown’
of all Muslims entering the US (Baker-Whitelaw 2015). Within two years
Kamala Khan embodied these shifting discourses of heroism, nationality
and identity, representing politics beyond a mere fictional superhero.
Far be it from my intentions to characterise Ms. Marvel as the epitome
of marginalised intersectional subjectivities represented within popular
culture, the comic book, and its reception, indicates the issues that exist
in representations of female superheroes in mainstream popular culture.
The book focuses on questions of identity – of growing up ‘different’.
This difference is not only marked by Kamala’s eventual possession of
2 wo me n in ma r v e l f i l m s
superpowers but by the fact that she, as a Muslim, a Pakistani-American, a

girl, is different to what Western media have promoted as heroic since the
dawn of the superhero. As noted by Jeffrey A. Brown, the most recognis-
able superheroes are, by default, ‘white males who have existed since the
start of superhero comics’ (Brown 2017: 115). What does it then mean for
a woman or girl to be heroic? What sorts of women have been portrayed
as heroes, villains or sidekicks? And what does this say about the culture
from which they stem?
These questions are at the heart of this book. While comic books them-
selves remain a niche medium, superheroes are truly cemented within the
global cultural consciousness due to the booming popularity of superhero
movie adaptations. At the forefront of this trend have been films based on
Marvel comic books. These films, and the women presented within them,
are the focus of this book. Marvel Comics is most famous for introducing
to the world the likes of Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America. The
white, heterosexual, masculine hero remains a staple of Marvel superhero
narratives, as well as those of its competitor DC. However, one should
not undermine the role of women in these stories. From heroines such as
the matriarchal Invisible Woman or super-spy Black Widow, to morally
ambiguous characters such as Elektra and Mystique, and civilian women
such as Pepper Potts and Gwen Stacy, this book acknowledges the mark
such figures have left upon popular culture. In the early 2000s, Marvel
recognised the commercial potential of superhero film adaptations, and
along with Spider-Man went Mary Jane. Films based on Marvel prop-
erties currently have the upper hand over films based on DC comics.
While at the time of writing there exist over fifty films based on Marvel
characters, there are fewer based on DC properties over a wider time span.
Given the cultural significance of films based on Marvel comics– they
have made billions of dollars at the domestic US box office since 2010
alone – they are a rich subject of discussion.
The issues raised in my brief outline of Ms. Marvel are undoubtedly
feminist– notions of identity, gender, sexuality and race are foregrounded,
both in the comic itself and in surrounding media discussions. Yet the
cultural moment in which superhero narratives have taken hold can be
characterised as postfeminist, evoking a complex set of discourses con-
cerning mainstreamed feminine subjectivities that incorporate feminist
goals while simultaneously positioning these goals as contentious or even
obsolete. Indeed, Ms. Marvel as a superhero comic book narrative trades
on notions of difference which themselves are absorbed into a network of
commercial representation and ‘economies of visibility’ (Banet-Weiser
2018: 21). This paradox is central to my arguments about the complex
in trod u ci ng . . . the mighty wo m e n o f m a r v e l ! 3
positioning of women in superhero films, which in many ways draw from

and reject political feminisms.
Feminist issues have become an increasingly hot topic in mainstream
media in the last few decades. 2010 was the year of Marvel Women, a
programme through which female creators and characters were show-
cased in individual comic book issues and series under the ‘Women of
Marvel’ brand. Comic book conventions increasingly host panels under
the theme of women in comics, many of which focus specifically on Marvel
comics, allowing fans and readers to discuss with female creators the chal-
lenges women in comics continue to face (see Winstead 2012; Morris
2014; Frevele 2018; Ricchiuto 2018). However, this is not to suggest that
equal representation in mainstream comics has been achieved, or is even
approaching. Perhaps symptomatic of the often meandering path towards
equality is the fact that the women in comics panel at a recent comic
convention in Denver featured no women at all (Marcotte 2015), or the
suggestion by Marvel executive staff that Marvel’s comics sales slumped
in recent years because ‘people didn’t want any more diversity’ (David
Gabriel quoted in Terror 2017), or the (publicised as) highly strenuous
relationship between Marvel’s creative staff and the mysterious, seldom-
seen, and famously conservative Chairman of Marvel Entertainment, Ike
Perlmutter (Knoop 2019).
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, issues of women’s representation and
exploitation resurface at a consistent frequency, referring to the lack of
opportunities presented to women filmmakers and the gender pay gap,
and issues such as race and sexuality representation. These discussions
peaked in late 2017, when sexual abuse allegations were made against
Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein, a story that was widely dis-
cussed in the media and online platforms, contributing to the formation of
the #MeToo movement/moment on social media. While ‘Me Too’ was
devised in 2006 by African American civil rights activist Tarana Burke
to promote an empathetic space for survivors of sexual assault to share
their stories via social media, it was Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano
who rekindled the term via Twitter following the Weinstein allegations,
resulting in widespread digital feminist activism and a willingness by the
public to ‘engage with resistance and challenges to sexism, patriarchy and
other forms of oppression via feminist uptake of digital communication’
(Mendes et al. 2018: 236–7, original emphasis). Needless to say, feminist
activists have been drawing attention to the abuse of women in myriad
industries for decades. However, it is telling that it took a widespread
interest in allegations of abuse specifically taking place in Hollywood
to propel, or in the words of Aileen O’Driscoll ‘spill over’ into public
iscussions around gender equality in society more widely (O’Driscoll

d
2019: 2).
Still, responses to, and the seeming mainstreaming of, political
feminism(s) within this particular context is far from clear cut and par-
allels the discursive strategies that accompanied previous postfeminist
mediascapes, as I discuss later on in this Introduction. For now, I want to
draw attention to the pervasiveness of feminist issues in both mainstream
film and comic books and how this is indicative of both media’s position
within popular culture. Pre-Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, 2017), the
lack of female-led superhero films was a topic of much discussion and
remained so in the run-up to Captain Marvel (Anna Boden and Ryan
Fleck, 2019). With these two films maintaining women’s representation
for– it seems– the entire superhero film genre with successful box office
returns, now is a crucial time in the discussion of women’s representations
in both comics and film, prompting this theoretical intervention in which
portrayals of women in Marvel superhero film adaptations are examined
in one place.
The purpose of this project was to address such questions as: How
is power negotiated in Marvel superheroines? How does an emphasis
on sex appeal relate to feminist and postfeminist politics? How do
these representations intersect with wider issues such as sexuality and
race? And, importantly, in what ways do these representations tie into
modes of female empowerment and women’s roles in society at the
periods during which they were made and released? This book thus
incorporates theoretical approaches including film studies, feminist
film theory, cultural studies, comics studies, queer theory and post-
colonial studies. I offer a textual and discursive analysis of films based
on Marvel comics spanning back to the late 1980s. Through this, I
draw in ideological and contextual elements and highlight assump-
tions around femininity present in these films. The book accounts for
how women of different backgrounds are realised through superheroic
narratives and questions how womanhood is discursively constructed
within these texts. As indicated by Annette Kuhn, a textual approach is
beneficial for feminist film criticism, as it highlights ‘the ways in which
woman has been constituted as a set of meanings through processes
of cinematic signification’ (Kuhn 1994: 67). Following the tradition
of feminist film theorists examining the presentation of woman as
constructed sign in film ‘in a complex textual system that supports
and even naturalizes patriarchal ideology by defining women as other
to men’ (Hollinger 2012: 10), this book interrogates both visual and
narrative cinematic signifiers in Marvel films, showing how they are
symptomatic of broader cultural issues around gender equality. Hence,

I examine films with regards to women’s characterisation, referring
to formal film elements such as mise en scène, cinematography, editing
and narrative, questioning how these elements collectively engage with
gendered discourses.
This is not to say that texts external to the films will not be utilised,
although this is not a reception study. It does not suggest what audiences
do with media texts as this would be beyond the scope of this particular
project and there have been ample efforts made by other scholars to pull
discussions in this direction. To paraphrase Angela McRobbie, there has
been a marked interest in reception studies based on the apparent ability
of audiences to subvert dominant readings of media texts (McRobbie
2009: 3). I agree with McRobbie in stressing the possibility that a focus
on audience studies draws attention away from popular texts and removes
responsibility for representational inclusion from those who create them
(for example, Western, global-reaching media corporations). A focus on
audience responses could have an unintended side effect of limiting the
significance of media representations, for if the power to subvert lies with
audiences, the need for media producers to attend to issues of representa-
tion is reduced. The focus on subversion does not address the fact that
the very need to subvert stems from the notion that representations can
be limiting, that they are created within particular industrial and cultural
parameters with specific audiences in mind, and that people outside of
those audiences must, in McRobbie’s terms, make do.
Contrarily to other scholars thinking about women’s representations in
superhero films, comic books form a crucial contextual backdrop to my
analysis. Likewise, statements from filmmakers and comic book creators
are included to provide insight into some of the representational decisions
made in the production of these films. Such texts offer some indication
of (gendered) aspects of film production, including choices regarding the
selection of source material and representations of female physicality. My
approach enables the tracing of a Marvel film’s journey from comic to film
production to the end product itself, providing cultural context to offer an
overview of the gendered issues informing film production, but also allow-
ing a focused and rigorous study into the specificities of the films. Indeed,
popular discourses around superhero films, even before their release,
have become more prominent with the rise of online arenas such as blog-
ging, social media and movie discussion sites. As such, there has been
more material in terms of paratexts surrounding a film such as Deadpool
(Tim Miller, 2016) than there was for X-Men (Bryan Singer, 2000). The
interpretation of Marvel films presented in this book is thus fostered
by approaches that allow the connections between film and culture to

be drawn, considering films as constructs that are the result of complex
industrial, social and cultural mechanisms. This approach highlights that
media texts generate discourse, which is affected by, as well as informs,
ideologies that hold cultural power.
Allowing sufficient focus on Marvel’s more formative films, such as The
Punisher (Mark Goldblatt, 1989) and Blade (Stephen Norrington, 1998),
the project spans several decades. This said, there is not enough space in
this book to exhaustively discuss every Marvel film adaptation released
between 1989 and the present day. Thus, particular films have been selected
as being emblematic of specific issues related to women’s representation.
Likewise, it may be difficult to offer definitive explanations of emerging
trends. Sources in the popular media often announce that popular culture
is entering a new era of gender inclusivity, as evidenced within regular
pieces referring to the opportunities offered to women in superhero narra-
tives (Andersen 2014; Cain 2015; Tremeer 2015; Landsbaum 2015; Gould
2015; Child 2016; Shaw 2018). Such sentiments should be approached
with scepticism, especially because we seem to be perpetually on the verge
of the new era rather than in it. However, it is useful to consider the notion
that political and economic developments have moved towards a culture
that may be something beyond postfeminism (see Negra and Tasker 2014;
Gill 2016). Since the study of postfeminist culture forms the backbone of
this project, it might be hasty to include very recent releases within the
postfeminist bracket, and it may be more beneficial to closely assess such
films retrospectively in the future, given the discursive complexities at
hand within both the postfeminist and so-called post-Weinstein moments.
Indeed, while feminist academics have been welcoming of the widespread
and popular engagement with #MeToo, Rosalind Gill and Shani Orgad
approach the subject with caution, arguing that
Notwithstanding the shift from moral panic to political engagement, it seems that
many of the fundamental problems identified in relation to the sexualization debate
persist in the context of #MeToo, and are manifest in old as well as new and trou-
bling ways. (Gill and Orgad 2018: 1318–19)
These limitations include the privileging of exclusive (white, respect-

able) femininities in representing the movement and reinforcing binaristic
understandings of gendered violence (Gill and Orgad 2018: 1319). Still, a
discussion of postfeminism(s) and feminist critiques thereof remain perti-
nent to the analysis of popular culture due to postfeminism’s adaptability
in catering to ideals of social progress (Gill 2016). Thus, much of the dis-
cussion in this book is focused on films released between 2000 and 2016,
years that can be situated within postfeminist modes of representation

(as well as predating the presidential election of Donald Trump and the
global turn to the conservative right).
I refer interchangeably to the films analysed as ‘films based on Marvel
comics’, ‘Marvel films’ or ‘Marvel adaptations’. My focus is live-action
theatrical films based on Marvel comic books partaking of the Marvel
Universe, not merely the recent films produced by Marvel Studios, now
a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, comprising the Marvel Cinematic
Universe (MCU). MCU films begin with Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008)
and move on to the ultimate superhero team-up, Marvel’s The Avengers
(Joss Whedon, 2012), and continue to Captain America: Civil War
(Anthony and Joe Russo, 2016), Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018) and
beyond. These films form the basis of Marvel’s multimedia franchise-
based approach, establishing one overarching narrative and remaining
encapsulated within its own continuity, in contrast to films featuring the
X-Men, Fantastic Four or Hulk. Marvel had previously sold the rights
to these characters to other studios– 20th Century Fox, Universal and
Sony.1
However, it would be highly ignorant for a study of women in Marvel
properties to only consider MCU films merely because they appear to
come straight from Marvel. A flexible approach is taken by Matthew
J. McEniry, Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner, who suggest
that even obscure productions based on Marvel properties released before
the MCU era are historically significant in having shaped recent output
by Marvel Studios and thus must have a cultural relationship to it that
should not be downplayed (McEniry et al. 2016). Since I hope to enable
a dialogue between comics and the films, there must also be a discursive
continuity between films based on Marvel characters, regardless of which
Hollywood studio produced them.
As noted, Marvel comic books play a contextual role in this discus-
sion. Comics have increasingly become an object of academic interest,
forming the burgeoning field of comics studies. Works such as those by
Paul Lopes (2009), Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith (2009) and
Jean-Paul Gabillet (2010) chronicle the history of comic books and inter-
rogate the formal specificity of the medium, as well as its role in (predomi-
nantly American) society. Amongst these works is also Scott McCloud’s
seminal text, Understanding Comics (McCloud 1993), which itself takes
the form of a comic book. While some scholars have been reluctant to
embrace ‘representation of’ studies within the field, Ellen Kirkpatrick
and Suzanne Scott argue that such endeavours remain vital to the study
of comics (Kirkpatrick and Scott 2015: 120–1). Most relevant to this
project have been text-based works examining the ideological constructs

to be found within comic book narratives. These include the work of Alex
S. Romagnoli and Gian S. Pagniucci (2013), which focuses on how comics
relate to sociocultural issues in different time periods, Bradford Wright’s
study of comics as youth culture (Wright 2003), Jason Dittmer’s in-depth
exploration of Captain America as national hero (Dittmer 2012) and
Ramzi Fawaz’s work addressing the monstrous fantasy figure in superhero
comics (Fawaz 2016).
Amongst such discussions, examinations of women in comics have
remained largely limited to the figure of the superheroine. Being the most
exposed superheroine, Wonder Woman has consistently been the most
popular subject of academic interest.2 However, since this project focuses
on Marvel women, I have opted to draw less from existing studies of DC
character Wonder Woman. While this may seem counter-intuitive, the
inclusion of discussions around Wonder Woman would over-complicate
the project. It would be foolish to suggest that all superhero comics are
the same and for this reason, I have opted not to include DC properties in
my analysis. Marvel and DC follow very different historical and cultural
trajectories. Marvel has traditionally been marked by a focus on the ‘psy-
chological complexity of its characters’ and the ‘realism of its problem-
ridden characters’, while DC followed an approach based on archetypal
mythology (Wainer 2014: 8). Marvel’s stories have often been likened
to soap opera (Daniels 1991: 208; Raphael and Spurgeon 2004; Dittmer
2009: 137), perhaps ironically, given that these comics and their adapta-
tions have been culturally positioned as masculine, despite the feminine
connotations of the soap format. Entrenched in continuity and multi-issue
storytelling, Marvel heralded narratives highlighting the development of
character and the showcasing of social issues. Charles Hatfield notes the
significance of this approach in prioritising the development of characters
over time (Hatfield 2013: 139).
This temporal specificity of Marvel characters is particularly relevant
to this project since it more explicitly draws attention to the implica-
tions of history and cultural contexts. The narrativised history of super-
hero comics themselves is likewise intricately linked to the concept of
revisionism. Revision is considered a defining characteristic or ‘dominant
narrative strategy’ of the superhero comics genre, as argued by David
Hyman (2017: 5). Plenty of superheroes throughout history have been
reinvented and repurposed by comic book publishers and producers
across media. Terrence R. Wandtke notes that ‘it must be acknowledged
that as long as the superhero has been in existence, the superhero has
been “in the making,” working through a series of revisions’ (Wandtke
2007: 5). Perhaps unexpectedly, the outcome of superhero revision is not

consistency or a definitive ‘canon’ but rather a ‘production of multiple
versions that wear their inconsistencies openly, and reject the pressure to
resolve their multiplicities into the synthetic continuity of a polished final
text’ (Hyman 2017: 5). It is the complex ‘negotiation between consistency
and rupture’ that makes these superhero narratives so enduring and com-
pelling, suggests Hyman (Hyman 2017: 5–6). This revision of Marvel’s
characters over time and across media is crucial to my discussions of the
reinvention of female characters and feminisms in Marvel adaptations,
which are synchronous with specific cultural and historical shifts that take
place between and within iterations.
It is likewise significant that Marvel pioneered a comics production
method characterised as specific to the company. The so-called ‘Marvel
Method’ of making comics was the result of time constraints placed upon
Stan Lee in the 1960s. Writing several titles at a time meant that Lee was
unable to produce complete scripts within the limited time there was to
publish them. Lee instead provided the comic artist with a general over-
view of an issue’s plot and narrative. The artist (frequently Jack Kirby or
Steve Ditko) would then storyboard the comic according to Lee’s over-
view and the dialogue and captions were added afterwards. That what
became the dominant mode of superhero comics storytelling is termed
the Marvel Method indicates Marvel’s centrality in the development
of the superhero genre. It also epitomises the undeniable intertwining
of production contexts with social and historical implications of those
contexts.
The centrality of Marvel has been replicated with the rise of Marvel
films to both a position of dominance over those based on DC comics
and setting a standard in terms of world-building and intertextuality. Of
the two companies, Marvel was the first to experiment with the idea
of a superhero universe inhabited by characters spanning multiple film
and television properties. Only recently have heavyweight DC characters
appeared in films together, such as in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
(Zack Snyder, 2016) and Justice League (Zack Snyder, 2017). Similarly,
and following on from this, Marvel and DC superhero films differ both
structurally and tonally (Massey and Cogan 2016). DC films have adopted
a darker tone for their characters and visuals, while Marvel films main-
tain an approach characterised by comedy and sympathetic heroes.
Incorporating films based on DC comics would enrich this study but
would also, given the marked differences noted above, shift the emphasis
away from detailed textual work and towards a more comparative analysis.
Moreover, given the privileging of Wonder Woman and DC texts within
scholarly studies, it is worth drawing the focus specifically to Marvel,

whose female characters have had comparatively low exposure, both in
academia and popular culture.
Comics on Screen:
What is at Stake in Representing Marvel Women?
Mike Madrid has provided a detailed analysis of the cultural factors
influencing representations of superheroines in comics since the 1940s,
describing the rationale behind his analysis as such:
Superhero comic books are about maximizing human potential for the betterment
of all society. . . . [F]emale superheroes are often not allowed to reach their potential;
they are given powers that are weaker than their male compatriots, and positions of
lesser importance. (Madrid 2009: vi)
Indeed, much of Madrid’s discussion centres on the idea of feminine

power and how it has been discursively limited within superhero texts,
while also noting the cultural resonance of these portrayals with their
historical contexts, as well as the issue of society’s gendered definitions of
heroism. A similar sentiment is echoed by Jennifer K. Stuller:
Because stories about superheroes can teach us about our socially appropriate roles
. . . how we fit into communities, and about our human potential, both terrible and
great, it is the overwhelming focus on the male experience of heroism– a nd mostly
white, heterosexual male heroism at that– that inspires my investigation of the
female hero. (Stuller 2010: 20)
The overarching view behind these statements resonates with my own as

expressed at the beginning of this Introduction. The addition of Kamala
Khan to Marvel’s superhero roster has been a welcome contrast to the
white masculinity usually offered by the company, and due critical atten-
tion must be given to the heroines of comics (including those who create
them). However, the overwhelming focus on superheroines in comics
studies, as well as film studies, is unsurprising but disappointing. Though
the superheroine is doubtless culturally significant for her occupation of
a position traditionally reserved for men, there is much more at stake
in discussions of women in superhero narratives. The presence of non-
heroic characters such as superhero girlfriends or villainesses should not
be neglected.
Given that this project is not immediately a comics study, a few quali-
fications must be made. Relevant here are the acute issues relating to
adaptation and transmedia properties. Marvel’s films as they appear today
are emblematic of what Henry Jenkins once characterised as ‘convergence

culture’ (Jenkins 2008), with filmmakers and media producers creating
cinematic worlds for established characters to occupy, in turn reaching
back into comics and other media such as television. James N. Gilmore
and Matthias Stork note that Jenkin’s model of ‘convergence aesthetics
. . . has rightfully gained major currency in the critical and academic dis-
course’, not least due to Marvel’s The Avengers (Gilmore and Stork 2014:
1). Prioritising storyworld has been part of Marvel’s distinctive qualities
since the comic books. Likewise, transmedia modes of Hollywood film
production became symptomatic of filmmaking of the early 2000s (Rehak
2012: 103), with the trend having been expanded in recent years. In fact,
Liam Burke argues that it is Marvel’s emphasis on storyworlds that has
normalised these industrial practices among leading studios that are now
‘lining up to give their intellectual property the transmedia treatment’
(Burke 2018: 46).
Marvel superhero films are primarily adaptations of comic books, but
Marvel itself is a multimedia entertainment enterprise. As such, the films
discussed here contribute to the ‘palimpsestic’ web of texts that is formed
when non-filmic texts are adapted to screen (Hutcheon 2006: 9). Within
this web (presumably spun by Spider-Man) are, of course, also issues of
brand identity, such as those argued by both Burke (Burke 2018: 45) and
Derek Johnson, who suggests that Marvel has historically struggled to
present ‘coherent’ images of its characters across media (Johnson 2007).
Characters are frequently altered in the comics to account for the more
widely familiar cinematic versions, for instance. But what exactly does
‘coherent’ constitute? Do the characters and narratives of Marvel adapta-
tions precisely ‘match’ those of the comics? If so, how can contemporary
adaptations of Marvel comics be reconciled with the historical contexts
attached to the characters (which often date back to the 1960s and 1970s)?
Here, ideological and discursive issues collide with adaptation.
Adaptation studies can provide insight into how these might be negotiated.
The notion of ‘fidelity’ or how faithful a film is towards its source text as a
marker of its quality or cultural value surfaces frequently in the field. In his
foundational introduction to poststructuralist adaptation studies, Robert
Stam outlines several fallacies that have classically accompanied discus-
sions of adaptation and subsequently offers ideas towards a flexible adapta-
tion approach (Stam 2005). Noting that film adaptations of literature are
culturally devalued due to a number of factors including the authority
lent to ‘original’ literary works and their authors, reverence for the written
word, the supposed superiority of literature over film and the idea that
films require less intellect to watch, Stam argues in favour of moving away
from fidelity arguments. He notes that highlighting intertextuality is a

more fruitful approach to ‘account for the mutation of forms across media’
(Stam 2005: 41), concluding that adaptations are ‘hypertexts derived from
pre-existing hypotexts which have been transformed by operations of
selection, amplification, concretization, and actualization’ (Stam 2005: 31)
and suggesting that formal aspects of film adaptations should not neces-
sarily take centre stage in such discussions (Stam 2005: 41).
Yet, examinations of comic book adaptations remain focused both on
fidelity and on formal elements. Thomas Leitch, for instance, devotes the
majority of his chapter on comics adaptation in Film Adaptation and its
Discontents to the adaptation of the formal elements of comic book visuals
to screen, maintaining that privileging visuals in such a discussion is most
useful (Leitch 2009: 194–201). While Leitch agrees with Stam that an
emphasis on fidelity in adaptation studies is not worthwhile, Liam Burke
takes a contrasting stance in his reception study of comic book adaptations.
Burke argues that criticisms aimed at fidelity discourses are ‘at odds with
the field’s wider calls for audience-centric research’, ultimately claiming
that fidelity is a marker of quality for audiences (Burke 2015: 18). Granted
that Burke’s field is reception studies, his approach is merited as address-
ing a gap in the literature. However, this does indicate the somewhat tense
relationship comics have to adaptation studies in general. Since comic
books and adaptation have a patchy – and at times uncharted– history,
a wholly adaptational approach to this study is not particularly useful
and is beyond the scope of the issues at hand. Indeed, it has not been
possible to consider every single comic book incarnation of every single
Marvel film character discussed (additionally, Marvel adaptations quite
often focus on content not previously found in comics). One problem with
applying many of the adaptation approaches in use today (including but
not limited to that of Stam) regards questions of whether or not comics
should be considered through the same methods as literary adaptation,
not to mention that comic books might not speak to notions of authorial
authority since so many creators work on them (writers, pencillers, inkers,
editors, publishers, etc.).
Nonetheless, thinking of comics in terms of their status as hypotexts,
which have been reassembled in correspondence with cultural factors, is
beneficial. Indeed, Stam notes that ‘many of the changes between novel-
istic sources have to do with ideology and social discourses’, noting, for
example, the ways in which an adaptation’s politics can be made more or
less politically radical than the text on which it is based (Stam 2005: 42–3).
This directly relates to the representations I discuss here since gender
representation is shaped by political discourses. Francesco Casetti’s
characterisation of both (literary) source text and film adaptation as ‘sites

of production and the circulation of discourses’ (Casetti 2004: 80, original
emphasis) is particularly relevant here. In Casetti’s terms, film adaptations
constitute ‘the reappearance, in another discursive field, of an element (a plot,
a theme, a character, etc.) that has previously appeared elsewhere’ (Casetti
2004: 82, original emphasis), a ‘recontextualization of the text’ (Casetti
2004: 83, original emphasis). Casetti’s approach therefore foregrounds the
contextual surroundings of both source and adaptation. Marvel comics
and their filmic adaptations are therefore positioned here as twin sites of
discourse, both of which are inextricably linked to the culture in which
they were created and both of which feed into each other while remaining
separate. This allows for an approach that is not merely making com-
parisons between different media iterations of the same character, story
or theme, and does not make value judgements over which version is of
more merit. Following Casetti’s terms, the Marvel adaptation and Marvel
comic are ‘social discourses to be connected to a broader network of other
discourses’ (Casetti 2004: 89).
To add to these discussions is Marvel’s frequent return in media dis-
course to comics. Comic writer and Vice President of Television and
Animation of Marvel Entertainment Jeph Loeb has stated that despite
Marvel’s investment in multimedia, it is in the company’s interest for
‘everyone to realize that it all starts with publishing. It all starts with comic
books’ (Loeb quoted in Phegley 2013). Clearly, this speaks to the notion
of the supposed authority of the original over the ‘copy’, but it is also
significant that comics are being pushed forward within these discourses,
especially considering their niche positioning within the Marvel enter-
prise. It attests to the idea that comics themselves, despite arguably being
the ‘originator’, should also be considered intertexts, ‘designed . . . to be
looked into and through as well as at’ (Leitch 2009: 17, original emphasis).
Such an approach is also supported by Karen Hollinger, who argues in her
discussion of gender in adaptations of nineteenth-century literature that ‘a
literary adaptation’s relationship to its source is an essential issue, but we
[should] consider it only in terms of what it tells us about the remarkable
attraction of these films’ (Hollinger 2012: 152–3).
To address these issues there must be a continuity between these media
in discussions of gender representation. Remarkably, few scholarly investi-
gations of women in superhero films account for the historical discourses at
work in these representations that carry with them what might be charac-
terised as the textual baggage of comics. It is thus not my intention to cast
value judgements upon either media, nor is it to suggest that r epresentations
of women in comics are more progressive and therefore better.
Another important facet of representations of superheroines in the

media regards the role of television as part of a transmedia industry in
shaping conceptualisations of heroic femininity. Marvel’s success with
television series such as Agent Carter (ABC, 2015–16) and Jessica Jones
(Netflix, 2015–19), alongside heroines appearing in The Runaways (Hulu,
2017–19) and Cloak & Dagger (Freeform, 2018–19) is sure to stimulate
discussions regarding the configurations of femininity presented therein.
Indeed, scholarly explorations of Jessica Jones have already proved insight-
ful, addressing the series in terms of genre, gender and ideology (see
Rayborn and Keyes 2018). CarrieLynn D. Reinhard and Christopher
J. Olson in particular note that Jessica Jones ‘functions as a counterpoint
to the larger MCU, which has thus far focused on telling male-based
stories of redemption and revenge . . . concerned with saving the world’
(Reinhard and Olson 2018: 97–8). This, the authors suggest, is enabled by
the opportunities offered by Netflix as a platform and producer operat-
ing outside mainstream industrial practices, echoing previous discussions
referring to HBO’s ‘quality’ programming and production strategies that
engaged with issues of gender, sexuality, race and class in distinctive–
often characterised as feminist– ways (Lagerwey et al. 2016). The sig-
nificance of these series notwithstanding, it remains to be seen what the
implications of Disney’s own streaming platform, Disney+, might be in
terms of ‘quality’ and representation. Both Jessica Jones and Agent Carter
were notably framed within the popular media as feminist and lauded for
their handling of feminist issues. This contributes to the widespread char-
acterisation of television as being a more hospitable medium for women’s
representation (see Tally 2016). Sherrie Inness has likewise argued:
Television is willing to take more risks with female gender roles than mainstream
films. With television, it is easier for producers to experiment with different roles for
women, although these roles are still limited. It is less costly to experiment with one
episode of a series rather than experiment with a major film. Also, because of televi-
sion’s omnipresence, its tough women have a major impact on the American cultural
imagination. (Inness 2004: 10)
When combined with the associations of television with femininity (and

domesticity and intimacy in particular) (see Brunsdon 1986; Spigel 1992;
Smit 2015), this conclusion may not be surprising. One must, however,
query, then, the implications of superheroines on television marking an
embrace of multifaceted femininities by popular culture while further
relegating women to a medium which has so often been positioned as
domestic or feminised. Undoubtedly, Marvel has been making significant
advances in terms of women’s representation in television. However, for
the purposes of this book, a detailed examination of television is not war-

ranted due to the need for limitation (though I do offer some remarks
about television throughout). I therefore maintain the specific focus of
theatrical live-action films based on Marvel characters, with comic books
acting as a useful backdrop to the discussion. The discursive and cultural
moments in which representations of Marvel women occur, in comics as
well as in film, are highly significant. However, I consider representations
of women in both media as sites of struggle, symptomatic of anxieties
regarding women’s empowerment, as well as racial and sexual identity.
The (Super)Power of Feminist Film Studies

As mentioned, there is a marked duality between debates about women
in film and those about women in comics. Indeed, comic books have been
characterised as male-dominated in terms of production, content and con-
sumption. Matthew J. Pustz previously argued that ‘many female readers
feel marginalised by an industry they see as generally sexist’ (Pustz 2000:
101). Scholars have been combating this perception more recently, sug-
gesting that the reality of women’s comic book reading habits is somewhat
more complex (Healey 2009: Scott 2013). However, I would argue that the
perception that superheroes are for boys is ingrained in Western cultural
consciousness. Male superheroes have much more exposure within the
media. These sentiments are also taken for granted by industry profession-
als, many of whom continuously choose to adhere to them (Healey 2009:
145). Theorists have drawn attention not only to the lack of representation
of women in comics but also to the often oppressive storylines that accom-
panied them. Karen Healey, for instance, notes that ‘Glorified violence
. . . is central to the power fantasies of the superhero comic’ (Healey 2009:
145). Likewise, glorified violence is frequently afflicted upon female char-
acters by male characters in comic book texts often created by men, as has
been discussed by Marc DiPaolo (2011: 119), Trina Robbins (1999: 216)
and Anita K. McDaniel (2008: 88). For these reasons, comics continue to
be considered male-dominated, despite recent developments suggesting
otherwise.
The trajectory of mainstream comic books in relation to feminist issues
often parallels that of the Hollywood film industry. Hollywood’s relation
to women is complex: it is thought that pre-1960s Hollywood cinema
actively catered to female audiences, in contrast to the period since the
late 1960s, which has been dominated by films aimed at young men, the
most valuable Hollywood demographic (King 2002: 39; Chapman 2004:
190–1). How the industry decided what counts as a men’s or women’s film
is based on the narrative, thematic and visual content of the film. Industry
research determined that men prefer films containing action and violence,
whereas women seek those that focus more on character and emotion (or
romance) (see Krämer 1998; Grant 2007: 80). Additionally, Hollywood’s
approach since the late 1970s has taken for granted that women cinemago-
ers are more likely to compromise, settling more easily for men’s films
than men do for women’s films (Krämer 1999: 104). These trends are
self-perpetuating since women are forced to adapt their tastes due to the
lack of films made for them.
It is clear that Hollywood employs a generalist logic. To clarify, a
social constructionist approach to gender, such as that which I employ
throughout this book, would take issue with the notion that some films are
fundamentally for men or women. However, noting that these gendered
phenomena are social constructs perpetuated by discourse does not lessen
their cultural significance. There is nothing inherently masculine about
action films, but such is the way in which these films have become associ-
ated with men in Western culture. Indeed, the association of action and
violence with masculinity is precisely what has made the action heroine in
film such a fascinating topic.3
Considering the yearly box office lists of popular films in the United
States then (all of which feature Marvel adaptations since 2008), this logic
is demonstrably at work, since the presence of what might be defined as
women’s films is markedly lacking (though this may be in the process of
changing, as I discuss later). These trends are accompanied by production
factors, such as there being fewer lead roles available to women, women
receiving fewer speaking parts in films, there being fewer women directing
films than men and a reluctance to put women’s stories onto film.
As with Marvel Comics, which before the superhero as a narrative
figure had even been conceived of made its profits by producing romance
comics for girls (written by Marvel figurehead Stan Lee himself) (Robbins
1999: 67), there was a time when Hollywood took seriously the power of
female audiences. Contemporary trends, however, appear comparatively
unwelcoming in terms of women-centric content, particularly within the
time frame covered by this project. This is in part due to modes of film-
making pertaining to the ‘Millennial Hollywood’ style. Thomas Schatz
notes that since the new millennium, a number of industry trends have
developed which enforce on films certain requirements to aid in their
financial success:
the film industry’s development in the early twenty-first century has been funda-
mentally wed to a new breed of blockbusters whose narrative, stylistic, technological,
and industrial conventions have coalesced into a veritable set of rules governing the
creation and marketing of Hollywood’s ‘major motion pictures’. (Schatz 2009: 32)
These rules largely involve encouraging studios to produce works that

function within a transmedia environment– the convergence culture
mentioned earlier– a s well as exploit or expand established franchises,
take advantage of intellectual properties and incorporate a serial quality
(Schatz 2009: 32). These conventions clearly resonate with Marvel films,
but it is also conspicuous that, as Schatz suggests is the case, the protago-
nist of these films ‘should be male’ (Schatz 2009: 32), rendering women
within these narratives peripheral at best and, as I argue in Chapter 1,
disposable at worst.
Indeed, Marvel superhero films can be seen as emblematic of these
issues. As will be clear from my discussions in the proceeding chapters,
Marvel superhero films do incorporate romance as a ‘way to integrate
women into action narratives’ (Gallagher 2006: 77) but this carries with
it its own drawbacks in terms of women’s representation. As big, action-
based blockbusters, they remain firmly within the male-centric trends
outlined above. Again, this is ironic given the reliance of Marvel texts on
soap opera dynamics described previously.
Referring to the generic properties of the superhero film, Eric
Lichtenfeld suggests that the superhero narrative has been ‘co-opted by
the fantastical form of the action genre’ (Lichtenfeld 2004: 254). He essen-
tially argues that the action format is conveniently matched to contempo-
rary comic book aesthetics (Lichtenfeld 2004: 254). A similar approach
has been taken by Yvonne Tasker (2015). The action genre is thus a useful
framework through which to view female characters with a feminist lens,
although these films increasingly emphasise their potential for fantasy and
science fiction spectacle, particularly in the later MCU. The action genre
is most prominently used as a framework for the first half of this book,
which assesses specific character types associated with the superhero-
action-fantasy genre whereas subsequent chapters address more general-
ised themes (such as sexuality and race).
Feminist critics have taken issue with dominant modes of representation
in Hollywood since at least the 1970s. During this time, North American
writers such as Marjorie Rosen (1973), Joan Mellen (1974) and Molly
Haskell (1975) interrogated the role of women in mainstream cinema
utilising quasi-sociological approaches. Meanwhile, in the UK, feminist
approaches to film based on structuralism, semiotics and psychoanalysis
gained momentum (Kuhn 1994: 77). Claire Johnston’s edited Notes on
Women’s Cinema (Johnston 1973) and Laura Mulvey’s ‘Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema’, originally published in 1975 (Mulvey 2004),

became key texts assessing how films provide a construction of women
as signs informed by and contributing to patriarchal ideology. Alongside
this developed a theoretical framework that united the twin strands of
critique and practice, a ‘dual composition’ which remains a defining char-
acteristic of feminist film theory (Hollinger 2012: 8). Subsequent think-
ers became interested in the specificities of female spectators, as well as
women’s genres (see, for instance, Doane 1984, Doane 1987; Gledhill
1987; Thornham 1997: xiv).
It would be nigh impossible to conduct a study of women’s representa-
tion in blockbuster action films without reference to the work of Mulvey.
Indeed, Mulvey’s essay remains the starting point for much contempo-
rary feminist film criticism. I develop Mulvey’s theories throughout the
study, but a specific focus on them occurs within the first chapters of
this book. It is worth briefly outlining Mulvey’s ideas here to provide an
idea of key concepts that have arisen from feminist film studies. From
a psychoanalytic perspective, Mulvey holds that Hollywood films act
under a binary logic of active/male and passive/female in their gender
representations (Mulvey 2004: 841). This is motivated by scopophilia or
the pleasure of looking. For Mulvey, women in mainstream films enact
‘to-be-looked-at-ness,’ an expression of the male gaze and fetishisation
of the female body (Mulvey 2004: 841). As such, the male character is
the active figure within the film’s narrative, while the woman remains a
passive object to be looked at (Mulvey 2004: 842). Mulvey’s sentiments
are in line with second-wave feminist thought, in which the popular was
not considered a viable vehicle for feminist representation, giving rise to
alternative modes of production such as avant-garde feminist filmmaking
(Hollows and Moseley 2006: 4).
During later decades, feminist film theory underwent several develop-
ments, experimenting with various methods of analysis. Sue Thornham
notes that the psychoanalytic approach fell out of favour with many
feminist film theorists as it was concluded to be in many ways limit-
ing (Thornham 1997: xv). Indeed, many scholars note the limitations
of the theories of Mulvey herself, which, they argue, rely too heavily on
an absolute binary between genders (Tasker 1993: 114–15; Hills 1999;
Brown 2011a: 21). Similarly, many authors expressed concern over the
lack of attention devoted to the issues of race, sexuality and class, all of
which should be considered relevant in discussions of gender (Gaines
1986; Thornham 1997: xvi). These discussions have developed expo-
nentially throughout the 1990s and 2000s (Kaplan 2000: 10; Hollinger
2012: 17). As the field expanded, increasingly drawing from postcolonial
and LGBTQ perspectives, so did theorists’ interests. As such, genre-

specific criticism moved on from examining women’s roles in women’s
genres to discussions of women’s representations in genres considered
more masculine. Amongst these are scholars interested in gender and the
action genre– in which I situate most Marvel adaptations. Writers such
as Tasker (1993; 1998; 2004), Inness (1998; 2004), Hills (1999), Purse
(2011), Brown (2011a; 2015a; 2017) and many others provide useful
points of discussion.
Likewise, recent feminist film studies have been marked by a turn
towards an inclusive cultural and media studies approach that reflects
the contemporary transmedia landscape. Similarly, gender studies, as
a field highlighting the benefits of interdisciplinary approaches to the
study of subjectivities and social inequalities, has offered new perspec-
tives. These approaches have foregrounded the polysemy of film and
other media texts and their negotiation of cultural discourses through the
formal construction of narratives and characters (Hollinger 2012: 18). It
is such approaches that have offered the most rewarding examinations of
postfeminist culture, which penetrates both people’s lived experiences
and highly mediated forms of feminist rhetoric. New media platforms
have also become the focus of feminist theorising, especially in consid-
eration with emerging new waves of feminism and the democratisation
of the filmmaking process. As will become clear, it is not my intention
to draw from one singular theoretical approach to the study of gender
in film. Feminist film theory, and the theories that arose from it, are the
most relevant to this project. However, as I discuss in the next section,
perspectives from scholars working in the social sciences, media studies
and gender studies have been of exponential use, particularly with regards
to postfeminist culture.
At the risk of emulating the ‘new era’ rhetoric I lambasted earlier, it is
worth highlighting that the issues facing women in Hollywood (as well
as comics) are developing. While it is true that the key trends identified
by Hollywood insiders were firmly in place during the early years of the
Marvel boom, recent tendencies seem to suggest that there is some mal-
leability. That said, suggesting that change is on the horizon would be
remarkably similar to the predictions made by Peter Krämer shortly after
Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) dominated the box office. Titanic, Krämer
suggested, marked a possible shift in Hollywood box office trends by
‘returning female characters and romantic love to the centre of the indus-
try’s big releases and also by returning female audiences to the central
place in Hollywood’s thinking that they had once occupied in its golden
age’ (Krämer 1998: 600). However, Krämer’s predictions did not come
to fruition as the box office has remained decidedly male-dominated. As

concluded by Kristin Lené Hole et al.,
It nevertheless remains true that the struggle for equality is far from over, since
women remain a minority when it comes to most film industries– both as filmmak-
ers and as subjects whose stories are represented on the screen beyond mere clichés
and stereotyping. This is particularly true for women of color, and queer and trans*
filmmakers. (Hole et al. 2016: 5)
Still, profits made by recent films and franchises centring on women

have been increasingly competitive with those featuring men, in part
thanks to the Twilight series (2008–12) and The Hunger Games (2012–15).
The recent re-emergence of the Bechdel test may also be some indication
of increased cultural awareness of issues regarding the representation of
women in Hollywood blockbusters. Created in 1985 by cartoonist Alison
Bechdel in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (1987–2008) (collected
in Bechdel 2008) as a means through which to address the representation
of queer women in film, it is used to quantitatively produce some measure
of gender bias in narrative cinema. It also demonstrates the interconnect-
edness between film and comics as discursive media. To discern whether a
film passes this test, the viewer asks the following: (1) does the film contain
two or more named female characters? (2) Do these characters talk to each
other? (3) Do they discuss topics other than men? Films that do not satisfy
these criteria fail the test and illustrate that the lack of female characters
and storylines in films is a problem that functions on an industrial, as
well as cultural, level. Not surprisingly, the majority of Hollywood films,
including those discussed here, do not pass the test. Despite the simplistic
nature of the Bechdel test, it has gained traction within popular media,
indicating mainstream appropriation of audience consumption practices
rejecting standards set by the Hollywood film industry. Indeed, it has been
argued that films passing the Bechdel test make more money than those
that do not, although conceiving of women’s representation in purely
financial terms is potentially as limiting as the metric nature of the test
itself.
Catherine Driscoll has stressed the danger for feminist media critics
to prioritise sentiments downplaying the progress that has been made in
favour of discussing the many ways in which gender oppression still exists
(Driscoll 2015). Doubtless, it is important not to lose track of the history
of patriarchal representations of women in film and other media, but it is
also important to note the changes that are in the process of occurring, and
how they can illuminate new issues surrounding feminine subjectivities in
film.
We’re In This Together Now:

Mediating Womanhood through Postfeminist Culture
An elusive and polysemic concept, there is little unity within scholarly
circles over the precise meaning of ‘postfeminist’ (Genz and Brabon 2009:
2; Vered and Humphreys 2014: 156). It is thus essential that my use of
the term is clarified here. The ‘post-’ of postfeminism potentially signi-
fies a movement ‘after’ feminism in a chronological sense. In the words
of Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff, when used in this sense, it might
mark an ‘epistemological break within feminism’, which ‘implies transforma-
tion and change within feminism that challenges “hegemonic” Anglo-
American feminism’ (Gill and Scharff 2011: 3, original emphasis). When
considered in such a way, a postfeminist approach might address the theo-
retical gaps of second-wave feminism, which has often been criticised for
its white, middle-class, Anglo-American stance towards women’s oppres-
sion (Dicker and Piepmeier 2003: 9).
Postfeminist culture has also been made sense of as a backlash towards
ideas or goals that are (thought to be) feminist. As such, postfeminism can
be seen to mark a cultural moment characterised by a nostalgia for gender
traditionalism, or a time before ‘political correctness’ (Gill and Scharff
2011: 3). Use of the term ‘postfeminist’ dates back as far as the 1980s and
beyond, when popular media searched for a ‘milder’ form of feminism
away from the ‘angry’ feminist voices that gained traction with the second
wave (McRobbie 2009: 31). However, the idea of postfeminism as purely
a backlash has been complexified, since postfeminism relies on (an idea of)
feminism in order to function as a series of discourses (Tasker and Negra
2007: 1; Gill and Scharff 2011: 4). McRobbie remains the pioneering
commentator on the complex relationship between feminism and post-
feminism. Her oft-cited comment regarding this relationship is as follows:
postfeminism [refers to] an active process by which feminist gains of the 1970s and
1980s come to be undermined. It proposes that, through an array of machinations,
elements of contemporary popular culture are perniciously effective in regard to
this undoing of feminism while simultaneously appearing to be engaging in a well-
informed and even well-intended response to ‘feminism’. (McRobbie 2007: 27)
Thus, postfeminist culture promotes a sentiment in which feminism is

regarded as no longer needed because (all) women have achieved gender
equality. At the same time, though, a celebration of supposedly empow-
ered womanhood is often present. Therefore, the ‘post-’ of postfeminism
frequently connotes the pastness of feminism, which may be interchange-
ably ‘noted, mourned, or celebrated’ (Tasker and Negra 2007: 1), but
postfeminism (and the femininities it celebrates) is positioned as a mark-

edly contemporary phenomenon (Gill and Scharff 2011: 4). McRobbie
describes postfeminism as invoking ‘feminism as that which can be taken
into account, to suggest that equality is achieved, in order to install a
whole repertoire of new meanings’ (McRobbie 2007: 28). Women, it is
suggested, live in an era of freedom– sexual, professional, personal–
and no longer need to attend to the politics of institutionalised gender
oppression. And yet McRobbie notes the prevalence of cultural narratives
focusing on the ‘coming forward’ of women in terms of personal and
professional empowerment (McRobbie 2009: 9), an occurrence suggest-
ing some sort of embrace of a discursive form of feminism. Gill makes
the case for positioning postfeminism as a ‘sensibility that characterizes
. . . media products’ (Gill 2007: 148), rather than a physical timeframe or
simple backlash. This sensibility rests on the endorsement of dominant
themes– characterised as ‘master narratives’ by Diane Negra (2009b: 5)–
pertaining to an idealised feminine subjectivity. Gill summarises these key
themes as including:
the notion that femininity is a bodily property; the shift from objectification to
subjectification; an emphasis upon self-surveillance, monitoring and self-discipline;
a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment; the dominance of a makeover
paradigm; and a resurgence of ideas about natural sexual difference. (Gill 2007: 147)
As noted, postfeminist culture is positioned as a contemporary phe-

nomenon, even while it relies on notions of the pastness of feminism.
This modernity of postfeminism is linked to neoliberal culture. Diane
Richardson and Victoria Robinson describe how neoliberalism is thought
of as a policy framework privileging a free market economy and the with-
drawal of the state in issues such as social welfare (Richardson and Robinson
2015: xxi). They also argue that it is useful to think of neoliberalism ‘as
a form of regulation or governmentality and an ideological framework
of ideas and values that emphasise commodification and consumerism,
professionalization and managerialism, and individualism and freedom of
“choice” ’ (Richardson and Robinson 2015: xxi). The neoliberal focus on
consumerism and individualism corresponds with postfeminist culture,
in which every empowered woman is responsible for her own, individual
choices– c hoices usually boiling down to the consumption of products.
Indeed, choice rhetoric is one of the main focuses of feminist criticism of
postfeminist culture. As Tasker and Negra outline,
postfeminist culture emphasizes educational and professional opportunities for

women and girls; freedom of choice with respect to work, domesticity, and parent-
ing; and physical and particularly sexual empowerment. Assuming full economic
freedom for women, postfeminist culture also (even insistently) enacts the possibility
that women might choose to retreat from the public world of work. (Tasker and Negra
2007: 2, original emphasis)
Women’s ‘choices’ then become divorced from political implications that

might accompany them. A woman is empowered because she can choose,
postfeminist rhetoric would suggest, as opposed to a time in the suppos-
edly very distant past where she may have been forced to live a certain life
(as a mother, as a wife, as a housewife, and so on).
As mentioned earlier, postfeminist culture has become even more
complex due to developments with #MeToo and other forms of social
media activism and contemporary feminism. Nonetheless, the theoretical
concept of postfeminism remains useful. This was noted by Gill in 2016,
when she argued for its continued use as an ‘analytical category to capture
a distinctive contradictory-but-patterned sensibility intimately connected
to neoliberalism’ (Gill 2016: 610), a ‘complicated but realistic understand-
ing of the way that multiple and contradictory ideas can co-exist at the
same moment’ (Gill 2016: 622). Indeed, #MeToo’s widespread embrace
(and its shortcomings) can be made sense of through postfeminist culture,
in particular because of its reliance on white female celebrity endorsement,
its positioning as a movement/moment that has penetrated commercial
venues and its dependence on binaristic notions of gendered violence, not
to mention the fact that gender inequalities (especially faced by women of
colour, queer, trans and disabled women) continue to exist on a structural
level, as well as in people’s lived experiences. Furthermore, #MeToo
has the propensity for reinforcing an emphasis on the individualist quali-
ties of character encouraged within neoliberal frameworks, or what Gill
refers to as ‘the “right” kinds of dispositions for surviving in neoliberal
society: confidence, resilience and positive mental attitude’ (Gill 2017:
10), the need for which is itself symptomatic of structural inequalities.
Still, the overarching choices the postfeminist woman makes aid the
‘production of the self’, with special attention paid to notions of the
‘authentic’ self (Tasker and Negra 2007: 2; Banet-Weiser 2012). As will
become clear in subsequent chapters, the sentiment that times have
changed, that ‘things are not like that’ any more– with ‘that’ signify-
ing gender inequality – possesses considerable currency in postfeminist
culture. In the light of individualised womanhood, collective political
activism becomes decentralised just as instances of sexism become the
responsibility of careless individuals rather than hierarchical institutions
limiting opportunities for certain marginalised people. In the words of
Joel Gwynne and Nadine Müller, ‘this celebration of the power of the
individual is part of a more insidious process whereby the social con-

straints placed upon contemporary girls and women are deemed inconse-
quential’ (Gwynne and Müller 2013: 2).
But precisely who are these women addressed by postfeminist culture?
The idealised postfeminist subject may have all the choices in the world
available to her, but she still pertains to specific criteria. Tasker and Negra
note that ‘postfeminism is white and middle class by default’ (Tasker and
Negra 2007: 2), but the racial element of postfeminist culture digs deeper
into the history of the marginalisation and systematic disempowerment
of women of colour. The woman of colour in postfeminist culture occu-
pies her own place within discourses that are reluctant to scrutinise the
structural privilege granted whiteness. While women of colour do appear
in postfeminist media texts, the focus is overwhelmingly on assimilation
as well as respectability. Still, postfeminist rhetoric endorses a notion of
universalised empowered womanhood whereby all women have access
to the same opportunities. The specificity of racialised feminine identity
is therefore disregarded within postfeminist discourses, while women
of colour (particularly in the US) are still disproportionately affected
by social issues such as rape, incarceration and access to education and
healthcare.
Likewise, the idealised postfeminist subject embodies a heterosexual-
ity that reinforces gender difference. As Gill argues, postfeminist media
culture heralds a sexualisation of femininity both through ‘an extraordi-
nary proliferation of discourses about sex and sexuality’ and ‘the increas-
ingly frequent erotic presentation of girls’, women’s and (to a lesser extent)
men’s bodies in public spaces’ (Gill 2007: 150). This serves the purpose
of reinforcing traditional notions of heterosexuality based on binaristic
ideals of masculinity and femininity. Additionally, women are encouraged
to engage in self-objectification and are in this sense empowered through
their (hetero)sexuality. As I discuss in subsequent chapters, there is little
room for non-normative sexuality within postfeminist narratives despite
the increased liberalisation of state attitudes towards LGBTQ people and
the phenomenon of ‘gaystreaming’, itself linked to neoliberal capitalistic
practices in which difference may be commodified. This is part of the
‘double entanglement’ described by McRobbie, in which neoconservative
and liberal sentiments appear to coexist in increasingly contradictory ways
(McRobbie 2007: 28). Nonetheless, women’s quest for heterosexual love
is centred within postfeminist discourses and remains a crucial element in
maintaining rigid structures of gender (Negra 2009a: 173).
While I have discussed the key elements informing postfeminist culture,
this account should in no way be taken as exhaustive. Postfeminist culture
continues to shift with regards to its projection of empowered feminini-

ties. This has been discussed in literature addressing the role of the recent
economic recession in explorations of postfeminist subjectivities, which so
often rely on the ideal of the financially empowered woman (DeCarvalho
2013; Bose and Lyons 2013; Negra and Tasker 2014). Likewise, the bur-
geoning alt-right movement, which gained momentum during Donald
Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and involves a mobilisation of poor,
white masculinities perceived to have been left behind by neoliberalism,
has prompted a further shift in the manifestations of acceptable feminini-
ties in contemporary US culture.
Gill states that ‘[a]rguments about postfeminism are debates about
nothing less than the transformations in feminisms and transformations
in media culture– a nd their mutual relationship’ (Gill 2007: 147). For
sure, all films discussed within this book fall within the postfeminist
moment. Dan Hassler-Forest has already examined how superheroes
are emblematic of the age of neoliberalism in the US (Hassler-Forest
2012). However, interestingly, the superheroine also has undeniable ties to
postfeminist discourses dating back to the 1970s, when feminist activists
Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes put Wonder Woman on the
cover of their new popular feminist publication Ms. Rebecca Munford
and Melanie Waters discuss the use of Wonder Woman in this context,
which they characterise as ‘an attempt to mobilize the commercial mar-
ketplace for political ends’ (Munford and Waters 2014: 2), signifying the
popularisation– o r taking into account– o f feminism in the media. They
nonetheless argue that Wonder Woman can be seen as symptomatic of
shifts in discourses of femininity and women’s empowerment (Munford
and Waters 2014: 3). Here we can see the inextricable link between the
superheroine, feminism and postfeminism.
The empowered women in films based on Marvel comics are largely
alike: white, slim, middle-class, heterosexual, youthful, as well as often
professionally and economically empowered. As noted earlier, some films
may fall more into this mode of discourse than others, but on the whole,
Marvel adaptations can be seen to engage in some way with postfemi-
nist rhetoric, and indeed feminist issues. Many of the films, for instance,
contain representations of women who are suggested to be ‘empowered’, be
this physically, sexually or professionally. This is not to say that my analy-
sis is a simple task of weeding out the postfeminism in the texts: as Tasker
and Negra argue, postfeminism is ‘inherently contradictory’ (Tasker and
Negra 2007: 8). Marvel films’ relationship to feminism is as complex as
postfeminism itself. As films that in many ways attempt to present women
as strong, capable and independent, they are, for all intents and purposes,
feminist. And yet the meaning of strong, independent and capable is not a
straightforward definition. Rather, these concepts are negotiated through
these characters, who remain sites of discursive struggle.
To follow Tasker and Negra, it is in my interests to create a discus-
sion with, rather than a rejection of, postfeminism in Marvel films. The
authors support a feminist approach towards postfeminism that is ‘not
engaged in interrogating or understanding postfeminist culture simply
as a forerunner to rejecting it’, continuing that ‘[t]he images and icons
of postfeminism are compelling’ (Tasker and Negra 2007: 21, original
emphasis). Further, the authors highlight that ‘Postfeminist culture does
not allow us to make straightforward distinctions between progressive and
regressive texts’ (Tasker and Negra 2007: 22), a sentiment that remains
crucial to my characterisation of Marvel women as complex. Noting the
paradoxes of postfeminist culture offers the opportunity for pluralistic
meanings that are nonetheless still anchored to a feminist critique of patri-
archal structures.
To address Gwynne and Muller’s point regarding the ‘critically satu-
rated’ status of academic inquiry into women in action-based films, this
can be said: feminist discussions of these texts are not slowing down
because superheroines are continuously being produced and reproduced
by major studios. Nowhere is postfeminist culture more clearly sum-
moned than in statements from Marvel Studios’ President, Kevin Feige,
in 2015. When questioned why Marvel was yet to release a superhero film
led by a woman, he responded:
There have been strong, powerful, intelligent women in the comics for decades . . .
And if you go back to look at our movies– whether it’s Natalie Portman in the Thor
films, Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man or Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers – our
films have been full of smart, intelligent, powerful women. (Feige in de Souza 2015)
It is clear, here, how feminist sentiments are taken into account in Feige’s
noting the history of women in Marvel comics, in his insistence on the
inspirational qualities offered by the characters he mentions. He continues
that Marvel has always ‘gone for the powerful woman versus the damsel
in distress’ (Feige in de Souza 2015), invoking a feminist critique of char-
acters who are victimised, positioned as damsels and assuring readers that
Marvel exists in contrast to this, even though he does not actually address
the issue of why, up to that point, there had been no female-led films from
Marvel Studios. However, the issue of women’s empowerment is not as
simple as Feige suggests, as many factors contribute to the representation
of women in such films, for instance, race and sexuality.
In light of my findings, it should also be noted that there is still much
work to be done. Since I only consider representations of women in

Marvel adaptations, I must also draw attention to the crucial work that
is being carried out in both film and comics studies regarding masculin-
ity and superheroes (Adamou 2011; Brown 2013; Brown 2015b; Stevens
2015; McGrath 2016). Since women’s subjectivities are marginalised in
a genre characterised as male-dominated both in filmic and comic book
terms, the representation of women in these films took priority in this
particular project.
Above all, I hope that this book speaks to some of the issues of women’s
representation that have been circulating for years both in the media and
in people’s lives. I, as a researcher and critic (as well as a fan), do not get
to tell people what they should feel empowered by. Indeed, this sort of fan
activity would certainly be worth investigating in the future. Nevertheless,
a rigorous discussion of the Marvel film adaptations should be prioritised,
because change has to start somewhere.
Notes
1. Spider-Man, despite having still been under Sony’s ownership, recently
appeared as part of the MCU within the Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon
Watts, 2017) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts, 2019), a corporate
collaboration that broke down in relation to a third Sony/Marvel but was
subsequently revived (Lang 2019). The dispute occurred amid rumours of
the impending debut of Disney’s online streaming platform, Disney+, the
cancelling of Netflix’s Marvel-based series and the merging of Disney and
20th Century Fox (which previously produced X-Men films). The ambiguity
of corporate ownership and intellectual property here is symptomatic of the
ongoing consolidation activities and franchising business models that inform
contemporary media production, inextricably bound up in social contexts and
consumption practices.
2. This includes Julie D. O’Reilly’s article regarding specific connections that
can be drawn between Wonder Woman and female heroic narrative (O’Reilly
2005), Joseph J. Darowski’s edited volume exploring representations of
Wonder Woman through seven decades (Darowski 2013), Tim Hanley’s
analysis considering the character’s discursive construction at various histori-
cal milestones through a feminist lens (Hanley 2014), Jill Lepore’s historical
perspective examining the creation of Wonder Woman and her creator (Lepore
2014), a queer-inflected reading of the 1940s comics regarding their themes of
bondage, sexuality, lesbianism and taboo subjects by Noah Berlatsky (2015),
Annessa Ann Babic’s discussion of Wonder Woman as a cultural phenomenon
through which issues of nationality and femininity can be explored (Babic
2015) and Joan Ormrod’s recent analysis that centres the symbolic role of the
female body in iterations of Wonder Woman (Ormrod 2020).
3. See Tasker (1993); Neroni (2005); Brown (2011a). These authors all remark on
the significance of the female action hero as based on the cultural assumption
that action heroes are traditionally thought of as masculine.
C H A PT E R 1
‘You Have a Knack for Saving My

Life!’: Wives, Girlfriends and Women
in Refrigerators in Marvel Films
At the time of Spider-Man 3’s (Sam Raimi, 2007) release, director Sam
Raimi was asked whether he considered women to be ‘the real Achilles’
heel for superheroes’, to which he answered ‘absolutely’ (Raimi quoted
in Germain 2007). Raimi’s statement indicates the crucial role that super-
hero girlfriends play within the narratives of many Marvel comics and
films. Simultaneously, the question, as well as Raimi’s answer, draws the
focus from these women to the male heroes, a phenomenon repeated time
and again in narratives involving superhero girlfriends. It draws on the
notion that women in superhero narratives are positioned as victims, and
that the saving of these characters by the male hero provides the substance
furthering his story. The women in question are invariably love interests
of the heroes, who, as part of heteronormativity in mainstream cinema,
enact a heterosexual protectiveness over these women. These gendered
traits of heroism and victimhood are likewise enabled through postfemi-
nist culture.
The superhero girlfriend has a consistent presence in Marvel comic
books and their filmic counterparts. Often, she provides the motivation
for the hero’s actions through her victimisation by a villain. Occasionally,
she fights back, though usually unsuccessfully, and frequently appears
unexpectedly when the hero is overwhelmed by the villain, providing a
momentary distraction during which the hero can recover. Following this,
she reclaims her place as victim. Other times, as in Iron Man 3 (Shane
Black, 2013) and Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor, 2013), superhero
girlfriend characters are infected by some powerful supernatural sub-
stance, allowing them to momentarily traverse the heroic zone. However,
the narratives ensure that the substance is presented as a serious threat to
the girlfriend– it is then the hero’s job to help the girlfriend by remov-
ing the substance.
The role of superhero girlfriends within these narratives and the series
of complex discourses regarding gender roles they encompass are criti-
cally compelling and illuminate the complicated gender dynamics inform-

ing contemporary culture. These women, while integral cogs within the
mechanics of superhero narratives, are often pushed aside, with films
privileging the stories of the central male heroes. In complex ways, the
superhero girlfriend is emblematic of gendered discourses regarding
the empowerment of women in popular culture and broader society.
An authorial signature of Raimi’s within his trilogy of Spider-Man films
was identified in popular discourses as ‘putting a sexy girl in a tight-fitting
outfit, hanging from something’ (Ziskin quoted in Germain 2007), while
the filmmakers behind Iron Man 3 supposedly opted for more subversive
modes of representation (Feige quoted in Bryson 2013). Throughout this
chapter, I consider how particular Marvel film adaptations (re)config-
ure superhero girlfriends to reproduce narrative conventions carried over
from comics into filmic contexts. These characters carry with them a
fascinating history and offer rich points of discussion, which for long have
been ignored. I ultimately interrogate the cultural implications of the pro-
liferation of these characters, arguing that these films position superhero
girlfriends as in need of saving, a subjectivity incorporating what I refer to
as active passivity.
Damsels in Distress and Women in Refrigerators

across Media
The notion that a female character in a narrative focusing on a male
protagonist acts as a ‘sought-for-person’ (A. A. Berger 2005: 22) who con-
sequently enters into a heterosexual union with the hero was identified by
formalists such as Vladimir Propp in his Morphology of the Folktale (Propp
2010). The presence of such characters has therefore persevered in a vast
number of texts not limited to comics. However, the persistent use of the
girlfriend in superhero comic books, whose kidnap, murder, rape or any
other tragic life event serves the narrative purpose of rousing the hero into
action against the villain, has become a particularly acute narrative device
of which some scholars, and comic writers, have become increasingly
aware. These authors express frustration with the continuing violence
against women in superhero books and the misogynistic implications of
such narrative turns.
In 1999, comic book writer Gail Simone coined the term ‘women in
refrigerators’ after a particularly gruesome occurrence in an issue of DC’s
Green Lantern series in which the titular hero discovers that his enemy
murdered his girlfriend and hid her body in his refrigerator (Robbins
2010: 216). Simone subsequently created an ongoing list chronicling
‘y ou hav e a kna c k f o r s a v ing m y l i f e ! ’ 31
every female superhero comic book character who had been ‘killed, raped,
depowered, crippled, turned evil, maimed, tortured, contracted a disease
or had other life-derailing tragedies befall her’ (Simone 1999). ‘Women in
refrigerators’ has since been used to refer to tragedies that occur to women
in superhero comics ‘in service of male superhero narratives’ (Mandville
2014: 206), for example, deaths or injuries that serve ‘as a plot device to
stir the male hero into action’ (Robbins 2010: 216).
Perhaps the quintessential woman in the refrigerator is Peter Parker’s
girlfriend Gwen Stacy, whose death by the Green Goblin in The Amazing
Spider-Man (Conway and Kane 1973a) is said to have marked a turning
point in comics. Heralding darker storylines symbolising the ‘shifting tide
of history’ in America (Blumberg 2003), it resulted in an industrial turn
in the history of comics referred to as the Modern Age of Comics, signal-
ling the incorporation of ‘adult’ comic narratives such as Alan Moore and
Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen (1987) and Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s
The Dark Knight Returns (1986) into the discursive realm of ‘quality’
literature and contributing to a widely accepted canon of ‘great’ comics
(Beaty and Woo 2016: 56–7). Interestingly, though, Stacy’s death in The
Amazing Spider-Man #121 is not held to such high critical esteem, despite
catalysing a major shift in the narrative of comics history. It nonetheless
contains dark thematic overtones in its incorporation of death, drugs and
abuse of power.
In the comic, Peter Parker’s best friend Harry Osborn undergoes treat-
ment for drug addiction. Because of the trauma of his son’s drug use,
Harry’s father Norman Osborn, who had previously been the villain
Green Goblin, suffers a breakdown and takes up his Goblin persona
again. Knowing geeky teen Parker is the superheroic Spider-Man, Osborn
abducts Parker’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy to taunt and coax him into action.
Spider-Man tracks down Osborn in a dramatic scene taking place on the
George Washington Bridge. As Spider-Man reaches to save Stacy, Osborn
pushes her over the ledge, but Spider-Man is not able to save her. The
story was made doubly tragic by the implication that the force caused by
Spider-Man’s web shooter (with which he attempted to catch her) broke
Stacy’s neck, resulting in her death. Enraged at Osborn’s actions and his
ensuing jeers, Spider-Man declares, dramatically shaking his fist while
cradling Stacy’s dead body,
I’m going to get you, Goblin! I’m going to destroy you slowly– and when you start
begging for me to end it– I ’m going to remind you of one thing– you killed the
woman I love– and for that you’re going to die!
Here, Stacy’s death propels Spider-Man’s narrative, causing him to

seek revenge on Osborn. Subsequently, Spider-Man realises the error
of his ways, deciding that he does not want to be a murderer, but justice
is served when Osborn is impaled by his own flying device, the Goblin
Glider (Conway and Kane 1973b).
Throughout comics history, more superhero girlfriends would become
victims at the hands of villains. These occurrences became emblematic of
writing that ‘devalues female characters but also sexualizes their existence
and demise’, suggests Anita K. McDaniel (2008: 88). On further inspec-
tion, the editorial reasoning behind Stacy’s death provides insight into the
creative practices motivating Marvel’s output at the time, suggested that
the only alternative would have been marriage, for which Parker was not
ready (Blumberg 2003). Still, ‘women in refrigerators’ was not conceived
of as applying solely to wives and girlfriends of male superheroes. Simone’s
list contains superheroines as well as civilian women who fall victim to the
acts of villains. However, in the context of the films considered here, it is
worth contemplating how the women-in-refrigerators narrative is appar-
ent within the narratives of superhero girlfriends. As will be discussed in
later chapters, superheroines cause myriad ideological anxieties that are
dealt with through cinematic means. However, non-powered women are
approached with equal ideological uncertainty.
Superhero films carry the dual burden of being adapted from mate-
rial that has been often limiting towards women as well as functioning
within the mainstream Hollywood film industry, traditionally geared
more towards young male audiences. Thus, several factors make these
films a challenging environment in which to arrange female characters. As
mentioned previously, Marvel films fall within the practices of Millennial
Hollywood, incorporating transmedia narratives, exploiting pre-existing
properties and, indeed, centring on a male protagonist. Schatz also notes
that these films must ‘include a “love story” as a secondary plot line’
(Schatz 2009: 33). These qualifications also bear parallels to Joseph
Campbell’s Hero’s Journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2012).
Originally published in 1949, Campbell’s work interrogated the funda-
mental structures within mythology and storytelling, chronicling the steps
of the journey undertaken by the central hero throughout a narrative.
Such narratives informed a vast number of Hollywood films (post-New
Hollywood) and the Hero’s Journey is ultimately male-centric, so much
so that Campbell claimed that women do not need to make the journey
because ‘in the whole mythological tradition the woman is there. All she
has to do is to realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to’
(Campbell quoted in Murdock 1990: 1, original emphasis). This denial of
women’s development of character (disguised as a compliment) prompted

Maureen Murdock to produce The Heroine’s Journey (1990) although
Campbell’s work remained the most commonly referred to template for
popular narratives.
It is noteworthy that the sort of supposedly masculine film outlined
above and in the Introduction is often accompanied by a version of the
women-in-refrigerators narrative, a narrative mode informed by super-
hero films’ invocation of action cinema more widely. However, authors
who have observed the widespread presence of these characters in films
have devoted little more than a passing reference to them. In her discus-
sion of the place of the female character within the male-focused action
film, Tasker writes:
An hysterical figure who needs to be rescued or protected, the heroine is often played
for comedy. Sometimes she is simply written out of the more intense action narrative
altogether . . . More often female characters are either raped or killed, or both, in
order to provide a motivation for the hero’s revenge. (Tasker 1993: 16)
Tasker cites films such as Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971) and Lethal
Weapon (Richard Donner, 1987) as exemplifying such narratives, although
Mad Max (George Miller, 1979) and Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974)
can also be considered. The parallels between Tasker’s observations
and the use of women as similar plot devices in superhero narratives are
evident. Moreover, Tasker suggests, it is because the action film is per-
ceived as such an exclusively male space that there has historically been
little room for heroic women. She continues,
the heroines of the Hollywood action cinema have not tended to be action heroines.
They tend to be fought over rather than fighting, avenged rather than avenging. In
the role of threatened object they are significant, if passive, narrative figures. (Tasker
1993: 16)
This notion of significant passivity on the part of women in action films

is striking. As Tasker proposes, these narratives evoke the sentiments
expressed by Mulvey of the active/passive divide between men and
women in film (Tasker 1993: 17). However, the superhero girlfriend’s
presence crucially propels the narrative of the central male hero.
A broader way in which such victimised female characters have been
imagined is as part of the revenge narrative. In his investigation of the
cultural significance of revenge, Thane Rosenbaum attends to the propa-
gation of revenge narratives in popular culture and wider social contexts.
He refers to Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000), The Godfather (Francis Ford
Coppola, 1972) and A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996) as offering
audiences the satisfaction of witnessing payback exacted on morally rep-

rehensible individuals (Rosenbaum 2013: 71). Rosenbaum maintains that
the presence of such texts can be traced to ‘the human longing for revenge
that has been found wanting in the actual delivery of justice’ (Rosenbaum
2013: 68). He refers to ‘a subgenre of revenge narratives about men whose
wives and daughters have been murdered, raped, or both, whose families
have been taken away or their children killed’ (Rosenbaum 2013: 72),
stating that
the death of a child or the rape and murder of a spouse supplies the avenger with
his marching orders, especially if justice cannot be found any other way . . . The
avenger must do what is morally necessary because tolerating an injustice is viscer-
ally unbearable. It is not only the avenger who won’t be able to sleep until justice is
obtained. The same is true of the audience. (Rosenbaum 2013: 73)
Thus, he claims, there is a cultural need– implied to be universal– to

observe villains being punished within these narratives. In this context, it
is clear that the women-in-refrigerators narrative may feed into this social
desire for revenge (though Rosenbaum’s homogenising analysis of audi-
ences is problematic since he does not actually offer an audience study).
Though the heroes in many Marvel stories eventually turn away from
revenge, this is usually followed by a chain of events in which the villain is
killed by accident (as the Green Goblin was in the comics).
Thus, ideologically, many of these narratives maintain the spirit of a
revenge narrative without sullying the moral compass of their central
heroes– to have their cake and eat it too, so to speak– w ith the heroes
having grown emotionally and morally, while their loved ones have still
been avenged. The significance of Rosenbaum’s discussion notwithstand-
ing, it does draw attention back to the male heroes and neglects the gen-
dered implications of such narratives. The connotations of who carries out
revenge, on whom and why, should play a larger role in such discussions,
and it is thus my intention to bring the focus back onto the characters who
ultimately make these narratives possible– the superhero girlfriends.
Women in Refrigerators in Marvel Film Adaptations

Gwen Stacy’s death is seen as marking the beginning of an age signal-
ling the arrival of ‘a darker hero’ in comics (Blumberg 2003). One such
hero is Frank Castle, known as the Punisher, who seeks revenge on
the mobsters who killed his wife and children while they were out on
a picnic (Conway and DeZuniga 1975). Castle’s characterisation as an
Italian-American, as well as a Vietnam veteran, facilitated the inclusion
of themes of marginalised masculinity and loss of faith in a defective

justice system, as well as the brutality of the murders by the mafia. The
needless act of this killing motivates Castle to kill the perpetrators; then,
becoming a vigilante, utilise brutal military methods to fight criminals.
The women-in-refrigerators’ narrative is evident, even in an origin story
that bears parallels between Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben’s death in Spider-
Man’s origin story, or the death of blind hero Daredevil’s father in his
origin story. The differences between these stories are undoubtedly gen-
dered; the additions of a dead female child and the wife are noteworthy.
The elimination of the two female entities as well as his son positions
Castle as a last man standing, binding him to an exaggerated lone heroic
masculine sensibility. Given the significance of the revenge narrative, the
Punisher’s origin has been returned to twice in film, in 1989 and 2004
respectively, as well as across media in the Netflix series Daredevil and
The Punisher (Netflix 2017–19) (see Kent 2021), not to mention countless
retellings in comic books.
The Punisher (1989) devotes a flashback to the deaths of Castle’s loved
ones. During one scene, in which Castle (Dolph Lundgren), nude, prays
in his sewer dwellings, it flashes back to the suburbs, where his wife and
two daughters are shown walking towards their car. The scene cuts back to
Castle in the sewers before flashing back to the suburbs. The car explodes
and Castle runs towards it, shouting. He is unable to open the car in which
his family is now trapped and it explodes again. The addition of another
vulnerable daughter heightens the sense of masculine heroism and the use
of intercut scenes in which Frank is naked and praying draws attention
to his muscular, masculine frame, while also externalising his emotional
vulnerability. The brevity of the death scene in the film showcases the
ephemeral nature of the women-in-refrigerators narrative. The wife and
child were present for those scenes, but the rest of the action focuses on
Castle. The importance of the wife and daughters is fleeting: these charac-
ters have now provided the hero’s motivation.
The Punisher (Jonathan Hensleigh, 2004) adopts a more saccharine
approach, where the focus is nonetheless the tragedy of the deaths and
their effect on Castle. In this film, Castle (Thomas Jane) has a son, con-
tributing to scenes of male bonding. Castle is shown going home to his
wife, Maria, and son, Will, and comforts Will, who is upset that they
are moving to another city. A soft musical score accompanies these
scenes, emphasising Frank’s romanticised family life. The family theme
is extended when Frank, Maria and Will attend a family reunion on
the Puerto Rico coast. The following scenes feature Castle and his wife
romantically gazing into each other’s eyes, as well as an exchange between
Figure 1.1 Frank Castle’s fist alongside the photograph of his wife and son signifies his
call to action in The Punisher (2004).
the two on the beach where his wife declares ‘You and I– w e’re not lucky,
we’re blessed.’ Frank’s paternalism is again showcased in another scene
where he expresses his wish to have another child, which is followed
by a father-son bonding scene where his son shows him his new skull-
emblazoned T-shirt (which becomes the Punisher’s superhero uniform).
The emphasis on family in the film links to the resurgence of what Sarah
Godfrey and Hannah Hamad refer to as ‘protective paternalism’ in films
within a post-9/11 culture, stemming from and speaking to postfeminist
discourses (Godfrey and Hamad 2012).
Frank barely survives the attack by mobsters at the family reunion,
during which Will and Maria are killed. On his return to the house,
sentimental music accompanies a close-up of this hand holding a picture
of Maria and Will. His other hand is a fist (Figure 1.1), indicating that
his wife and son’s deaths are his call to action. He then finds his son’s
skull T-shirt, which he takes with him: even Frank’s T-shirt has been
imbued with familial sentiment alongside the heightened emotional aspect
of Maria and Will’s deaths. The real victims in this story are the members
of Frank’s family but attention is on Frank, privileging male suffering
from the fallout of the tragedy.
The women-in-refrigerators narrative also features in Raimi’s three
Spider-Man films, which focus on Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) strug-
gles to balance his superhero life with his personal life. A major feature of
his personal life is Mary Jane ‘MJ’ Watson (Kirsten Dunst), with whom
he is in love, but the relationship is unstable. The Mary Jane of the
comics did not become Parker’s girlfriend until after Stacy’s death, but
she maintained a presence throughout the comics nonetheless. Indeed,
even before her first on-panel appearance, repeated references to Watson
became a running gag in which readers would never see her face. This was
taken to extremes, for instance when Watson’s face is obscured by a comi-
cally large flower (Lee and Ditko 1965). Here, emphasis is superficially
placed on Mary Jane’s appearance, even if it is in reference to what is not
shown. When Watson is finally revealed in the final panel of The Amazing
Spider-Man #42 (Lee and Ditko 1966), she is stunning, voluptuous and
feisty. Early issues of the comic had been noticeably devoid of women,
save Peter’s frail Aunt May and newspaper secretary Betty Brant. The
women in Peter’s life largely provided complications, often through their
obsessive behaviour. In one issue, Peter even declares that ‘Females must
have originally been intended for another planet!!’ (Lee and Ditko 1964).
Despite featuring in each of the Raimi Spider-Man films, Watson’s
presence overwhelmingly complicates Parker’s narrative and forces him
to take action. In fact, Watson is the first character to be introduced
in Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002), which tells the origin story of how
Parker acquired his powers. The first shot of the film is Watson’s face in
close-up when she is riding the school bus, but it is not Watson’s story
that is posited to be significant. While Parker’s voice-over narrates that
‘This, like any story worth telling, is all about a girl– t hat girl’, this is not
Watson’s story but Parker’s. The scene additionally provides the crucial
first impression of the character, immediately positioning her as an object
of desire.
There are moments in Spider-Man that confirm the Mulvey’s assertion
that men in films are positioned as active and women passive (to quell
the anxiety of castration posed by the presence of the woman). Parker
acquires his powers after he is bitten by a spider during a field trip to
a genetics laboratory while taking pictures of Watson (allegedly for the
school paper). During the scene, attention is drawn to Watson’s face,
for example when she tells him not to make her ‘look ugly’. Much of the
scene is presented through Parker’s camera’s point of view, the crosshairs
of the camera’s viewfinder laid over these shots, begging identification
with the male protagonist marvelling at the beauty of the passive woman.
Indeed, these scenes are reminiscent of the use of point-of-view shots in
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), a film Mulvey defines as working
within the confines of the gendered active/passive dichotomy, and that fea-
tures a male protagonist who views passively positioned women through
his telephoto lens (Mulvey 2004: 845). Notably, it is Watson’s passivity
while being photographed that causes Parker to become distracted and fail
to notice the supernatural spider biting his hand, foreshadowing future
events in which Watson causes the action in Parker’s life without actually
doing anything.
Watson becomes infatuated with Spider-Man after he rescues her from

the villain, Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), who suffers from a split
personality and terrorises New York as the Green Goblin. A rescue scene
features Watson helpless on a crumbling balcony while Parker, as Spider-
Man, fights Osborn. After he saves her, Spider-Man carries her in his
arms, swinging on a web through the streets. The scene incorporates
close-ups of Watson clinging to him and gasping in wonder, again high-
lighting the power dynamics in the portrayal of the relationship– W atson
remains in a position of considerable physical weakness and demonstrates
admiration for and attraction towards Spider-Man. She is later saved
by Spider-Man from thugs in a dark alley. A shot of one thug blowing
kisses at her indicates Watson’s inextricably gendered sexual vulnerability.
When the men touch her, she attempts to fight but is unable to, until,
from off-camera, webs are slung at the men, pulling them back. A medium
close-up shows Watson looking with reverence at Spider-Man fighting
the thugs off-camera. Due to torrential rain, her dress is soaking wet,
sticking and drawing attention to her body, highlighted by street lights
illuminating the dark alley. The objectified Watson thus propels the narra-
tive with her inactivity. Spider-Man tells her ‘you have a knack for getting
in trouble’ and she replies ‘you have a knack for saving my life’ and the
scene ends with a kiss in which Spider-Man hangs upside down from a
wall. The discourse here naturalises the dominant/submissive dynamic
between the two, characterising both characters’ actions as a talent that
occurs naturally.
The most explicit moment in which Watson’s trauma propels Parker’s
narrative results in the climactic final battle between Spider-Man and
Osborn. Prior to the scene, Osborn is enraged after he discovers Parker
is Spider-Man and converses with his Goblin alter-ego over what action
to take. Osborn’s own voice, channelling the Goblin, accompanies these
shots, telling Osborn that Parker must suffer, and to do that he must
‘attack his heart’. Parker then discovers that Osborn has taken Watson.
An out-of-focus close-up of Watson sideways comes gradually into focus
as the camera turns and zooms out, revealing her isolation on an elevated
platform outside at night. After she nearly falls off the ledge, the camera
zooms out above her, revealing that she is standing on a bridge, a tiny,
vulnerable figure. Spider-Man approaches and Osborn holds Watson
screaming by the scruff, echoing the build-up to Stacy’s death in the
comics. Watson is infantilised through her costume of pink pyjamas, and
her pink fluffy slippers are shown in an aerial shot falling from her feet,
drawing attention to the height at which she is held. Spider-Man is even-
tually able to save Watson, alongside a tramcar full of innocent children,
but Osborn overpowers him and takes him to the ruins of an abandoned
building, where the final fight ensues.
Here, Osborn proves too strong for Spider-Man, with Spider-Man’s
mask ripping and revealing his bloodied face in a way that fosters an under-
standing of him as a masculine hero. As outlined by Purse, the male body
in action films signals the extent of physical exertion that heroes undergo
through sweat, blood, grunting and facial contortion, while female action
bodies are less likely to do so (Purse 2011: 81). As slow-motion shots show
Osborn punching Spider-Man, blood and saliva emanate from his body.
Osborn tells Spider-Man that ‘I’m going to finish her nice and slow . . .
MJ and I, we’re gonna have a hell of a time.’ Importantly, this declaration
prompts Spider-Man to put all of his efforts into defeating Osborn, as he
grabs hold of Osborn’s weapon, a trident pointed at him, slowly rising
upwards through the shot as the musical score becomes more rousing, and
his face contorts. Osborn’s eyes widen and Spider-Man finally overpowers
him (though Osborn accidentally impales himself on his Glider, leading
to his final demise).
Crucially, the threat to Watson prompted Spider-Man’s ultimate physi-
cal exertion, which he needed to defeat Osborn, a narrative turn that is
replicated in Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004). Despite Watson finally
declaring her love for Parker at the end of Spider-Man, Parker walks away
from the relationship because of the danger it would supposedly pose
Watson. In Spider-Man 2, Watson causes anxiety for Parker as her pres-
ence causes him to lose his powers, resulting in an identity crisis. After
quitting being Spider-Man, Parker starts wearing glasses again (which he
hadn’t needed due to his spider powers), succeeds at his studies and works
his way back into Watson’s good books. However, he reaches an epiphany
after Aunt May tells him about the importance of heroism.
In a scene pre-empting film’s action climax, an extensive battle between
Spider-Man and the film’s villain on top of a moving train, Parker and
Watson meet in a café, where Watson apologises and suggests that she
does want to pursue a relationship with him, which Parker is shown reject-
ing because he has decided that he must be Spider-Man. However, the
fact that Parker is still wearing his glasses signifies that he has not entirely
committed to being Spider-Man once again, as the following scenes also
suggest, with the character occupying a narrative limbo that is resolved
through Watson’s eventual victimisation. Just as Watson moves in to kiss
Parker (so that she can decide whether he is lying about not loving her),
the mise en scène indicates that Parker’s precognitive spider-sense is tin-
gling due to imminent danger nearby. Watson puckers her lips in close-up
towards the camera, then the camera erratically zooms out of Parker’s eye
to reveal a car smashing through the window behind him, demonstrating

his attention being diverted. The juxtaposition of Watson’s kiss with the
destruction of the car and window externalises Parker’s assertion that she
cannot be with him for her own safety.
The two are attacked by Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), or Doctor
Octopus, whose mind has been possessed by four sentient robotic arms
fused to his back. Octavius targets Parker because he wants Parker to tell
Spider-Man, whom Octavius believes to be a contact of Parker, to meet
him. A close-up of Octavius saying ‘Find him ...’ is followed by a shot of
Watson, screaming, with Octavius’s mechanical arms flailing behind her
as he states ‘or I’ll peel the flesh from her bones.’ Octavius throws Parker
into a wall, grabs Watson and carries her away, screaming. In the following
shot, Parker bursts out of the rubble, a close-up of his face showcasing his
angry determination. When he runs out, he cannot see through his glasses.
He takes them off and can see clearly, as demonstrated by point-of-view
shots that emphasise the difference in Parker’s eyesight when he is com-
mitted to heroism. Watson’s kidnap, and the need for him to come to her
rescue, have caused his powers to return. This event is marked by a close-
up of his glasses hitting the ground after he purposefully drops them and
the lens falling out, followed by a close-up of his fist aggressively clench-
ing (Figure 1.2), as mirrored by the shot of Castle’s fist in 2004’s The
Punisher. Here, Watson is again the force that drives Parker’s narrative of
self-actualisation. Significantly, it was Watson’s actions that are portrayed
as causing Parker to lose his powers in the first place (through her engage-
ment to another man). Meanwhile, it is her lack of action, or her passivity
as Octavius’s victim, that stimulates his return to being Spider-Man. At
the end of Spider-Man 2, Watson is represented with some autonomy
Figure 1.2 Peter Parker’s clenched fist signifies his commitment to being Spider-Man
after Mary Jane Watson is kidnapped in Spider-Man 2.
when she argues that she has as much choice about the relationship as
Parker does. She angrily asks him, ‘Can’t you respect me enough to make
my own decisions?’ and Parker complies, swinging on his web out of
the window as Watson mildly looks on. The rhetoric of choice resonates
with contemporary postfeminist sentiment and resurfaces in The Amazing
Spider-Man 2 (Marc Webb, 2014), discussed in the following chapter.
However, the autonomy Watson gains throughout this scene and in the
next film proves to be yet another source of problems for Parker.
Spider-Man 3 focuses on Parker’s exploits as he attempts to marry
Watson, and introduces the villains Sandman and Venom. Additionally,
Osborn’s son and Parker’s former best friend, Harry (James Franco),
has taken up the Goblin mantle to avenge his father. Watson’s newfound
autonomy, for instance in her efforts to become an actress, increases to
the extent that she is portrayed as needy and unreasonable, shouting at
Parker when the play in which she had a role receives a bad review.
Watson’s autonomy is an obstacle to Parker– s he has become too emo-
tionally demanding, even jealous of Spider-Man’s popularity and when
he neglects her in favour of crime-fighting, echoing traditional cultural
configurations of women’s emotional needs being neglected within het-
erosexual relationships (Jackson 1993: 192). These anxieties are quelled in
the narrative when Watson is replaced by a new love interest: Gwen Stacy.
In a key scene, Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) is shown modelling for a
photographer in an office skyscraper. Much like when Parker shot photos
of Watson in Spider-Man, Stacy is presented through the point of view of
the photographer’s camera, marking her again as an object of male desire.
Villain Sandman then wreaks havoc on the city, destroying the skyscraper
and causing her to fall through a window. Spider-Man swings to the
rescue, dodging some debris that flies towards him in a great feat of action
before the shot cuts to Stacy falling, echoing shots of Watson falling in
Spider-Man (Figures 1.3 and 1.4). He catches her before she is crushed by
the wreckage and she clings to him. Evidently, Watson is being replaced by
another actress in her play, but she is also being replaced as Spider-Man’s
damsel, a narrative turn supported by Parker and Stacy’s re-enactment of
the iconic upside-down kiss he previously shared with Watson.
When Parker is subsequently infected by the alien symbiote, Venom, he
becomes stronger but also more aggressive. Spider-Man’s suit turns from red
and blue to black, signifying his darkened morals. Parker is shown actively
pursuing Stacy in a way that he never was able to with Watson, more clearly
partaking of the hegemonic masculine pursuit of women. Simultaneously,
Parker also becomes more feminised, appearing to wear eyeliner and having
longer hair. In this way, the film potentially vilifies Parker’s femininity by
Figure 1.3 Mary Jane Watson falls in Spider-Man.
Figure 1.4 Gwen Stacy falls in Spider-Man 3.
associating his bad attitude with his transgression of gender boundaries,

conflating the two, while also representing his relentless pursuit of Stacy
as problematic. Similarly, he performs some strutting dances in the street
in a parody of Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977), a film that por-
trays complex feminised masculinity within the generic conventions of the
Hollywood musical (Neale 1993: 18), adding further ambiguity to Parker’s
(anti)heroism. Parker only snaps out of this phase after he accidentally hits
Watson in a bar fight, by which point Stacy has lost interest and Watson
reverts to being his damsel, renewing the status quo.
Thus, Watson is kidnapped by the villains in the final confrontation.
Disgraced photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), infected by Venom,
takes Watson and suspends her in a taxi above the city with Sandman
assisting him. Peter sees the news report on television and Watson’s need
of saving prompts him to retrieve his old red and blue suit, which is
marked as a momentous occasion by triumphant music and a camera shot
lingering on him removing the suit from its case. Once again, it is Watson’s
victimisation that brings about his restoration as a hero. Spider-Man goes
to Watson’s aid with Brock arriving soon after, knocking him down. Brock
gloats, ‘Oooh, my spider-sense is tingling ...’ and he grabs Watson with his
black webbing, continuing ‘if you know what I’m talking about’, waving a
finger at Watson, his clear insinuations marking her as sexually vulnerable.
Brock then pushes Spider-Man over a ledge and places Watson back into
the now roofless taxi. Watson’s position as Parker’s girlfriend motivates
not only Spider-Man’s actions but Brock’s as well, as he tells Parker ‘You
made me lose my girl, now I’m gonna make you lose yours.’ This confron-
tation is intercut with Watson picking up a cinderblock that had fallen out
of a suspended truck above her, shots of her determinedly lifting it over
her head and throwing it at Brock. The cinderblock hits him, unlike her
unsuccessful attempts to hit Octavius over the head with a pole in Spider-
Man 2. Such scenes, in which the girlfriend aids the hero in a moment of
particularly strong peril, occur frequently in Marvel films, functioning
to buy the hero some time before returning the girlfriend to a position
in which she needs rescuing. Watson subsequently needs saving from
the truck that later dangles by a thread above her. In addition, it is not
one man who comes to her rescue, but two, as Harry Osborn gives up his
Goblin persona and aids Spider-Man. Here, Harry carries Spider-Man
on his Glider, enabling Spider-Man to heroically leap through the air and
catch Watson. Watson’s victimisation, therefore, furthers Harry Osborn’s
plot of redemptive sacrifice– h e purposefully allows Brock to kill him so
that Spider-Man can live– and her kidnap was necessary so that Osborn
could show that he is not evil, while Spider-Man defeats the villains.
The films mentioned here heavily rely on the women-in-refrigerators
narrative as a source of action, but there is more at work than merely a
reinforced active/passive gender divide, particularly in the Spider-Man
films. For while the Punisher’s wife and children, Watson, and Stacy
remain relatively passive in their own narratives, the role they play in
driving the hero’s narrative is substantial. In Mulvey’s terms, the woman’s
‘visual presence tends to work against the development of a storyline, to
freeze the flow of action’ (Mulvey 2004: 841). Contrary to this, the woman
in the refrigerator does not freeze the narrative but propels the hero’s
story forward while remaining passive in her own. These women embody
a kind of active passivity that is returned to time and again in the super-
hero narrative.
Some Marvel films make attempts at self-awareness when carrying out

this narrative. For example, in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Gavin Hood,
2009), central hero Logan’s (Hugh Jackman) girlfriend Kayla Silverfox
(Lynn Collins) is apparently killed by Logan’s rival Victor Creed (Liev
Schreiber), who is working for the main villain Colonel Stryker (Danny
Huston). Logan, having taken to hiding his superpowered mutant ability
of self-healing and retractable bone-claws that grow from his hands,
agrees to undergo Stryker’s treatment to bond the unbreakable metal
adamantium to his bones so that he can seek revenge on Creed, becom-
ing the Wolverine. However, Creed was working for Stryker, and upon
realising this, Logan laments that ‘They killed her so I’d let them put
adamantium in me. They killed her for a goddamn experiment’, thus
indicating Silverfox’s use as a narrative mechanism to propel Logan’s
actions. However, it turns out that Silverfox had made a deal with Stryker
to release her sister from captivity provided she manipulate Logan into
agreeing to the treatment by allowing Creed to pretend to kill her, render-
ing Silverfox’s sister a narrative device herself. As such, Origins presents a
chain of women in refrigerators who each play an integral role in propel-
ling the narrative via passive means. Crucially, Origins does not question
such narratives but acknowledges them while reinforcing them. Likewise,
the recent turn towards self-aware superhero parody in Deadpool had
the potential to transgress such narratives, although the film’s dramatic
climax involves the kidnap by the central villain of Deadpool’s love inter-
est Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Vanessa’s portrayal as a victim is poten-
tially offset in a way that takes account of feminist criticisms of her being
a damsel by portraying her as, literally, ball-busting and willful. Indeed,
Deadpool makes use of superhero genre conventions for comic effect and
presents itself in many ways as reactionary through its use of irreverent
humour and reference to taboo subjects. However, exactly what it is react-
ing against becomes obscured by the film’s ultimate reinforcement of the
very cinematic mechanisms it purports to be against. It is also significant
that Vanessa is killed at the start of Deadpool 2 (David Leitch, 2018),
leaving these generic structures intact.
While women-in-refrigerator narratives have existed since before the
boom in comic book adaptations, the frequent return to these narratives is
indicative of more pressing matters referring to gender roles. Strikingly,
these narratives mark a favouring of chivalry as a trait of masculine
heroism, as well as presenting women who actively receive these acts of
chivalry. Dating back to medieval conceptions of knighthood, chivalry
is an ethical system enforcing the correct behaviour of the knightly class
(Wollock 2011: 93). Further, the concept of chivalry is linked to that of
courtly love (Wollock 2011: 1), which sheds some light on the emphasis
of both of these elements in many superhero narratives. Coupled with the
frequent use of anti-feminist rhetoric in mainstream press since the new
millennium that chivalry is dead, it becomes clear that media that engage
with women-in-refrigerator narratives propagate a nostalgia for a lost time
when men were required (or permitted) to carry out chivalrous acts of
heroism for women.
In 1970’s Sexual Politics, Kate Millett describes the patriarchal nature
of chivalry, suggesting that ‘while a palliative to the injustice of woman’s
social position, chivalry is also a technique for disguising it’ (Millett 2000:
37). She continues that chivalry combined with romantic notions of love
‘in their general tendency to attribute impossible virtues to women, have
ended by confining them in a narrow and often remarkably conscribing
sphere of behaviour’ (Millett 2000: 38). In films such as those discussed in
this chapter, that ‘conscribing sphere of behaviour’ becomes manifest when
superhero girlfriends play the role of the villain’s victim, stirring the hero
into action. The uncritical stance that many of these films possess towards
such ideals indicates their functioning within postfeminist discourses, for
if women are now empowered, or even if feminism has gone too far in its
rejection of chivalry, as popular discourses might suggest (Jones 2011;
Picciuto 2013; De Lacey 2013; York 2013), then it is acceptable for char-
acters to enact these traditional gender roles. Kristin J. Anderson charac-
terises acts such as chivalry as ‘benevolent sexism’, acts that seem to have
positive motivations and effects but in fact reinscribe gender inequality
(Anderson 2014: 108). Anderson concludes that reinvigorated emphasis
on the benefits of chivalrous attitudes from men towards women plays a
role in restricting women’s liberation from restrictive, submissive posi-
tions, concluding that ‘Whereas benevolent sexism seems harmless and
even positive, the way chivalry seems, it makes women feel incompetent,
it makes others think that women are incompetent, and when women
resist benevolent sexism, they are disliked’ (Anderson 2014: 111; original
emphasis). Chivalry is then an admirable trait of the masculine hero, since
postfeminist culture functions to reinforce binaristic notions of gender, a
topic I discuss in more detail in later chapters. Likewise, as Godfrey and
Hamad note, discourses of protective paternalism proliferate in postfemi-
nist culture, which ‘simultaneously privileges and celebrates the return of
formerly outmoded masculine traits of protectionism and violent vigilan-
tism’, and in cases such as The Punisher (2004), in which family themes are
foregrounded, ‘negotiat[e] this return through recourse to the disingenu-
ously ideological neutral filter of fatherhood’ (Godfrey and Hamad 2011:
158).
The superhero girlfriend often encompasses active passivity in relation

to the male hero in these films, in which it is difficult to make concrete
distinctions between women’s activity and passivity. The purpose of this
chapter has been to draw attention to some of the multiplicities present in
a character type that has been neglected from critical accounts of super-
hero narratives, showing how the women-in-refrigerators narrative has
been, and continues to be, applied to on-screen reimaginings of Marvel
girlfriends. The films doubly function within comic book traditions and
action cinema traditions, featuring women whose peril acts as the motiva-
tor for the male hero’s action. These characters are therefore shaped by
modes of active passivity. Evidently, all of the films discussed portray
a brand of white, middle-class, heterosexual femininity that ultimately
skews portrayals of gender, sexuality, class and race. These aspects of
female representation are considered in more detail later on in this book.
Despite this, it is imperative not to write these characters off as ‘poor
representation’. While many of these representations are indeed limiting,
an interrogation into their cultural history and deeper analysis of their cin-
ematic construction can provide valuable insights into notions of gender
within a cultural consciousness.
C H A PT E R 2
Pepper Potts and Gwen Stacy:

Recuperating the Superhero
Girlfriend
Through Pepper Potts of the Iron Man films and Gwen Stacy in the
Amazing Spider-Man films, the women-in-refrigerators narrative outlined
in the previous chapter is further addressed and experimented with, dem-
onstrating how character mobility can function across films within fran-
chises, and indicating that the superhero girlfriend character can embody
a number of multifaceted and paradoxical feminine subjectivities linked
to the culture that produces them. These films highlight the characters’
resourcefulness and bravery, while simultaneously valuing their roles as
superhero girlfriends. However, these films also engage with postfeminist
discourses, projecting a paradoxical and elusive image of feminine sub-
jectivity, and actively drawing from feminist notions of agency within the
broad rhetoric of ‘choice’. The representations of these characters offer
insight into how the films make attempts to account for possible feminist
critique, whilst simultaneously restoring the status quo.
Both Pepper Potts and Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider- Man
possess a quick wit and make sassy comments that resonate with post-
feminist models of hip, snappy, confident feminine subjectivities present
in 2000s popular culture texts such as Veronica Mars (UPN, 2004–6; The
CW, 2006–7) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB, 1997–2001; UPN,
2001–3) (Berridge 2013: 479). Gill suggests that contemporary construc-
tions of women in the media favour ‘a modernized version of heterosexual
femininity as feisty, sassy and sexually agentic’ (Gill 2008: 438), and indeed
both Potts and Stacy fit this mould. These films likewise trade on the star
personae of these actresses. The casting of these characters therefore also
feeds into discourses of desirable contemporary womanhood.
Interestingly, numerous superhero girlfriends in film have undergone
changes in terms of profession adapted from comics to film, usually
becoming scientifically inclined in their on-screen forms. Jane Foster went
from being a nurse to being an astrophysicist, while Betty Ross, who was
an army general’s daughter, became a scientist both in Hulk (Ang Lee,
2003) and the rebooted The Incredible Hulk (Louis Leterrier, 2008). Gwen
Stacy similarly went from being a high school student to being top of the
class at a science school, while Susan Storm (who is both a girlfriend and a
heroine) of the Fantastic Four is similarly presented as a scientist in 2015’s
rebooted FANT4STIC (Josh Trank, 2015). Pepper Potts became Stark’s
personal assistant (then CEO), rather than being a secretary. Further,
those girlfriends who are scientifically inclined are more likely to feature
in the action of the final showdowns between the heroes and the villains as
their scientific skills and intelligence can be of use (others are permitted to
help while under the strict order of the hero).
The change of professions may be some attempt by filmmakers to inte-
grate these traditionally helpless characters into the action of the central
narrative. The character of the woman scientist also harks back to 1950s
science fiction B- movies (Noonan 2005), complicating the temporal
qualities of postfeminist representations of women. Likewise, the coming
forward of scientifically minded characters is interesting during a time
in which women are still underrepresented in STEM fields (Usdansky
and Gordon 2016; Pomerantz and Raby 2017: 15). This is a symptom of
the ‘luminosity’ or visibility of women in high-ranking professional posi-
tions in the popular media that McRobbie describes in her discussion of
postfeminist culture (McRobbie 2009). This visibility of young, successful
women is part of the theatrics of postfeminist culture that, in McRobbie’s
terms, further serves to regulate feminine subjects through their increased
luminosity, which is ‘created by the light itself’: ‘They are clouds of light
which give young women a shimmering presence, and in so doing they
also mark out the terrain of the consummately and reassuringly feminine’
(McRobbie 2009: 60).
Iron (Wo)Man
Pepper Potts of the Iron Man (and eventually Avengers) franchise offers a
useful example of the ways in which the women-in-refrigerators narrative
is not necessarily a straightforward plot mechanism. Virginia ‘Pepper’
Potts first appeared in comics as a secretary of Tony Stark, the playboy
billionaire and owner of weapons manufacturer Stark Industries, who is
also the hero Iron Man (Lee and Heck 1963). Potts’s temperament is intro-
duced before Potts even appears on-panel, as Stark tells his new chauffeur,
Happy Hogan, ‘You can fight all you want to with her! I do regularly!’
(Lee and Heck 1963). Potts is subsequently shown as whiny and demand-
ing; the first panel in which she appears features her vocally complaining
about the appearance of Happy Hogan, comparing him unfavourably to
pe p p e r p o t t s a nd gwe n s t a c y 49
Universal horror film actor Bela Lugosi. With her hand almost completely
covering her face, save for the horrified look in her eye, she exclaims ‘With
eligible bachelors as scarce around here as dinosaurs, you hire a battle-
scarred ex-pug! It couldn’t be a Rock Hudson! No, he has to look like Bela
Lugosi!’ before Hogan jokingly makes a sexual pass at her (Lee and Heck
1963). Potts’s introduction paints her as shallow and irritating, not to
mention a viable candidate for the male characters’ affections.
Throughout her publication history, Potts played a larger role in Stark
and Hogan’s lives, eventually marrying Hogan despite having previously
been interested in Stark (Lee and Colan 1967), while occasionally being
kidnapped by a villain (O’Neil and Trimpe 1985). More recently, Potts
has been portrayed as more powerful, both professionally and heroically,
having been made CEO of Stark Industries (Fraction and Larroca 2009),
as well as donning her own version of the Iron Man armour and becom-
ing the heroine of her own one-shot comic (DeConnick and Mutti 2010).
Potts was incorporated as Rescue sporadically in more recent Marvel
comic story arcs (Bendis and Caselli 2017b; Spencer et al. 2017). These
developments in Potts’s storylines arguably correspond with the release of
the first Iron Man film in 2008 and were perhaps designed to anticipate the
vital, yet often impeded, role that Potts occupies in the films.
Iron Man chronicles the origin story of the hero as the head of Stark
Industries who has a change of heart regarding weapons manufacture after
he is kidnapped by terrorists in Afghanistan. Due to an injury sustained
during his escape, Stark installs an arc reactor in his chest to prevent
shrapnel from piercing his heart, technology he later develops to create
the armour-like Iron Man suit he uses to carry out heroics. Pepper Potts
(Gwyneth Paltrow) is introduced in the film as Tony Stark’s (Robert
Downey Jr) personal assistant. Even though Potts and Stark are not in
a romantic relationship in the film, Potts is clearly devoted to Stark in a
professional capacity. Indeed, in Iron Man, Potts’s role is largely to assist
Stark and follow his orders. Even when she disagrees with Stark’s actions
regarding his Iron Man activities, Stark’s story arc requires her to concede.
Emphasis in one scene is placed on the fact that Stark has changed from
being an irresponsible, shallow bachelor to a caring individual. After asking
Potts for help in his mission to stop the villain, Stark Industries’ manager
Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), Potts immediately refuses. However, she
then discovers that Stark has changed when he tells her ‘I just finally
know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it’s right.’ This
scene signifies that he has become a morally good man– a hero– and she
agrees to retrieve information from Stane’s office at Stark Industries. It is
noteworthy, here, that Stark is portrayed sending Potts into a dangerous
situation. It is not, as representations of superhero girlfriends discussed in

this book thus far, a case of the villainous character threatening Potts to
coax Stark’s action.
The scene in which Potts retrieves the information (and discovers that
Stane paid to have Stark killed in Afghanistan) is constructed to accen-
tuate the threat to Potts; however, Potts is shown using her cunning to
escape unscathed. Stane walks in on Potts sitting in front of the computer
from which she copies relevant documents onto a USB drive. As he pours
a drink, she moves a nearby newspaper to cover the USB drive plugged
into the computer. Stane sits on the desk at which she is seated, positioned
above her within the frame, looking down on her. He states ‘You are a very
rare woman’ in a predatory fashion, ‘Tony doesn’t know how lucky he is.’
She replies, ‘Thank you. Thanks,’ smiling at him in a way reminiscent
of that which is culturally expected of women who are harassed by sexu-
ally predatory men, particularly within professional settings (Clair 1998:
58; Woodzicka and LaFrance 2005: 150). In this way, Potts is marked as
vulnerable while she is attempting to prevent Stane from discovering what
she is really doing. Potts ultimately outwits Stane as she picks up the paper
and the USB drive in one go and heads out of the office before Stane stops
her and asks if he can read that very paper. Luckily Potts has already
put the drive in her pocket and is able to escape. As she walks down the
stairs she seeks refuge in the company of Phil Coulson, an agent for the
espionage law-enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., to prevent Stane from
following her, seeking the safety of male accompaniment, again evoking
connotations of sexual harassment.
The scene illustrates the ways in which Potts is established as a charac-
ter who at times can carry out acts of considerable bravery, while concur-
rently reaching back to notions of female vulnerability. Moreover, after
paralysing Stark and removing the arc reactor out of his chest, Stane tells
him, ‘Too bad that you involved Pepper in this. I would’ve preferred that
she lived’, again invoking the women-in-refrigerators narrative. It is later
revealed that Stane has built his own Iron Man suit, the Iron Monger,
which is located in the building to which Potts is making her way, accom-
panied by five S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, who turn out to be somewhat useless
in protecting her, suggesting that traditional structures of law enforce-
ment have failed in this context.
After entering the building, Potts is depicted exploring by herself. The
halls are darkened as she enters an area surrounded by chains hanging
from the ceiling. The shot shows her from above looking up, making her
appear small and vulnerable, as is, by now, expected of damsels presented
in peril. A medium close-up of her looking through the chains is followed
by a view from behind her as a mechanic sound emits alongside the Iron
Monger’s glowing eyes on the other side of the chains. They rise as the
camera pulls out and it switches to a point-of-view shot from Stane in
the suit looking through its interface at Potts’s horrified face, which is
marked with a target as she runs out of the shot, screaming. This fore-
grounds Potts’s victimisation. She runs into the corridor where the agents
are; the action continues in the background as the camera follows Potts
fleeing. Here, Potts is once again coded as victimised, calling for Stark to
rescue her, which he does in a subsequent scene. This scene thus follows a
somewhat traditional trajectory of masculine action aiding the victimised
damsel.
The aforementioned scene in which Potts must carry out a dangerous
action for Stark is replicated on a larger scale later in the film, as Stark
tells her she must overload an arc reactor inside the building to stop
Stane. While Stane is busy attacking Stark outside, Potts prepares the
machine. Stark then remotely orders her to push the button that will cause
Stane’s suit to break down and a large explosion ensues. As noted, it is
Potts’s role to carry out Stark’s orders and this is extended to any acts of
heroism that she may perform. Thus, while Potts may have been the one
to push the button during the final battle, she was acting explicitly under
Stark’s instructions. This is reminiscent of the first scene in which Potts
is introduced, when she tells Stark’s one-night-stand ‘I do anything and
everything that Mr Stark requires . . . including, occasionally, taking out
the trash’, while showing her the door. The scene also establishes Stark’s
initially relentless womanising, which Potts has no choice but to implicitly
endorse, as her secretarial duties appear to extend well beyond the office
setting.
Indeed, Potts’s actions, though they seem to offer her a considerable
level of authority, are usually carried out because Stark asked her to, ren-
dering Potts maid-like, particularly in the domestic setting in which she is
introduced. The fact that these actions can be traced back to Stark poten-
tially undermines Potts’s autonomy, but even so, there is a distinct con-
trast between her character and the other superhero girlfriends referred to
in the previous chapter. While Mary Jane Watson, for example, was quite
often portrayed as a nuisance to Peter Parker in Raimi’s Spider-Man films,
causing disruptions in his personal life as well as his superhero life, Potts is
portrayed as needed by Stark for assistance. This in itself may not appear
particularly problematic but coupled with Potts’s job as his designated
personal assistant, and the servile acts she carries out beyond her job, it
carries with it connotations of female subservience and further reinforces
Stark’s masculine dominance.
In Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau, 2010) Potts’s narrative is mainly local-

ised on the stress she experiences after Stark appoints her CEO of Stark
Industries. Through this role, Potts occupies a place within conceptions
of postfeminist neoliberal feminine empowerment, having worked her
way up through the company. This resonates with the phenomenon of
capitalism-friendly feminism popularised by autobiographical and advice
literature published by successful businesswomen, such as Facebook
CEO Sheryl Sandberg, after the Great Recession (Negra 2014). These
narratives, according to Negra, are essentially ‘[e]fforts to recruit femi-
nism to consolidate normative definitions of success’ (Negra 2014: 283),
thereby reinforcing exploitative patriarchal business practices and leaving
the status quo untouched. The pressure exerted upon Potts by her new
professional role clearly takes its toll on her relationship with Stark. The
bickering that is characteristic of the couple is extended in a number of
scenes, and Potts’s nagging, which was present for some of Iron Man, is
amplified. Burdened by the task of planning and administrating Stark’s
life, Potts is portrayed as preparing for when things go wrong for Stark, or
he behaves irresponsibly, partaking of an extensive form of affective labour
typical for contemporary professional women in which the boundaries
of personal and professional life are blurred (Negra 2014: 281), in which
there are few, if any, distinctions between Potts’s management of Stark’s
domestic life and professional life.
For example, when Stark decides to take part in a race at the Circuit
de Monaco but is attacked by the villain Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke)
Potts must rush to fetch Stark’s briefcase (which conceals a compacted
version of his Iron Man armour). She and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau)
drive Stark’s car onto the racecourse to do so, knocking out Vanko in the
process. In this scene, Potts’s nagging reaches its peak as she screams at
Stark, ‘Are you out of your mind?!’ while the shot confines her to the
frame of the car window, ‘Get in the car right now!’ Potts’s nagging is
a constant in Iron Man 2, and, importantly, the more recklessly Stark
behaves, the stronger the nagging becomes, peaking in the aforementioned
scene, in which Potts for the first time raises her voice at him. Unlike the
demands that Mary Jane Watson makes of Peter Parker in Spider-Man
3, Potts’s pestering is not necessarily portrayed as irrational but is rather
an externalisation of Stark’s story arc in which he becomes increasingly
unhinged and erratic. Though this brings the focus back to Stark, the
sympathy that the narrative grants Potts’s outbursts is a relative rarity in
mainstream films, as well as in broader cultural contexts. This is the point
at which Potts’s irritation with Stark’s antics bubbles over into anger, an
emotion that has inextricable links to masculinity. As Dana Crowley Jack
notes, ‘following the hierarchy of gender in our society, men have much
more permission than women to show anger’, rendering the expression
of such anger as challenging and socially discouraged (Jack 2001: 141).
That Potts is portrayed as unabashedly emotional during this scene could
potentially disrupt such a hierarchy.
Unfortunately, the stress pushes Potts too far after she is nearly killed
by an armoured drone that villain Vanko detonates after his final fight
with Stark. Notably, Vanko did not target Potts; rather, the fact that Potts
was standing near the drone when it was set to explode is positioned as a
coincidence that allows the narrative to position Potts as needing rescuing
while having discarded of the traditional women-in-refrigerators mecha-
nism. Stark obviously arrives just in time to save Potts and carries her to
a nearby rooftop where she once again assertively expresses her feelings
regarding the current situation. She exclaims:
Oh my God! I can’t take this anymore . . . I can’t take this . . . My body literally
cannot handle the stress. I never know if you’re gonna kill yourself or wreck the
whole company . . . I quit. I’m resigning.
Here, Potts’s lamentations about being CEO are equally applicable to her
status as Stark’s girlfriend. It is noteworthy that Potts’s monologue draws
attention to her body as being incapable of managing the stresses posed
by being both a worker for Stark’s company and his romantic partner.
Negra has discussed how the post-Recession accounts of successful busi-
nesswomen refer to the state of their feminine bodies in their quests for
professional success within the masculine world of entrepreneurial busi-
ness. The successful businesswoman, Negra notes, is ‘someone who in
her quest to womanhood learns to prevail over her challenging biology’,
leading to ‘[s]trong elements of biological essentialism, body conscious-
ness and physically oriented personal disclosure’ playing a large role in
discursive conceptualisations of these women (Negra 2014: 282).
It is therefore significant that what follows is a physical embrace. The
two then bicker in between kissing, symbolically restoring the status quo,
and ultimately granting Stark the absolute authority when he jokingly
remarks, ‘How are you gonna resign if I don’t accept?’ The scene thus
renders Potts once again under the power of Stark. It also positions Potts
as a character who must bear the burden of what life as a superhero
girlfriend/CEO of her boyfriend’s company throws at her, which is pack-
aged within postfeminist rhetoric that naturalises a normative hetero-
sexual dynamic, a topic I return to in Chapter 8 of this book.
Furthermore, when considering Pepper Potts, further gendered
discourses around working women surface. Potts’s representation as
a working woman differs from many contemporary representations of

similar characters. Potts is indeed coded as a ‘corporate being’ (Brewis
1998: 91), if only through the act of omission, as Potts is never shown
doing anything privately, by herself or with friends, and never refers to
wider family ties. But unlike other working woman characters discussed
by Joanna Brewis, who are often vilified both narratively and cinemati-
cally, Potts’s devotion to and professionalism at her job do not morally
align her with malevolence. She is neither a power-hungry ‘career bitch’
nor a manipulative competitor to the men who work at Stark Industries.
This is indicative of a cultural shift that is more embracing towards par-
ticular modes of female professional conduct.
The fact that Potts is never shown having a private life and is only
ever concerned with work immediately evokes discourses surrounding the
choice that women must, according to mainstream media, make between
having a job and having a family (the impossible task of ‘having it all’).
This is a dilemma that, according to Miriam B. Peskowitz, has been artic-
ulated in the media so many times that ‘these phrases seem passé, yester-
day’s news’ (Peskowitz 2005: 67). Indeed, the topic is circumnavigated in
the films by the fact that Stark becomes both Potts’s lover and her work.
Potts does not need to choose because the options are the same. In this
sense, Potts embodies the postfeminist endeavour of ‘having it all’ (Negra
2009b: 29)– a job, financial security and a man– while also presenting a
situation in which a working woman has literally nothing apart from her
job/boss/lover. The affective labour Potts invests into these activities
blurs the boundaries between the personal and professional.
When Potts returns in Iron Man 3, she no longer nags Stark about the
company and seems to have adjusted to life as a CEO, a change that is
marked in her clothing as she now wears a bright white power suit with
shoulder pads, as opposed to the black or grey she wore as an employee.
Before the release of the film, Potts’s role was highlighted by President of
Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, as offering a subversion of traditional rep-
resentations of women in superhero films. He stated that in Iron Man 3:
We play with the convention of the damsel in distress. We are bored by the damsel
in distress. But, sometimes we need our hero to be desperate enough in fighting for
something other than just his own life. So, there is fun to be had with ‘Is Pepper in
danger or is Pepper the savior?’ over the course of this movie. (Feige in Bryson 2013)
Feige’s comments draw attention to particular issues, the most obvious of

which is the seeming embrace of an anticipated feminist critique of damsel
roles, as is emblematic of postfeminist culture. Further, his reference to
the supposed role reversal dynamics in the film is simplistic, ignoring
the subtleties and myriad discourses surrounding the topic of women in

superhero films. There is the danger that, when engaging with narratives
that simply reverse the traditional roles of men and women, gender norms
are reinforced rather than transgressed, a topic I return to in Chapter 7
when considering representations of gender fluidity and transgression in
non-human superheroic Marvel characters. Furthermore, as the follow-
ing discussion of Iron Man 3 suggests, there is much more at stake than
merely the question ‘Is Pepper in danger or is Pepper the savior?’
In Iron Man 3, Potts is once again positioned as needing protecting, a
claim that is explicitly made by Stark when he states ‘Threat is imminent
and I have to protect the one thing that I can’t live without . . . That’s
you’, referring to Potts. Stark, who is having a crisis brought on by trau-
matic events he experienced in The Avengers, neglects Potts in favour of
experimenting with his Iron Man suits throughout the film, to the frustra-
tion of Potts. This is indicated by several scenes, for example when Stark
sets his remote-controlled suit up to greet her when she returns home
from work, and when he purchases a tasteless twelve-foot plush rabbit as
a Christmas present for her. Stark’s crisis is localised onto Potts, and his
sense of protectiveness is illustrated by a scene in which Stark’s mansion
is attacked by a terrorist, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), who was working
under instruction of Killian Aldrich (Guy Peirce), a scientist who wants
to use Stark for his knowledge to perfect his flawed regenerative treatment
procedure, Extremis.
As the house explodes, there is a slow-motion shot of Stark being blown
through the air, gesturing for the remote armour to come forth, followed
by slow-motion shots of Potts as the armour envelops her body. The slow
motion here highlights the quick reflex response that Stark has to protect
Potts from harm. On the other hand, Stark provides Potts with the tools
to protect herself, as well as Stark. The following scene features Stark
on the ground as the ceiling above him crumbles. A medium-long shot
shows Potts leaning over Stark, protecting him from the falling debris.
Potts’s Iron (Wo)Man mask slides up and she says ‘I got you’, to which he
responds ‘I got you first’, again drawing the focus back to Stark.
The brief scene in which Potts wears the Iron Man armour represents
the role reversal referred to by Feige. The brevity of the scene indi-
cates that this was a temporary fix for a drastic situation, a phenomenon
that returns in the final act of the film. The shots that follow are of the
armour returning to Stark, a momentous occasion similar to Peter Parker’s
reclaiming of the Spider-Man suit in Spider-Man 3, discussed in the pre-
vious chapter. An ostentatious show is made of the various parts of the
suit attaching themselves to Stark, for example, a close-up of his arm
receiving the armour followed by a close-up of his face looking directly

into the camera as the faceplate glides into place, all accompanied by a
familiar heroic musical score. A medium-long shot of the suit from below
shows him rising through the dust and rubble, his eyes and the reactor on
his chest glowing. These shots, juxtaposed with Potts’s haphazard exit
from the suit moments before, suggest that Potts was borrowing the suit,
that it was forced upon her by Stark so that she could use it as a defensive
tool, rather than in its intended way – the way in which Stark uses it in the
following shots.
When Potts is kidnapped by Aldrich, the film seems to be playing the
women-in-refrigerators narrative again, with Aldrich portrayed as a sadist
who wants to harm Stark via Potts. With Stark shackled in a makeshift
laboratory to an upturned bedframe, Aldrich states, ‘I wanted to repay you
the self-same gift that you so graciously imparted to me . . . desperation.’
This is accompanied by his conjuring of a hologram showing Potts being
forced to receive the Extremis treatment, which, as Aldrich notes, could
cause her to spontaneously combust.
During the climactic battle scene, which takes place at a dockyard,
Potts, much like Watson, is suspended from a moving platform upside
down, while Stark chases after her without any armour. Unable to reach
Potts, Stark shouts ‘You gotta let go! I’ll catch you, I promise!’ but the
platform jerks forward and Potts is pushed off, falling into the burning
structure below. Again, like Watson and Gwen Stacy had been shown
in previous Spider-Man films (and, as will be discussed, Stacy in The
Amazing Spider-Man 2), Potts is shot from above, falling backwards down
into the flames, screaming. But unlike Spider-Man, Stark is unable to
catch her, without his armour.
After Stark seemingly defeats Aldrich by summoning a number of Iron
Man suits, Aldrich re-emerges out of the flames. He is then knocked out
of the shot by a long object, the camera panning to the left to reveal a
perhaps unexpected sight– Potts, glowing from the Extremis treatment
and holding a metal beam in her arms, another instance of the superhero
girlfriend appearing with an improvised weapon in a nick of time to help
the hero out of a tight spot. As Killian gets up, another Iron Man suit
approaches, which has been programmed to target people infected with
Extremis, including Potts. Potts is shown jumping in the air and elabo-
rately kicking the suit to pieces, landing in a crouching stance similar to
that used by Stark when using the Iron Man suit (for example, when he
lands at a weapons exhibition in Iron Man 2; see Figures 2.1 and 2.2). The
dutch angle indicates that the situation is off-balance; her arm impales the
suit and she looks fiercely, almost inhumanly, at Stark off-camera, who
Figure 2.1 Iron Man’s signature landing stance as demonstrated in Iron Man 2.
Figure 2.2 Pepper Potts emulating the Iron Man landing while infected by Extremis in
Iron Man 3.
is then shown speechless in close-up. Potts then forcefully removes her

arm from the suit, places the suit’s gauntlet on her hand, spins around
and kicks Killian, finally defeating him by using the gauntlet’s repulsor
ray. Still wearing the black sports bra and leggings she wore during the
Extremis treatment, as well as being drenched in sweat, Potts appears to
be objectified during these scenes. However, the vulnerability that her lack
of clothing may signify corresponds with Stark’s powerlessness without
his Iron Man suit. Like Potts, Stark is naked without the armour, and once
again the film presents Stark’s problems as localised onto Potts’s body.
Additionally, the narrative of the film offered Potts a personal reason
as to why she defeats Aldrich. During an earlier scene, Aldrich speaks to
Potts about his motivations, telling her that her kidnap was not merely to
entice Stark to agree to work with him. Potts is strapped into the machine
as Aldrich steps closer to her in a long shot, encroaching on her space.
He laughs in close-up, ‘You’re here as my, um ...’ It cuts to a close-up

of Potts finishing his sentence, ‘Trophy.’ He grins and nods while Potts
bites her lip and turns her head away from him, signalling the threat of
the situation. Aldrich is a different kind of villain who, instead of merely
using the superhero girlfriend as bait for the hero, gains pleasure out of
owning her. This works in conjunction with the final showdown of the
film, in which Potts is the one to defeat Aldrich. Rather than fighting
him on behalf of Stark, Aldrich’s villainous behaviour makes Potts’s fight
personal. However, it is noteworthy that Potts is never shown actively
using her new Extremis powers, unlike the Extremis soldiers that Aldrich
employs, who have heat-and fire-based abilities. It is also implied that
Potts is depowered by the end of the film, with Stark’s voice-over nar-
ration informing us that he ‘got Potts sorted out, took some tinkering’,
signalling the ephemeral qualities of the superhero girlfriend imbued with
unnatural power.
With regards to Potts’s characterisation and the relationship depicted
between the character and Tony Stark, postfeminist sentiments again
resurface. Similarly, as my discussion of Iron Man 3 suggests, there are
many intricate discourses at work in films that supposedly enforce role
reversal upon their male and female characters. Indeed, superhero girl-
friends and heroics are thematically at odds with each other, as is also the
case in the Spider-Man films discussed, while there is also the contentious
issue of whether or not such characters should have to either be girlfriends
or have powers. As mentioned, Feige’s allusions to role reversal in Iron
Man 3 still function within discourses that dictate that it is impossible for
a non-powered girlfriend character to be particularly powerful.
The Amazing Gwen Stacy

The Amazing Spider-Man rebooted the Spider-Man franchise, retelling
the origin of the titular hero, and drawing from a series of books taking
place in an alternate Marvel universe (the ‘Ultimate Universe’) while
maintaining the core elements of the much-loved character. The film
focuses on hero Peter Parker’s teenage angst and feelings of paternal
abandonment while he deals with the acquisition of spider-powers, the
death of Uncle Ben (caused by his own irresponsible actions), stopping
Dr Curt Connors (a scientist who turns into a giant lizard) and his feel-
ings for Gwen Stacy, whose significance in Marvel history I discussed in
Chapter 1.
During the film, Stacy is portrayed as smart and resourceful, while her
status as Parker’s girlfriend does not necessarily diminish these quali-
ties, a phenomenon that contradicts representations of some of the other

superhero girlfriends examined in this book. Similarly, Stacy’s cunning
and cleverness are not influenced by Parker giving her orders, nor does
she work for him, as is the case of Pepper Potts in Iron Man. Most impor-
tantly, the torment of Parker’s romantic struggle is not the core focus of
the film, as is the case in the previous Spider-Man films, in which Parker’s
romantic conquests were the source of a great deal of trouble, both person-
ally and heroically. Rather, Stacy becomes a confidante to Parker after he
awkwardly tells her that he is Spider-Man and she arguably becomes the
backbone of the film itself.
Stacy is introduced in a similar way to Watson’s early scenes in Spider-
Man. Parker (Andrew Garfield) sees Stacy (Emma Stone) from afar
outside school, sitting on a bench and reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s
Cradle (1998). The cut to Parker’s camera’s point-of-view shot gazing at
her is instantly recognisable from the earlier films (see Figures 2.3, 2.4
and 2.5), with subtle differences that help to distinguish the characters. In
Spider-Man, Watson embodied the passive object of the heterosexual male
gaze through being offered as a model, posing for the camera. Stacy, on
the other hand, is oblivious to Parker’s ethically questionable photoshoot
thereby making her the voyeuristic object of Parker’s gaze. In comparison
to Watson’s posing and concerns about appearing ugly, there is an under-
stated quality to Stacy’s to-be-looked-at-ness that corresponds more to
Stone’s down-to-earth star qualities. The scene nonetheless simultane-
ously draws attention to Stacy and Watson’s similarities in being Parker’s
Figure 2.3 Mary Jane Watson poses for Peter Parker’s camera in a point-of-view shot in
Spider-Man.
Figure 2.4 Gwen Stacy is photographed in Spider-Man 3.
Figure 2.5 Peter Parker secretly photographs Gwen Stacy from afar in
The Amazing Spider-Man.
girlfriends, albeit in some ways misleading for Stacy, given the more active
role she inhabits in the film.
Indeed, Stacy’s intelligence is a central feature of the character– it is
quite often mentioned that she is the top of her class at Midtown Science
High School and head intern for esteemed genetic biologist Dr Connors–
and provides her with the ability to play a large role in helping defeat the
Lizard without superpowers or, indeed, supervision. Stacy is also never
directly targeted by the Lizard, instead is represented as involving herself
in the action of her own accord. Her admiration for Spider-Man, which
in this case is not distinct from her admiration for Parker, is rendered
less ostentatiously than Watson’s in Raimi’s Spider-Man. This is not to
say that Stacy’s feelings for Parker are never shown on screen. Indeed,
when the couple shares several tender moments, the film signifies these
emotions, utilising close-ups of facial expressions and soft classical non-
diegetic music. Regarding Stacy’s doomed fate, the film often hints that
Stacy will die but instead offers deliberately misleading moments. Thus,
the film is ironically deceptive in showing Stacy telling herself ‘I’m in
trouble’ after having discovered that Parker is Spider-Man.
The most relevant scene in the film for this discussion is the showdown
between Spider-Man and the Lizard, which also features significant self-
reflexive moments invoking Stacy’s death. When the Lizard searches for
Spider-Man at the high school, Parker must take him on while ensuring
that Stacy is safe. The process of this is, however, more balanced than
in previous representations. Spider-Man is at one point made powerless
when the Lizard, who is more than double the size of Parker, smashes him
against a window and begins squeezing his head in his hand. The shot cuts
to Stacy, who was previously told by Parker to leave the school, swinging
a large trophy, then cuts to the trophy hitting the Lizard over the head.
This is followed by a medium-long shot of Stacy holding the trophy up,
signifying her victory, as the Lizard turns around to face her. She walks
backwards and the camera rises to the height of the Lizard, stooping over
her, showcasing the Lizard’s size and highlighting the boldness of Stacy’s
intervention. Spider-Man then has the opportunity to cocoon the Lizard
in his web. The scene incorporates the by-now-familiar motif of the unex-
pected physical aid of the superhero girlfriend in a moment when the hero
has become incapacitated.
The scene is also coupled with a misleading moment that seems to
forecast Stacy’s death as Parker takes her in his arms and warns her that
he is going to throw her out of the window. An exterior shot shows Stacy
flying backwards through the air before a shot of web is slung at her,
preventing her from falling and causing her to spring back forcefully.
An aerial shot shows her terrified face but confirms that Parker’s web-
slinging did not actually kill her (at least for now). She swings back and
forth underneath the suspended part of the building (reminiscent of a
bridge), smiling. Had the film featured Stacy’s death in the web-slinging
scene instead of a light-hearted moment in which Parker gets her to safety
through rather ruthless means, it could well have been read as a narrative
punishment for her agency. However, the web-slinging scene defies such
expectations and the juxtaposition of one much-used narrative moment
(girlfriend arrives in a nick of time to momentarily aid the hero) with
another, which is then subverted (Stacy’s death-by-webbing) makes for
a unique dynamic that is perhaps symptomatic of Stacy’s distinctiveness
as a whole.
After the Lizard escapes the school through the sewers, Spider-Man
follows him while phoning Stacy for aid, asking whether she could go
to Connors’s workplace and produce a serum that will cure Connors.
Following a scene in which the Lizard releases a gas that also turns inno-
cent bystanders into lizards, the scene cuts to Stacy in Connors’s labora-
tory, privileging her action over any further scenes involving Spider-Man
and the Lizard. Parker, having discovered that the Lizard is on his way
to the building to retrieve a machine that he will use to release a cloud
of lizard chemical above the city, phones Stacy in the lab and warns her
that the Lizard is on his way. Stacy tells Parker that the antidote is not yet
ready, but Parker tells her to get out of the building anyway. A shot of the
antidote timer indicates that eight minutes are remaining as the sense of
tension and danger for Stacy mounts. Parker even says to her, ‘You leave
right now. That’s an order, okay?’ but Stacy actively denies his request.
The Lizard eventually breaks through the emergency barriers Stacy
had put into motion. Following this, the film offers more misdirection,
as Stacy hides in a storage cupboard when the Lizard is approaching,
protectively holding the canister that contains the lizard chemical. The
scene uses close-ups of Stacy’s terrified face in the dark cupboard intercut
with the lizard sniffing her out to build tension, tilting up her frozen body,
shadows of the blinds adding a Gothic horror atmosphere to the scene.
Her head is raised and her eyes closed in fear, a shot accompanied by the
sounds of the Lizard’s frenzied efforts to find her. The camera zooms into
her face, her lips quivering, highlighting her terror. It cuts to a shot of the
Lizard appearing behind the blind, and Stacy screaming in close-up as
he rips through the blind with his hand. By all means, this could be the
end for Stacy, whose horror is illustrated throughout the scene. But Stacy
is next shown using a spray can filled with a flammable liquid combined
with a lighter as a blowtorch, firing towards him. The reverse shot shows
the lizard shielding himself from the flame with this hand and, with the
other, reaching over to Stacy and merely grabbing the canister before
backing off. Stacy emits a sigh of relief before edging out of the cupboard
as the antidote machine signals that the antidote is complete. Once again,
the film appeared to be fruitlessly gesturing towards Stacy’s death.
Stacy’s character history calls for an analysis framed by discourses of
death and the imperilment of victimised women. Indeed, throughout this
discussion, it has been difficult to make sense of the character through
other terms. In The Amazing Spider-Man, Stacy’s character effectively
combines heroic traits such as resourcefulness with the character type of
the superhero girlfriend in a way that provides the character significantly
more flexibility than do previous iterations. While the film does incor-
porate frequently used elements that are associated with the superhero
girlfriend, such as the unexpected battle intervention, the film refers to
and then subverts Stacy’s famous death storyline. Though Stacy does not
occupy as much screen space as Parker, her presence in the film is argu-
ably vital and, importantly, the scenes in which she appears to go beyond
emotional moments with Parker and scenes of victimisation.
The heightened sense of tenderness in emotional scenes suggests that
the film was more geared towards women, particularly in the light of the
power of female audiences demonstrated by the Twilight series. Indeed,
Sony Pictures’ Chairman of Marketing and Distribution stated that the
promotions tied to the film were, per default, targeted at men and boys,
as well as ‘younger women and moms’ (Graser 2012), while the President
of Worldwide Distribution for Sony claimed that ‘This is a film that has
something for women’ (Grover and Richwine 2012). Arguably these devel-
opments correspond with Stacy’s transgressive representation, although it
must be noted that the manifestation of this increased awareness of the
female audience by distribution and marketing staff may not have been
as pronounced as these sources suggest. Indeed, it was reported that the
film’s ‘core audience is still men’, despite the various feminine product
tie-ins such as make-up (Graser 2012). Indeed, there is little difference in
terms of the sheer volume of romance scenes between The Amazing Spider-
Man and Raimi’s Spider-Man films. Spider-Man as a character has always
depended on a heightened emotional sensibility. What is different in The
Amazing Spider-Man is not the amount of emotional content present, but
how the film utilises that emotional content: namely, while Raimi’s films
use the hero’s romantic interest as a supplementary plot device, while The
Amazing Spider-Man presents the relationship as its own subplot. Thus,
The Amazing Spider-Man is not necessarily particularly groundbreaking
in its audience address or consideration of female audiences, although it
is noteworthy that it was characterised in the popular media as such; it
does, however, offer a more malleable understanding of what a superhero
girlfriend can do within a narrative, while still including a character who
is a staple of the genre.
Further to her portrayal in the 2012 film, Gwen Stacy’s death was
included in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The scene is initiated after a show-
down between the new Green Goblin, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), and
Spider-Man on the rooftop of Oscorp, the company owned by Norman
Osborn. As Harry levitates on his Glider, he faces Spider-Man, then
turns to look at Stacy, who had been at the scene due to her involvement
in dealing with the film’s other villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), by once
again utilising her scientific expertise. Her death is foreshadowed through
costuming– s he is dressed in a nigh-exact replica of the clothing drawn
upon the character in the comic books. Harry cackles and says to Spider-
Man, ‘You don’t give people hope– y ou take it away. I’m gonna take away
yours’, as he turns on his Glider and swoops over to Stacy, carrying her
into the night. The scene is predictable in its adherence to the women-in-
refrigerators narrative, and in particular through its characterisation of
Stacy as being symbolic of more than merely a character type– h ere, she is
symbolic of hope, heralding a darker narrative tone. The forceful removal
of this symbol thus has ideological ramifications for the film.
Spider-Man pursues Harry Osborn to a clock tower, in which a dramatic
fight and Stacy’s ultimate death occur. Stacy, having temporarily reached
safety, is pushed from her perch on a large cog and suspended by one arm
with a strand of Spider-Man’s web. The tension of the scene is marked
by the complex configuration of characters within the inner workings of
the clock, indicating that time is running out for Stacy. Spider-Man lies
on one cog on his back, with one fist clenched around the web suspend-
ing Stacy, while Osborn is over Spider-Man, though he has been bound
around the neck by webbing. Meanwhile, Spider-Man must prevent the
cogs from turning or else the strand of web on which Stacy hangs will
snap. This he is unable to do, as the intercut shots of the individual parts
of the clock moving– cogs and the minute hand– indicate, followed by
the snapping of the web in slow motion, and Stacy gasping as she begins
to fall (Figure 2.6).
Osborn is knocked over by the collapse of the cogs, while Spider-Man
jumps after Stacy. The slow motion of the scene showcases the workings
of Spider-Man’s web fluid, which he shoots towards Stacy, although the
technological ingenuity of Spider-Man’s webs is insufficient to bring her
to safety. In a close-up the strands of web expand, reaching out like a
hand. The film reverts to normal speed and cuts to the web hitting Stacy’s
abdomen, followed by a shot of Spider-Man clinging to a beam, then by a
shot of the web strand becoming taut, and finally, a shot of Stacy forcefully
Figure 2.6 Gwen Stacy falls to her death in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
recoiling. Her head appears to hit the ground, an action supported by a

loud, diegetic thump, suggesting that she died from the impact. This is
interesting since it lessens Parker’s role in causing her death with his web;
instead, he is more indirectly responsible through not responding quickly
enough and shooting the web earlier. Indeed, Marvel Studios founder,
Avi Arad, is quoted stating that:
The cause of death here is love, commitment, personal choice. It wouldn’t be fair to
put it all on him and for a lifetime have him think ‘If I didn’t try to save her, maybe
she would have survived?’ (Arad quoted in Madison 2014)
This statement is revealing in the light of scenes occurring before Stacy’s

death, in which Stacy, much like Watson at the end of Spider-Man 2, asserts
her personal freedom regarding her involvement in Parker’s heroics.
Before the battle with Electro (and her subsequent kidnapping by
Harry), Stacy had aided Parker by again offering her scientific exper-
tise when he realised that his web-shooters were useless against Electro,
who has the power to control electricity. Stacy created a magnetised web
shooter for Parker and was ready to join him in battle, but Parker disallows
this and sticks her hand to a nearby car with his web. Stacy appears before
the battle, having driven in a police car to the power station where Parker
located Electro and again helping the hero by crashing the car into Electro,
buying Parker some time. Incensed that Stacy would follow him, Parker,
as Spider-Man, yells at Stacy while Stacy laments to him that she can be
of help. This culminates in Stacy forcefully stating, ‘Okay, guess what?
Nobody makes my decisions for me! Alright? Nobody! This is my choice,
okay? My choice. Mine.’ Spider-Man groans as Stacy asks how they could
stop Electro, finally giving in to Stacy’s ‘choice’.
Taking into consideration Arad’s statement, as well as the scene’s fore-
grounding of Stacy’s choice, alongside issues of postfeminist culture’s
choice rhetoric outlined previously in this book, the film’s inclusion of
the famous death is further problematised. The Amazing Spider-Man cel-
ebrates the rhetoric of choice that allows Stacy to actively place herself
in narrative danger (in turn overcoming it while complexifying the exist-
ing tropes that place women in such roles). The Amazing Spider-Man 2,
however, indicates how notions of choice, though celebrated, carry with
them the burden of essentially choosing to die. Postfeminist individualism
therefore places the responsibility of Stacy’s death on Stacy herself, par-
ticularly when considering Arad’s insistence that ‘personal choice’ is the
cause of death here. In a sense then, the very machinations of ‘women in
refrigerators’ become ensconced by the discourses of choice present in The
Amazing Spider-Man 2, which stress the individual decision made by the
superhero girlfriend to become involved in the fight, rather than having

her be kidnapped or held against her will. Reference is made to notions of
agency, while gender hierarchies remain in place. As such, Stacy’s death
can be read as punishment for her previous transgressions, while also
having a complex relationship with postfeminist discourses of choice and
women’s self-fulfilment.
Equally of note is the scene’s discursive framing as ‘inevitable’. The
film’s executive producer Matt Tomalch stated that Stacy’s victimisation
was necessary in order to raise the stakes for Parker’s character, claiming,
‘That’s what makes for a great story . . . What’s real tragedy? It’s not when
something happens to somebody you don’t care about. So you have to step
up to the challenge and be comfortable with the risk’ (Tomalch quoted in
Wigler 2014). He continues that:
When you decide that you’re going to tell the Gwen Stacy story, you know you’re
going to end up there. You just try to put it off for a little while, because you don’t
want to lose Emma [Stone]. You don’t want to lose Gwen. You don’t want to lose that
dynamic . . . But these movies are all about Peter Parker and his journey in life and
as Spider-Man. (Tomalch quoted in Wigler 2014)
Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield similarly claimed that it ‘would have

been strange’ not to include Stacy’s death within her narrative (Garfield
quoted in Wigler 2014). As discussed in the previous chapter, the focus
is brought back onto the tragedy of the male hero in these discourses,
while the cultural implications of these women’s narrative deaths are not
invoked. There is nothing about Stacy’s death that is intrinsically neces-
sary or unavoidable within this narrative– it is, of course, constructed in
particular ways, written and created by people who make creative choices
with regards to how the film portrays these scenes. And yet, Stacy’s death
was included in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 supposedly as a narrative
necessity.
It is noteworthy that both the Iron Man and The Amazing Spider-Man
films demonstrably capitalise on the star qualities of the actresses cast
in these particular girlfriend roles in ways that clearly depend on their
place within postfeminist culture. Gwyneth Paltrow has been defined as
a ‘twenty-first century “It Girl” ’ who combines elements of traditional
Hollywood glamour with a dedication to honing her acting skill (Hollinger
2006: 218), again unifying elements of hegemonic femininity with profes-
sional success, and, crucially, idealised whiteness (Graefer 2014: 110–13).
As Anne Graefer notes, Paltrow has been the subject of media ridicule
due to her attempts to distance herself from the privileges afforded her
through her race/class status (Graefer 2014: 110–13). Similar ridicule
has been directed at Paltrow’s women’s lifestyle brand, goop.com, which

recently redressed its focus from postfeminist self-monitoring practices
of dieting and beauty regimes to practices more broadly encompassed by
terms such as ‘wellness’ and ‘self-care’. Through the selling of women’s
bodily maintenance products through goop.com, Paltrow can be seen to
‘further intertwine her celebrity image with health-conscious embodi-
ment’ (Kjær 2019: 705).
Meanwhile, Emma Stone is characterised through her ‘relatable’, down-
to-earth image, wit and classical physical appeal. As Betty Kaklamanidou
notes in her exploration of Stone’s celebrity, ‘Stone initially estab-
lished the persona of a funny, capable and quick-witted young woman’
(Kaklamanidou 2018: 11) before embodying an ‘idealized 21st century
Hollywood star: clean-cut, talented, humble, environmentally and socially
conscious, funny, appealing and . . . bankable’ (Kaklamanidou 2018: 13).
Both actresses’ star personae resonate with the demands of contemporary
postfeminist celebrity, particularly concerning practices of self-monitoring
and affectation.
Paradoxically, though, this type of sharp-minded female character also
harks back to screwball and romantic comedies of the 1930s and 1940s.
Maria DiBattista defines the ‘fast-talking dame’ as an American phe-
nomenon that existed as a result of the introduction of sound to cinema
(DiBattista 2001: 6–7). She continues that these romantic and screwball
comedies ‘rejoice in the giddy energy of human speech, in invective, in
repartee, in drop-dead one-liners, and reserve their highest delights– and
kudos– for those most adept at verbal sparring’ (DiBattista 2001: 16).
The on-screen display of Potts and Stark’s relationship relies heavily on
comical bickering, reaching back to these classical representations of het-
erosexual union. Potts is therefore at once vintage and undeniably modern,
which is symptomatic of the very inconsistency of postfeminist culture
itself. This bickering is likewise a presence in The Amazing Spider-Man 2,
particularly when Parker and Stacy disagree about her involvement in his
crime-fighting. It is imperative, however, not to write these characters off
as merely poor representation. While many of these portrayals are indeed
limiting, an interrogation into their cultural history and deeper analysis of
their cinematic construction can provide valuable insights into notions of
gender within a cultural consciousness.
C HA PT E R 3
With Great Power Comes Great

Frustration? Configurations of
Hero(ine)ism in Marvel Films
An analysis of superheroic Marvel women in film reveals a complex nego-

tiation of physical power is often at work in these films. A major element
in the representation of tough female characters in contemporary action
cinema is the incorporation of postfeminist discourses. Likewise, schol-
ars have noted the confining nature of representations of female action
heroism, claiming that these films frequently limit the power of heroines
as compensation for their toughness (Tasker 1993: 19; Inness 1998: 19;
Purse 2011: 79–82). There has been a widespread increase in female heroes
in contemporary Hollywood films, due in part to the coming forward of
supposedly empowered women in the media, and ‘the economic advances
of women and a revised view of “womanhood” in recent decades’ (Waites
2008: 207), as well as Hollywood trends reinvigorating action and fantasy
adventure conventions through the superhero genre.
These characters do not exist in a vacuum, and postfeminist culture has
implications when considering its particular conceptualisations of ‘wom-
anhood’. Many representations of filmic Marvel women reach to frustra-
tion tactics brought on by anxieties regarding female empowerment in a
patriarchal culture. Notably, these Marvel films offer a vision of feminine
heroism infused with sexualisation, frustration and irony, which takes the
shape of a distinctively white, heterosexual female subjectivity apparently
liberated from political struggles or the need to consider the social ramifi-
cations of her actions.
Superheroines and Postfeminist Media Culture

With a history that spans over fifty years, challenges arise when consider-
ing which aspects of Marvel characters are adaptable in the postfeminist
era. Madrid notes that in the past superheroines were portrayed as weaker
than their male counterparts (Madrid 2009: 57). This is demonstrated, for
example, by the cover of X-Men #1, published in 1963, which features
with g rea t p o we r c o me s gr e a t f r u s t r a t i o n ? 69
four superpowered mutants facing off against Magneto, ‘earth’s most

powerful super villain!!’ who has powers of magnetism (Lee and Kirby
1963). The only character not joining in the fight is a lone young woman
lingering in the background. Jean Grey was the only female character on
the team of X-‘Men’ and her introduction on this cover is indicative of
the limitations faced by women in a patriarchal society at the time– men
carried out protective labour while women cowered in the background.
Another heavily relied-on characteristic of superheroines in comics is the
notion that they cannot adequately control their powers (Madrid 2009:
232) and that they are likely to lose their sanity and become evil (Madrid
2009: 231–2). These themes are discussed in more detail in Chapter 6 of
this book.
Both superheroes and superheroines wear skin-tight costumes and bear
enhanced signifiers of gendered physicality, such as muscles or breasts.
Indeed, Scott Bukatman maintains that comic books relish a distinctive
form of unapologetic objectification of its subjects (Bukatman 2003: 65).
A crucial distinction lies in the differences between the sexualisation of
male and female bodies and what kinds of sexualisation are considered
culturally acceptable in different contexts. As Richard Dyer notes in his
assessment of the male pin-up, the emphasis on muscles on the objectified
male body draws attention to the cultural idea of ‘the body’s potential
for action’, underpinned by hegemonic masculinity (Dyer 2002: 129).
This is not necessarily present in female pin-ups; indeed, female pin-ups
occupy a distinctive discursive space in relation to their subjugated posi-
tioning within a patriarchal society. This is arguably another incarnation
of Mulvey’s active/passive divide, with masculine signifiers negating the
feminising potential of objectification in the sexualised man.
Superhero costuming remains a contentious issue within both film
and comics. However, there is also the risk of overemphasising ques-
tions around sex appeal and power when considering these characters
– some comics have knowingly addressed the potential of costumes for
the exploration of erotic and fetish themes via superhero narratives (see,
for example, DC’s Watchmen). As noted throughout this book, singular
readings of superheroes (and their costuming) are rarely helpful. Yet,
superhero costumes are invariably bound to the identity of the superhero
– signifying a character’s powers and moral alignment, for instance– and
are, hence, gendered. Reynolds notes that in the 1960s comics, Janet Van
Dyne (The Wasp) was constructed and represented in ways that signified
the character’s status as a socialite and fashion designer through the use
of myriad fashion ensembles, and since Janet did not have a secret iden-
tity, ‘the frequent changes of costume successfully blur the boundaries
between fashion designer and superheroine’ (Reynolds 1992: 29). This

marks an early attempt at reconciling the heroic and the feminine via
fashion iconography.
More recent Marvel comics that received criticism from media com-
mentators opposing gratuitous objectification of women in comics include
Milo Manara’s variant cover for Spider-Woman #1 (Hopeless and Land
2014), which featured the character sprawled out on top of a building, her
backside the focus of the image. Likewise, J. Scott Campbell’s variant cover
of Invincible Iron Man #1 (Bendis and Caselli 2017a), which featured a
newly launched heroine, RiRi Williams, was eventually pulled from circu-
lation due to what critics characterised as inappropriate sexualisation of a
teenager. Debates around Williams’s portrayal underlined the critical ten-
sions in women’s sexualisation and race representation, as Williams is one
of Marvel’s more recent black superheroines. These covers were singled
out by Michael Goodrum, Tara Prescott and Philip Smith as indicative
of the convoluted political terrain occupied by Marvel’s superheroes and
coincided with the overt insertion of feminist commentary by female comic
book writers in their publications, such as Mockingbird #1, which featured
its central character in a T-shirt reading ‘ask me about my feminist agenda’
(Goodrum at al. 2018: 9). Despite this, it appears that what is overwhelm-
ingly showcased on contemporary Marvel comic book covers more recently
is power, violence and physicality, regardless of the characters’ gender.
The gendered differences in these representations became so undeni-
able that an online project sought to draw attention to these differences
by encouraging users to submit their own drawings of Marvel hero Clint
Barton (Hawkeye) in poses usually used to represent female characters,
with jolting results (Scott 2015). That comic books have been aimed at
heterosexual men has explained the prevalence of objectified women
within these texts (Pustz 2000: 101), another parallel between comics and
mainstream film. Indeed, the sexualisation of women in comics reached
its peak with the so-called ‘Bad Girl’ art style that was hugely popular
in the 1990s and took the already exaggerated comic book art styles to
ridiculous extremes. Brown recalls that ‘in a blatant attempt to attract
the attention of the mostly male adolescent comics consumer, publishers
flooded the shelves with titles featuring leggy and buxom superheroines in
revealing, skin-tight costumes’ (Brown 2011a: 53). However, echoing Gill
and Orgad’s recent comments over developments in postfeminist culture,
it is perhaps simplistic to dedicate too much attention to sexualisation in
portrayals of women in superhero comics. Rather, Gill and Orgad suggest,
critical focus should turn to the role of power and inequality within media
(and society), emphasising:
the need to challenge sexism (and racism, classism, disablism, heterosexism, etc.)
rather than ‘sexualization’ per se. This means having a political rather than a moral
sensibility about sex. It is to be concerned with power, consent and justice rather
than exposure of flesh. (Gill and Orgad 2018: 1317)
Postfeminist discourses have penetrated comic books just as they have

other media. As Madrid puts it, ‘Compared to men, comic book super-
heroines may have been shortchanged in the power department, but these
women had a secret weapon that has kept them in the game for the past
sixty years– sex appeal’ (Madrid 2009: 299). What Madrid fails to note
is that this focus on sex appeal as power makes use of postfeminist senti-
ments taking for granted that women are empowered in accordance with
patriarchal ideals, and ignore the struggles of women who are yet to reach
that level, especially those often rendered invisible by postfeminist culture
(queer women, women of colour, disabled women, working-class women,
etc.). Thus, the celebration of sex appeal as a source of power can be
read as removed from political implications regarding the power dynamics
behind the objectification of women in Western culture.
Further related to the topic of the feminised body and modes of gender
signification in visual media are existing debates about the supposed cross-
dressing of heroic women represented in the generically masculine domain
of action-based cinema. Since at least the debut of the masculinised action
heroine Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
and its sequel Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), scholarly and popular dis-
course has framed the character in terms of her portrayal as being ‘like a
man’. This is in part due to her very presence at the centre of a narrative
that calls for action heroism, but also because of her gender-neutral name,
and overwhelmingly, because of her muscular appearance in the latter
film. This was summarised by Harvey R. Greenberg:
Aliens infers that to become a competent woman one must learn to manipulate the
tangible or verbal instruments of aggression, which patriarchal society formerly
reserved for men alone. One must never ‘take shit’ from anyone, of any stripe. One
must practice eternal vigilance against the threat of the alien ‘other’, whether to
one’s prestige, possessions, or progeny. One must be ready to ‘get it on’, anywhere,
anytime, against the despicable enemy. (Greenberg 1988: 171)
For critics such as Greenberg, action heroines are semiotically coded as

masculine, which, in essence, makes them men, or figurative males (Hills
1999). Similar opinions have been put forward by Richard Reynolds in his
brief consideration of superheroines in comics. This time, however, he
imagines a hypothetical feminist criticism of these characters:
Any feminist critic could demonstrate that most of these characters fail to inscribe
specifically female qualities: they behave in battle like male heroes with thin waists
and silicone breasts, and in repose are either smugly domestic . . . or brooding and
remote– a slightly threatening male fantasy. (Reynolds 1992: 79–80)
Given that Reynolds is not necessarily presenting his own argument but
that of an imaginary feminist critic, this statement reveals more about
cultural perceptions of feminists rather than action women. However, it
invokes the same ideas as Greenberg– that action women are not really
women. This approach has subsequently been criticised by Tasker (1993:
149–50), Hills (1999) and others. Indeed, Tasker proposes the term ‘mus-
culinity’ as a way of making sense of these characters. She argues:
‘Musculinity’ indicates the way in which the signifiers of strength are not limited to
male characters. These action heroines though, are still marked as women, despite
the arguments advanced by some critics that figures like Ripley are merely men in
drag. (Tasker 1993: 150)
Hills likewise notes that arguments suggesting that action women are
figurative males are testament to the binaristic notions of gender through
which they are analysed. She continues, ‘From this perspective, active and
aggressive women in the cinema can only be seen as phallic, unnatural or
“figuratively male” ’ (Hills 1999: 45). Hills ultimately draws attention to
the ways in which Ripley adapts to her surroundings, often using tech-
nology to modify her body, essentially questioning binaristic notions of
gender. She concludes that:
active heroines . . . are becoming something other than the essentialized concept of
Woman held in a mutually exclusive relation to Man. Furthermore, if action hero-
ines become empowered and even violent through their use of technology, this is not
to say that they are somehow no longer ‘really’ women, but that they are intelligent
and necessarily aggressive females in the context of their role as the central figures of
action genre films. (Hills 1999: 46)
Indeed, from a constructionist perspective, it is not the critic’s business

to declare whether anyone is really a woman or man. Further, in framing
these representations in terms of drag, these authors do a disservice to
drag studies, in which general arguments over the transgressiveness of
cross-dressing are discouraged (Halberstam 2005: 404). As Tasker sug-
gests, cross-dressing women are discursively constructed (and socially
positioned) differently to cross-dressing men. Whereas women are often
considered to dress like men in order to obtain equal status, men’s dressing
as women is considered more transformational and transgressive (Tasker
1998: 35). Yet, the action heroine remains fascinating because she appears
within texts heavily associated with masculinity – these debates indicate

the complex relationship they have with their cultural contexts. As such,
I advocate an approach that steers away from assertions about whether
or not these women can really be women, instead focusing on how post-
feminist culture informs and shapes the ways in which action women are
represented (related issues of gender performativity are more explicitly
discussed in later Chapter 7).
As noted, a large element of presenting contemporary superheroines is
the apparent necessity that they appear conventionally sexually attractive
while fighting crime. Richard J. Gray argues that for female superheroes,
power (specifically, control over it) correlates to their levels of ‘hotness’
(Gray 2011: 83). The more control that Jean Grey wields over her powers
in the X-Men films, for example, the hotter and more sexually alluring she
becomes. With regards to postfeminist culture, the women presented in
such a way in these films are empowered through their sex appeal, since
supposedly natural sexual differences between men and women are empha-
sised in postfeminist culture, while women are encouraged to monitor
their own adherence to these ideals of femininity (Gill 2007). There is a
vast difference, for instance, between the slender-bodied Marvel women
and the muscular, masculine action women of earlier decades. Indeed the
representation of women as being powerfully sexy is part and parcel of
postfeminist culture, although, in the words of Gray, these films offer male
viewers ‘a “best of both worlds” scenario: they possess both the physi-
cal ass-kicking strength and strong sex appeal that men need in order to
satisfy their “scopophilic drive” ’ (Gray 2011: 81).
Marc O’Day coined the term ‘action babes’, referring to action heroines
who offer a ‘simultaneous re-inscription and questioning of the binary
oppositions which structure common-sense understandings of gender in
patriarchal consumer culture’ (O’Day 2004: 202). He further states that
action cinema ‘doubles up’ Mulvey’s to-be-looked-at-ness, that the action
heroine ‘can be seen to function simultaneously as the action subject of
narrative and the erotic object of visual spectacle’ (O’Day 2004: 203). What
is clear, though, is that representations that highlight feminine beauty
in superheroines incorporate feminist discourses of women’s empower-
ment while only privileging specific configurations of that empowerment
(e.g. slim, white, feminine beauty). Importantly, neither O’Day nor Gray
mention the implications of the combination of white feminine beauty, sex
appeal and physical power in the context of contemporary postfeminist
discourses. While it may be true that these heroines are portrayed as
empowered, an emphasis on sex appeal as constituting power is a factor
that is generally specific to female characters. Due to the differences in
the ways in which men and women are sexualised in Western culture, it
is difficult to imagine, for example, Wolverine using his sexuality in an
‘empowering’ way. Further, it is rare for a heroic woman to actually be
shown as actively sexual in conjunction with being heroic (as I discuss in
the Chapter 6, women in these films who actively pursue a sexual partner
or are presented as sexual aggressors tend to be evil).
The sex appeal discussed by Gray and O’Day is thus sexualisation
applied extradiegetically to the characters, rather than an unproblematic
representation of women indulging in their sexuality as sexual agents.
Thus, while postfeminist culture is interested in encouraging the self-
objectification of women (Gill 2007: 158), it has a somewhat uncomfortable
relationship with these images. It is also noteworthy that Gray shifts the
focus back to what ‘men need’, recentring men (but not specifying which
men) within debates about feminine subjectivities on screen. Rather, the
feminine characters are caught in a bind between being the passive bearers
of the look, and being active within the narrative, as is pointed out by
O’Day. Still, in a culture in which representations of female empowerment
are so exclusionary, these portrayals should be approached with care.
The contradictions inherent in postfeminist texts in many cases result
in the systematic limitation of superheroines, often through the very
mechanisms that inform postfeminist culture. Tasker has, for example,
suggested that ‘images of women seem to need to compensate for the
figure of the active heroine by emphasising her sexuality, her availability
within traditional feminine terms’ (Tasker 1993: 19). Similarly, Inness has
traced the action women of a range of media throughout several decades,
from the ‘pseudo-tough’ women of Charlie’s Angels (ABC, 1976–81) to
the paradoxically tough characters such as Ripley, who despite bearing
signifiers of masculinity are also narratively and visually feminised (Inness
1998: 31–49, 102–19). Inness’s overarching argument is that heroism in
these characters is negotiated alongside reinscriptions of traditional femi-
ninity. This bears suspicious resemblance to the idea that action women
are simply pretending to be men– in the sense that they are too masculine
to be ideologically unthreatening, and so need to be made feminine again.
However, the reliance of popular representations on these mechanisms is
clear and indicative of the unease with which cultural formations of heroic
femininity are accompanied.
Importantly, my claims are not intended to devalue femininity itself,
but rather indicate the gendered imbalance within Hollywood traditions.
Indeed, this reinforcing of the traditionally feminine is itself a symptom of
postfeminist discourses, as Negra suggests that
postfeminism entails an aggressive (re)codification of female types. In gestures that

often tout the ‘freedom’ from political correctness, postfeminist culture revives the
‘truths’ about femininity that circulated in earlier eras . . . The postfeminist twist
here is that women are to apply these characterizations to others and sometimes to
themselves in a display of their political and rhetorical ‘freedom’. (Negra 2009b: 10)
Furthermore, Purse posits that action films enforce ‘containment strate-

gies’ on their female characters that limit the power of action heroines and
‘work to contain the threat embodied by the presence of the physically
powerful women’ (Purse 2011: 81). Films based on Marvel comics like-
wise incorporate cinematic, narrative and visual mechanisms that prevent
certain characters from carrying out heroic actions, while also drawing
from comic book discourses of superheroic femininity, as well as providing
a venue for continuous debate over sexuality and power in these repre-
sentations. I use the term ‘frustration tactics’ here, though this is not to
discredit Purse’s revealing analysis (which borrows the term ‘containment
strategies’ from Ed Guerrero’s discussions around black masculinities; see
Guerrerro 1993).
The term ‘frustration tactics’ speaks to the specificities of the postfemi-
nist mode of female superheroic representation. The word ‘frustration’
is particularly fitting, implying the prevention of a progression (in this
case, female empowerment as shaped by feminist politics). However, for
a progression to be prevented in the first place, ‘frustration’ connotes, the
possibilities for progression must be considered legitimate. Like post-
feminist culture, then, frustration tactics involve an embrace of feminist
politics before quashing them, preventing them from being fulfilled or
casting them off as unnecessary. This can be further differentiated from
the term ‘containment strategies’ since containment, here, is suggestive
of restriction or limitation. However, this alone does not fully express
postfeminist culture’s reliance on the simultaneous embrace of that which
it holds back. The particular postfeminist mode of gender representa-
tion is, therefore, more usefully made sense of through the metaphor
of frustration. Frustration tactics form an intricate network of gendered
discursive constructs, exemplifying how power is not a straightforward
feature of superheroines, and that quite often the films utilise postfeminist
discourses as a way to displace the difficulties that accompany portraying
such characters.
With Great Power Comes Great Frustration

Blade: Trinity (David S. Goyer, 2004), the third instalment of the Blade
series– which follows the human-vampire hybrid vampire hunter Blade
(Wesley Snipes)– features a sassy female vampire hunter named Abby

Whistler (Jessica Biel). Whistler fights alongside Hannibal King (Ryan
Reynolds), flushing out vampires in the city, eventually joining forces
with Blade to stop a contemporary re-imagination of Dracula called Drake
(Dominic Purcell). After being introduced within a conventionally post-
feminist framework of masquerade (discussed in the following chapter),
Whistler’s role in the film is downplayed throughout the rest of the film,
limiting the threat she may pose towards binaristic notions of female weak-
ness and male power. This is further problematised by the marginalisation
of Blade in comparison to his previous films wherein Blade, a black action
hero, is jettisoned in favour of two white characters, Whistler and King;
and Whistler, a white woman, is in turn narratively frustrated. Indeed,
Rikke Schubart suggests Whistler’s function within the film is to rework
notions of femininity against the respective constructions of masculin-
ity offered by Blade and Hannibal– h egemonic masculinity and metro-
sexual masculinity, contemporary at the time of the film’s release, which
incorporates feminine sensitivity (and additionally involves an overt rejec-
tion of homosexuality through misogynistic and homophobic discourses)
(Schubart 2007: 236).
Whistler, according to Schubart, represents acceptable or ‘natural’ fem-
ininity in contrast to the villainess, Danica Talos, an aggressive vampire
businesswoman (Schubart 2007: 236). These valid points notwithstand-
ing, there is more to say about Whistler in terms of narrative and how
she is cinematically constructed. While engaging in comparatively fewer
action sequences than the heroes, the most striking instance of Whistler’s
narrative frustration takes place in the final few scenes of the film, in which
Drake is finally killed. Whistler, having overpowered one of Drake’s
vampire henchman at Drake’s headquarters, looks down from a mez-
zanine area at Drake and Blade’s final confrontation. Whistler’s task had
been to shoot Drake with a lethal poisonous arrow, but, despite her appar-
ent skills evidenced in the rest of the film, missed. She eventually manages
to hit Drake with an ordinary arrow, but it is Blade who ultimately kills
him with the discarded poisonous arrow. In the context of the scene,
Whistler’s moment of failure is a denial of her completing the narrative arc
that ended with Drake’s death.
Another means of narrative frustration occurs in Elektra, a spin-off of
Daredevil (Mark Steven Johnson, 2003), which centres on the eponymous
assassin-turned-antiheroine (Jennifer Garner). As mentioned earlier,
writers such as O’Day posit that action texts such as this one take for
granted the fantastical skills and abilities that these heroines possess: ‘they
assume that women are powerful’ (O’Day 2004: 216, original emphasis).
This is mostly true, especially when powers come from uncontrollable

sources or, as with the X-Men, they are born with them. However, Purse
puts forth the notion that this is not always the case, and that a point is
made of Elektra having learned how to fight through her ‘fatherly mentor’
(Purse 2011: 83), providing a patriarchal authority to her abilities. In this
sense, postfeminist action films enact a tension between the supposed
natural, commonsensical quality of these heroines’ abilities and the need
to qualify them.
Taking this a step further, Elektra contains an almost obsessive neces-
sity to justify Elektra’s abilities. Having died at the end of Daredevil,
Elektra is revived and trains in an ancient martial art that offers her pre-
cognitive abilities and physical prowess. However, Elektra chooses to
continue her immoral activities as an assassin. Great emphasis is placed
on the ruthlessness of Elektra’s character, though only one of her jobs is
ever actually portrayed on screen (this takes place in the dark, as I later
unpack). After Elektra is tasked with killing a young girl and her father,
she decides to help them instead. However, Elektra occupies the space
of an antihero, an archetypal character type dating back to the classical
era (Santas 2008: 158). Antiheroes lack qualities traditionally valued as
heroic, and with such central male characters appearing in films such as
American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000), Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987)
and Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), as well as figures such as Rambo,
Hannibal Lecter, and Marvel’s Wolverine and the Punisher, it becomes
clear that the antihero is an unmistakably masculine phenomenon. Indeed,
Margaret Tally argues that the antihero as a cultural phenomenon became
particularly attached to American quality television, ‘understood to repre-
sent the damaged American male in the post-Vietnam period of American
history’ (Tally 2016: 5). Subsequently, the actions of the antihero were
framed as justified, no matter how morally suspect, due to the need of
these characters to navigate a corrupt world hostile to men (Tally 2016: 5).
Tally notes that the female antihero became more widely exposed in the
late 2000s to the 2010s, albeit she focuses specifically on the role of televi-
sion as a medium that facilitated these portrayals.
Because she is a woman, Elektra represents a culturally marginalised
and rarely portrayed variety of antihero at the time of the film’s produc-
tion. Therefore, anxiety regarding her power occurs, potentially due to a
lack of an established cultural language for the representation of female
antiheroes. A means of thwarting this anxiety involves the relentless use
of flashback to justify her complex, often cynical existence. Indeed, the
film contains five flashback sequences, all concerned with Elektra’s child-
hood: her father cruelly forcing her to swim in a pool too deep for her
(shown twice), and the instance where she discovers her dead mother
lying on her bed (shown three times). These flashback sequences offer a
constant reminder that Elektra is troubled because of her childhood. They
narratively justify Elektra’s character, frustrating her abilities to function
within the narrative without being hampered by flashbacks.
Another scene in Elektra that demonstrates the discrepancies in repre-
sentations between female and male antiheroes directly parallels a scene in
X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In Origins, Logan, who is yet to become known
as X-Man Wolverine, is shown driving through the Canadian country-
side with his girlfriend Kayla Silverfox, describing his encounter with
the villainous Colonel Stryker, who wants to recruit Logan (see Figure
3.2). With Logan sharing history with Stryker, Silverfox asks him why he
appears agitated and Logan tells her of his meeting with Stryker. Silverfox
asks, ‘Why is he bothering you after all these years?’ to which Logan
quotes a famous phrase used repeatedly in the 1980s Wolverine comics
(Claremont and Miller 1982), ‘Because I’m the best there is at what I do,
but what I do best isn’t very nice.’ Silverfox responds to this by pointing
out that his powers are a ‘gift’, which Logan refutes and the scene cuts at
this point, highlighting the character’s ambiguity.
Knowing that Stryker has malevolent intentions, Silverfox’s ques-
tion serves to explain why he would find Logan appealing for a morally
questionable task. But Logan’s answer is simple, requiring no further
explanation– he is simply good at doing not very nice things. This is in
contrast to the scene in Elektra, which bears striking resemblance to that
in Origins, despite having been made some years earlier. Fleeing from
the predatory ninja outfit the Hand, Elektra drives Abby Miller (Kristen
Prout), the teenage girl who was originally her target, to safety while Miller
sits on the backseat popping bubble gum. Elektra irately turns around
and glares at Miller for her annoying behaviour while Miller snarkily
smiles back at her (Figure 3.1). The next shot shows Elektra unimpressed,
sarcastically stating ‘I’m a soccer mom’ (a similar scene occurs in 2017’s
Logan, this time with Logan driving the car and his young clone Laura
irritating him). Herein the film acknowledges that the chaperoning of a
young girl is a foreign experience for Elektra, the irony of which is driven
home when Miller asks ‘So you really kill people for a living?’ When
Miller asks why, Elektra answers ‘It’s what I’m good at’, echoing Logan’s
famous line. However, this is undercut when Miller states ‘That’s messed
up’, asserting once again that Elektra is troubled. Elektra cannot embrace
this existence without a struggle, while Wolverine’s being good at not very
nice things is narratively ambiguous yet unquestioned.
As evidenced in comics such as the 1980s series Elektra: Assassin (Miller
Figure 3.1 ‘That’s messed up’: Elektra discusses her job as an assassin with Abby Miller
in Elektra.
Figure 3.2 ‘I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn’t very nice’:
Logan explains himself to Kayla Silverfox in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
and Sienkiewicz 2012), Elektra embodies a mode of hyperviolence absent

from Marvel film adaptations, since these films are most often created
with PG or PG-13 ratings in mind (Dupont 2012: 5). Thus, though much
is spoken about the bloodshed caused by Elektra and her ruthless attitude,
such occasions are never shown. Further, Elektra’s violent nature is rarely,
if ever, explained or justified within these comic book narratives. The
antiheroine figure has recently gained more prominence, as mentioned,
largely within particular TV formats that Milly Buonanno suggests is
characteristic of the medium’s potential for exploration of complex femi-
ninities (Buonanno 2017). Though Buonanno specifically avoids asking
why these characters have gained exposure recently, her discussion does
draw attention to the variables of historical and social context as well as
medium-specificity. Elektra was released in 2005 as the first superheroine
film to be based on a Marvel character. As noted, the film carried particu-

lar burdens in relation to its subject matter. Likewise, the film’s promo-
tional strategies and critical reception highlighted the sexualisation of the
film’s star, Jennifer Garner (Kent 2016), suggesting that these discourses
were the dominant way in which such a media product was culturally
made sense of.
The differences between Garner’s Elektra and the ‘complex’ antihero-
ines of contemporary quality TV clearly tie into the formal differences
between Marvel’s mid-2000s mainstream film adaptations and quality TV
outputs originating from cable and streaming platforms. Indeed, Netflix’s
Daredevil has been among several recent Marvel adaptations deemed criti-
cally worthy due to its dark atmosphere and complex characters, including
Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. This said, the version of Elektra presented in
the Netflix series falls more into the character type of ambiguous villainess,
with central character Matt Murdock’s spiritual and moral intricacy as a
central focus. Still, 2005’s Elektra must be acknowledged as a foundational
Marvel film, indeed a spiritual predecessor to Captain Marvel, whose
contexts and discourses inevitably bear relation to subsequent forays into
live-action female superheroes.
To return, then, to the topic of narrative frustration, the occurrence
of superheroines unable to control their power is one of the clearest
instances of this formal and generic mechanism. It is particularly acute in
the cinematic representations of X-Men Rogue and Jean Grey. Indeed, the
X-Men films have been described by Betty Kaklamanidou as enforcing a
‘mythos of patriarchy’ in which female characters are subordinate despite
appearing empowered (Kaklamanidou 2011). Indeed, the X-Men films
are male-centric and focus largely on the exploits of Logan/Wolverine, as
noted by Mark Gallagher, who states that the films ‘showcase physically
powerful male heroes, renegotiating but continuing patriarchal tradition’
(Gallagher 2006: 195).
X-Men (2000) introduces a young girl, Marie (Anna Paquin), experienc-
ing the manifestation of her powers for the first time. Marie, who adopts
the name Rogue, is in her bedroom with her boyfriend when her ability to
absorb people’s energy through touch occurs. However, Rogue’s powers
surface when she kisses her boyfriend, putting him into a three-month
coma. This conflation of sexual activity and threat indicates the strenuous
nature of female power in these films, as Rogue’s power not only makes
her dangerous– it makes her dangerous specifically to men. Furthermore,
throughout the films, Rogue’s powers are shown to limit her ability to
have romantic relationships specifically. In X2 (Bryan Singer, 2003) she is
unable to kiss her new boyfriend Bobby Drake (Shawn Ashmore), as she
might hurt him, which leads to feelings of jealousy in X-Men: The Last
Stand (Brett Rattner, 2006), when Bobby spends more time with another
young female mutant, Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page).
It is perhaps because of the threat that Rogue poses to hegemonic
masculinity that she is frustrated, despite having superpowers. Originally
a villain to the X-Men, Rogue in the comics became one of the strong-
est characters after absorbing the Superman-like powers of Ms. Marvel
(Carol Danvers) in the 1980s (Claremont and Byrne 1980a). Indeed,
according to Anthony Michael D’Agostino, Rogue, through her ability
to absorb the powers and personalities of others via flesh-to-flesh contact,
offers queer potentialities as well as ‘dramatizes the psychological iso-
lation and emotional intensity of marginalized difference in superhero
form’ (D’Agostino 2018: 252), indicating the character’s receptiveness to
queer feminist discourse. The cinematic Rogue’s naivety, fostered by the
character’s age and lack of experience, means she is led through the narra-
tive by male characters. Having run away from home, Rogue encounters
Logan and is taken to Xavier’s school for mutants, where she is guided by
Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), and then misled by the villain
Magneto (Ian McKellen) and his Brotherhood of Mutants. Rogue also has
no control over her powers, for accidentally touching someone could mean
ending their life. Unable to use her powers productively, Rogue must keep
her skin covered at all times. Her power is literally contained by gloves and
other garments, a cocooning that also functions on a visual level and harks
back to her comic book costume.
The most notable aspect of Rogue’s filmic characterisation is its incor-
poration of the women-in-refrigerators narrative discussed in the previous
chapters within a heroic subjectivity. Despite possessing superpowers,
Rogue requires saving by the other (mostly male) heroes, but this only
occurs because of the power she possesses. Here, Magneto seeks to use
her as a tool in his plan to turn humans into mutants using a machine that
requires Rogue’s unique abilities to operate. The film’s discourses signal
anxieties over a young girl possessing this much power as she cannot
possibly control it, but also because it inevitably leads to her capture and
exploitation by Magneto. Her power is frustrated before she is portrayed
as having had a chance to use it heroically (in X-Men: The Last Stand,
Rogue is portrayed as one of the first mutants to embrace the new mutant
cure, evoking the postfeminist rhetoric of choice, despite Logan’s pater-
nalistic concerns, and is ultimately depowered).
X-Man Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) is also portrayed as having great
difficulty controlling her powers in X-Men and X2. A powerful telepathic
and telekinetic mutant, Grey is introduced as a medical doctor giving a
speech to the Senate to vote against the ominous Mutant Registration Act,
which would restrict mutant rights, having been reimagined as a scientist
like many Marvel women. Still, despite the authority Grey clearly pos-
sesses in issues of mutant rights, the character’s role in the narrative is
primarily as a love interest to Logan and Scott Summers/Cyclops (James
Marsden) in the central love triangle. After noticing Logan’s advances,
Summers warns him to ‘stay away from my girl’, positioning her as
Summers’s possession. Further, the frustration tactic enforced upon Grey
is similar to Rogue’s in that Grey is unable to control her power; indeed,
this is stated time and again in X-Men. For instance, Grey is shown saying
that she cannot operate Xavier’s mutant tracking device, Cerebro, because
‘it takes a degree of control to use it’ and that it would be ‘dangerous’ for
her to do so (despite this, Grey eventually uses Cerebro successfully). At
the end of the film, the X-Men work together to save Rogue, but Grey is
left with permanent damage to her powers. In X2, Grey is even less able to
control her powers, at times uncontrollably hearing everybody’s thoughts
at once, before being eliminated from the narrative via self-sacrifice to save
her teammates.
Similar narrative attributes have applied to Susan Storm throughout
her character’s history. In the Fantastic Four comic books, which like
Spider-Man and X-Men debuted in the 1960s, four ordinary people are
imbued with superpowers after being exposed to cosmic rays during a
space mission, becoming the superhero team the Fantastic Four. Sue
was positioned as the girlfriend of the leader, Reed Richards, a hyper-
intelligent scientist who gained the ability to stretch his body almost infi-
nitely. She gained the powers of invisibility as the Invisible Girl, which,
in a fight, did little other than hide her away from the action. Often, plans
she had to make productive use of her powers are thwarted. For example,
when attempting to alert her teammates to the presence of the villainous
Miracle Man, a dog appears from nowhere, catching her scent and barking
at Sue, allowing the Miracle Man to locate her (Lee and Kirby 1962a).
In the 1980s, Sue was a central character, becoming the Invisible
Woman, as well as gaining the formidable power of creating force fields
(Byrne 1985b), arguably becoming the strongest member of the team
(DiPaolo 2011: 212). However, the two Fantastic Four films of the 2000s
clearly position Sue (Jessica Alba) as physically weak, frustrating her
powers and limiting her availability in action sequences within the films’
respective narratives. In Fantastic Four (Tim Story, 2005), unlike her
male teammates, who can control their powers after the initial surprise
of discovering them, Sue has problems controlling her powers. When
Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) carries out some tests, he determines that
Sue’s emotions prevent her from controlling them. This functions within
discourses regarding the supposed destructive nature of emotions– and
Sue’s emotion is specifically characterised as anger– while also positioning
emotions as a (feminine) weakness. The scene here also contains an ironic
element, which further reinforces the film’s influence under postfeminist
sentiments, as the tension between Richards and Sue contributes to the
resolution of their narrative arc, in which they become a couple. When
Sue is finally portrayed as controlling her powers, they prove useless
against the villain Victor von Doom (Julian McMahon) and he easily over-
powers her. It is Ben Grimm, the rock-skinned Thing (Michael Chiklis),
who ultimately has the physical strength to fight Doom, and eventually,
the team works together to stop him. Sue’s brother Johnny Storm (Chris
Evans), who has fire powers, engulfs Doom in a supernova-like ball of
fire in the streets of New York. Sue makes a great effort to contain the
fire– s o great that she receives an unprecedented nosebleed, requiring a
disproportionate amount of effort to engage in essentially the same levels
of activity as Johnny.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Tim Story, 2007) offers more
overt narrative frustration, as evidenced by the inclusion of Sue and Reed’s
wedding. Indeed, Purse suggests that a relentless focus on a heroine’s
marriage can act as a ‘strategy that gives the lie to the independence these
powerful women appear to embody’ (Purse 2011: 84). Further, the aggres-
sive centring of the heterosexual couple is also informed by postfeminist
rhetoric, a theme I return to in Chapter 8. Throughout Rise of the Silver
Surfer, Sue’s obsession with the marriage is unwavering; she is presented
as demanding and unreasonable towards the emotionally unavailable
Richards, preventing him from helping the US military from studying
the alien invader the Silver Surfer. During the climactic final battle with
Doom, who has stolen the Silver Surfer’s powerful surfboard, Sue is
eliminated from the film’s action climax through a tense scene. After a
succession of shots building dramatic tension, Sue gasps, in a close-up,
and is knocked backwards. She looks down and the camera tilts, revealing
Doom’s spear in her chest, her force field having been useless against the
power granted by the Surfer’s board. She collapses and apparently dies in
Richards’s arms.
With the Surfer’s master, Galactus, the devourer of worlds, arriving
shortly, the remaining members of the team transfer all of their powers
to Johnny, who defeats Doom so that the Surfer can regain control of
his board and deal with Galactus. Throughout the action, Sue is absent,
having died. Yet, after the Surfer regains his powers, he is able to revive
Sue, and she and Richards can finally marry. Sue’s power was once again
frustrated as she could not protect herself from Doom’s weapon; she is, in
turn, rendered incapacitated (through the occurrence of death) during the
final battle. Such representations have been discussed by Brown as symp-
tomatic of action films of the 1980s, in which ‘women were often removed
from the narrative entirely . . . or at least from the bulk of the screen time’
(Brown 2011a: 26). Susan Storm was revamped in FANT4STIC, again
as a scientist (played by Kate Mara) alongside Richards (Miles Teller),
though her role in the film is even smaller than in previous iterations of
the property.
Visual frustration functions through cinematography, editing and mise
en scène, as well as costuming and appearance. A kind of formal disem-
bodiment, or decorporealisation, can also function as a visual frustration
tactic. This effectively disembodies and depersonalises a female character
through that which is not shown, personable features that make her visu-
ally recognisable. Most obviously, this is the nature of Sue Storm’s powers
in the comics and films, as she literally becomes invisible. However,
Elektra also utilises such tactics in its representation of the central heroine.
Although this could be narratively justified by Elektra’s status as a skilled
assassin who creeps around unseen, as is argued by Daniel Binns (2016:
46), in a film in which she is the central heroine this is problematic.
Elektra’s presence in the film is thus marked by conspicuous absence.
In the first sequence in the film, Elektra approaches her target, DeMarco,
taking out his associates on her way. The sequence is set at night, and so
she is invisible in the dark scenes outdoors. This is narrated by DeMarco
in his dimly lit office, telling his associate, Bauer, of the deadly Elektra,
whom he is expecting. Shown first is a poorly lit shot of a man falling off
a roof, presumably having been thrown off by Elektra. This is indicated
by DeMarco’s declaration that ‘Her name is Elektra’, and yet, there is no
visible Elektra to speak of. While DeMarco speaks of Elektra’s skill, she
is shown (but not shown) climbing the stairs, still invisible, then making
her way across beams under a ceiling. Finally, DeMarco says ‘They say
Elektra whispers in your ear before she kills you.’ At that moment, Elektra
speaks to them over Bauer’s radio, though she still is not shown. Bauer
then enters the dark corridor. A medium close-up of Bauer is followed by
a shot of Elektra’s sai, her traditional Japanese fork-like weapon, on the
back of his neck. The film thus shows Elektra’s weapon before it shows
Elektra, highlighting the character’s association with violence through her
grasp of a phallic, penetrating object.
She then says, off-camera, ‘You can’t fight a ghost, Bauer’, a statement
that again disembodies her by characterising her as a spirit back from
the dead. Elektra then counter-strikes Bauer’s blow. In the next shot,
Bauer is in focus at the front, while Elektra is out of focus behind him,
again blurring her physicality. The fight continues and all that is shown
is Elektra’s blacked-out silhouette and billowing hair, plus the occasional
flash of red from her costume. When her face is finally revealed, it is
half in shadow, emerging from strands of hair blowing in the wind. As
such, Elektra is visually frustrated through disembodiment. This tactic is
repeated on numerous occasions throughout the film, for instance when
Elektra takes out a rival assassin in a forest by sending a tree falling on him,
her victory is obscured by the green fog his body transforms into when he
dies. Similarly, Elektra is visually obscured by wafting sheets that are sent
flying around the room by the assassin Kirigi in the final battle of the film.
Disembodiment indicates an anxiety in portraying active female physi-
cality in these films. Furthermore, cinematography can also function to
limit the space that a superheroine occupies during a fight, such as that
between Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and a security guard
in Iron Man 2. After infiltrating the factory where villain Ivan Vanko
is located, Romanoff, accompanied by Happy Hogan, fights a guard by
leaping over a cart and flipping over in the air to kick the guard in the
face. This ostentatious fighting style takes place within the confines of a
narrow corridor, which is nonetheless brightly lit with a white floor and
walls, unlike the fight scenes in Elektra. Still, the filming is claustropho-
bic, boxing in on Romanoff while she performs these stunts, with her
body and that of her target filling the shots. The use of an aerial shot also
draws attention to the presence of yet another narrowly placed wall that
was unnoticeable in other shots. It is therefore apparent that Romanoff is
spatially frustrated through the scene’s cinematography. Such cinemato-
graphic visual frustration also occurs when Abby Whistler fights a vampire
during the final scenes of Blade: Trinity.
As mentioned, both comic books and contemporary action cinema
have been focused on women’s sexual appearance as it is symptomatic of
postfeminist culture. This is also the case in some adaptations of Marvel
comics. For instance, in the first two Fantastic Four films, an emphasis is
placed on Sue’s physical beauty. In Fantastic Four, before embarking on
their experiments in space, Ben contemplates the uniforms provided for
them and, disappointed, questions ‘Who the hell came up with these?’
Sue’s disembodied voice is heard (‘Victor did.’) and she is shown strutting
through the doorway, a long shot revealing her half-opened suit showing
off her pushed up cleavage. Her objectification is further enhanced on an
extradiegetic level. After Sue explains that ‘The synthetics act as a second
skin’, Richards remarks, ‘Wow, fantastic ...’ supposedly at the brilliance
of the science behind the suits, though he is clearly also referring to what
lurks beneath Sue’s ‘second skin’. In another shot later on in the film, all
members of the team are shown in the living room area, wearing their
suits. However, both Johnny and Richards’s suits are zipped to the top,
while Sue’s is still half-open (Ben, whose skin has turned to rock, goes
shirtless). Sue is thus marked as sexually other through the gratuitous
focus on her cleavage. Elektra is similarly presented in Elektra: the final
shot of the initial assassination sequence outlined above is a close-up
of her backside. Daredevil, which also features Elektra as a supporting
character, likewise centres her beauty. Given that Matt Murdock (Ben
Affleck), who fights crime as Daredevil, is blind, this is notable. However,
when almost every scene in which the two characters appear together
makes a reference to her beauty, particularly in an emotional scene in
which Murdock uses his radar sense, which functions similarly to echo-
location, to ‘see’ her during a rain shower, Elektra becomes reduced to
an image.
Abby Whistler in Blade: Trinity likewise inhabits a postfeminist mode
of visual representation as the portrayal of her fighting skills draws from
fitness and sports culture. Women’s unequal access to sport is, as defined
by Katharina Lindner in her analysis of contemporary sport films, ‘an
important aspect of larger socio-cultural gender inequalities’ (Lindner
2013: 240). The increase in exposure of female athletes in Western culture
offers the possibility for the disruption of traditional gender relations in
sport (Lindner 2013: 239). However, it has simultaneously led to the
marginalisation, stigmatisation and sexualisation of such women in cul-
tural discourses, and has been co-opted and commodified as part of post-
feminist culture. Femininity thus functions within sports culture as ‘a
bodily property that needs to be continually “worked on”, monitored
and controlled’ (Lindner 2013: 244), aligning with the wider interests of
postfeminist culture.
Markers of fit femininity become ingrained with the exclusionary
rhetoric of postfeminist culture. Regarding this, Negra elaborates that
‘As the achievement of health/fitness becomes a marker of middle-class
femininity and a sign of virtue, inequalities are magnified’ (Negra 2009b:
127). Throughout the film, Abby Whistler is the only character of the
three central heroes shown to engage with vampire hunting as a means of
fitness. A point is, for example, made of the fact that she listens to music
through her iPod while fighting, an impracticality that would otherwise
disrupt the vital sense of hearing that might be needed in a fight. Indeed,
in a scene taking place before an elaborate fighting montage in which the
heroic trio pursue several evil henchmen, Whistler is shown meticulously
crafting a music playlist using her Apple laptop and iPod. Whistler’s use
of music in her fighting/fitness regime thus reaches to the commodifica-

tion of Power Music in the fitness industry (Hentges 2014: 227). This
trait is shown as an idiosyncrasy that marks the character as distinct from
the others, and Whistler thus embodies a specific mode of female fitness,
expressed visually and reaching to discourses of consumerism by showcas-
ing the distinctive white iPod headphones throughout the film.
The inclusion of the postfeminist femininity that an often ironic atten-
tion to visual sex appeal brings forth is particularly noteworthy in X-Men:
First Class (Matthew Vaughn, 2011). Set in the 1960s, but containing little
of the institutional gender inequality of the time, the world portrayed in
the film is postfeminist while showcasing a pre-feminist environment.
The only oppression ever experienced by any of the mutant characters is
caused by the fact that they are mutants, naturally born with incredible,
but often unsightly, powers. The film, as do the other X-Men films, thus
takes for granted that the female characters are empowered and have little
use for explicitly feminist politics. This promotes a well-intentioned but
problematic message that factors such as gender should have no influence
over a person’s capabilities. However, X-Men is perceived as a property in
both comics and film that allegorises the disempowerment of marginalised
peoples, ‘a parable of the alienation of any minority’ (Reynolds 1992:
79). Purse similarly characterises the films as commentaries regarding gay
rights and homosexual subjectivities (Purse 2011: 144), while Darowski
discusses the X-Men as ‘mutant metaphor’ (Darowski 2014). For a narra-
tive framed as ingrained in social issues, the lack of overt engagement with
political feminist concerns is noteworthy.
It also allows for one character, Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), to
be a CIA agent in a time when women in the CIA were largely limited to
secretarial jobs. Certainly, this may not be a huge stretch of imagination
considering the film centres on superpowered mutants; but, again, the
links that have been forged between X-Men and world in which people
are systematically oppressed for factors that are outside of their control
draw attention to how the films elaborate such a stance. This is ampli-
fied by a scene in which MacTaggert uses her sex appeal to infiltrate
a meeting held by the evil Hellfire Club, portrayed as taking place in
a strip club. MacTaggert must pose as a stripper to infiltrate the club,
speaking to issues of feminine masquerade discussed in more detail in
the next chapter. The film contains two overt references of sexism aimed
at a female character, which serve more to differentiate the attitudes of
that era from those of today in a way that further separates the film from
its contemporary context. This offers a win-win situation in that blatant
misogyny is narratively justified, while a depoliticised ideal of powerfully
sexy women is promoted, thus avoiding overt engagement with feminist

politics.
In Inness’s terms, ‘The media make women . . . sexually alluring to
men by weakening their toughness, emphasizing their sexuality, and trans-
forming them into sex objects for the male gaze’ (Inness 1998: 40), though
in a postfeminist culture, this may be an oversimplification. A common
postfeminist-inflected detraction of such a statement would be that these
texts are merely a celebration or reclamation of femininity (Stasia 2007:
234). This takes for granted that femininity is in a position to be reclaimed
in the first place, begging the question ‘reclaimed from whom?’ to which
the answer may be ‘the feminists’, suggesting more about how feminism is
conceived of culturally.
Suggesting that an emphasis on sex appeal and appearance functions
as a frustration tactic could infer a devaluing or discrediting of femininity
itself. This is not the aim of this analysis. On one hand, popular films have
provided images of heroic women who are distanced from characteristics
generally considered to constitute femininity in order to appear strong,
at least on a visual level (e.g. Ripley and Connor). On the other hand,
films informed by postfeminist ideals offer a portrayal of women who are
physically strong while embracing a sexualised femininity, a line of argu-
ment similar to that of Madrid when he refers to comic books. With this
in mind, it is rare to see men presented in films as being powerful because
of their sex appeal, as I argued earlier, or even men who are emotional and
caring yet still framed by the text as masculine. Both configurations of
feminine strength function within the gender binary on account of their
policing of women’s appearance, as well as adopting an either/or approach
to gender. This is coupled with a general lack of variety in terms of femi-
ninities presented in mainstream cinema, and especially the films analysed
here, which privilege white, slim, heterosexual, able-bodied femininity.
These postfeminist representations are thus the result of frustration– n ot
only the visual frustration as discussed here, but cultural frustration– this
is, more times than not, the only type of representation that is offered.
Indeed, Goodrum, Prescott and Smith similarly argue for superhero
narratives that ‘give men and women access to those characteristics . . .
that have traditionally been viewed as feminine by removing the stigma
attached to them as well as challenging the reductive assumption that
women are inherently caring and peaceful’ (Goodrum et al. 2018: 5).
A final frustration tactic involves comedy derived from or aimed at
the female hero. Herein the ‘display of female super-powers is contained
within situations that also manage to subject the action heroines to varying
levels of humiliation’ (Purse 2011: 80). Purse specifically points towards
moments in both Fantastic Four films, when Sue ends up in a state of

public nudity while attempting to use her powers. But these films also
engage in postfeminist ironic humour intended to offset any discomfort
caused by these portrayals. Irony is a prominent feature of postfeminist
discourses. Here, positions characterised as existing in opposition to the
demands of second-wave feminism are adopted playfully (Gill 2007: 160).
Postfeminist irony taken to extremes results in phenomena such as ironic
sexism or hipster sexism, which evokes sexist discourses to highlight the
supposed notion that real sexism is of the past (Richardson and Robinson
2015: xxv). Whatever context, though, postfeminist irony arguably ensures
that a socially sanctioned form of gender relations is maintained.
One such instance is the comedy duo of Natasha Romanoff and Happy
Hogan in Iron Man 2. Romanoff is introduced as Tony Stark’s new notary
while he is working out, boxing with Hogan. The encounter is framed
within comedic and ironic discourses. After telling Hogan that she has
boxed before, Hogan asks Romanoff, ‘What, like, the Tae Bo? Booty Boot
Camp? Crunch?’ listing a variety of feminised sporting activities. The
irony, here, is that Romanoff’s exercise regimes extend far further than
Booty Boot Camp– she is highly skilled at martial arts. Before Hogan can
begin sparring, Romanoff catches his wrist and swings it downwards in a
long shot, spinning over and throttling him with her legs. When Stark and
Pepper Potts rush over, Hogan tells them that he slipped and Romanoff
coolly steps out of the ring, her secret, and integrity, intact. Within this
context it is acceptable for Hogan to be presented as behaving in conde-
scending ways towards Romanoff; viewers have already been led to believe
that, in reality, she is a highly skilled fighter. Similarly, postfeminist irony
relies on the knowledge taken for granted that, in reality, women are
empowered.
This irony is extended when Hogan and Romanoff team up to infiltrate
the villain’s lair. It is clear that Romanoff is displeased with Hogan’s pres-
ence, the two embodying a binary opposition of a serious spy versus a goofy
wannabe, with Hogan still oblivious to Romanoff’s abilities. When they
enter, Romanoff and Hogan combat different guards, with Hogan clum-
sily struggling despite his boxing training. This is comically intercut with
Romanoff shown fighting numerous guards in the corridor. After having
defeated all the guards using her fighting skills and gadgets, she walks past
another guard while looking squarely into the camera and spraying pepper
spray in his eyes. The act of looking at the camera encourages a bond of
knowing between Romanoff and viewers, again highlighting ironic ele-
ments of the scene: the casual nature of this endeavour is accompanied
by irony. But the comedic payoff occurs when it cuts back to Hogan
finally knocking out his one guard, exclaiming ‘I got him!’ The shot cuts
back to the other guards Romanoff incapacitated, some on the floor, one
hanging from a cord on the ceiling, Romanoff’s efficiency a clear contrast
to Hogan’s bumbling.
Similar moments are present in Daredevil, when Matt Murdock meets
Elektra for the first time. After he follows her from the café where they
met, she stops in a playground where children are playing, again framing
Elektra’s skills within the parameters of play. Unwilling to stop following
her, Murdock’s presence is a clear encroachment on Elektra’s personal
space, but excusing Murdock’s behaviour, the scene is light-hearted and
flirtatious. This is solidified when Elektra yanks away Murdock’s cane
and tries to kick him. The ridiculous nature of the situation, in which
a non-disabled woman is portrayed taking away a blind man’s cane and
trying to assault him, offers a comedic element through which Elektra
must enact her skills. Unfortunately, her kick misses and Murdock moves
out of the way, and further playful quips are exchanged. A long shot
showcases both characters taking off their jackets, drawing attention to
the binaristic differences between their costuming– Murdock’s suit and
Elektra’s camisole– and the cane drops back into his hand. A shot shows
her in a defensive position, and a reverse shot shows him gesturing for her
to bring on the fight with his hand. She then runs up a see-saw, jumps, and
lands in his arms, the use of the children’s playground equipment adding
further playfulness to these acrobatics. The confrontation is heavily cho-
reographed comedy sparring, framed within the problematic confines of
a man’s romantic pursuit of a seemingly unwilling woman, as Murdock
jokes, ‘Does every guy have to go through this just to find out your name?’
and she jokes back, ‘Try asking for my number!’ while the children in
the background start chanting for them to fight. After more attempts at
hitting each other, Elektra ends up the victor, aiming her foot at his neck.
She calmly smiles in close-up, stating ‘My name’s Elektra Natchios’ and
smiling again, a playful victory over Murdock. The overarching irony
serves the postfeminist playfulness and configurations of toughness, frus-
trating the heroine’s potential.
The Marvel superheroine on screen is a complex amalgamation of con-
temporary action discourses, comic book conventions and postfeminist
sensibilities. These portrayals provide often limited portrayals of women
wielding power over situations but suggest that such occurrences can still
be empowering if they reach to notions of choice, physical appeal and
ironic humour. Escaping such modes of representation is an improbably
large task due to the subtle nature of these tactics and the way in which
they engage with elusive postfeminist discourses. These tactics reflect
back to and draw from one another, creating a seamless mode of represen-
tation that implicitly functions to support patriarchal standards of femi-
ninity, while offering a depoliticised presentation of empowered white,
heterosexual femininity. These adaptations thus draw from the comics,
while conveniently feeding into established discourses of postfeminism
and women’s empowerment through sex appeal.
Women in Marvel film adaptations remain marginalised. Janet Van
Dyne’s daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly), was adapted to modern post-
feminist sensibilities through her portrayal as a businesswoman who
holds a high-ranking job at her father’s company in MCU film Ant-Man
(Peyton Reed, 2015). Nonetheless, it is petty thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd)
whom Hope’s father Hank recruits to take his place as the next Ant-Man
(Pym had previously invented a suit which enabled the wearer to shrink
and communicate with ants). Notably, at the end of the film, Pym shows
Hope a new suit which he will bestow upon her to become the new Wasp,
foreshadowing the sequel Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed, 2018). It
remains a mystery why Scott was chosen to be the next Ant-Man if the
possibility existed for Hope to take up the mantle all along.
Hope Van Dyne’s inclusion in Ant-Man and the Wasp was framed in
popular discourses as a remedy to the lack of representation of women in
the MCU; however, the film significantly relied on established conven-
tions of an imperilled woman– in this case, Hope’s mother Janet– who
required rescuing after a heroic mission with the previous Ant-Man went
wrong. Interestingly, director Peyton Reed suggested that the inclusion
of Hope ‘just happened to be organic for the characters of Ant-Man and
Wasp, [so] it worked . . . We’re going to have a fully realized, very, very
complicated hero in the next movie who happens to be a woman’ (Reed
quoted in Truitt 2015). Like the discourses of common sense around the
death of Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Hope’s inclusion
in the film was articulated as a natural, or ‘organic’, occurrence that just
had to happen, flipping this particular discourse relating to adaptation to
invoke a feminist response. Likewise, reports suggested that Ant-Man
and the Wasp would attempt to capitalise more on Wasp merchandise
after Marvel received criticism for its lack of Black Widow merchandise
(Wickman 2015), highlighting the commodified elements of these proper-
ties concerning popular feminisms.
The next chapter, which hones in on the superheroic postfeminist mas-
querade, considers Marvel’s watershed superheroine adaptation Captain
Marvel alongside more traditional postfeminist Marvel adaptations of the
2000s. The Marvel superheroine has received more exposure in contem-
porary comics, with Marvel releasing a slew of books featuring central
female characters, in which Captain Marvel is undoubtedly included.

Others include The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (North and Henderson
2015), Elektra (Blackman and Del Mundo 2014), Black Widow (Waid
and Samnee 2016), Mockingbird (Cain and Niemczyk 2016) and an all-
female Avengers team book (Wilson and Molina 2016). These books sold
relatively well, though not as well as the top-selling books containing the
Avengers and Spider-Man and have been subjected to multiple revamps
and reboots. However, their presence is noteworthy in the overall tra-
jectory of Marvel’s superheroines and their complex relationships with
political feminisms.
C H A PT E R 4
Playing Superheroine:
Feminine Subjectivity and
(Postfeminist) Masquerade
In Blade: Trinity, Abby Whistler is introduced in a way typical for Marvel

heroines: when she is undercover. Disguised as an unremarkable woman
with a child in the subway, she is pursued by a group of vampires making
predatory comments (‘Hey, pretty lady!’). As with Natasha Romanoff in
Marvel’s The Avengers, Whistler’s male enemies’ representation hinges
on their commentary over her appearance. Whistler is coded as a vulner-
able woman, alone with a child at night, carrying groceries. However,
Whistler, like Romanoff, defies cultural expectations when she physically
confronts the vampires. She removes her coat and it is revealed that she
carries a compound bow mounted with a glowing bowstring of UV light
to which the vampires are vulnerable. When there is only one vampire left,
she aggressively tells him to ‘Scream if it hurts, chica!’ flipping the situa-
tion back on itself and ironically feminising her target.
The situation functions within postfeminist discourses through irony
and toying with established notions of feminine weakness. Like Romanoff
in Iron Man 2, who is originally introduced as Tony Stark’s new notary,
Whistler’s introduction involves her undercover as an ‘ordinary’ civilian
(whose ordinariness is explicitly constructed). This also occurs in Captain
America: The Winter Soldier, when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter at
first appears to be a nurse who is Steve Roger’s/Captain America’s neigh-
bour. Even Elektra’s Abby Miller is introduced as an ‘ordinary’ teenage
girl before being revealed as superheroic. These narrative phenomena
have the effect of gradually introducing female action characters, while
drawing from ironic postfeminist discourses as well as notions of female
masquerade. Indeed, masquerade occupies a distinctive space within the
generic boundaries of superhero adaptations, further complexifying issues
to do with gender and heroism. This chapter outlines the significance
of postfeminist masquerade in representations of Marvel superheroines
first in films of the 2000s and early 2010s and culminates in a discussion
of postfeminist masquerade and subjectivity in Captain Marvel, which, I
argue, responds to some of the critiques that can be aimed at superheroines

portrayed through modes of masquerade, while also being contextualised
within discourses of self-empowerment and popular feminism.
The concept of feminine masquerade was initially developed by psy-
choanalyst Joan Riviere (1929). In her study, Riviere argues that ‘womanli-
ness’ is indistinguishable from masquerade, which is adopted by women
who desire to occupy masculine spaces in order to allay the cultural anxiety
brought on when women supposedly encroach upon masculine roles. She
writes:
Womanliness . . . could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession
of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it . . .
The reader may now ask how I define womanliness or where I draw the line between
genuine womanliness and the ‘masquerade’. My suggestion is not, however, that
there is any such difference; whether radical or superficial, they are the same thing.
(Riviere 1929: 306)
Like the paradoxically tough heroines discussed in the previous chapter,

overt femininity is arguably employed here to offset anxieties around the
adoption of ‘masculine’ traits by women. Since femininity is masquerade,
there is thus no essential feminine essence to be found beneath the mask,
although scholars such as Judith Butler have noted that it is unclear in
Riviere’s analysis what, specifically, the mask is actually hiding (Butler
1990: 64). Significantly, though, Vicky Lebeau argues that a crucial com-
ponent of feminine masquerade is the circular quality of ‘the link between
the masquerade and the woman’s more or less guilty representation of
masculinity’, that the woman ‘wants to know both that she has performed
appropriately for the masculinity she has usurped . . . and that her suc-
cessful display is not going to provoke reprisals from these men’ (Lebeau
1995: 93). The success of the masquerade therefore relies on the very
phenomenon it seeks to undermine and assume. Similar qualities can be
observed in the relationship between feminisms and postfeminist culture,
the latter of which depends on the former to discredit that with which it
purports to agree (i.e. feminist goals).
The theme of femininity as a mask was expanded on by philosophers
and psychoanalytical theorists such as Jacques Lacan (1982), Luce Irigaray
(1985), Stephen Heath (1986) and Judith Butler (1990), whose influential
theories of gender performativity I return to later in this book. Meanwhile,
scholars such as Doane (1981; 1982; 1992), LeBeau (1995: 91–94; 2001:
93–117) and Stella Bruzzi (1997: 128–32) discuss femininity as masquer-
ade in relation to the study of film and femininity (meanwhile others have
addressed masculinity and male spectacle in cinema as masquerade– s ee,
pl a ying s upe r he ro ine 95
for example, Holmlund 1993). For now, though, it is worth considering

feminine masquerade within the superhero context in terms of postfemi-
nist conceptions of femininity to illustrate how Marvel adaptations have
responded to ongoing cultural discourses that account for the notion of
the feminine self as a construct or work-in-progress.
The significance of masquerade concerning the figure of the superhero
carries particular pertinence when combined with gender representation.
The corporeal qualities of superheroes and their settings have been noted
by Bukatman, who sees superheroes as extensions of social anxiety made
flesh, drawing from anthropologist Mary Douglas’s notions of the bodily
symbolic: ‘Mask, costume, and logo are marks that guarantee the super-
hero body passage into the field of the symbolic’ (Bukatman 2003: 54).
Beyond the practicalities of superhero masks– their function as a disguise
to protect the wearer from harm and identification– Bukatman is inspired
by Terry Castle’s influential work on eighteenth-century masquerade in
his discussion of the moral ambiguity of masks and the formation of the
superhero’s secret identity by which superhero costumes come to signify
‘a morally indeterminate “superness” ’ (Bukatman 2013: 190).
Friedrich Weltzien picks up on similar issues in his discussion of
superhero masculinities, or ‘masque-ulinities’, viewing the symbolic con-
stitution of male superheroes as made up of split personalities whereby
‘It is not possible to call either of the two personalities the real one and
the other the disguised one, there is no one “true identity” and its “alias.”
Each persona is closely dependent upon its counterpart’ (Weltzien
2005: 241). This is epitomised by the iconic imagery of DC superhero
Superman ripping open his shirt to reveal not the naked chest of a man,
but the S-shaped symbol of ‘Superman’, ‘the icon of performing mascu-
linity by the changing of dress’ (Weltzien 2005: 235, original emphasis).
Accordingly, the mask is used there as a mode of analysis to ‘study the
very moment of change: the dynamic process of masking’ (Weltzien 2005:
229–30).
However, the implications of these phenomena are gendered and, as
I have already noted, there have been ongoing wider discussions around
femininity/ies as mask/s. Clearly, masks rely in many ways on the idea of
the self as fully formed and unique to grant significance to the notion of
disguise or appearing as something other than the self (see Castle quoted
in Bukatman 2013: 189). Yet, it is the duality of Riviere’s feminine-
masculine subject– the fact that both the performance within the mascu-
line symbolic is accompanied by another performance within the feminine
symbolic– that is often curtailed in critical accounts of her ideas. Susan
Feldman, for instance, argues that:
Riviere clearly located femininity not in the masquerade . . . but rather in the
impasse that confronts her analysand– the fact that she can only ever partially rep-
resent herself in any one performance (she can’t be recognized as an equal to men
and a desirable woman simultaneously)– a nd in the ‘extraordinary incongruity’ of
her two performances. (Feldman 2011: 69)
Riviere’s theory of female masquerade, as women taking on masks of

femininity to compensate for a sense of illicitly assumed masculinity, is
complexified when considered in a postfeminist context, which itself takes
account of the constructedness, the self-madeness, of gender, even in its
reinscription of sexual difference. Like Riviere’s paradoxical feminine-
masculine subject, it is the spaces in between the masquerades of the
postfeminist superheroine that are contentious and encompass extraordi-
nary incongruity: the reliance of postfeminist culture on women’s active
curation of their ‘true’ selves that co-exists with the embrace of (specific)
feminine identities as a mode of acceptable feminine existence that is in
accordance with prescriptive models of feminine agency.
Theories of womanliness as masquerade clearly gain considerable sig-
nificance in a time characterised as postmodern, in which identity is con-
sidered less a static core of an individual and more an ongoing process of
self-formation by the empowered neoliberal consuming subject. Drawing
from the work of Doane, McRobbie suggests that postfeminist culture’s
indulgence in traditional modes of femininity stems from the ways in
which the patriarchal symbolic has become reconfigured as part of the
fashion-beauty complex (McRobbie 2009: 61). The reduced dependence
contemporary women have towards men in terms of finance, as well as their
increased visibility in the workforce, means that the need for traditional
male approval is now void (McRobbie 2009: 63). Instead, this authority
has been transferred to the fashion-beauty complex, which encourages
women to self-monitor and sculpt their femininity under its guidance,
activities framed by choice rhetoric (McRobbie 2009: 63). Interestingly,
these themes are directly incorporated into the recent narrative of Captain
Marvel, which I discuss later on in this chapter.
Femininity, characterised as a literal, rigid embodiment of ‘woman-
hood’ is, within postfeminist culture, considered to occupy ‘unbear-
able proximity’ to women, and thus distance towards this is achieved
through overemphasis and ironic reclamation (McRobbie 2009: 64). It is a
‘licensed, ironic, quasi-feminist inhabiting of femininity as excess, which
is now openly acknowledged as fictive’ (McRobbie 2009: 64). Postfeminist
masquerade takes into account constructionist accounts of gender, which
hold that notions of any ‘true’ essence of gender are social constructs,
drawing attention to femininity’s artifice, only to reframe these activities
within a consumerist-capitalist system, ultimately reinstating the patriar-

chal symbolic (McRobbie 2009: 64).
Such ironic femininity in Marvel film adaptations has already been
discussed in the previous chapter, however a closer examination of the
literal disguises of superheroines offers another point of intrigue. That
Abby Whistler, Natasha Romanoff and Sharon Carter are all introduced
as ‘ordinary’ women before being revealed as heroines is significant. These
characters are eased into these narratives through a mechanism based on
disguise, or, indeed, feminine masks. They demonstrably present various
configurations of empowered contemporary femininity – the caring
mother, the professional notary, the humble nurse. The films therefore
present women’s subjectivities that hinge on the notion of femininities
that can be readily exchanged for one another, but are nonetheless encom-
passed by the criteria of the idealised postfeminist subject. Thus, these
heroines move between different versions of culturally sanctioned femi-
ninity enabled by postfeminist discourses in order to be integrated into
the heroic narrative. This resonates with Julie D. O’Reilly’s discussion of
supernaturally powered televisual heroines that came to prominence in the
2000s as being represented through visual and narrative modes hinging
on the feminine mask of selflessness being periodically exchanged for
another guise (O’Reilly 2013: 81). In these portrayals, the guise of ‘normal
girl’ becomes ‘yet another masquerade of femininity’ (O’Reilly 2013: 83).
Likewise, this echoes Aaron Taylor’s supposition around superheroines,
in that ‘[O]ne might say that a superheroine’s femininity is just as “put
on”, and thus, “revealing’” as her skimpy costume’ (Taylor 2007: 353).
The casual disguises adopted by these heroines are not without further
implications. Specifically, the masquerade as discussed here involves a
taking into account of the superficiality of gender categories, whereas
performativity in a Butlerian sense (discussed in Chapter 7) encompasses
naturalised practices of gender. Arguably, these women discussed in this
chapter are presented as engaging with feminine masquerade in the classic
Rivieran sense– to allay the anxiety which tough women produce in
a culture where toughness is considered masculine. The topic of femi-
nine masquerade in popular depictions of action heroines has likewise
been discussed by Inness in her analysis of the Charlie’s Angels television
series. Noting the frequent use of storylines in which the Angels must go
undercover (i.e. wear disguises) in order to solve a crime, Inness argues
that these narratives illustrate ‘the constructed nature of identity’ (Inness
2004: 43). However, this has a side effect:
The constructed nature of the Angels’ identities is highlighted; they are not what
they seem to be. Their toughness is brought into question because masquerade
forces its audience to question the nature of identity . . . Toughness, the show hints,
is perhaps as artificial as the Angels’ roles as hookers, nurses, or roller derby queens.
(Inness 1998: 43)
Similar issues surface in the portrayal of Black Widow in The Avengers, a
case study I argue is emblematic of the highly complex presentations of
feminine heroism in Marvel films.
When Natasha Romanoff is re-introduced in The Avengers, she appears
to be a classically feminine victim of violence. The first shot in which she
features is a close-up of Romanoff being hit in the face. She is shown in
an industrial warehouse, bound to a chair, dressed in a little black dress
and no shoes, looking up at her captors, two Russian mobsters and their
boss. One mobster threatens her in Russian and tips the chair back, sus-
pending her over the edge of the platform on which the scene takes place:
a close-up dwells on her black nylon-sheathed foot. The boss tells her,
‘The famous Black Widow . . . And she turns out to be simply another
pretty face’, to which she ironically replies in close-up, ‘You think I’m
pretty?’ Romanoff’s answer angers the Russians, and one restrains her
head, holding her mouth open, while the leader contemplates his collec-
tion of pliers.
At that moment a phone rings and Romanoff is informed that it is
for her. The phone is wedged on her shoulder, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent
Coulson tells her she is needed to be a member of the Avengers. Her irate
reply is ‘Are you kidding? I’m working . . . I’m in the middle of the inter-
rogation. This moron is giving me everything.’ For Black Widow, this is
presented as just another day on the job. Her sassy remarks portray her
as taking control of a highly threatening situation. In a potential reversal
of the women-in-refrigerators narrative, Coulson informs her that her
previous work partner and friend, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), has
been ‘compromised’ by the villain, Loki (Tom Hiddleston). This prompts
Romanoff to single-handedly overpower the Russians (while tied to the
chair) in a dramatic feat of action. This is interspersed with shots of
Coulson humorously waiting on the other end of the phone, listening to
the sounds of Romanoff fighting the Russians. A close-up of her black
high heels being picked up off the floor by Romanoff finalises the sequence
and she walks out of the building.
The scene arguably defies cultural expectations of weak femininity in
that Romanoff is represented as a physically adept super spy who can escape
from threatening situations. However, it also incorporates postfeminist
sentiments in that her apparent victimisation is merely another ironic post-
feminist feminine persona (or mask). As mentioned, irony plays a large role
in this scene, as Romanoff is cinematically coded as feminine through her
dress and victimised position, but these factors ultimately have no impact
on her ability because deadly combat is configured as being merely part of
her job. She picks up the heels while asking Coulson where Barton is, com-
bining a postfeminist focus on fashion with classically masculine heroism.
Cristina Lucia Stasia highlights the importance of women’s appearance
and fashion within postfeminist discourses, stating that
images of girls ‘kicking ass’ proliferate in magazines and marketers have exploited
the market potential of postfeminist girls who think it is cool that girls can kick ass–
but are more interested in purchasing the designer stiletto the girl is kicking ass in.
(Stasia 2007: 237)
Whether wearing heels or her Avengers uniform, rest assured that

Romanoff ‘kicks ass’, a sentiment which clearly speaks to notions of mas-
querade, as does the villain’s focus on her ‘pretty face’. Both configura-
tions of Romanoff are different sides of the same postfeminist mask.
This particular portrayal of Romanoff can be attributed to writer/
director Joss Whedon, whose works, particularly Buffy and Firefly
(Fox, 2002), have been discussed extensively in terms of their occupa-
tion within postfeminist frameworks (Owen 1999; Amy-Chinn 2006;
Genz and Brabon 2009: 162–5). Having been established as an action
heroine at the beginning of the film, Romanoff becomes a member of
the Avengers, whose task it is to stop the villainous Norse trickster god
Loki from wreaking havoc on the world. With the team unaware of the
specificities of his plan, they lock Loki in a glass prison. In one particular
scene, Romanoff is portrayed approaching Loki in his prison with the
intention to gain information from him by exploiting his expectations of
her femininity. Loki is shown as having suspected that Romanoff would
go to him, stating, ‘After whatever tortures [Nick] Fury can concoct, you
would appear as a friend, as a balm. And I would cooperate’, perceiving
her as the caring member of the team because of her gender. Romanoff
subsequently describes how she, in the past, worked for morally repre-
hensible employers and that Barton had been sent to kill her, but spared
her life instead, marking her investment in saving him. She concludes,
‘I got red in my ledger, and I’d like to wipe it out’, walking towards
him defensively with her arms folded. The statement appears to please
Loki, and he embarks on a speech with the aim of emotionally unsettling
Romanoff, standing up and stepping towards the glass. His reflection
in the glass is juxtaposed with her horrified expression as he continues,
‘This is the basest sentimentality. This is a child at prayer. Pathetic!’
later slamming his fist on the glass, causing Romanoff to jump back in
fright. A close-up of Romanoff’s terrified face follows his statement that
he will make Barton kill her and then awaken him to witness what he
has done.
Following an outburst of misogynistic insults by Loki, she is shown
from behind, the sound of her sniffing audible. She states, ‘You’re a
monster’, and there is a shot of Loki evilly laughing, answering, ‘Oh
no, you brought the monster.’ In the reverse shot, Romanoff’s head tilts
up with a dramatic crescendo of music, which is abruptly silenced. She
turns, not a tear in her eye, and reveals to the baffled Loki that she worked
out his plan to unleash the Hulk on the Avengers. During this scene,
Romanoff effectively deduces that Loki planned to set the Hulk loose to
cause destruction and break up the team. She is portrayed as doing this
by playing with Loki’s schema of appropriate femininity, pretending to be
terrified. Just as the opening scene presented Romanoff through the mask
of victimisation, a mask of sentimentality is employed here.
Romanoff’s greatest asset is therefore portrayed as dominant notions of
femininity that she uses to her advantage. However, the role-reversal plot
point resulting in victory over the antagonist heavily relies on the projec-
tion of a particular femininity upon the character, which in Inness’s view
would suggest a deconstruction of subjectivity altogether. This includes
the ‘tough’ identities of these heroines, which, according to Inness, is
simultaneously questioned as a result of this deconstruction. Echoing
Riviere, there is no genuine womanliness to speak of underneath the mask.
This results in a sort of feminine identity crisis in which the heroic persona
may be yet another mask of femininity. Heroic feminine subjectivity thus
becomes elusive and intangible, begging the question of where and who
these heroines ‘actually’ are (which is further complicated by their status
as constructed fictional beings).
The benefits of such an approach to subversive representation thus
remain questionable since it continues to rely on the very notion of a
gender binary and expectations of how men and women behave. That
Romanoff’s portrayal is transgressive is dependent on a conception of
femininity that is unchanging in its association with weakness and senti-
mentality, arguably reinforcing the binary it deconstructs. In this sense,
representations such as that of Natasha Romanoff indicate the further
complexities present in gendered discourses of power and heroism and
how they relate to wider conceptions of gender. Likewise, the postfeminist
masquerade ensures that only sanctioned forms of acceptable femininity
come to the fore. While Brown notes that ‘The conscious manipulation of
traditional perceptions of female characters as weak has become a standard
convention in action heroine films’ (Brown 2011a: 36), he does not develop
this notion to account for the role of a specifically postfeminist mas-
querade (Brown’s ideas are, however, helpful when making sense of the
gender presentations enacted by X-Men character Mystique, discussed in
Chapter 7). In Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon, 2015), Romanoff’s
role is seemingly limited to that of love interest to Bruce Banner in poten-
tially another mask of femininity. Gender essentialism surfaces in the film
as Romanoff describes herself as a ‘monster’ due to her inability to have
children, having been forcibly sterilised as part of her super-spy training.
Such an approach to gender, in which men and women are defined in
terms of body parts and gender roles (such as motherhood), acts following
postfeminist interests in maintaining a binaristic gender order.
With an ensemble cast such as that of The Avengers, Romanoff receives
inadequate screen time for the film to further resolve these issues. It is also
noteworthy that her moment of heroism during the final battle with aliens
in New York, in which she closes the portal that allows evil aliens to pass
into this dimension, is followed and potentially upstaged by Stark’s self-
sacrifice when he must fly a nuclear bomb into the portal with minutes to
spare before it closes. Romanoff similarly receives a good portion of screen
time in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Anthony and Joe Russo,
2014), although the focus in the film is still on the central male hero.
Indeed, Feige suggested that it would be unwise to ever ‘pluck’ Romanoff
out of a team dynamic and that a solo Black Widow film is not on the
horizon (Feige in Faraci 2014), a statement which relies on the assump-
tion that films centring female superheroes require a different approach to
male heroes. Nonetheless, a Black Widow prequel film is set for release in
2020, a full decade after her debut in Iron Man 2.
‘I Want You to Be the Best Version of Yourself’:

Postfeminist Masquerade and Subjectivity in
Captain Marvel
While the heroines discussed in the previous section all interact with
various configurations of disguise in their respective films, there is an
underlying assumption that they occupy some form of heroic subjectivity
‘underneath’ the feminine masquerade, even while this notion is discred-
ited by the very act of postfeminist performance it entails. The specifics
of their heroic subjectivities are little interrogated within these texts,
while the masking functions as narrative misdirection, culminating in the
revelation of heroism via a paradoxical mode of postfeminist masquer-
ade. Still, the central themes and questions posed at the heart of 2019’s
Captain Marvel– hailed by commentators as a feminist intervention
in Hollywood superhero filmmaking– significantly complexify existing
frameworks of postfeminist masquerade while similarly articulating anxi-

eties to do with female superheroic subjectivity. Interestingly, with this
film, the complexities around women’s subjectivities become interwoven
with discourses relating to patriarchy, oppression and marginality that
in turn can be linked to contemporary popular discourses around abuse
and what can ostensibly be thought of as a loss of the feminine ‘self’
through patriarchal oppression. Therefore, there appears to be ideo-
logically more at stake in terms of heroism, femininity and subjectivity
in Captain Marvel for the materialisation of masquerade encompassed
through the character responds to apparently cataclysmic questions of
the feminine self in relation to an oppressive patriarch while engaging
with (post)feminisms.
At the core of the film is a narrative in which the central heroine is
systematically manipulated by alien Kree military commander Yon-Rogg
(Jude Law) in service of the persecution and decimation of the shapeshift-
ing alien species known as Skrulls. The resolution of the central conflict
around Carol Danvers’s (Brie Larson) superheroic subjectivity is pre-
sented as the recovery of her memory and the discovery of her ‘true’ self,
most certainly a postfeminist concern. However, in its portrayal of Yon-
Rogg as patriarchal abuser, the character appropriates these very concerns
to influence Danvers’s sense of self, marking a significant incorporation
of a feminist critique of postfeminist concerns for women to cultivate ‘the
best versions’ of themselves.
Captain Marvel was the result of decades of discussion about the com-
mercial viability of a Marvel film centring a female superhero. These
discussions have roots in the early-to-mid-2000s, amid the formative years
of the superhero movie boom and around the negative critical reception
of both DC’s Catwoman (Pitof, 2005) and Elektra, but span back to the
production of DC property Supergirl (Jeannot Szwarc, 1984), which was
marred by problems in production, marketing and reception (see Scivally
2007). This was despite the character’s links to the hugely successful
Superman franchise established in the 1970s and led to the assumption
that ‘very few films about superheroines had ever been a success’ (Scivally
2007: 102). Superheroine flops notwithstanding, Captain Marvel was
arguably made possible by the intervention of Wonder Woman in 2017,
which was discussed within popular discourses as demonstrating the com-
mercial and critical viability of superheroine movies. With Captain Marvel
primed as Marvel’s answer to Wonder Woman (Cavna 2017; Dicker 2018;
Sommerlad 2018; A. White 2018; Knight 2019), the film subsequently
engaged with similar thematic issues, many of which can be traced back
to the increased visibility of popular feminisms characteristic of the post-
feminist and Trump eras. It was also lauded as the first MCU film to be
(co-)directed by a woman, Anna Boden.
Captain Marvel’s civilian personal is Carol Danvers, a character created
by Marvel as a response of some sort to second-wave feminisms. Debuting
in the late1960s and created by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gene Colan,
she was initially portrayed as an officer and security chief in the United
States Air Force who worked with alien Kree superhero Mar-Vell (the
then-Captain Marvel) (Thomas and Colan 1968). She became the heroine
Ms. Marvel in her own title in the late 1970s (Conway and Romita 1977)–
a moniker that evoked a sense of feminist emancipation through the prefix
‘Ms.’– and later appeared in team titles such as Avengers and Uncanny
X-Men (the Ms. Marvel moniker was since given to Kamala Khan). In
contextualising the character within the burgeoning second-wave feminist
movements, Mel Gibson argues that Danvers’s Ms. Marvel (alongside
DC title Supergirl)
offer a negotiation with, and a range of perspectives on, feminism at that time, a
feminism that was typically presented in these comics as singular, rather than as
complex and multiple . . . [T]hese comics show creators responding to and reflecting
change in society with regards to feminism in that period. (Gibson 2014: 135)
These complicated engagements of the character with political feminisms

would continue throughout the character’s publication history (and filmic
adaptation). Indeed, Carolyn Cocca notes in her extensive exploration
of the production contexts of Ms. Marvel that the mediation of femi-
nist politics of the 1970s was a concrete purpose of the character (Cocca
2016b: 183–91). As such, Danvers is a clear example of Marvel creatives
representing (an interpretation of) feminist politics within their publica-
tions, as demonstrated by her positioning within the series as editor for a
women’s magazine, references to equality in the workplace, and the cover
of the first issue declaring that ‘this female fights back’ (Cocca 2016b:
184–7). This highlights the character’s long and complex relationship to
(post)feminism, a tradition that was continued through her filmic incarna-
tion. Nonetheless, Danvers has appeared in varying forms, narratives and
media since her inception and epitomises the phenomenon of superhero
revisionism, and the political implications thereof, perhaps more so than
any other Marvel character (bar Wolverine, discussed in Chapter 5). Like
the Carol Danvers of previous eras, then, the Carol Danvers who appears
in Captain Marvel is symptomatic of cultural shifts linking questions of
feminine subjectivity with political-and postfeminisms.
The 2012 ongoing Captain Marvel comic book series written by Kelly
Sue DeConnick (DeConnick et al. 2012) marked a radical relaunch of the
character. Among ongoing debates around the marginalisation of women

in mainstream comics, in terms of both production and representation, the
title was both traditional in its reliance on the familiar superhero comic
convention of reinvention and revision and ambitious in its dedication to
a projected progressive politics of gender. Returning the character to her
roots as a military woman, Danvers was bestowed the mantle of Captain
Marvel, the male hero whom she helped in her early comic book appear-
ances in the 1970s. Indeed, the first arc of DeConnick’s Captain Marvel is
preoccupied with the question of Danvers’s superhero alias and inserts the
character into a complex time-travel narrative in which she fights in the
pre-feminist setting of World War II alongside a band of female soldiers
echoing the real-life Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS),
civilian employees technically unaffiliated with the military, who contrib-
uted to the war effort. This version of Danvers, much like the subsequent
film Captain Marvel, uses military themes as a vehicle to explore these
issues of (masculine) femininity and the critical success and audience
appeal of the series arguably cemented the character as a viable option
for filmic adaptation within popular discussions, alongside the authorial
presence of DeConnick, who drew from her own experiences as both a
feminist and military brat in her conceptualisation of the character (see
Parrish 2013; Abad-Santos 2019; Smith 2019).
Following my discussion of postfeminist masquerade in filmic adapta-
tions of Marvel heroines, then, it is possible to frame the film Captain
Marvel within similar networks of meaning as a text that relies on and
exploits wider cultural discourses centring on women’s empowerment
associated with popular feminisms. Like other Marvel superheroines
appearing in films, Danvers’s representation toys with cultural expecta-
tions of acceptable femininity, particularly in its utilisation of discourses of
self-empowerment through the cultivation of the feminine self. The film
is, much like Captain America: The First Avenger, a period piece, this time
set in the 1990s, attesting like the former film to postfeminist culture’s
indulgence in what Munford and Waters refer to as ‘temporal slippages’
(discussed further in Chapter 8). Likewise, it enables a representation of
the military of the 1990s attuned to postfeminist media products ‘that nos-
talgically celebrate military traditions and military masculinity [while] the
military woman is seen heroically confronting conservative institutions
which require modernization’ (Tasker 2011: 233).
In the film, Danvers is, apparently, a member of a team of warrior heroes
originating from the alien Kree Empire led by Yon-Rogg. However, this
is revealed to have been a complex lie enabled by false memories and
manipulation– Danvers is later established to have been a human US
Air Force pilot who became involved in a complex war between the Kree
and the Skrulls through her air force mentor, Dr Wendy Lawson (herself
an undercover Kree, a recast Mar-Vell, who was acting in defence of
the oppressed Skrulls). After an encounter with Kree leader Yon-Rogg,
Danvers receives a non-consensual blood transfusion, rendering her part-
Kree and giving her superpowers, alongside a series of false memories
that lead her to believe that she was always a Kree warrior. After a Kree
military operation goes wrong, Danvers escapes to Earth, where she dis-
covers the extent of the Kree’s lies and ultimately fights for the rights of
the refugee Skrulls, overpowering the oppressive Kree.
From the beginning of the film, Yon-Rogg, as Danvers’s leader, is
shown periodically sparring with Danvers, motivating her and honing her
fighting skills. His admission that Danvers is too heavily influenced by her
emotions, and that by using a stronger sense of logic she will be able to ‘be
the best version’ of herself, establishes Yon-Rogg as an overbearing, patri-
archal taskmaster akin to paternal figures who have trained heroines in
previous action films (such as Elektra). It also signifies an engagement with
neoliberal, postfeminist practices of self-monitoring and -curation: the
discourse presented through Yon-Rogg signals that, since there are multi-
ple ‘versions’ of the self, Danvers’s responsibility is to cultivate the ‘best’,
marking an incorporation of poststructuralist understandings of subjec-
tivity. However, the film queries the appropriation of these discourses
by a figure who ultimately comes to represent patriarchal oppression, for
while Yon-Rogg appears to have Danvers’s best interests in mind, she has
merely been a pawn in his own oppressive exploits of the conquest of the
Skrulls, a shapeshifting alien species that is eventually characterised as
occupying refugee status, in line with other more recent representations
of aliens in MCU films (see Chapters 9 and 10).
Yon-Rogg’s representation as an exaggerated personification of patriar-
chal control– and his eventual elimination– is key to the film’s eventual
restoration of Danvers to her ‘best’ self. Throughout the film, Yon-Rogg
is positioned as not only a military superior for Danvers but is central to
how she understands the world and herself. A central tenet of the character
in this film is thus an identity crisis, further complicating the postfeminist
masquerade to take account of the self-made subject. Having been extracted
by the Kree from her involvement with Dr Lawson/Mar-Vell after the
crash and explosion of Lawson’s Light-Speed Engine, a piece of technol-
ogy that would end the Kree-Skrull conflict, which bestowed superpow-
ers upon Danvers, the Kree remove Danvers’s memories unbeknownst to
her, an act of violation that can be likened to the rape of a mind. Indeed,
Danvers effectively becomes Kree through a blood-infusion administered
by the Kree, merging her blood with Yon-Rogg’s in a physical exchanging

of bodily fluids– again, an invasive and non-consensual act. The Kree
also install a Photon Inhibitor that grants them the capacity to suppress
Danvers’s superpowers (revealed at the end of the film to be of cosmic
proportions). From this point, Yon-Rogg manipulates Danvers, as demon-
strated in their introductory sparring scene, and through Danvers’s under-
standing of Skrulls as violent terrorists whom the Kree must stop.
The representation of this dynamic is a response to ongoing discussions
in the popular media, motivated by popular feminisms, of gaslighting.
This was initially a psychological term referring to particular forms of
domestic abuse, in which an abuser exerts control over a victim through
undermining the victim’s self-perception and -confidence, thereby craft-
ing a psychological reality for the victim that is determined by the abuser,
and in which the victim ultimately questions their own sanity. The term
became part of common parlance around the time of Trump’s election cam-
paign (Shoos 2017: 39). As Diane L. Shoos summarises, ‘[T]he expression
appeared repeatedly in the press in relation to Trump’s denial of verifiable
public information, including his own documented statements’ (Shoos
2017: 39), epitomising what has come to be known as the ‘post-truth’ era
and resulting in a public discourse that characterised Trump as gaslight-
ing America (see Duca 2016; Carpenter 2018; Lord 2019). It is therefore
notable that, having made contact with Danvers after she escapes from the
Skrulls who kidnap her when a Kree mission goes awry, the Kree refer to
Earth as ‘a real shithole’, echoing reports of Trump denouncing the pros-
pect of the US offering immigrant protections to people from ‘shithole
countries’, specifically African countries, Haiti and El Salvador, in early
2018 (Dawsey 2018). The recasting in Captain Marvel of a homogenous
‘Earth’ as a ‘shithole’ derogated by a corrupt, warfaring group of aliens
through racist language used in real life to refer to low-income countries
by a white, Republican president of the US notwithstanding, this moment
hints towards the eventual revelation of the Kree as the film’s villains and
does so by evoking politically charged rhetoric that aligns the Kree with
the misogynist and xenophobic politics of Trump.
Given the widespread use of the term in mainstream discourses, schol-
ars outside the field of psychology have unpacked the sociological, cultural
and philosophical implications of gaslighting, in particular its intersec-
tions with misogyny and racism (see Heston and Joseph 2018; Wozolek
2018; Cull 2019; Davis and Ernst 2019; Sweet 2019; Spear 2019; Stark
2019). As Paige L. Sweet notes, ‘Gaslighting is effective when it is rooted
in social inequalities, especially gender and sexuality, and executed in
power-laden intimate relationships’ (Sweet 2019: 852) and it has thus
been used to make sense of systemic inequalities. More relevant to this

discussion, though, are the implications of representations of gaslighting,
a topic of interest for feminist film theorists, particularly in relation to the
classical Hollywood Gothic melodrama (Kaplan 1983; Walsh 1984; Doane
1987; Fletcher 1995; Hanson 2007; Shoos 2017).
Perhaps it is, then, more than coincidental that Carol Danvers shares
a name with the antagonistic Mrs Danvers of Manderley in Daphne
du Maurier’s Rebecca and its 1940 film adaptation (Alfred Hitchcock).
The film Rebecca marked the beginning of a cycle Doane refers to as the
‘paranoid woman’s film’ (Doane 1987: 123), which also includes Gaslight
(George Cukor, 1944), based on the stage play from which the psychologi-
cal term derives. Doane and others have made sense of these films through
a psychoanalytic focus on women’s sexuality, especially in relation to the
films’ domestic settings (in which the central women can be thought of as
incarcerated by their husbands) (Doane 1987: 134). While Carol Danvers
can traverse the galaxy as part of a team of Kree warriors, she remains
imprisoned by the reality of which Yon-Rogg has convinced her. Gothic
melodramas discussed by Doane pose the central question ‘Is the husband
really what he appears to be?’(Doane 1987: 124) and this directly maps
onto a key premise of Captain Marvel, which asks ‘Is Yon-Rogg really what
he appears to be?’ (or even ‘Is Carol Danvers really what she appears to
be?’). And like Doane’s characterisation of the Gothic melodrama, Captain
Marvel interrogates (and exploits) the cinematic medium in its reliance on
the audiovisual to present its central thesis of woman’s paranoia (Doane
1987: 126), mechanisms that themselves hinge on looking, seeing, perceiv-
ing and, ultimately, querying what is presented to its audience.
Linking these themes to masquerade, then, Captain Marvel is both
visually and thematically obsessed with appearances: nothing in the film is
as it initially appears to be. Danvers is not really a Kree warrior; Lawson
is actually Mar-Vell; Goose the cat is actually a many-tentacled alien;
Danvers comically beats up an elderly woman on a bus after sensing she is
a Skrull; indeed, Skrulls can shapeshift into anyone and are not villains–
the Kree actually are villains; Samuel L. Jackson as Fury has been digitally
de-aged to fit the film’s setting; Fury’s eye injury (which results in his
trademark eyepatch worn in his other MCU appearances) was sustained
through an encounter with Goose the cat and not some heroic deed; and
the Supreme Intelligence, the artificial intelligence that rules the Kree,
appears in its dimension as a kind of hologram that takes the shape of
different people depending on with whom it converses. In Danvers’s
case the Supreme Intelligence, rather confusingly, appears as Lawson/
Mar-
Vell (albeit with a different hair colour), further corroborating
the film’s central paranoia. The generic reliance of superhero films on

visual effects is crucial to this element, as revelations, such as the Skrulls’
shapeshifting or Goose’s transformation into the alien Flerkin, are con-
veyed through the spectacular illusions of computer-generated imageries.
Having established Danvers as a character who has been psychologically
broken down by a villainous patriarch, it is possible to conceptualise the
rebuilding or reconstitution of the character through the postfeminist mas-
querade. Having misled both its heroine and its assumed audience through
misdirection and Yon-Rogg’s lies, Captain Marvel is concerned with its
heroine’s search for her ‘true’ identity as her sense of self has been almost
entirely informed by Yon-Rogg’s controlling presence. Again chiming with
Trump-era political discourse, Danvers is denied knowledge of the wrong
done to her in this cosmic-level gaslighting exercise. Scenes externalising
Danvers’s identity crisis after she learns the truth hinge on her rejection of
what she explicitly refers to as Yon-Rogg’s lies. The concept of the ‘truth’
at the core of the character, though, is particularly resonant with postfemi-
nist culture, in which discourses of individuals’ quest to form and present
their ‘authentic’ self is inextricably bound up with neoliberal practices of
consumption and self-monitoring (Banet-Weiser 2012). It also ties into
what Gill and Orgad refer to as the neoliberal postfeminist confidence
(cult)ure, through which the ideological spectre of ‘confidence’ becomes
a technology of the self for the cultivation of women and girls’ self-labour
and -monitoring to maintain traditional power structures (Gill and Orgad
2015).1 These practices are, as the authors suggest, ‘profoundly gendered’
(Gill and Orgad 2015: 339). Importantly, Gill and Orgad stress that the
confidence (cult)ure is ‘putatively feminist’ (Gill and Orgad 2015: 339).
This explains how Captain Marvel’s ostensibly feminist politics against a
generalised male oppression can exist symbiotically alongside its postfemi-
nist conceptualisations of the authentic self.
Questions of ‘truth’ or ‘authenticity’ tie into the ongoing debates in
this chapter relating to femininity and masquerade, and, like the pre-
vious ‘versions’ of the character appearing in comics and other media,
Danvers of the film Captain Marvel accounts for a distrust of these dis-
courses of self-fulfilment through authenticity, although these reconvene
in a character that is culturally reconstituted as a commercial enterprise
appealing to popular feminisms. McRobbie’s discussions of postfeminist
luminosity are useful in making sense of Danvers’s portrayal as a heroine
whose success has been enabled by her own self-fulfilment coming to
light. Indeed, a popular nickname for Danvers in comics since her reboot
as Captain Marvel is ‘Princess Sparklefists’, referring to the distinctive
glow enveloping her fists when her powers are activated, and marking
Figure 4.1 Princess Sparklefists: Brie Larson as Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel.
a further ironic reclamation of girlifying terminology. As Mary Celeste

Kearney argues, ‘Sparklefication . . . is overwhelmingly raced, classed,
gendered and aged, with white middle-class female youth its primary
targets and proponents. Indeed, sparkle is so ubiquitous in mainstream
girls’ culture– and so absent in boys’– i t vies with pink as the primary sig-
nifier of youthful femininity’ (Kearney 2015: 263). Indeed, when Danvers
finally reclaims her power in the film and unleashes it on the villainous
Supreme Intelligence at its climax, it is portrayed as an explosion of blue
and yellow light, prompting Fury to comment ‘You know you’re glowing,
right?’– a statement that perhaps frames Danvers as being pregnant with
electromagnetic radiation (Figure 4.1).
Further, McRobbie’s more recent ideas around the ‘trope of the perfect’
(McRobbie 2015: 3) in contemporary postfeminist media culture aligns
with the embrace of Danvers with her ‘true’ self, a self characterised in
the film as motivated by Danvers’s competitive, stubborn qualities as
exemplified in her military identity, or, as Danvers puts it, striving to be
‘higher, further, faster, baby’. And while Danvers’s quest to be the ‘best’
version of herself does, to an extent, incorporate feminist-inflected ideals
of interracial and intergenerational sisterhood and solidarity through the
inclusion of female supporting characters, as well as a rejection of patri-
archal control, the means through which this is carried out– through a
reassertion of Danvers’s identity as a military woman– nonetheless relies
on a kind of masculinised competitive streak that reaches to the amplified
individualism McRobbie suggests is key to ‘the perfect’. As McRobbie
further elaborates, ‘the perfect’ has the potential to succeed the postfemi-
nist masquerade ‘in an era now marked by young women’s feminist activ-
ism’, while still centring an ongoing need for women’s corporealities to be
monitored (McRobbie 2015: 9). She explains that
the idea of ‘the perfect’ suggests a more hard-edged version of masquerade, one
where the awareness of female subjugation as described by Riviere is compounded,
not by a repudiation of feminism but instead by its translation into an inner drive, a
determination to meet a set of self-directed goals. (McRobbie 2015: 12)
While Captain Marvel essentially rejects the patriarchal authority that

requires Danvers to be what it characterises as the ‘best’ version of herself,
the resolution of the film is nonetheless that she must restore herself to
being her ‘best’ version (or even the perfect version), whatever that entails.
The film’s 1990s setting likewise provides material that masks Danvers
as she tries to uncover her ‘true’ self. After landing on Earth, Danvers
obtains a new set of clothes encompassing the grunge style that became
widespread in the 1990s: a leather biker jacket over a Nine Inch Nails
T-shirt (a band associated with disaffected youth and goth subcultures of
the time), a checked flannel shirt tied around her waist, ripped blue jeans
and boots. Grunge, it has been argued, was a relatively gender-neutral
subculture, with an unusually high proportion of female performers, the
history of which they have since been written out of in popular accounts
(Strong 2011), rendering the style significant in its relationship towards
(acceptable) femininities. Notably, through this style, which was eventu-
ally and inevitably incorporated into mainstream fashions, Danvers seeks
to blend in with her surroundings: an ironic mask of disaffection in the
character. The signifiers of 1990s nostalgia provide another masquerade
through which the character is made sense in Captain Marvel, the com-
mitment to which is solidified through the film’s extensive use of 1990s
American grunge and rock music (alongside some pop and R&B). Most
prominent of these is when Nirvana’s ‘Come as You Are’, whose lyrics
reference both appearances and memories, is knowingly included at the
film’s climax when Danvers faces the Supreme Intelligence and confronts
it about her lifetime of being lied to. Indeed, Fury is shown in a scene in
which the two infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databases providing Danvers with
a hat to further disguise her, stating ‘You look like somebody’s disaffected
niece.’
Central to the film’s conceptualisation of Danver’s ‘true’ self is a sense
of militaristic competition and honour that became characteristic of
DeConnick’s tenure writing the character. While in the film, Danvers is
eventually revealed to not be a Kree warrior but a human Air Force pilot
who became embroiled in the exploits of Dr Wendy Lawson/Mar-Vell.
Like Elektra, Captain Marvel somewhat frustrates its heroine through
persistent flashbacks, albeit their reliability is framed as questionable. A
series of flashbacks that is the result of an involuntary Skrull memory
probe evoke key moments in Danvers’s life. Realising the significance
of Danvers in the Kree-Skrull conflict through her proximity to Mar-

Vell (whose Light-Speed Engine they require), Danvers is taken by the
Skrulls after a Kree military operation goes awry. Skrull General Talos
(Ben Mendelsohn) states ‘Let’s open her up’ off-camera as the erratic
flashbacks begin with a slow tilting interior shot of an aircraft hangar
taken from beneath the aircraft, doors gradually opening and revealing
Danvers’s silhouette walking in slow motion away from the craft. The
following disjointed shots are outside the hangar, showing Danvers in Air
Force uniform slinging a duffle bag with embroidered military patches
over her shoulder, and cutting to a medium close-up of her face lit by
evening sunlight, against which she wears distinctive aviator sunglasses.
Talos and his Skrull colleague ponder the content of these shots in
voice-overs as Danvers is joined by her best friend and fellow pilot Maria
Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) and Danvers answers Rambeau’s call to flight
with her statement of ‘higher, further, faster, baby’. This evocation of
unbridled competitive excess is symptomatic of Danvers’s commitment to
the US Air Force in her pre-Kree life, the line having been adapted from
the title of DeConnick’s Captain Marvel comic book story arc, ‘Higher,
Further, Faster, More’ (DeConnick and López 2014) and was also the
film’s marketing tag line. The next memories shown, still under the inva-
sive observation of the Skrulls, go further into her past, showing her
competitively go-cart racing as a child, being told by a boy racer ‘You’re
going too fast’, crashing and being chastised by an authoritative man (later
revealed to have been her father) who tells her ‘You don’t belong out
here.’ In the next memory, she hangs in a close-up shot from a thick rope,
wearing military training uniform, while a male voice off-camera yells
‘You’re not strong enough’, resulting in her falling from the rope. In a
point-of-view shot from Danvers’s perspective on the ground, a man in
military uniform says to the camera ‘They’ll never let you fly.’ The next
flashback sequence involves Carol drinking in a bar while enduring further
snide remarks from male colleagues (‘You do know why they call it a
cockpit, don’t you?’). Her portrayal in these flashbacks (and subsequently
when she recovers her sense of self later in the film) corroborates the stub-
born, defiant qualities of the character– s he is portrayed as having been
repeatedly told she cannot participate in competitive male environments.
Moreover, it is a military that is, as Tasker argues postfeminist texts are
prone to present, in need of modernisation through its portrayal of mili-
tary men with regressive gender politics (the film is set only two years after
women were permitted to become fighter pilots in 1993). In this, the film
evokes a distinctive mode of female masculinity associated with women in
the military, which intersects with its intertextual commonalities with Top
Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), among them the naming of Lawson’s cat Goose.
In Top Gun, Navy pilot hero Maverick (Tom Cruise) displays a similar
penchant to Danvers for the adrenaline rush offered by flying through his
declaration of ‘I feel the need– the need for speed.’ Both Danvers and
Maverick occupy homosocial military settings, which ultimately result
in manifold gendered implications.2 The film also bears a passing resem-
blance and contains references to The Right Stuff (Philip Kaufman, 1983),
a historical action drama that centres on the true story of military pilots
who were selected for the first crewed US space flight, again drawing
from discourses of military masculinity to assert the heroic qualities
of Danvers’s character.
Yet, Danvers’s explicit representation as a military woman– a facet of
her identity that is present both in her life as a Kree fighter at the whim of
Yon-Rogg and as a human prior, and subsequent, to this– resonates with
ongoing feminist questions regarding men and women’s roles in wider
media, following a complex tradition of military women’s representations
in film and media as discussed extensively by Tasker (2010; 2011). Indeed,
Tasker highlights that ‘The military woman is both conformist and chal-
lenging. In film and television narratives she signals transgression (in step-
ping outside the bounds of femininity) and conformity (in her desire to
belong to a conservative, military community) in equal measure’ (Tasker
2011: 12), stressing that these characters cannot ‘be understood in any
straightforward way as “transgressive” ’ (Tasker 2010: 209). As was the
case in DeConnick’s comics, the film uses Danvers’s identity as a military
woman as a key constituent of her essential ‘self’. The use of the military
as a framing device alongside postfeminist discourses of authenticity here
is likewise significant due to the complex relationship between political
feminisms and a potentially oppressive state that manages military activity
and imperialistic wars. This further signifies the film’s status as a complex
site of negotiation about what it means to be feminist, feminine and a hero
and relies on the superhero figure as a specifically American, patriotic
cultural phenomenon.
It is through Danvers’s identification with Maria Rambeau and her
daughter Monica that she is portrayed as being able to reclaim her female
subjectivity, with both characters having borne witness to Danvers’s life
as an Air Force pilot. After she and Fury realise that Rambeau might hold
more information about the mysterious Lawson, they visit the Rambeaus
in rural New Orleans, where Maria is initially depicted in her Air Force
overalls carrying out maintenance on her plane with Monica by her side.
A cross-racial familial bond is established between the Rambeaus and
Danvers through Monica’s exclamation of ‘Auntie Carol’ on Danvers
arrival at the residence,3 highlighting the film’s embrace of feminist notions

of sisterhood that, through the Rambeaus’ presence as black women (and,
possibly, Fury’s inclusion as a black man) transgresses racial barriers, ges-
turing towards an intersectional feminism that nonetheless centres the
preservation of Danvers’s white femininity at its core. This is supported
by the film’s emphasis on luminosity, continuing traditional modes of
representation that ‘via a racist epistemology of light, have long idealized
and promoted white women’s ‘glow” ’ (Kearney 2015: 264).
Interestingly, it is through Monica’s testimony and the retrieval of arte-
facts pertaining to Danvers’s past that Danvers is portrayed as reclaiming
her past life as an Air Force pilot (and Rambeau’s best friend). Danvers’s
fragmented memories uncovered by the Skrulls are corroborated through
an extended sequence in which the Rambeaus show Danvers photographs
and objects from her past. This scene takes place at the Rambeaus’ dining
room table in a reclamation of a domestic space in which Danvers is sur-
rounded by trustworthy friends. The camera, sympathising with Danvers,
emulates her footsteps through tracking into the room towards the table,
at which Fury inspects a framed photograph alongside Monica. The
camera tracks further towards the table, revealing a series of photographs
Monica arranges on the table beside a cardboard box. Fury steps out of
the shot, which then cuts to the other end of the table, centring Monica
showing Danvers a photograph while stating ‘This is me and you on
Halloween.’ Cutting to a close-up of the photograph in question, it shows
Monica, younger than she appears in the film, dressed in a leather flight
jacket, aviator helmet and goggles and holding a pumpkin, reaching over
to Danvers, who is dressed in a pink feather boa, wide-brimmed hat,
headscarf and pink-tinted sunglasses, smiling. Evoking similar imagery
from 2004’s The Punisher, in which Frank Castle is signified as vowing
vengeance for this family’s murder through a close-up of his clenched
fist by a photo of his wife and son, the shot in Captain Marvel marks the
character’s identification with previously lost loved ones whose enduring
presence sets the character apart from the isolated masculine qualities of
the male superhero.
Monica says to Danvers in a voice-over that accompanies the shot ‘I’m
Amelia Earhart and you’re Janis Joplin’, and the presence of masquerade
here is, again, significant in the context of the film’s ostensibly feminist
themes. Amelia Earhart was an aviation pioneer, the first woman to fly
solo across the North American continent in 1928 and the Atlantic Ocean
in 1932, epitomising the phenomenon of the ‘lady pilot’, whose stereotype
ironically became ‘advertisements for the ease of piloting and the safety of
piloting’ around this time due to the general perception of women as less
capable than men (Corn 1983: 76). She mysteriously disappeared over the
Pacific Ocean in 1937 while attempting an around-the-world flight. Earhart
nonetheless became a celebrity and feminist icon of sorts (see Ware 1994)
and feminist readings of Earhart were reinvigorated in popular culture in
2018 after bones recovered from a Pacific island in 1941 were confirmed
by forensic analysis to have belonged to her (Eltagouri 2018). Earhart’s
presence can be felt throughout Captain Marvel, as well as DeConnick’s
comics (especially through their inclusion of the WAFS), which both trade
on the woman-pilot-as-feminist discourse. The Halloween photograph of
Monica as Earhart and Danvers as Joplin (who also gained exposure in a
pre-feminist time frame but has since been reframed through a feminist
lens; see Rodnitzky 1999: 20–7) asserts this sentiment within the context
of Danvers’s search for her ‘best self’. Similarly, much like the individu-
alism at the heart of Danvers’s empowerment, Earhart’s feminism has
been made sense of as speaking to ‘the American tradition of self-help,
individualism, and self-reliance’ (Ware 1994: 75).
Monica continues to show Danvers photographs: one featuring
Danvers as a girl with her father (the go-cart track from the previous flash-
back visible); one shows the Rambeaus and Danvers by a Christmas tree
dressed in matching pyjamas; and in another picture a girl in an Earhart
costume– this time identified as Danvers. The close-ups of the photo-
graphs cut between each other in a staccato manner while Monica’s vocal
descriptions of each of the photographs reverberate and eventually blend
into each other and fade out into the soft non-diegetic score accompanied
by a close-up of Danvers pensively looking down at the pictures and fol-
lowed by a panning shot across the display on the table. The disjointed
qualities of the sequence align with Danvers’s disjointed sense of identity,
with the sequence culminating in Monica remembering that she forgot to
retrieve Danvers’s flying jacket, another relic of Danvers’s past life that
attests to her true identity. A close-up of Danvers’s military dog tag, of
which only half remains with the letters spelling ‘CAROL DAN’, finalises
the sequence, and Maria’s voice explains off-camera, ‘That was all that
survived the crash.’ This sequence is fundamental in the reconstitution of
Danvers’s subjectivity in the film, as she literally pieces together moments
from her past.
Indeed, the uncovering of Danvers’s memories with the help of her
friends tends to Marvel’s ongoing tensions around legacy and revisionism
(in all forms of media), and Danvers bears more than passing resemblance
to Marvel’s arch-legacy character Wolverine, whose intricacies I discuss
in relation to Logan in the following chapter. Both characters are por-
trayed as suffering from amnesia, struggling to piece together their past
selves. However Captain Marvel’s focus on memory in these crucial rev-

elatory scenes is significant as it corresponds to the larger political project
of feminist memory as a self-reflexive and productive mode of activism
that addresses gaps in conventional historical analysis through feminist
memory work (see Hirsch and Smith 2002; Kuhn 2002; Reading 2014;
Chidgey 2019). These scenes portray the women engaging in a memory
work, an interpretative activity with ethical implications that reconstitutes
Danvers’s past in relation to her interactions with different institutions
(the military, the family, national holidays) and the presence of specific
items of clothing depicted in these images. Having noted this, however, it
is still interesting that the film frames Maria Rambeau’s historical accounts
and photographs as what really happened, as unquestioningly factual. The
materiality of Danvers’s identity is expressed through these photographs.
Clothing, or costume, plays a crucial role here and corresponds equally to
the importance of masquerade outlined in this chapter.
Likewise, in a subsequent scene, after Danvers decides that she will
confront the Kree alongside the Skrulls, Fury and Maria (and Goose
the cat), Danvers must decide on a new superhero uniform as the green
Kree-coded costume she wore throughout the film no longer applies.
Further attesting to postfeminist modes of feminine fashion consumption
by women and girls, Danvers asks Monica for assistance as she is ‘obvi-
ously the only person around here with any sense of style’. The scene takes
place at night, with the two at Maria’s front porch, accentuating the flash-
ing and glowing visual effects that flaunt Danvers’s luminosity towards
the end of the film. Using a keypad on her wristband, Danvers can change
the appearance of her uniform on demand (it initially turns blue with
gold accents). She is shown offering the keypad to Monica in a medium
shot as Monica exerts her astonishment towards the technology. Monica
taps the keypad and the shot cuts back to a medium-long shot of the pair,
Danvers centred to showcase the change in uniform, brought on by a
glowing light that scans over her body to reveal the uniform’s new colour
scheme. Monica’s first selection appears red and gold, a homage, perhaps,
to Iron Man’s armour (or, indeed, DC’s rival character, also known as
Captain Marvel or Shazam, who also appeared in a film adaptation in
2019). The second variant emulates the colours of Danvers’s Ms. Marvel-
era ‘swimsuit’ costume through black base colouring with gold accents;
the following variant is illuminated by rainbow neon colours harking back
to the psychedelic colour scheme of Thor: Ragnarok. The next colour
scheme reaches back to the white and green costume worn by Mar-Vell in
the comics. The characters pause to laugh between each uniform change,
while Danvers finally points at Monica in the reverse medium shot, stating
‘Since we’re on the same team’, specifically referring to Monica’s US Air

Force T-shirt. Throughout Danvers’s stay at the Rambeaus’, Monica is
dressed in the red oversized shirt that bears a large blue vintage USAF
insignia containing the gold Hap Arnold Wings motif introduced during
World War II, and ‘U.S. AIR FORCE’ printed in white underneath. The
T-shirt previously belonged to Carol and appeared during the bar flash-
back uncovered by the Skrulls, indicating that the heritage of the character
reaches both back to previous generations and forwards to the future via
Monica. It also showcases Danvers’s reclamation of her ‘best’ self through
the embrace of the US military. Monica is shown looking up at Danvers,
shrugging and swiping the keypad, a moment of bonding that is finalised
in the following revelatory shot– showing the uniform’s colours now as
red, blue and gold in accordance with the USAF T-shirt– that zooms out
from Danvers’s face in close-up as she asks Monica ‘How do I look?’ and
is accompanied by a familiar heroic musical score. Monica answers ‘fresh’
(a remark that draws from a previous scene in which Monica is established
as an avid viewer of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (NBC, 1990–6)) and the
pair give each other a victorious high-five. In this triumphant moment
that evokes both sisterly bonding and patriotism, Danvers is portrayed
as having re-formed her identity, yet in keeping with the tradition of
superhero masquerade, it showcases ‘an ongoing metamorphosis . . . a
transformation that must remain active to retain its significance’ (Weltzien
2005: 243). The scene is explicit in its use of masquerade as being central
to the (re)constitution of the character– Danvers is shown trying on dif-
ferent versions of the same costume– and it is significant that the facet of
militarism is settled on as an essential quality.
Danvers’s reclamation of her subjectivity culminates in Danvers’s rejec-
tion of Yon-Rogg’s lies in a scene that further evokes the threatening lan-
guage of domestic abuse. On encountering Danvers in a scene in which the
Kree capture the Skrulls alongside Danvers, Yon-Rogg immediately asks
her ‘What did you do to your uniform?’ indicating a sense of ownership
over Danvers’s choice in dress. When she confronts him over his previous
lies to her, he answers ‘I made you a better version of yourself’, before
remotely activating the Photon Inhibitor, suppressing Danvers’s powers
completely, and stating ‘What’s given can be taken away.’ Temporarily
robbed of her luminosity, Danvers engages in hand-to-hand combat with
Yon-Rogg, and the film here gestures towards an empowerment that does
not require sparklefication. It is therefore significant that Danvers restores
her electromagnetic power after facing the Supreme Intelligence (again
appearing as Lawson/Mar-Vell) and defeats the Kree glowing (as noted
by Fury).
The film, then, offers a somewhat polarised representation of female

superheroism: Carol journeys from one extreme– a Gothic heroine who
has been gaslit into a former shadow of herself, under the false impression
that she has been moulded into the best version of herself by a benevo-
lent ruler– to another– an omnipotent superbeing who absorbs energy
and radiates it back out, destroying anything in her path. She sheds one
extreme mask of femininity in exchange for one that is higher, further,
faster. Throughout, the emphasis is on Danvers being the ‘best version’
of herself; although the film ultimately draws a distinction between the
shaping of acceptable femininities by a patriarchal oppressor (now redun-
dant according to postfeminist sensibility), and the shaping of individual
feminine subjectivities by way of choice. Enveloped within these discourses
are ideals around postfeminist authenticity and luminosity. This hinges on
ideas of women’s superheroic empowerment, like the p ostfeminist hero-
ines of the 2000s, but there is additional resonance here when considered
in terms of reclamations of the ‘truth’ and identity.
Doubtless, Danvers’s reclaiming of her past self via an identification
with militarism is noteworthy in a wider cultural context in which the film
was discursively framed as feminist. Significantly, the film was accompa-
nied in US theatres with a USAF recruitment advertisement emulating
the film’s aesthetics and accompanied by the question ‘What will your
origin story be?’ aimed at and featuring women specifically (U.S. Air
Force Recruiting 2019). Likewise, the filmmakers worked closely with the
US Air Force Public Affairs Entertainment Liaison office, which provided
‘direct access to resources including personnel, aircraft and equipment,
technical assistance and military advice and locations’ and ‘ensured the
portrayal of the Airmen and missions were plausible and realistic’ (McRae
2019). Incidentally, Captain Marvel is dedicated to the memory of Major
Stephen ‘Cajun’ Del Bagno, the Thunderbird pilot who acted as a key
military consultant during the film’s production but was killed during a
test flight less than a year before its release. The Air Force Thunderbird
flyover formation carried out over Los Angeles to mark the film’s premiere
was therefore also reframed as a tribute to Del Bagno, further emphasis-
ing the authenticity of this mutual relationship (Atkeison 2019). Indeed,
the authenticity of Captain Marvel’s portrayal within USAF settings was
centred in promotional content and interviews with cast and crew. In
a short edited clip tweeted by Marvel Entertainment, Larson is shown
stating ‘The core of her is the Air Force’ while wearing Danvers’s Air
Force fatigues, while directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck note that ‘The
Air Force was welcoming and amazing’ (Marvel Entertainment 2019).
These clips are intercut with dramatic footage of fighter planes taking off,
Larson as Danvers posing heroically while in uniform, meeting with real-

life military women and participating in a flight herself. The centralising
of Danvers’s military identity within and around the film alongside the
USAF’s involvement in its production echo the production and market-
ing context of Top Gun, which David L. Robb defines as ‘The most suc-
cessful collaboration between Hollywood and the military of all time’ in
his study of US military involvement in Hollywood cinema (Robb 2004:
154). While the postfeminist discourses around women’s self-identity
and empowerment in Captain Marvel clearly resonated with the specific
cultural landscape in which it premiered, its focus on female military
subjectivity as a remedy to oppressive patriarchal regimes, like previous
iterations of military women in popular culture, remains contradictory.
Discourses of women’s empowerment in the film are embroiled with both
a rejection of masculine oppression and an embrace of US militarism. The
‘authentic’ self uncovered in the film reads as another mask of femininity,
functioning within ongoing discourses of self-monitoring exemplified in
a seeming rejection of the patriarchal monitoring of women’s bodies. It
is this specific shape that Captain Marvel’s feminism takes, which is yet
another reformulation of the postfeminist masquerade.
Notes
1. It is important, here, not to discredit the validity of women who have been at
the receiving end of psychological abuse to rebuild their self-confidence– it
is, in part, a systematic breakdown of victims’ self-confidence by abusers that
enables abuse to be an effective means of control in the first place. The concern
here is the appropriation of self-help and wellbeing discourses by neolib-
eral systems and institutions as a gesture towards achieving gender equality
throughout society but that nonetheless maintain an unequal status quo that
specifically targets women as a form of self-monitoring labour. Indeed, Gill
and Orgad (following Long and Woodward 2015) problematise the emergence
of well being and intervention groups that reframe responses to violence
against women within the terms of confidence (cult)ure (Gill and Orgad 2015:
327).
2. See, for example, Tania Modleski’s discussion of masculinity and the equation
of sex and war in Top Gun (Modleski 1991: 62–4).
3. The lack of a romantic love interest for Danvers in Captain Marvel is signifi-
cant here, as her positioning among Maria and Monica Rambeau offers oppor-
tunity for a queer reading and capitalises on the success of Guardians of the
Galaxy, Vol. 2’s reconceptualisation of a ‘queer’ family, which I discuss briefly
in Chapter 7. Nonetheless, a more detailed queer reading of Captain Marvel is
beyond the scope of this particular discussion.
C H A PT E R 5
Marvel Legacy:
Girl Heroism and Intergenerationality
in Marvel Films
Though the women featured in adaptations of Marvel comics are largely

adult, particular occasions where girls are also aligned with heroism
are worth examining, for, as Brown suggests, these characters possess
‘exceptional abilities at fighting, intelligence, beauty – and a sense of
humor’ (Brown 2011a: 142), further responding to postfeminist culture’s
emphasis on women’s self-sufficiency and wit. Likewise, Sarah Projansky
suggests that the ‘proliferation of discourse about girls literally coincides
chronologically with the proliferation of discourse about postfeminism’
(Projansky 2007: 42). Brown similarly suggests that these heroines func-
tion particularly fruitfully in a postfeminist culture, as they present femi-
nine strength and agency, while the threat to masculine power could be
alleviated by the fact that these characters are children (Brown 2011a:
166). They also function as part of discourses that posit that young girls
are already empowered, discourses that were commercialised as part of
the Girl Power trend of the 1990s (Brown 2011a: 147–8). Indeed, Driscoll
argues that postfeminism in relation to the girl hero is ‘an historically
determined conceptual apparatus that brings the girl into view in particu-
lar ways, and is now inseparable from her’ (Driscoll 2015).
Nonetheless, girl heroines offer a unique insight into feminine sub-
jectivity in popular culture and should be carefully assessed. Television
series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer suggest that the teen girl heroine
may have been more widely accepted on the small screen. However,
fantasy franchises such as the Twilight Saga have indicated the profitabil-
ity of films focusing on teenage heroines and aimed at female audiences,
although this is yet to transfer into the superhero genre. Aside from post-
feminist issues to do with race and class, representations of girl heroines
posit questions around identity and (re)generation in superhero narra-
tives. These issues are invariably gendered, especially when considering
the older-generation characters that accompany them. Thus, this chapter
uses two such representations– Abby Miller in Elektra and Laura/X-23 in
Logan– to identify how they address issues of legacy and regeneration
in gendered terms. Postfeminist discourses of Girl Power are congruous
with the character of Abby in Elektra, which was released in 2005, pre-
empting the trend towards girl heroines in later science-fiction/fantasy
blockbusters. Laura in Logan, however, is a much bleaker representation of
what is at stake for later generations of superheroines in a post-apocalyptic
dystopia released post-Trump. Both films foster discussion about the
relationships formed between young heroines and their s uperheroic (or,
indeed, antiheroic in both of these cases) elders; both Elektra and Logan/
Wolverine are positioned as parental figures to younger versions of them-
selves, but the portrayals of these relationships and the manifestation of
ideas of girls’ empowerment are gendered.
Interconnected Womanhood in Elektra

The teenage girl subjectivity offered through Abby Miller in Elektra incor-
porates several elements pertaining to discourses of postfeminist feminin-
ity across generations of women and girls. Abby is presented as attempting
to navigate the adult world of superheroics while also maintaining her
integrity as a teenage girl, learning who she is. ‘Authenticity’ and ‘the
self’ are concepts that resonate within postfeminist culture (Banet-Weiser
2012). But further to this are such discourses deployed by postfeminist
culture concerning the teenage girl. Femininity is here marked as an
essential truth of womanhood. As a result, Driscoll argues, ‘the difficul-
ties with which girls negotiate adolescence have mostly been interpreted
as the struggle for proper femininity, or the struggle to retain a sense of
self in the face of expected femininity’ (Driscoll 2002: 58). However, in
the case of Miller, who is positioned within Elektra as a combined sur-
rogate daughter/mirror image of the central heroine, issues of the self and
authentic femininity are intertwined with the issue of feminine heroism.
Miller’s negotiation of ‘authentic’ femininity thus takes on many conflict-
ing meanings.
Introduced as Elektra’s assassination target, alongside her father Mark,
Abby Miller follows in the footsteps of women who are initially presented
as ordinary, rather than heroic. She is merely Elektra’s neighbour after
Elektra is asked to move to a secluded island and await further instruc-
tions about her next assassination job. After Miller and Elektra meet, the
two form a familial bond, engaging in chat and gentle teasing. Indeed,
Elektra is positioned as a mother figure throughout the film, taking a seat
at the family dining table when Miller invites her over for Christmas.
This narrative turn could be seen as shoehorning the character back into
mar v e l l e gac y 121
traditionally feminine, maternal terms. Inness, for example, suggests that

both Sarah Connor and Ripley’s positioning as mothers in their respective
films limits those characters (Inness 1998: 111, 125).
Further to this reading, though, is the notion that Elektra’s engage-
ment with the family offers the opportunity for female bonding. Hence,
Elektra’s embodiment of maternal protectiveness towards Miller might
actually offer a kind of meditation on intergenerational feminine bonding,
which is nonetheless shaped by postfeminist culture’s centring of white,
affluent femininity. Indeed, much of the discourse in Elektra (like that of
Captain Marvel) focuses on the notion of the self in terms of womanhood
and the possibility that Miller, a girl, is ‘like’ Elektra, the woman. Not only
is the film the first adaptation of a Marvel comic to privilege a woman’s
point of view (indicated throughout the film through the persistent use
of point-of-view shots), it also engages in a dialogue referring to wom-
anhood: what it means for (white) women to be ‘like’ each other. The
discourse of likeness between generations is also a key component of the
portrayal of girlhood in Logan, although it becomes apparent that Laura
represents a better, more hopeful version of Wolverine. Nonetheless, like
the titular character in Logan, Elektra decides she must protect Miller,
and she and Miller are in turn frequently shown in terms of their similari-
ties. It is implied that Elektra takes Miller under her wing because she sees
herself in Miller. Both Miller and Elektra’s mothers died as a result of
their embroilment with unsavoury forces and so Elektra identifies with the
motherless child. When Miller dyes her hair brown in an effort to disguise
herself, Elektra hallucinates herself as a child when Miller approaches.
Miller later wants Elektra to show her how to use her weapons. ‘I
want to learn to defend myself’, Miller says. Elektra responds that they
are ‘offensive weapons. For killing’, exemplifying the complexities of the
bond that is the result of Elektra’s (masculine-coded) antiheroism, but
culminates in the union of two feminine subjectivities. Further, Miller
justifies herself by pointing out that Elektra uses the sais, her fork-like
weapons, to which Elektra answers, ‘I don’t want you to be like me’, again
articulating questions over female subjectivity as separate from, yet bound
to, other women. Instead, Elektra leads Miller to the dining room, makes
her sit on the floor, and shows her how to meditate. The two sit opposite
each other in a medium-long shot, a mirror image signifying that the two
characters are linked rather than unified.
An action sequence in which Miller and her father are chased through
a forest by villains, the Hand, reveals that Miller actually possesses great
power. In the sequence, they are captured by a member of the Hand, his
arm around Miller’s throat with a knife held out. Elektra runs to Miller
but stops upon seeing the knife, a close-up of her worried face showcasing
the danger of the moment. Miller is positioned as helpless, but a close-up
shows her looking down, followed by a close-up of the warrior beads she
wears (over which she and Elektra had previously bonded) tumbling out
of her hand. Ultimately, Miller fights the assassin– the utilisation of slow
motion indicates the force of her kicks– while Mark throws a knife at
another. Miller then uses her beads to thwart the remaining assassin. The
revelation of Miller’s hidden power plays into the scenes in which she
expresses interest in Elektra, signalling that her innate abilities offer her a
link to Elektra, whom she recognises as being like herself. The power thus
offers a gateway to further their bonding practices, which thus far has been
denied by Elektra, though this changes after she discovers that Miller is
‘the Treasure’, a child prodigy with extraordinary abilities who is sought
by the Hand.
The subjectivities of action heroine and teenage girl that the two char-
acters respectively encompass coalesce in the final confrontation with
Hand member Kirigi. The two characters’ arcs culminate into a per-
sonification of female bonding through the spectacle of physical activity.
After Elektra is overpowered by Kirigi, who controls a series of wafting
sheets to limit her movement, Miller enters the scene, which takes place
in Elektra’s childhood home, adding yet more credence to the interlink-
ing of these characters as their narrative arcs climax in a place of child-
hood trauma and disrupted family. Miller approaches Kirigi, whirling
her beads, but he dodges them. This is intercut with shots of Elektra
moving under the sheets and suddenly breaking free of them, running
towards the camera. Instead of attacking Kirigi, she runs up the stairs
next to him, holding out her hand for Miller. Elektra pulls Miller up and
the two women escape, Elektra comically commenting, ‘You’re a pain
in the ass!’ to which Miller answers, ‘So are you!’ They both count to
three and simultaneously jump out of the window together, completely
synchronised at last. The characters have been reconciled through the
action in this unifying moment; both women hit the ground at the same
time and a medium-long shot shows them both crouching next to each
other. The shot switches to one behind them on the floor as they both get
up and run at the same time.
However, Elektra is unable to stop another Hand member from killing
Miller. After defeating the remaining assassins, Elektra carries Miller to
the room in which Elektra discovered her dead mother as a child, laying
her on the bed, again emphasising the likenesses between the characters.
A flashback reminds Elektra of her mentor Stick telling her that her heart
is pure, meaning that she has gained the ability to reawaken the dead
through her training. She attempts to use her powers on Miller but seem-
ingly fails. Elektra then rests her head on Miller, just as she rested her
head on her mother as a child. Finally, Miller awakens and the two are
united once more.
At the end of the film, Elektra leaves Mark and Abby, although she tells
Abby, ‘We’ll find each other.’ Outside, she mutters to herself, ‘Please don’t
let her be like me’, and Stick answers from behind her, ‘Why not? You
didn’t turn out so bad’, signalling a narrative of self-acceptance that paral-
lels Miller’s narrative of self-actualisation. Importantly, Miller undergoes
the process of self-actualisation through her interactions with Elektra.
However, it is not only her potential as a heroine that is realised but that
of being a teenage girl on the cusp of womanhood. At the end of the film,
these subjectivities have been reconciled, and the characters unite in a
manner that plays into a notion of interconnected womanhood, in opposi-
tion to more masculine, individualist ideals associated with male heroism.
This narrative is an anomaly among Marvel films, and while the film
also engages with frustration tactics such as those I discussed in Chapter 3,
it offers a distinct picture of feminine solidarity that is informed by post-
feminist discourses of authenticity, acceptance and universal womanhood.
As Projansky notes,
many of the ways in which contemporary popular culture represents girls can be
understood to be working through questions about the effects of postfeminism– on
mothers, daughters, and the gendered organization of society– just as representa-
tions of postfeminist women can be understood to be working through questions
about the effects of feminism. (Projansky 2007: 46)
Projansky’s description of the anxieties postfeminist culture negotiates

regarding the intergenerational effects of feminism can be seen within
Elektra. Though it offers no concrete answers, the film engages in dis-
courses involving the effects of the empowerment of teenage girls with
specific reference to older female role models and the womanhood they
represent.
All-New, All-Different: The Legacy of Wolverine in Logan

Intergenerational links, specifically in relation to the idea of a heroic legacy,
is a key theme of X-Men franchise entry Logan, which, as is expected of
Fox’s X-Men films, centres on the titular Logan/Wolverine. The film
knowingly plays into superhero themes related to (re)generation and revi-
sionism through the character of Logan’s daughter-surrogate and clone,
Laura, codenamed X-23 (Dafne Keen). Approximately eleven years old,
Laura is not quite a teenager and in this sense falls somewhat outside the
bounds of the postfeminist teen heroine outlined earlier. Nonetheless,
Laura’s presence as a younger, female ‘version’ of Wolverine, who in
many ways mirrors, parallels or even imitates him, likewise addresses
issues of the regeneration of Marvel characters not only across media
formats but also across genders.
Wolverine, the character, is an intertext, which, as Derek Johnson
argues, highlights, ‘the ways in which [Marvel’s] reorganization of char-
acters into brands and subbrands has erased and rebuilt the boundaries
among and between comic book and comic book-derived texts’ (Johnson
2007: 67). Indeed, Logan itself is a film that exploits the character’s poten-
tial for boundary-breaking, reconfiguring understandings of the character
in terms of legacy and regeneration. True to poststructuralist readings
of identity, it is meaningless to think of the character of Wolverine as
having a stable and fixed origin. Logan’s use of the X-23 storyline thus
has the potential to expand understandings of superheroes (or, at the very
least, of the ‘Wolverine’ brand) beyond the white masculine ideal, beyond
boundaries of age and nation-states. Indeed, Logan’s status as a superhero-
western pastiche, and its (re)negotiation of the masculinist discourses that
feed into both genres, is in part what makes possible the combination of
the two Wolverine narratives– in which the older Wolverine coincides
with the new Wolverine, who is simultaneously identical yet radically dif-
ferent to the former.
Logan was the cumulative result of a number of converging cultural and
industrial factors– the then-state of US politics in the latter half of the
2010s; the supposed senescence of the superhero blockbuster; the ageing of
the first X-Men cast; the trend towards geri-action cinema; and the film’s
reliance on two popular, thematically linked Marvel comics storylines.
Much of the film draws from Marvel’s alternate-universe comics series
titled ‘Old Man Logan’ (Millar and McNiven 2009), which portrayed a
dystopian future America in which Logan had retired from superheroing
after a particularly traumatic event, and in which the villains of the Marvel
Universe take over the country. In the book, Logan has become a humble
farmer and has a wife and daughter, who are inevitably murdered by vil-
lains, their deaths (yet again) acting as the motivation for Logan’s action
narrative. The storyline, much like its adaptation, borrows elements of
classic westerns, especially Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992), in which
Clint Eastwood plays retired gunslinger-turned-pig-farmer who is called
upon to carry out one last job (and in which Morgan Freeman, coinciden-
tally, plays a character called Ned Logan).
The story of Laura, though, stems from Marvel comics’ ‘X- 23:
Innocence Lost’ arc (Kyle et al. 2006), in which Laura’s origins as a genet-
ically enhanced Wolverine clone are put forward. Here, Laura’s story is
told from the perspective of Dr Sarah Kinney, a researcher working for a
facility on cloning technology, who discovers that Wolverine clones have
been unsuccessful due to a corrupted Y-chromosome in the DNA sample.
Replicating the X-chromosome makes the clone viable– but also female
– and remedies this problem. Through a series of unpleasant events that
hinge on scientist Dr Zander Rice’s corruption and aggrieved sense of
vengeance (his father had been killed by an escaped Wolverine during
the Weapon X programme as perhaps a somewhat warped variation of
‘women in refrigerators’), Kinney is forced to carry the clone-embryo to
term herself and after bonding with the child embarks on a mission to
free her. However, Laura’s training as a weapon entailed the development
of a trigger scent that, when smelled by Laura, causes her to engage in
frenzied violence and kill the person from whom the scent emanates. In
a tragic twist, Laura murders her own mother, who was tainted with the
trigger scent. This is a turn of events that Brown asserts ‘makes it clear
that while she [Laura] may have been bred, trained and exploited by a
corrupt component of the military industrial complex, the real tragedy of
her creation is that she was really nothing more than a science experiment
for her mother’ (Brown 2011b: 84).
Indeed, Marvel comics’ frequent reliance on clone narratives to either
reboot or revise established characters is noteworthy and also feeds into
discourses present in the representation of cloning, which, unsurprisingly,
are gendered and raced (see Weinbaum 2019 for a detailed discussion of
what is referred to as ‘reproductive slavery’, in which the legacy of slavery
lives on in the reproductive labour performed by poor women of colour).
Cloning itself has a complex media history that is beyond the scope of
this chapter; however, it is worth noting the significance of Logan, whose
story relies heavily on the unfulfilled cultural promises of biocapitalism,
also known as the ‘tissue economy’, ‘bioeconomy’ and ‘lively capital’
(Weinbaum 2019), to these discussions.
Logan’s blending of (versions of) the ‘Old Man Logan’ and ‘X-23’
storylines– one about an elderly Logan who reclaims the Wolverine iden-
tity and one about a young girl who is assigned the Wolverine identity
as the saviour of mutantkind– is noteworthy. Both narratives hinge on
violence, and much like the forms of heroism explored in Elektra, ques-
tions of intergenerational heroism are centred in Logan. However, Logan’s
focus on genetic likeness as a frame of reference for intergenerational soli-
darity takes on new meaning when combined with the mutant metaphor
characteristic of X-Men narratives. Indeed, while the discourses around
mother-daughter relationships are complexly negotiated in Elektra, it

would be rash to assume that the father-daughter pairing in Logan is
identical to this. Indeed, the absence of Laura’s mother further corre-
sponds to ongoing discourses in the popular media around cloning. In
Logan, artificial life-making processes are entwined with the corruption
of the state, and while ‘Mexican girls’ are the victims in this portrayal
of the tissue economy, those Mexican girls are a glaring absence in the
film– which explicitly clarifies that the nurse who smuggled Laura out
of the gene technology facility and calls on Logan for help is not Laura’s
mother. Concerning wider gendered discourses about artificial reproduc-
tive technologies, Laura’s conception indicates a straightforward exchange
of (female) body parts, in which bodily matter is a disposable resource and
women’s bodies are mobilised for other women’s motherhood (see Leve
2013). On the other hand, it is Logan’s paternal genetic links that are
heralded as significant in the film.
Beyond being a simplistic stand-in for patriarchy though, it is useful to
think about how, as Yaeger and Kowaleski-Wallace suggest, ‘the father’s
authority can be subverted, disembodied, or dissipated in a variety of fic-
tional and political tropes’ (Yaeger and Kowaleski-Wallace 1989: xx), and
while Brown argues that comics featuring paternalistic figures and young
sidekicks ‘valorize and validate the hegemonic order’ (Brown 2011b: 85)
it is also noteworthy that Logan exploits the flexibility of the ‘Wolverine’
phenomenon to put forward a narrative in which the paternal figure per-
ishes for the rights of the marginalised. This occurs through the film’s
experimentation with genre and self-aware pastiche; through its bring-
ing together of an old male and young female Wolverine; and through
its reliance on violence. Interwoven through this is a discursive dusting
away of the cobwebs of a corrupt, masculinist, neoliberal capitalism, and a
heralding of a new generation of a superhero subjectivities that nonethe-
less remain informed by prior understandings of both Wolverine and girl
heroines. The film effectively makes use of the transgressive potential
and boundary-breaking of girl-inflicted violence, which blends seamlessly
with the emergence of a new-old version of Wolverine.
Disengaged from the fight for mutant rights, Logan is portrayed in the
film as disconnected from the legacy of Xavier’s struggle to be ‘mutant
and proud’. In a postmutant world whose political economy is dictated
by a particularly brutal form of neoliberal capitalism, the struggle for
mutant rights seems almost trivial. Nonetheless, hope is restored through
the figure of Laura and her mutant peers. A product of the turn towards
R-rated ‘adult’ superhero adaptations such as Deadpool, Logan was praised
by critics for its gritty realism and reworking of the superhero genre, as
well as its depiction of violence. While drawing on visceral geri-action

conventions in its portrayal of Logan, the film also builds on a previ-
ous cycle of killer-girl films that gained popularity in the late 2000s and
early 2010s, such as Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005), Kick-Ass (Matthew
Vaughn, 2010), Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder, 2011), Hanna (Joe Wright,
2011), Kick-Ass 2 (Jeff Wadlow, 2013) and Violet and Daisy (Geoffrey
S. Fletcher, 2013).
Logan also makes distinctive use of the X-Men’s mutant metaphor
to explore themes of exploitation and marginalisation, expressed via the
maladjusted father-daughter dynamic. Set in a dystopian 2029, where
mutants are all but extinct, the film follows Logan as he attempts to protect
Laura and her guardian Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) from a sinister
scientific research group known as Alkali-Transigen, led by Dr Zander
Rice (Richard E. Grant). Alkali-Transigen’s scientists were able to eradi-
cate naturally occurring mutantism in the general population by insert-
ing chemicals into genetically modified foods. Subsequently, the group
produced genetically engineered mutants who were trained to be used as
weapons. Using Logan’s DNA (obtained by the members of the Alkali
Lake project– the source of Logan’s suffering throughout the X-Men
film series), Alkali-Transigen created Laura, the female Wolverine clone,
through the ‘X-23 Project’, as well as a near-exact copy of Logan himself,
code named ‘X-24’. The film also features an ageing and neurologically
debilitated Charles Xavier, who is cared for by Logan and the albino
mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant), whose dress is styled to resemble
Eastwood’s iconic Man with No Name. The three of them represent the
excess of marginalisation that mutantkind has undergone in this dystopian
setting, and the film therefore, according to Asif et al., ‘moves the issues
of race and social justice from troubling allegorical interpretation to the
forefront of the narrative’ (Asif et al. 2019: 158).
Moreover, Logan was released mere months after the election of
Donald Trump and so its theme of capitalist exploitation of marginal-
ised people was synchronous with contemporary discourses that led to
his presidency. Also alarmingly apt was the film’s plot of the liberation
of undocumented children of Mexican descent via asylum in Canada.
Much of the action focuses on Logan’s paternalistic protectiveness of
Laura, by then such a staple of the post-9/11 superhero action film that
it necessitated, here, a self-reflexive meditation on the role of ageing
men more widely. Effectively being slowly poisoned by the adamantium
laced through his bones due to the Weapon X procedure he endured in
X-Men Origins, Logan’s healing factor gradually fails him throughout the
film, leaving him physically weak and often immobilised. Nonetheless,
Logan heroically sacrifices himself in the final act of the film, protecting
Laura and her fellow undocumented child-mutants en route to North
Dakota, where they gain safe passage over the border to Canada. The
social resonance of Logan in the early days of the Trump era is clear. On
a rudimentary level, the parallels between the film’s portrayal of Latinx
peoples exploited for the purposes of American neoliberal capitalist gain
crossing national and political borders is apparent. While issues around
undocumented (specifically Latinx) immigrants predate the Trump
administration, the rhetoric of Trump’s election campaign and subse-
quent presidency amplified the urgency, and inequality, of a situation in
which the legal protections of undocumented immigrant children in the
US were becoming increasingly diminished.
In the film, Logan is called upon by Gabriela Lopez (Elizabeth
Rodriguez), a former nurse who worked at the Alkali-Transigen facility
while the mutant cloning project was taking place. Introducing Laura as
Logan’s daughter based on the determining factor of his DNA (though
he is initially unaware of this), Gabriela smuggled Laura out of the facil-
ity and needs Logan’s help to accompany her to North Dakota while
pursued by the villainous Reavers, a cybernetically enhanced task force
led by Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) under the authority of Dr Rice.
Gabriela’s description of abuse at the heart of the X-23 Project was aptly
timed towards the impending Trump era. Depicted in a series of video
diary entries Gabriela secretly recorded on her phone at the facility, she
describes how the children ‘have no birth certificates, no names . . . They
were raised in the bellies of Mexican girls . . . Their fathers were semillas
genética, special seeds in bottles.’ The video diary entries often feature
Gabriela’s direct-address to the characters watching (Logan and Xavier),
granting her a degree of authority and agency in relation to the oppressive
setting and reproductive exploitation she witnessed. The specially bred
mutant children, test-tube clones trained to be weapons, are therefore
characterised in terms of their illegitimacy, part of which intersects with
gender and race; and Alkali-Transigen is positioned as the American capi-
talist prison-industrial complex, exploiting, in Gabriela’s words, Mexican
girls. Indeed Asif et al. argue that Alkali-Transigen’s reach into Mexico
and extraction of Mexican women as foreign capital is another way in
which Logan explores the role of literal and figurative boundaries in con-
temporary American society (Asif et al. 2019: 153).
The casting of Dafne Keen, a British-Spanish actress of Galician
descent, to portray Laura, a character who, in previous media outings
was white and English-speaking, and the recasting of Laura’s narrative
in (post)racial terms is also significant. Arguably, though the film clearly
critiques the boundless cruelty of white colonial masculinities, the casting

and narrative choices related to race and ethnicity were, at least partially,
enabled by a postracial, multicultural Hollywood in which racial ambigu-
ity was commodified (see Chapter 9). Laura’s race becomes a key site of
the negotiation of power, which was not the case with other postfeminist
girl heroines, whose empowerment depended on whiteness as much as
it did relative affluence. Indeed, ambiguity unintentionally factored into
Keen’s casting: director James Mangold was quoted as wanting to cast a
‘Latina kid’ but nonetheless ended up with a racially, and nationally, mal-
leable actress (Mangold quoted in Fletcher 2017).
Gabriela is eventually killed by Pierce and his taskforce and Logan,
resentfully and reluctantly, takes care of Laura. Much like Elektra’s
forceful assignment of being a mother figure to Abby, Logan is resistant
to adopting a protective role towards Laura, despite both Xavier and
Gabriela referring to her as his daughter. However, Logan transforms
throughout the film, warming to Laura and later answering the question
‘Is that your daughter?’ with ‘Yeah, that’s Laura.’ The wayward family of
Xavier, Logan and Laura are later taken in by the Munsons,1 whose por-
trayal as a modest family headed by farmer Will bears some resemblance
to the rural qualities of Wolverine’s retirement in ‘Old Man Logan’ as
well as displaying parallels to Elektra’s occupation of the family dinner
table in Elektra. Indeed, the three likewise appear in a scene set around the
Munson’s dinner table, with son Nate asked by his mother to say grace.
The scene represents a reminiscence for a wholesome past that has clearly
been disrupted by this future dystopia in which the characters now func-
tion, a normalcy that Laura could not possibly have a recollection of due
to her exemption from society all her life. It also sets the Munsons up for
tragedy, as they are subsequently slaughtered by X-24, another stronger
and younger version of Wolverine.
Before Laura arrives in his life, Logan is depicted participating in the
daily grind, making a living as a limousine driver whose clientele are por-
trayed through the excesses of young, white masculinity and accompany-
ing nationalism. This strongly resonates with the politics of a recessionary
culture that both upholds and critiques the ideals of neoliberal capitalism.
Through Logan’s repositioning as a father figure to Laura, faith in the
mutant cause is restored– albeit outside the US. Regarding the gendered
aspects of Logan’s portrayal specifically, Danijela Petković argues that
while his ailing body is feminised due to its unruliness (conveyed through
shots in which it bleeds or is in other ways ‘disobedient’), Logan is in
turn narratively rewarded through his heroic martyrdom as a means of
coping with the cultural anxieties his decaying body provokes (Petković
2018: 124). The respective articles by Asif et al. and Petković both point
towards the film’s self-reflexivity as a means of elaborating nuanced rep-
resentations of ageing masculinities and this reflexivity partly stems from
the film’s reading as a superhero western. The western is itself a genre
that, at its peak, was financially successful but eventually dwindled and
died, like Logan and, possibly (although unlikely in the age of transme-
dia franchises), like superhero films themselves. Further, like superhero
films, the Hollywood western was a highly gendered and racially charged
Hollywood film genre, often centring on heroic figures of white masculin-
ity taming the harsh frontier of the West.
Logan reworks the cultural assumption of the frontier as a ‘virginal
Eden’ which was ‘to be forcibly possessed by dispossessing its native
inhabitants and exploiting its natural resources’ (Wildermuth 2018: 131).
Unlike the frontiers of the West, though, Logan’s Eden is free from the
clutch of the corrupting force of American hegemony and represents the
liberation of the marginalised. Amid widespread discourses of right-wing
populism taking back control of national sovereignty and borders, Logan’s
use and critique of western frontier mythology are indeed significant. It
is in North Dakota close to the Canadian border where Logan’s mutant
haven – specifically referred to as ‘Eden’– is located. Asif et al. note the
significance of the film’s use of western conventions to further highlight
Logan’s demystifying of the white, masculine frontier myth, as exempli-
fied by its strategic references to the western Shane (George Stevens,
1953) (see Petković 2018; Asif et al. 2019).
Logan was also released well into the established cycle of what has been
referred to as ‘geri-action cinema’, films starring actors who in previous
decades embodied the hard-body masculine aesthetics of the action genre,
‘exploring the continuing efficacy of ageing male action bodies’ (Meeuf
2017: 120). That said, Logan is somewhat reflexive even in its evocation
of geri-action cinema, for despite having at that point played the character
for seventeen years, media reports still highlighted the film’s extensive use
of make-up and prosthetics to age Jackman, as well as his acting strategies
(adjusting his stance and gait, for example) (Anderson 2017; Galas 2017).
Asif et al. have pointed out the film’s redefinition of the superhero
genre through its representation of ageing mutant bodies as allegory for
geopolitical borders. They argue that ‘[w]ith its portrayal of the ailing
mutant body and the permeability of geopolitical borders, Logan, builds
upon traditional superhero tropes that deal with separation, division,
and borders’, engaging with disability and mortality discourses, as well
as gender and ethnicity (Asif et al. 2019: 142–3). Central to this, they
suggest, is the film’s portrayal of deteriorating mutant bodies in the char-
acters of Logan and Xavier. Indeed, Xavier’s trajectory involves a reliance

on the notion of ageing as a process of infantilisation, as he is cared for by
Logan and Caliban, who occupy respective paternal and maternal roles,2
and forced to take medication to reduce the effects of his telepathy, now
dangerously out of control in a way that harks back to his own diagno-
sis of Jean Grey’s dysfunctional powers (Asif et al. 2019: 143). Logan’s
suffering, on the other hand, is prolonged and exaggerated through his
now self-defeating powers, with the film’s cinematography periodically
lingering on his wounded and bleeding body (Asif et al. 2019: 147). This
is much like the suffering male bodies of heroes encountered in previous
discussions in this book– w ith the caveat that Logan is old and the end of
his narrative mercifully approaches.
As Nathan Miczo maintains, superheroes’ struggles to reconcile two
competing qualities within themselves are at the heart of comics rep-
resenting ageing superheroes, portraying ‘an internal struggle over who
they are and what their role is in a changed world’ now that they are
older (Miczo 2015: 144). In the ‘Old Man Logan’ comics, Logan must
essentially reclaim his superhero identity after having given it up, eventu-
ally unsheathing his claws and violently taking on the villains, thereby
cementing his (anti)heroism. The struggle over superhero identity is
not novel, though, and takes on gendered dimensions when considering
heroes and heroines, although Miczo effectively draws attention to the
additional factor of age and its effect on (masculine) heroism in his analy-
sis. Nonetheless, elements of these themes recur throughout Logan, again
taking on a self-reflexive quality: once representative of being the next
step in human evolution, mutants have become redundant in this version
of the future (or so it seems until Logan’s final moment of sacrifice).
Logan’s portrayal, therefore, is reminiscent of a particular version of mas-
culinity that was characterised as overly aggrieved by the financial reces-
sion and austerity of the late 2000s (often referred to as the ‘he-cession’
or ‘mancession’ in popular venues). Like the breadwinners undergoing a
crisis of masculinity during this time (Negra and Tasker 2014: 2), Logan,
and the superheroism he once represented, has, through genetic meddling
– s cientists playing God and intervening in the natural, essential course
of species progression– b een made redundant in this dystopian future.
However, Logan partly departs from staid discourses evoking the plight of
men who are no longer permitted to fulfil their natural masculine duties
as breadwinners and protectors (because of widespread unemployment
and/or the immigrant workforce and/or women’s over-representation in
the workplace due to feminism). In Logan, the by-now mythologised ‘end-
of-men’ crisis (Gilligan 2011) is transposed onto an end-of-mutants crisis
which, though hinging on the centrality of Logan as a Marvel legacy hero,

is ultimately resolved through the cultivation and mobilisation of young
non-white children spearheaded by Laura, who presumably would be able
to reinvigorate the legacy of Wolverine.
Laura’s genetic heritage extends beyond having Logan’s DNA, though,
and becomes a spiritual affinity that is reworked through the character.
What it means for these characters to be ‘like’ each other is transcendental,
whereas in Elektra, the link between the heroine and the daughter-figure
inevitably pertains to the materiality of femininity. The merits of mutant
solidarity are discussed at length in the scene that precedes the Munson
family dinner, in which Logan drives himself, Xavier and Laura via a
highway towards North Dakota. Much like scenes in both Elektra and
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the car discussion takes place at a moment
of reflective transition, in which the hero(ine) queries their identity in
relation to those in their protection. In this scene, Xavier remarks from
the back seat at Logan’s indifference towards the mutant cause. Laura,
in the passenger seat, irritates Logan by playing with the car door lock,
much like Abby annoys Elektra with her bubble gum. Increasingly irate,
Logan passes Laura Xavier’s pills and asks her to administer them. Xavier
complies, reluctantly, and Logan turns his head to face Xavier, asking to
see him taking the pills. The reverse shot showcases Xavier’s childish
demeanour as he opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue, taunting
Logan. Later, Xavier, now pacified and returned partially to his role as
sage patriarch, berates Logan when he swears at a truck carrying horses
(Will Munson is at the wheel of the truck). The shot follows Laura’s per-
spective out of the passenger window as they pass the caged horses on the
highway, establishing a symbolic rapport between the mutants on the run
and the imprisoned horses. Logan’s response to Xavier accompanies the
view: referring to the distinctive claws that extend from between Laura’s
toes, he states ‘She can gut a man with her feet, but she can’t hear a few
naughty words?’ Over the same shot of the caged horses, Xavier’s voice
answers ‘She can learn to be better’ and a profile shot of Logan follows.
He responds ‘You mean better than me.’ Xavier in the next shot states
‘Actually, yes’, perhaps the result of his childish oppositionality to Logan,
but nonetheless asserting the notion that Logan’s cynical existence could
be supplanted by Laura’s and, indeed, improved on, again signifying
Logan’s redundancy.
There remains much to be said about the likening of Laura to Logan
and the parallels Logan bears to a similar, though not identical, dynamic
between the characters in Elektra. While Elektra’s meditation of the self
in relation to female heroism reaches to notions of collective woman-
hood, Laura’s likeness to Logan takes a different form due to the gender
these characters. Most obviously, the discursive likening of a little girl to
an angry, violent man takes on some radical qualities, and while Elektra
transgresses certain gendered boundaries to do with violence– sometimes
successfully, though often not– the application of Logan’s qualities and
abilities to a young girl, and how Logan deals with these, is noteworthy.
Like Wolverine, Laura herself has taken on different forms throughout
Marvel’s history. Unlike many other Marvel characters, her first appear-
ance was in the animated TV series X-Men: Evolution (Kids’ WB,
2000–3), which centred on recognisable X-Men as teenagers at Xavier’s
school. Laura herself is therefore yet another form of mutated offspring
of convergence culture. She debuted in comics months later as an under-
age sex worker in a short-lived series about teenaged mutants on the run
(Quesada and Middleton 2004). Though the series ostensibly appeared
to be pitched towards teen readers, it was notable for its overt portray-
als of violence, taking place in a deprived area of New York inhabited
by gangs, drug dealers and pimps. While the sexual overtones of the
character were eventually dropped by the time Marvel released a comic
focusing on her origins, Laura’s narrative remained marred by violence,
a quality that is exploited in Logan due to its R-rating. The marrying of
the ‘Old Man Logan’ storyline with a comic titled ‘Innocence Lost’, about
Laura’s origins as a genetically engineered mutant child is significant in its
facilitation of discourses of heroic legacy. Indeed, the questioning of the
cultural idea of the innate innocence of children and their vulnerability to
corrupting factors is part of what Brown argues makes representations of
violent little girls so compelling.
The Hollywood trend of ‘pretty little killers’, as Brown states, clearly
factored into the shape that Logan ultimately took. Violent girl heroines call
forth questions about gender, violence and sexualisation in relation to teen
or tween girls (Brown 2015a: 197). While previous teen heroines (among
them, I argue, being Miller in Elektra) are ‘an expression of the cultural
shift from second to third wave feminism and the media’s embrace of, and
capitalizing on, popular notions of girl power as a literalization of postfemi-
nist ideology’ (Brown 2015a: 198), Brown argues that action cinema’s killer
girls rely on the spectacle of violence to promote a blurring of boundaries
concerned with childhood innocence and adulthood and therefore have the
potential for cultural transgression (Brown 2015a: 203).
Like Brown, Eva Lupold (2014) also draws attention to these films’
reliance on depicting young girls in adult situations that are in many ways
considered socially and culturally inappropriate, for instance uttering pro-
fanity, using firearms or engaging in physical fights resulting in bloodshed.
Both authors trace the origins of the violent girl heroine back to ongoing
feminist debates about the objectification of young girls, citing the novel
Lolita (Nabokov 1955), in which a grown man becomes sexually involved
with his twelve-year-old stepdaughter, as a key cultural touchstone. In
these discourses, the corruption of sexualisation is conflated with the cor-
ruption of violence, as both factors result in diminished innocence of girls,
which is to be upheld at all costs. Pointing towards the shifting meaning
of the nuclear family throughout the past few decades, Lupold argues that
violent girl heroine narratives draw from a problematic ideology that holds
girls responsible for upholding moral order (either due to the absence of
parental figures or because conventional law-enforcing structures have
failed). These girls are presented as using violence to do so, or risk the
corrosion of traditional values (for instance, that of the nuclear family).
However, moral order in Logan is scant and the values for which Laura
fights are related to her marginality – as a mutant; as a girl; as a Latina.
While the film is ambiguous about what kind of life Laura will have in
Canada, it is a possible incorporation of the politics of difference into an
all-encompassing, but ultimately vague, ‘better life’. With this in mind,
Logan appears to be a critique, albeit an ambiguous one, of the dominant
structures informing ideas of family values and essential gender roles (as
well as how these intersect within a military-industrial complex).
The story of Laura’s liberation also banks on the essential nature of
Laura as the ‘female version’ of Wolverine. Here, the biological differ-
ences of X-and Y-chromosomes accumulate as an inherent marker of
sexual difference, which is conceived as biological and natural. On the
road to North Dakota, Xavier explains the significance of Laura’s gender
in relation to her deadliness: ‘Laura’s foot claws are an obvious result of
her gender, you know.’ That said, Xavier does not elaborate further on
why foot claws were an ‘obvious’ result of her femaleness; rather, this
takes on a commonsensical connotation– the unquestioned assertion that
the presence of the X-chromosome facilitated this particular mutation
of Logan’s signature weapons. The expertise conveyed by Xavier in the
same scene also further cements Laura’s animalistic qualities, which had
been established throughout the film through Laura’s violent dispatch
of the Reavers, her insatiable appetite for food and her lack of verbal
communication. Indeed, it is the perambulation of animal-human quali-
ties that Larrie Dudenhoeffer suggests ‘defines Wolverine as a character’
(Dudenhoeffer 2017: 237) and this dynamic is intensified in its articulation
through the child Laura.
In the same scene, after noting the gendered significance of her foot
claws, Xavier likens Laura to a lioness, noting that ‘in a pride of lions,
the female is both hunter and caregiver . . . She uses her front claws for
hunting and the back claws defensively, thus ensuring their survival’,
although Laura bears few, if any, caregiving attributes. Alongside the
tracking shots of the caged horses, the scene ensures that there is little
ambiguity regarding Laura’s innate, animalistic qualities that inevitably
surface through violence throughout the film. This is balanced by the
simultaneous positioning of Laura as a marginalised victim of corporate
greed and physical abuse in a way that resonates with constructions of
girlhood violence as culturally legitimated if the result of victimhood. As
Christine Alder and Anne Worrall detail in their wide-ranging discussion
of cultural and legal definitions of violent girls, victimhood discourses
give such girls ‘permission to be “damaged” and even to “retaliate” within
circumscribed limits’ (Alder and Worrall 2004: 11).
Laura’s representation as a violent girl is also facilitated by Logan’s
pastiche- like qualities. Martin Zeller- Jacques, like Brown, discusses
violent girl heroine films in terms of parody and pastiche, citing Kick-Ass
as a definitive text of the cycle. Based on Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s
limited comic book series of the same name (Millar and Romita Jr 2008),3
Kick-Ass gained both acclaim and criticism for its depiction of Mindy
McCready (Chloë Grace Moretz), whose superhero alter-ego is Hit-Girl
and who, under the guidance of her father, superhero Big Daddy (Nicolas
Cage), violently dispatches gang members and criminals, choreographed
within the film in parodic, over-the-top ways. Zeller-Jacques argues that
the film’s comedy elements serve to draw attention to ‘the incongruity of a
little girl beating up adult criminals (or perhaps to the adolescent absurd-
ity of the whole superhero conceit)’ (Zeller-Jacques 2016: 200). However,
despite transgressing cultural taboos about children and violence, Zeller-
Jacques ultimately suggests that Hit-Girl remains contained within the
confines of normative femininity and patriarchal rule via her father or
father-figures (this is especially the case in Kick-Ass 2, Zeller-Jacques
argues).
Moreover, Zeller-Jacques maintains that the normative ideal of girl-
hood to which Mindy at times succumbs at the cost of relinquishing her
superheroic lifestyle is ‘constructed as natural through the discourse of
biological essentialism’, and while her identity as Hit-Girl is implied to be
who she ‘really’ is, this is portrayed through the discourse of individual-
ism as a transitional stage towards Mindy’s self-fulfilment (Zeller-Jacques
2016: 203). Aside from questions of identity – the same questions faced by
Miller in Elektra– Brown argues that age was at the centre of most media
discussions about the character of Hit-Girl, which prompted responses
akin to moral panic from some critics (of which Roger Ebert was one of the
most outspoken). Indeed, Brown uncovers the cultural assumptions about

the corruption of children’s innate innocence behind such responses, con-
firming that ‘Hit-Girl may be a shocking character but that is the case
only because she presents such a challenge to deep-seated presumptions
about appropriate behavior for young girls’ (Brown 2015a: 203–4). Thus,
like Nabokov’s Lolita, the cultural resonance of characters such as Hit-
Girl depends on inflexible social norms maintaining that children should
remain innocent until they are old enough to engage with so-called adult
behaviours, often characterised as sexual. That the origin of Laura in
comics was titled ‘Innocence Lost’ also ties into these discourses: it is
through the loss of Laura’s innocence that she is irreparably scarred emo-
tionally and, indeed, physically as she is depicted self-harming throughout
the comic series.
The sexuality of young girls in such films is relevant throughout these
discussions of girl killers, in part due to the tricky distinction between
discourses of sexual objectification and sexual empowerment. Regarding
violent girl heroines, this takes on the additional question of age, for
while it is evident that adult heroines’ empowerment is often sexualised,
applying the same conventions of sexualisation to young girls remains
problematic, as many thought was the case in Zack Synder’s Sucker Punch
(Brown 2015a: 200–4). Indeed, the pairing of Logan and Laura in Logan
continues a decades-old Marvel tradition for the character of Wolverine to
team up with teenage girls, acting as a mentor and surrogate father. In the
character’s publication history, Logan has formed a superhero duo with
characters such as Rogue, Armor, Kitty Pryde, Jubilee and X-23, that is,
Logan’s Laura. A classic X-Men issue titled ‘Wounded Wolf’ sees Logan
assist Katie Power, a member of X-Men spin-off kids team the Power
Pack, through a snowstorm, virtually nude and in a feral state, having just
escaped from the issue’s villains (Claremont and Windsor-Smith 1986).
Indeed, a promotional poster for Logan, depicting a desaturated close-up
image of Logan’s hand, claws extended, held by that of a child, emulates
the penultimate panel of the issue, which similarly features in close-up
Logan’s hand in Katie’s. Stories such as ‘Wounded Wolf’ use juxtaposed
elements of violent, animalistic, masculine aggression and mutual ten-
derness between child and adult to elaborate a complex transgression of
intergenerational and gendered boundaries.
The problematics posed by such narratives are occasionally susceptible
to bleeding into accusations of paedophilia and ensuing moral panics,
although examples of these narratives do maintain a degree of ambiguity
in terms of their sexual politics. This ambiguity has been characterised
as problematically sexual by some scholars, for instance in Léon: The
Professional (Luc Besson, 1995) (Dawson 2009: 64; Goode 2011: 65–6).
While Logan possibly eschews accusations of paedophilia by expressly
and repeatedly characterising Laura as his daughter, Laura’s behaviour is
nonetheless portrayed as horrifically violent even in addition to her child-
ish demeanour. This is a character who, as Logan states, can kill people
single-handedly (or, literally, by foot); however, the also uses her status as
a child to illustrate the tensions within the character, for instance when she
entertains herself with a storefront coin-operated kiddie-ride horse– in
another typically reflexive western fashion playing a stripped-down syn-
thetic version of Rossini’s ‘William Tell Overture’ (1829)– while Logan
and Xavier converse in his limousine, or later inside the store, when
she selects a pair of pink flowery sunglasses, which she ends up wearing
throughout the rest of the film. This traversing of the violence-innocence
binary is a key component of Laura.
As noted, Laura’s animalistic appetite corresponds with her tendency
toward violence. In a scene early on in the film, Laura clandestinely
hitches a ride in the boot of Logan’s limousine. Laura’s presence is not
known to him when he returns to the abandoned and dilapidated smelting
plant in which he dwells alongside Caliban and Xavier. Caliban, whose
mutant power is to sense the presence of other mutants, detects that there
had been a stowaway by sniffing the contents of the car– a backpack and a
small rubber ball with which Laura had previously been depicted playing.
However, the limousine’s boot is empty of passengers, a moment that is
interrupted by the arrival of Pierce, who asks Logan for the whereabouts
of ‘the girl . . . that goes along with that ball you’re holding’. Pierce’s
stance towards Laura here likens her to a dog, a quality that is punctuated
at the end of this encounter when an angry yelp is heard off-screen, fol-
lowed by a metal pipe entering the shot and knocking out Pierce. Another
pipe is hurled at Logan, although he catches it in his hand, the following
shot showing Laura as the source. Wearing a red coat, the character bears
a visual comparison to Little Red Riding Hood, whose fairy tale ‘is a story
about appetite in all shadings of the term, from primal hunger to sexual
desire, both tainted by the threat of desire turning dark and deadly’ (Tatar
2017: 3), qualities embedded in this version of Laura. However, in this
case, the wolf, or Wolverine, is a trustworthy figure and the hunter is the
threat.
Logan, Xavier and Caliban take Laura in, aware that Pierce’s associates
will be looking for them, but for the time being Laura sits at their dining
table, eating a bowl of cereal while communicating telepathically with
Xavier, who answers in Spanish. Laura’s dog-like qualities are once again
emphasised when Logan attempts to take her backpack from her but she
refuses to let it go, and Logan is forced to yield. When the Reavers even-
tually arrive, Laura becomes alert and Logan escorts Xavier to relative
safety in the back of his limousine, referring to Laura as ‘not our problem’.
Logan’s indifference facilitates the representation of Laura’s violence,
though, as Pierce’s men quite easily overpower Logan and are ordered to
fetch Laura. At this point, the scene cuts back to the makeshift kitchen
area of the smelting plant, where Laura continues to eat large mouthfuls
of Corn Flakes while keeping a curious eye on the security camera feed on
the television, an ironic form of kid’s entertainment.
Upon hearing the sound of Pierce’s men forcefully entering the build-
ing, presented through an audio lead paralleling Laura’s sensitive hearing
before being depicted, Laura stops eating for one moment. Cutting back
and forth between Laura and the men, equipped with body armour and
guns, Laura’s animalistic awareness of the trespassers is signified by her
glances off-camera as she continues eating. A cut back to one of Pierce’s
men preparing a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs is followed by his perspec-
tive, a shot of Laura from behind at the dining table. Here, the juxtaposi-
tion between the large man with a comically disproportionate mechanical
restraint and a little girl, isolated, eating cereal, is apparent. The cut to a
shot of Laura at the table behind her bowl showcases her listening intently,
still not fleeing, as the men approach out of focus behind her. The camera
tilts up as the man with the handcuffs enters the frame in focus, although
remaining zoomed in on Laura, but nonetheless indicating the difference
in physicality between these characters.
Tension builds here, as the soundtrack is eerily sparse, while the scene
ends with a close-up of Laura glancing upward at the armed man off-
camera. At this point, the scene cuts back to the outside of the plant, a
ramshackle arrangement of rusted corrugated metal and wooden crates in
a dry and dusty landscape, reminiscent of a saloon in the Old West. Pierce
is shown pacing impatiently, while the Reavers remain on guard around
the limousine and Logan, who is lying in the background, immobilised by
a guard. The sounds of guns shooting and people screaming accompany
medium shots of the Reavers turning their heads towards the building,
concerned, and lining up beside Pierce. Emulating classic western cin-
ematography, a low shot from behind the Reavers’ legs at eye-height to
Laura portrays her exiting the building, carrying something under her
arm. Logan and Xavier are shown becoming alert in respective shots and
the sequence cuts to a long shot of Laura approaching the Reavers from
the right side of the shot (Figure 5.1), the dusty wasteland and decaying
overturned water tank harking back to the opening gunfight scene of
spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968),
Figure 5.1 Laura faces Donald Pierce and his militaristic Reavers in Logan’s
western-inspired wasteland.
signalling the violence to come, and accompanied by a minimalistic but

foreboding soundtrack.
Notably, the true extent of Laura’s dealings inside the building still
remains a mystery until a medium shot of Laura isolated reveals that
it is the severed head of a Reaver that she carries: she hurls it towards
the camera, blood sprinkling as it bounces out of the frame. The head is
gratuitously displayed in the next low-angle shot from Pierce’s side of the
encounter. Pierce attempts to talk Laura down from what is signalled to
become a violent outburst, cutting back to the low-angle shot as Laura
approaches Pierce, angrily yet childishly throwing down the handcuffs she
also carries. Using a patronising tone and language– ‘Honey, you want
to stay where you are’– Pierce is unable to prevent Laura from striding
closer towards him. Tension continues to build here, as the shots switch
between Pierce and Laura at an increasing pace; Laura finally takes off her
backpack as the sound of guns cocking chime off-screen. Pierce repeat-
edly says Laura’s name, wagging his finger as if an infuriated parental
figure. As he firmly says ‘no’, the low-angle shot becomes fixed on Laura’s
side, with Pierce now literally within her target range. Laura continues
to approach him, her arm within the shot, slightly out of focus, but clear
enough to showcase the two claws emerging through her bloody knuckles
accompanied by what should by now be the familiar ‘snikt’ sound effect
associated with Wolverine. The film here uses the sounds of slashing and
claws unsheathing in an attempt to further highlight Laura’s likeness to
Logan, as well as present a juxtaposition in which masculine violence and
innocent girlhood collide. A medium shot of Logan follows, his attention
having been commanded by the reveal of Laura’s powers– and thus their
shared DNA.
What follows is a fast-paced action sequence with Laura at the heart of

the violence, shots cutting in quick succession as she slaughters one of the
Reavers and effortlessly climbs on top of the building and runs back inside
it, narrowly missing the Reavers’ bullets. Inside the building, the cinema-
tography weaves in and out of dark corridors and shafts as the armed men
become disoriented and panicky. Laura’s animalism is again in the fore-
ground, as it becomes clear that she lured the Reavers into the building in
order to ambush them, having now been revealed as the predator of this
dynamic, ultimately slashing, stabbing and growling her way through her
enemies. Laura’s nimble physicality, which corresponds with the frenetic
editing of the sequence, distinguishes her somewhat from Logan as she is
presented as using her slight size to her advantage, flipping and spinning
her body around the Reavers in a chaotic yet contained way. Ultimately,
she is filmed in medium close-up as she is stabbed from behind by a
harpoon-like arrow, although she remains unphased by this, emitting an
animalistic roar and struggling as the men attempt to constrain her. Her
point of view from the ground centres on a Reaver above her, who is
promptly skewered by Logan’s claws– at this point a floating signifier
that is no longer in exclusive ownership of Logan. While Logan ultimately
overpowers several Reavers, Laura is portrayed as using her abilities to
slash and slice her way out of her restraints with an innovative addition to
Wolverine’s powers– t he claw that extends out of her foot– a nd the three
escape in Logan’s limousine.
The showdown at the smelting plant is essentially set up much like an
Old West gunfight, which indicates that Laura’s ingenuity remains teth-
ered to the legacy of classic narratives, or indeed to the legacy of Wolverine.
The scene therefore exemplifies the ongoing mode of representation in
which the old man Logan fights alongside his younger female clone. This
ultimately marks an attempt to rejuvenate the Wolverine legacy through
Laura– and part of this legacy is of violence, which is coded as feral,
inhuman animalism. This is bookended by Xavier’s comment at the end
of the sequence: ‘I told you, Logan. She is a mutant like you, . . . Very
much like you.’
Interestingly, media discourses in Logan’s paratexts dwelled on the
affective draw of the end scene in which Laura bids a dying Logan
farewell. Speaking few words throughout the film– with most of those
that are spoken being Spanish– Laura’s muteness is congruent with
her lack of human socialisation and having spent her early childhood
in the presence of Spanish speakers. When Laura, earlier in the film,
yells at Logan in English, then, Logan is surprised, although the film
is ambiguous in its critique of his colonial attitude towards language
acquisition. It is nonetheless significant that in the final scene between

Logan and Laura, Laura recites a key monologue from Shane that had
been depicted diegetically earlier in Logan while Laura watched televi-
sion with Xavier in a hotel room. In Shane, the eponymous hero arrives
at a homestead in Wyoming, having renounced his gunslinging ways
and befriending local rancher Joe Starrett, his wife Marian and son Joey.
After being coaxed back to his former violence in a climactic duel with
the film’s villain, cattle baron Rufus Ryker, Shane eliminates Ryker but
is wounded in the process. Foreshadowing his implied demise, Shane
turns to Joey, who had witnessed the gunfight, and says his goodbye,
telling a weeping Joey to reassure his mother that ‘There aren’t any
more guns in the valley’, that this was, so to speak, the gunfight to end
all gunfights and that the homestead will be safe on his departure. This
line’s significance reaches back to a key moment in Shane in which
Marian chastises Shane when he teaches Joey how to shoot (‘We’d all
be better off if there wasn’t a single gun in this valley’). Despite Joey’s
protests, and his noting that Shane is wounded, Shane turns away and
rides into the distance, presumably to die, surrounded by mountains, as
Joey calls for him to come back.
Logan’s narrative parallels the trajectory of Shane’s central hero, who,
like Logan, is burdened by the fact that death accompanies him wherever
he goes. Like Logan, Shane also depends on ideas of the essential nature of
masculine violence and the possibility that death is the logical resolution
of this. Referring to Shane, Matthew Carter argues that the film presents
an impossible bind for its male characters, for despite Marian’s objections
to Joey’s fascination with Shane and his gun, ‘the hard fact is that, from
the very outset, the child is being culturally indoctrinated, as it were, for
a masculine social trajectory with violence at its core’ (Carter 2015: 58).
This is reflected by the deterministic discourses in Shane’s (and Logan’s)
final monologue, that ‘There’s no living with a killing. There’s no going
back from it. Right or wrong, it’s a brand, a brand that sticks, there’s no
going back.’ Like Shane, Logan makes use of the legacy of the Western
to assert the trajectory of violence on which its hero is set. Parallel to the
myth of the American frontier as progressing by way of what Richard
Slotkin refers to as ‘regeneration through violence’ (Slotkin 2000), the
heroic identity of ‘Wolverine’ is regenerated in the film through Logan’s
violent death and Laura’s violent conception.
Still, Logan’s ending is interesting in its placing of the Shane mon-
ologue as an expression of Laura’s grief at the departure of Logan,
rather than as the tragic hero’s resignation to his predetermined demise.
Surrounded by a mountainous landscape, filmed from a low angle and
panning to display the vista, not unlike that in Shane, Laura recites
Shane’s monologue by Logan’s grave in a woodland area near the
Canadian border. Unlike the western hero, though, she is surrounded by
her young mutant peers, one of whom clutches a Wolverine action figure
to his chest (which is diegetically justified due to the film’s self-aware
use of the X-Men as bygone comic book heroes throughout). This is a
symbolic departure from the lone gunslinger archetype, and unlike Joey,
Laura carries Logan’s legacy with her when she finally walks off camera
into the mountainous distance because, in many ways, she is Logan (at
least genetically). Laura is marked here as the hero who ultimately walks
away from violence, albeit still an essential aspect of her genetic make-
up, whereas Shane walks towards death caused by violence.
Laura’s exit, then, gains additional meaning in the light of the hope
for mutantkind she represents, but it is nonetheless marked by the legacy
of the institutional evils that were enacted on Logan to begin with. This
legacy is accentuated in the final scene of the film, in which, on her way
out of the shot, Laura picks up the makeshift tree branches that have been
fashioned into a cross at Logan’s grave (he is, after all, the martyred hero)
and turns them so that they form an ‘X’, ultimately signalling the poten-
tial for Wolverine’s regeneration through the legacy of the X-gene in the
mutant children (Figure 5.2). The camera remains fixed at the graveside
as Laura leaves, slowly zooming in to the ‘X’ in a shot accompanied by
a typically western-style harmonica tune, for though the film implies a
rejuvenation of mutants in their newfound haven beyond the mountains
of North Dakota, it is with Logan where this story ends, thereby granting
him the ultimate authority in the closing of this narrative.
Nowhere is Marvel superheroes’ dependence on legacy and revision
Figure 5.2 Laura heralds a new generation of mutants by turning Logan’s grave-
marking cross into an ‘X’ in Logan.
more apparent in the 2016 comic series All-New Wolverine (Taylor and
López 2016), which rebranded the X-23 character as the new Wolverine
as part of Marvel’s ‘All-New, All-Different’ relaunch (this was subse-
quently followed by Marvel’s ‘Legacy’ titles in a soft reboot in 2017 and
‘Marvel Fresh Start’ in 2018). In this series, Laura takes on the Wolverine
mantle – including yellow spandex costume– and encounters yet more
female Wolverine clones. This was released after the 2014 storyline ‘The
Death of Wolverine’ (Soule and McNiven 2015) which may have primed
certain readers for Logan’s filmic demise. He was subsequently returned
to life in 2019 (Soule et al. 2019), although even during the time between
his death and resurrection, versions of the character appeared in subse-
quent series featuring the version of Wolverine from the ‘Old Man Logan’
universe (Bendis and Sorrentino 2015; Lemire and Sorrentino 2016) as
well as one-page sequences titled ‘Where is Wolverine?’, which were scat-
tered throughout different Marvel comics (Waid and Yu 2018; Aaron and
Yu 2018; Slott and Yu 2018; Zdarsky and Pacheco 2018; Ewing et al. 2018;
Coates and Kirk 2018; Pak and Stegman 2018; Taylor and Stegman 2018;
Bendis and Stegman 2018). Meanwhile, Laura is taken back in time to
team up with past-Logan in Generations: Wolverine & All-New Wolverine
(Taylor and Rosanas 2017). It is noteworthy that both the representations
of Elektra and Wolverine’s respective relationships with their young pro-
tégés bring to light similar conceptual themes to do with (re)generation
and gender. Moreover, the regeneration at the heart of these narratives
exists well beyond into the intertextual webs formed by all texts based on
Marvel properties.
Notes
1. The interactions of Logan, Xavier and Laura with the Munsons occur as a
result of a near-fatal road accident, which is prevented by Xavier and Logan.
Munson, his wife and children are black and the film establishes their resist-
ance to the dystopia’s corporatisation of locally produced goods and land.
Purveyors of all-American Christian family values and individualist freedom,
the Munson family appear, in a postracial sense, to have assimilated to the
situation of white working-class people characterised as marginalised and
aggrieved through right-wing populist politics. Nonetheless, it is because of
Logan that the Munsons are all eventually killed by Alkali-Transigen’s Logan
clone, X-24, in a sequence that Asif et al. suggest functions in service of
Logan’s demystification of the frontier myth (Asif et al. 2019: 154).
2. A key introductory scene in which Caliban appears involves him ironing one
of Logan’s shirts while berating him (see Petković 2018: 142).
3. The series was initially released via Marvel’s creator-oriented Icon imprint, the
story and characters in Kick-Ass do not take place within the Marvel Universe
and their film adaptations were not considered within the corpus of films that
are the subject of this book as a whole (indeed, subsequent entries in the Kick-
Ass line were published by Image Comics).
C H A PT E R 6
Mad With Power:

Female Villainy in Marvel Films
That evil features prominently in films featuring Marvel heroes goes

without saying; heroism is gauged against a darker force. As Schatz points
out, blockbusters of the 2000s present a Manichean universe in which
good fights evil (Schatz 2009: 32), and while the hero must in some way
mirror his enemy and enact an external battle with his own dark side
(Schatz 2009: 32), every Marvel hero is portrayed alongside an opponent.
In most Marvel films, the villain, like the hero, is usually male. Magneto,
the Red Skull, the Green Goblin, Kingpin and the Lizard all exemplify
the antithesis to the masculine hero in masculine terms. The villainess
is somewhat of a rarity in the Marvel film adaptation, however this does
not diminish her significance in cultural terms. The villainesses discussed
here represent a study into the ways in which the discourses regarding
women and evil within these films endorse patriarchal notions of gendered
morality. These notions ultimately serve to reaffirm control upon women,
a noteworthy occurrence in a postfeminist age. Several key themes are
presented in this chapter: the perpetuation of a tradition that connects
women and evil, the discourses regarding acceptable femininity which
are in the process evoked, the varying manifestations of this tradition in
film and comic books, and the place of this tradition within postfeminist
culture. My subsequent discussion of the intersections of female villainy
with discourses of white supremacy in Thor: Ragnarok highlights distinc-
tive cultural shifts that have taken place in postfeminist culture post-
Trump election.
Evil is hard to define, as noted by Hannah Priest, and yet cultural
representations of evil are frequently offered in the media (Priest 2013a:
vii). Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo notes that ‘we fear evil, but are
fascinated by it’ (Zimbardo 2007: 4). In Zimbardo’s terms, evil is char-
acterised as Other; it is rejected because it is ‘different and dangerous’
(Zimbardo 2007: 4). Such a statement is significant when considered in a
feminist context, which Zimbardo neglects to do in his accounts of evil.1 It
has been suggested that woman stands as the Other in a male-dominated

culture, as exemplified by Simone de Beauvoir (de Beauvoir 1952). This
aids the formation of the feminine myth, which is, as Janet McCabe notes,
‘nothing more than a patriarchal construction, representing both every-
thing and nothing, ideal and monstrous’ (McCabe 2005: 4). Thus, the
positioning of evil in Western culture bears parallels to the positioning
of women. Zimbardo continues that the process through which certain
people are coded as evil
begins with creating stereotyped conceptions of the other, dehumanized perceptions

of the other, the other as worthless, the other as all-powerful, the other as demonic,
the other as an abstract monster, the other as a fundamental threat to our cherished
values and beliefs. (Zimbardo 2007: 11)
Indeed, these qualifications apply equally to the ways in which women

are othered in a patriarchal society. A criticism of Zimbardo’s approach,
then, is that he does not take into account the gendered dimensions of
evil. There forms a cyclical pattern in which evil is othered, women are
othered, and women are perceived as evil. Maria Barrett similarly main-
tains that the connection between the feminine and evil is a manifestation
of women being positioned as Other (Barrett 2010b: vii).
Philosopher Nel Noddings offers the most detailed account of femi-
nine evil to describe evil from the perspective of women’s experiences
(Noddings 1989). Noddings concludes that the dichotomy of the ‘good’
woman and the ‘evil’ woman has been used as a means of controlling
women (Noddings 1989: 3). She, much like McCabe, remarks upon the
paradox that accompanies such a dichotomy: while being ‘branded as evil’,
women are also ‘exalted as possessing a special and natural form of good-
ness’ (Noddings 1989: 3). Noddings subsequently outlines how women
have been associated with evil as a form of social oppression. Reaching
back to religious discourses, it was claimed that demonic forces are present
in the feminine unconscious, that women are ‘fundamentally deprived of
moral sense’ (Noddings 1989: 50) and also ‘more sensitive to the supernat-
ural’ (Noddings 1989: 45). Noddings continues, ‘This sensitivity, coupled
with materiality and sensuality, made it likely that more women than men
would receive and entertain devils and demons’ (Noddings 1989: 45).
Combined with women’s fundamental lack of moral sense, women would
be considered inherently receptive to evil voices (Noddings 1989: 45).
This assignment of evil to the female body and mind has had significant
ramifications. Noddings, for example, characterises the Christian myth
of the Fall of Man as an expression of these sentiments, in which God
creates Adam and Eve, only to exile them from Paradise when Eve is
ma d with po we r 147
tempted to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, in turn
leading Adam astray (Noddings 1989: 65). Humanity’s exile from Paradise
and the Fall of Man were therefore caused by the weak spirit of a woman.
Noddings likewise notes that ‘the aspect of the Fall story that attributes
the introduction of evil into the world to women resounds in the myths of
many cultures’ (Noddings 1989: 56), indicating the proliferation of such
discourses. Women continue to be characterised as evil in ways that per-
petuate the traditions outlined above. In turn, these representations have a
complex relationship to postfeminist discourses in contemporary culture.
Recently, academic interest in media representations of evil women has
increased, particularly in how different media construct such subjectivi-
ties (Barrett 2010a; Priest 2013b; Ruthven and Mádlo 2012). Barrett sug-
gests that evil women are given so much attention in the media because of
their social deviance, while also stating that media are quick to exploit the
spectacle of such deviance (Barrett 2010b: vii). Similarly, Priest points out
that ‘the construction of evil relies on particular modes of language and
(re)presentation’, highlighting the importance of deconstructing media
portrayals of feminine evil (Priest 2013a: ix).
Another sign of the cultural malaise that has traditionally accom-
modated the sexually assertive woman is the virgin/whore dichotomy.
Though sexually active women had been excluded and marginalised in
earlier periods, this dichotomy was a significant element of Victorian
culture. As Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin suggest, Victorian culture
divided women into categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, partaking of a ‘cultural
construct defining women on the basis of their sexuality’ (Benshoff and
Griffin 2009: 459). Likewise, the virgin/whore dichotomy has been dis-
cussed in relation to early cinema by E. Ann Kaplan (1983). Benshoff and
Griffin subsequently state that the dichotomy ‘continues to linger within
the representational codes of classical and even contemporary Hollywood
cinema’ (Benshoff and Griffin 2009: 459–60).
Outside narrative cinema, women who transgress the boundaries of
acceptable, ‘good’ femininity are subjected to media discourses in which
they are constructed as irredeemably evil. Female serial killers such as
Myra Hindley, Rosemary West and Aileen Wuornos have been character-
ised as evil or monstrous in the press, often scrutinised for their ‘deviant’
sexualities (Birch 1994; Storrs 2004; Rogers 2012; Campbell 2013). These
scapegoated women serve as a ‘warning to all women’ (Campbell 2013:
146), ‘a valuable lesson for the rest of femininity’ (Rogers 2012: 109) about
what happens when good women turn evil.
A quintessential ‘bad’ woman is the femme fatale in 1940s film noir, a
dangerously sensual woman. Far from tangible, Elizabeth Cowie suggests
that the term ‘is simply a catchphrase for the danger of sexual difference
and the demands and risks desire poses for men’ (Cowie 1997: 125). In
any case, Hilary Neroni notes consistencies present in femme fatale char-
acters: ‘a self-centred nature, an overt sexuality, and an ability to seduce
and control almost any man who crosses her path’ (Neroni 2005: 22). This
highly sexual trait combined with her violent nature offers an explana-
tion of ‘why she is so unacceptable to society’ (Neroni 2005: 22), and the
femme fatale, like so many other evil women, is often eradicated through
a violent death (Neroni 2005: 22).
Indeed, death is more often than not the only viable narrative outcome
for villainesses. Sherrie Inness, in her discussion of ‘killer women’ films
such as Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), examines how violent, ‘evil’
women are narratively punished for their transgressions. She notes that
such films perpetuate a convention that dictates that ‘if women insist on
being too tough and aggressive . . . the transgressors will be punished.
This emphasis on punishment is one way that killer-women films help
perpetuate gender norms’ (Inness 1998: 81). Inness also maintains that
sexual allure plays a large role in establishing the lack of morals possessed
by villainesses. She elaborates that ‘by making women sexually desirable
and stressing that they are attracted to men, the films assure viewers that
women are sexual objects’ (Inness 1998: 69). These characters were also
often portrayed as mentally distressed or insane, further elevating the
notion that a powerful woman could not plausibly cope with the psycho-
logical pressures that accompany such power (Inness 1998: 69).
In a sense, the emphasis on the sexualised female body bears resem-
blance to the visual frustration tactics put forward in Chapter 3. The key
difference, though, between sexual evil women and sexualised heroines is
the agency that they are presented as enacting, especially concerning the
moral leanings of their ultimate goal (heroic or villainous). Most of the
evil women in many of these narratives are portrayed as actively engaging
in the sexual– they are sexual aggressors. Attention is drawn to the sexu-
alised heroine, on the other hand, through her ‘natural’ feminine beauty.
These characteristics appear to be in a safe zone of sexual assertion–
the heroines may be sexualised but are not portrayed as choosing to be
sexual. Villainesses, on the other hand, actively pursue men they desire (or
women, if the villainess is particularly evil), as motivated by manipulative
intents or an overly sexual appetite. Further, their powers may be shown
as dangerous while they are engaging in a sexual encounter– a poison
kiss, for example– drawing attention to the danger of sexually assertive
women. Images and narratives of the sexualised evil woman are driven by
social discourses that forbid women from being sexually assertive in the
same way that men are. However, in a postfeminist culture that trades on
discourses of sexual liberation, and female empowerment through expres-
sive (hetero)sexuality, these sexually evil women present a paradox. Here,
the notion of postfeminist culture as an inconsistent phenomenon con-
stantly in flux resurfaces.
The evil woman has held a steady presence in Marvel comic books.
Danny Fingeroth writes that ‘If a woman was powerful– really powerful
– she was either evil, or made evil by the power’ (Fingeroth 2004: 80).
Likewise, in his guide to writing comics, author Peter David outlines the
ways in which a hero’s internal conflicts can be externalised in a narra-
tive: ‘In order to fulfill his destiny, the hero can find himself struggling
against seductive evil, seductive women, or– worst of all– seductive evil
women’ (David 2006: 72). David does not elaborate more on these ‘seduc-
tive evil women’, perhaps indicating how such characters are taken for
granted within superhero narratives, but needless to say, one rarely hears
of ‘seductive good women’ in media discourses. Sexual appetite, evil and
femininity triangulate within these discourses. Madrid likewise notes that
The message in comic books about women and sex was this: powerful and intrigu-
ing women might be sexual, but it also meant they were bad. Once a woman began
to behave herself, it meant a suppression of her sexual identity. (Madrid 2009: 249)
It is not unusual for the heroines in comic books to turn evil. Even whole-
some matriarch Susan Storm was driven to the dark side when she became
corrupted by the evil Psycho-Man after her second child was stillborn,
becoming the villainess Malice (Byrne 1984; 1985a). At this point, Sue’s
powers were amplified and she began using them in much more aggressive
ways. This also reinforces the notion of frustration tactics, for a heroine
whose powers are frustrated avoids the risk of being evil, or at least associ-
ated with evil. Sue’s contravention is also indicated by her costume, which
becomes considerably more revealing and sexualised– a tiny black dress
with exposed cleavage, midriff and thighs, and a spiked collar and mask
reminiscent of BDSM styles.
Madrid refers to heroines who turn evil in Marvel comics, stating that
power intoxicated these women and made them cruel, maniacal menaces who cast
aside loyalties to friends and lovers. Even when possessed by an evil entity, the impli-
cation was that a suppressed part of the heroine’s soul was reveling in the rush of
devilry. (Madrid 2009: 231)
This corresponds with the belief described by Noddings, wherein the

female unconscious is inherently corrupt and that women are more
v ulnerable to possession from evil spirits. Thus, despite the evil woman
appearing in various media, it is clear that she is the result of a culture
uncomfortable with the notion of powerful women. Her presence is at
once shocking and predictable.
Wicked Witches and Poisonous Women

The idea of women being physically repulsive and highly toxic (and there-
fore evil) resonates with notions of the abject, elaborated by Julia Kristeva
(1982) and specifically used with regards to feminine evil by Barbara Creed
(1993). A psychoanalytical concept, the abject represents that which ‘dis-
turbs identity, system, order’ and ‘does not respect borders, positions,
rules’ (Kristeva 1982: 4). It is that which is cast off, expelled; which threat-
ens to break down the border between subject and object, though it none-
theless maintains a link between the two (Kristeva 1982: 1–2). Examples
of the abject could be ‘decay, filth, and excrement’ (Kutzbach and Mueller
2007: 9).
However, the abject extends to more cultural and societal levels,
wherein marginalised members of society are cast off, defined as ‘ugly or
fearsome’ (Kutzbach and Mueller 2007: 9). This likewise resonates with
Zimbardo’s consideration of accused witches, whom he suggests were
usually marginalised or considered threatening in some way: ‘widowed,
poor, ugly, deformed, or in some cases considered too proud and power-
ful’ (Zimbardo 2007: 9).2 In this sense it is possible to conceive of women
as society’s abject. In her psychoanalytic analysis, Creed effectively applies
Kristeva’s notion of the abject to the feminine monster in the horror film.
She offers the term ‘monstrous-feminine’ as an insight to how women are
portrayed as ‘shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject’ (Creed 1993: 1), noting
the importance of recognising ‘gendered monsters’ (Creed 1993: 2).
Creed subsequently deduces that in horror films, woman is represented
as monstrous ‘in relation to her mothering and reproductive functions’
(Creed 1993: 7), cementing the connection between the female body and
evil. These discourses of the feminine abject resurface when considering
the vilification of women in Marvel films. Here, issues of genre hybridity
come to the fore, as the films appear to actively draw from body horror
traditions associated with monstrous femininity. That these genre issues
are elaborated through the vessel of feminine subjectivity is noteworthy
and indicates the extensive nature of the monstrous feminine, which is not
necessarily confined to one medium or mode of storytelling.
One of the most ruthless vilifications of a woman in both comics and
films is found in the representation of Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last
Stand. Despite her powers often being frustrated due to her inability to
control them, Grey’s final scenes in X2, in which she opts to sacrifice
herself so that she can use her powers to grant safety to her teammates in
danger of being struck in their plane by a tidal wave, are highly complex.
Agency is highlighted in her choice to save her teammates, while also
appropriating the traditionally masculine act of self-sacrifice and speaking
to postfeminist notions of choice. However, Grey’s narrative takes a turn
for the worse in the film’s sequel when she returns with an evil persona,
the Dark Phoenix. Grey’s portrayal in The Last Stand largely epitomises
the ultimate embodiment of feminine evil, a conflation of corrupt morality,
aberrant sexuality, mental instability, and abject femininity.
The Last Stand takes as its inspiration the ‘Dark Phoenix Saga’ comic
storyline from 1980. In the comic, Grey becomes exposed to radiation
whilst rescuing her team in space, causing her powers to reach their ulti-
mate potential. She rebrands herself as Phoenix, becoming far more pow-
erful and dressing in more provocative costumes, much like Susan Storm
while she was possessed by Malice. Grey soon falls victim to the evil
Hellfire Club, which recruits her via mind control. She eventually regains
control over her thoughts and seeks revenge over the mutant who took
over her mind. In the process she becomes power-crazed and devours a
star, killing all of the inhabitants of a nearby planet. With the X-Men in
pursuit, the story culminates in Grey making the choice to end her own
life for the good of humanity in a brief moment of clarity (Claremont and
Byrne 1980b).
Madrid interprets this story as emblematic of the time of publishing,
indicating a sense of punishment for the hedonism of the 1970s, which for
many led to addiction and death (Madrid 2009: 174), and its repetition in
cinematic form in 2006 continues the traditions set out by the comics, and
in many ways exaggerates them. Recent adaptation Dark Phoenix (Simon
Kinberg, 2019) revisits this narrative yet again, this time following on
from the events in X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer, 2016). The Last
Stand begins with a flashback of Professor Xavier and Magneto as friends
visiting a teenage Grey at her parents’ house. They explain to her that she
has extremely potent mutant powers. The central theme of power, control
and responsibility is introduced when Xavier asks her, ‘Will you control
that power or let it control you?’ Significantly, this theme is localised on
the single character of Jean Grey, rather than being explored via other
characters. It is noteworthy, for example, that Scott Summers is unable to
control his optic force blasts– r ed beams of energy that burst out of his
eyes– b ut this rarely, if ever, poses a problem in the narrative; he simply
wears a visor that allows him to control his power, or, as in Apocalypse, he
is actively encouraged by his teammates to unleash his power in battle.

This is a crucial indicator of how power is constructed as a gendered phe-
nomenon in these films.
Grey’s resurrection scene offers some insight into this situation.
Summers visits the lake where she died in X2 and hears a voice whis-
pering his name. A whirlwind occurs in the lake and he falls. When he
turns around, Grey is before him, still wearing her X-Men uniform and
surrounded in a heavenly light that was present during her death. The
light, however, is misleading, as this is not the heroic Jean Grey from
the previous films, but a malevolent, dark Jean Grey. When they unite,
Grey demonstrates how she now has absolute control over her powers by
removing Summers’s glasses and preventing his use of his optic blasts.
However, the scene becomes tragic as Grey changes during their kiss–
her eyes turning black in a close-up– and cuts to Xavier telepathically
witnessing Grey murdering Summers. That her evil tendencies are first
demonstrated while she kisses Summers is significant and is a plot point
that occurs frequently throughout representations of villainesses. Much
like when Rogue accidentally sucks the life out of her unsuspecting boy-
friend through kissing him, these scenes reinforce the sexual undertones
present in narratives of out-of-control women, who, in these heteronor-
mative narratives, are constructed as being dangerous to men (with one
exception, discussed later, in the Elektra villain Typhoid).
Such sentiments have been the fuel for femicidal activities such as the
witch-hunting craze, which reached its peak in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. An obsession with the female body persisted, as it was
implied that witches ‘give themselves to the devil’ (Muchembled 2003: 79),
even having intercourse with him (Gardenour 2012: 178). In the under-
currents of the witch craze were discourses involving women’s bodies,
their sexual conduct and appearance. According to Robert Muchembled,
witches were said to be physically ugly due to their devotion to the devil
(Muchembled 2003: 79). However, in her discussion of the construction of
the feminine evil in the later Middle Ages, Brenda Gardenour traces the
stereotype of the witch as an old, green hag to pseudo-scientific reason-
ing propagated by European universities in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries (Gardenour 2012: 181). Due to the ‘natural’ toxicity of women’s
bodies, the theory went, witches had an ugly appearance.3 Gardenour notes:
the witch body was a sickly green, its skin having a yellowish hue, perhaps from its
occasional overheating and the rising of choleric yellow bile . . . A further sign of
the bubbling toxins within, she was covered with blemishes such as warts and moles.
(Gardenour 2012: 181)
Figure 6.1 The darkening of Jean Grey’s eyes and her veiny complexion marks her as
abject in X-Men: The Last Stand.
Appearance, therefore, plays a crucial role in the identification of feminine

evil. Grey’s appearance during the reunion scene and others in the film
seem innocuous, but on closer inspection, she bears significant similarities
to the stereotypical witch of Western thought. The connection between
Grey’s telepathic/telekinetic powers and witchcraft is obvious, especially
coupled with her gesticulation when using these powers. She tends to
float upright through the shot, as if she were, like a witch, ‘hoisted aloft by
demons’ (Gardenour 2012: 181).
This demonic element is further present in the unnatural blackening
of her eyes whenever she is performing particular acts of evil (Figure
6.1). Additionally, Grey’s hair is unkempt and sprawling, having grown
to below her hips, her complexion is veiny and pallid, reminiscent of the
witch as an old hag who gives insufficient attention to bodily hygiene
and maintenance. Most telling is Grey’s attire, which changes through-
out the course of the film from her X-Men uniform to various deep red
ensembles. When she reaches her power’s full capacity, she wears a long,
black, cloak-like coat, underneath which is a floating red dress that often
billows in the wind, especially when she engages in evil acts while using
her powers. This choice of attire both indicates Grey’s positioning as an
evil witch-like entity and utilises the colour red to signify a sensual kind
of danger (which is directly reminiscent of her Dark Phoenix costume in
the comics).
The film’s adherence to archaic notions of feminine evil is thus exposed
in the characterisation of Grey as witch. After becoming evil, Grey is
essentially a lifeless, catatonic vessel who is then used by Magneto in
his fight against humans and their mutant cure. During the film, Xavier
exposits that Grey’s personality has split in two and that she is being
controlled by her instinctual (sensual) side: ‘a purely instinctual creature,

all desire and joy, and rage’. This clearly endorses beliefs about women
being more receptive to ‘evil voices’ because ‘women’s bodies propelled
them to an interest in the sensual’ (Noddings 1989: 45). Grey is a carnal
creature, bolstering the association between women’s physical bodies
alongside their amoral minds with evil. She is further unable to be a moral
agent because her moral sense (or lack thereof) is presented as entirely
unconscious.
Witches were likewise thought of as dangerously sexual; Muchembled
articulates that the witch craze ‘formed a tightly structured theory, focused
on the demonic Sabbath and with an increasing emphasis on women
and on an unnatural sexuality which was imputed to them in particular’
(Muchembled 2003: 60). So, too, is Grey marked as overtly sexual, for
instance in a scene in which she is examined at Xavier’s school after being
found by Logan. At this point it is unclear whether she is enacting her
good or evil persona; she lies unconscious on an examination table with
electrodes monitoring her body. Here, Grey is positioned as an object
of Logan’s desire. Logan stands above her as she removes the electrodes
from her exposed chest. This cuts to a shot of Logan looking, followed by
a close-up of her chest as she removes the electrodes, the outline of her
breasts clearly visible. This is acknowledged within the scene when she
jokingly states, ‘Logan, you’re making me blush.’ Grey then aggressively
initiates a kiss, which escalates to her removing his belt telekinetically and
sensually scraping his back with her fingernails. The scene specifies that
something is wrong with Grey as she engages in a sexually assertive act.
Sexual assertion is therefore emblematic of female evil and power, which
must be punished.
The factor of mental distress also plays a significant role in the portrayal
of Grey’s evil persona. As noted above, it is not unusual for evil women
in the media to be presented as mentally ill, reaching to widespread ideas
around female hysteria. Inness also agrees that this kind of representation
is problematic, stating that such a character is ‘shown to be insane, sug-
gesting that her tough attributes are not “normal” for women but signs
of a pathological condition’ (Inness 1998: 72). Grey’s mental instability
is evident not only when she kills Summers, but also during her sexual
encounter with Logan, in which, after Logan tells her Xavier will be able
to ‘fix’ her condition, she screams, crazed and in close-up, ‘I don’t wanna
fix it!’ Here, her eyes have again turned black, signifying that she is indeed
evil and has become mentally unhinged.
Still, Grey’s most shocking act happens during a showdown with the
X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood of Mutants when she visits her child-
hood home. Both Xavier and Magneto attempt to reason with Grey, but
she snaps when Xavier tells her that her uncontrollable power resulted
in Summers’s death. This sends Grey into a raging fury, where she hys-
terically cries and screams, causing the house and everything inside it
– including the other mutants– to levitate. The climax of the sequence
features Grey disintegrating Xavier with her powers. Here, Grey is shown
as having been corrupted by her power, driven insane, and ultimately
harming her loved ones, including the X-Men’s patriarchal leader.
Typically, Grey is punished by death. After a dramatic stand- off
between the mutants and the human military (armed with plastic guns
and the mutant cure), Grey completely loses control, destroying build-
ings around her and evaporating humans and mutants alike. Logan is
the only one who can stop Grey, it is implied, because of his stamina, but
also because of his romantic devotion to Grey, framing the sequence in
heterosexual terms. Grey’s power is visually marked by her position on a
mound of debris far above Logan, who attempts to talk sense into Grey
as he struggles against her telekinetic forces. Grey is so strong, that her
powers remove most of Logan’s clothes, as well as some of his skin, expos-
ing his bulging muscles. Logan, here, has been constructed as an essential
image of strong, white, heterosexual masculinity, the only one who can
stop Grey. Her good side finally resurfaces when Logan tells her he would
die for her, and Grey frantically begs him to kill her. Logan carries out the
act with his retractable metal claws, professing his love for her. Thus, the
cinematic Grey is eliminated by a patriarchal figure, her final punishment.
Interestingly, editorial conflicts led to Grey’s death in the comics that
prove insightful. Writer Chris Claremont intended to depower Grey as
punishment for essentially carrying out the genocide of an entire planet.
This would have removed her powers, frustrating them. However,
Marvel’s editor at the time was unhappy with this decision and decided
that Grey deserved more severe punishment. Although it remains
unclear exactly who ruled the death sentence for Grey (see Daniels 1991:
90–1; Madrid 2009: 174–5; Ryall and Tipton 2009: 30 for contradictory
accounts), the story caused a fan furore and became one of Marvel’s most
controversial stories as Grey was portrayed taking her own life (Fingeroth
2004: 90–1). The film amplifies the patriarchal mechanisms that contain
Grey – dominated, powerless and dead. It was not enough for Grey to
be punished by a depowering in the comics; death was deemed a more
suitable punishment. Similarly, Grey’s death at her own hands was insuf-
ficient in the film adaptation; she was to be killed by a patriarchal figure.
Each incarnation of this narrative, which has recurred in various media,
oppressed Grey’s power more than the last.
Grey’s death clearly acts as a frustration tactic to limit her power,

but there is one more factor that complicates Grey’s agency. During her
examination at Xavier’s school, it is revealed by Xavier that he has been
limiting her power since her childhood. He tells Logan that due to her
power, he ‘created a series of psychic barriers to isolate her powers from
her conscious mind and as a result, Jean developed a dual personality’.
Thus, Grey’s power had been contained by Xavier throughout all of the
films. Indeed, it is unclear whether Grey’s heroics were ever truly of her
doing, or whether Xavier was behind them the entire time. The Last Stand
characterises Grey as an insane witch-like murderess who clearly has no
control over her powers or her actions and the ethical implications thereof.
The film then establishes that it is possible that Grey may not even be held
accountable for the good acts she carried out in the past, as she was under
the influence of the X-Men’s resident patriarch the entire time. Indeed,
Dark Phoenix potentially takes account of this criticism by portraying
Xavier as somewhat remorseful for having violated Jean’s mind, although
the overall narrative outcome of Jean’s death remains.
Disease, Toxicity and Poison in Marvel’s Evil Women

Ideas of women being toxic or poisonous frequently resurface, coincid-
ing with those of dangerous feminine sexuality and also informing the
medieval thinking behind the witch hunts. As Gardenour notes ‘The
witch’s unique anatomy and physiology, with its fundamental humoral
imbalance, drove her sexual rapacity which, in turn, intensified the toxic-
ity of her flesh, breath, and very glance’ (Gardenour 2012: 179). The idea
of the poison woman is persistent in Western cultures, which Dominique
Mainon and James Ursini refer to as ‘a throwback from the fifties when
scare tactics were utilized to discourage sexual contact between teenagers’
(Mainon and Ursini 2006: 67). However, the association between women
and poison goes back much further. By the sixteenth century, it was sug-
gested that women corroded the innate warmth of men and transmit-
ted a ‘malevolent moistness’ during sex (Muchembled 2003: 77). This
belief was later extended to the air exhaled by women, which was deemed
poisonous (Muchembled 2003: 77). Later on, in the nineteenth century,
women were similarly typified as toxic due to their sexual appetites. Here,
prostitutes were blamed for the spread of venereal disease such as syphilis
(Ehrlich 2013). The sexualised female body was considered inherently
diseased, prompting US physicians to call for a system of regulating pros-
titutes, policing their bodies and further controlling women’s sexuality
(Ehrlich 2013: 121, 127).
This association dates back at least to ancient Greek times, in which, as

discussed by Alison Innes, women were not trusted to be healers due to
the idea that they lacked the self-control needed to administer medicine
(Innes 2013: 3). Innes notes that ‘the repeated telling of these myths rein-
forced the association of women with poisonous pharmaka [medicines]
in the minds of Greek listeners’ (Innes 2013: 14). Equally of note is the
sexual element of this association, which resulted in the scapegoating of
women during epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases (Ehrlich 2013).
Interestingly, the infections spread by poison women in Marvel films bear
remarkable similarity to sexually transmitted infections, especially when
considering that these women use their powers against men during sexual
acts.
Typhoid Mary is a Marvel comic book character named after an Irish
immigrant cook living in America in the early to mid-1900s, ‘Typhoid
Mary’ Mallon. Mallon was a carrier of typhoid fever, bearing no symp-
toms herself, and infected dozens of other people. Typhoid Mary of the
comics acquired a split-personality after Daredevil caused an accident in
the brothel in which she worked, imbuing her tragic narrative with sexual
undertones (Kelly and Chang 1997). Her ‘original’ Mary persona con-
stantly ran a fever while her Typhoid persona gained telekinetic and tel-
epathic powers, becoming a foe of Daredevil. In her introductory comic,
Typhoid is accompanied by discourses pertaining to poison: ‘Invisible
poisons. They walk among us. Poison lives, all it touches . . . dies. Poison
doesn’t know it’s poison. It simply has to do what it has to to survive’
(Nocenti and Romita Jr 1988). However, these references to poison seem
to be merely illustrative, as there are no further references to actual poison
in the issue.
Typhoid Mary appears in the film Elektra, credited simply as
‘Typhoid’. Only her name, and possibly the description introducing
the character in the comic book, serves as inspiration for the character’s
poison powers. Typhoid (Natassia Malthe) appears heavily made up with
distinctive long, electric blue talon-like fingernails that are the focus of
several close-up shots. She is coded as villainous through her black cloth-
ing, but also through her powers, which she uses in a sexually predatory
manner. Typhoid is introduced early in the film as a member of the Hand
organisation, which seeks to end Elektra’s life. During a Council of the
Hand meeting, which is conducted by Japanese Master Roshi and his
businessman-like associates, she is shown slowly and sensually blowing a
kiss to one of the council members. In a medium close-up, the man’s face
becomes pallid, with darkened veins indicating blood poisoning on his
cheeks, his eyes bloodshot, as he raises his arm towards his nose in a bid
to shield himself from Typhoid’s breath. He coughs, and the shot cuts to
Roshi carelessly glancing down at him and then at Typhoid as she turns
and leaves. Like the toxic witches described by Gardenour, Typhoid’s
very breath is diseased and she is capable of killing people with a mere
kiss. Additionally, like Grey’s, Typhoid’s eyes frequently turn black when
she is perpetrating a particularly malicious act, again cementing her evil
status.
Elektra faces Typhoid during the same forest showdown in which Abby
Miller reveals her powers. While tracking Elektra, Mark and Abby with
her fellow Hand member, Tattoo, an aerial shot shows Typhoid walking
through grass and shrubbery. As she walks, she leaves a trail of blackened,
dead leaves she caused to die while brushing her outstretched hands over
them. After defeating the villain Stone, the three stand in a clearing. A
flare of dramatic music marks the peril in which they now find themselves,
as Elektra turns in surprise and the camera zooms into her astonished face.
Her point-of-view shot shows Typhoid approaching, looking into the
camera with her hands outstretched. This immediately cuts to a shot of
Typhoid kissing Elektra, wrapping her face in her hands.
Clearly, this kiss, the only same-sex kiss in the entire Marvel film adap-
tation corpus sampled, aligns this sexually infused act with evil. That
Typhoid uses her powers while forcibly kissing a heroic woman doubles
up the deviance of the already transgressive, sexually assertive act. In the
shot, Elektra’s skin begins to appear burned from Typhoid’s powers. In a
long shot from behind Typhoid, dead leaves fall around the pair. The kiss
is lengthy and shot in slow motion, exploiting the sexual connotations of
the scene. Typhoid then lowers herself and Elektra to the ground so that
she is lying on top of Elektra. The falling leaves turn black, externalising
the poisoning effect of Typhoid’s powers. When Typhoid lets go of her,
Elektra’s face is blue and black leaves surround her. Though Elektra obvi-
ously recovers from Typhoid’s attack– a nd later kills her by throwing
her sai at her face, causing Typhoid to explode in a puff of smoke– the
classic characteristics of the evil, poisonous woman have clearly been taken
advantage of within this scene. Further, in using an established character
such as Typhoid Mary, the character’s name aids in the construction of a
villainess who matches existing conceptions of women as poisonous.
The Wolverine also makes use of the notion of the poisonous woman
in its representation of the central female villain Viper (Svetlana
Khodchenkova). Viper is a snake-like mutant who excels in the creation
of toxins with her mutant powers. Like Typhoid, she is capable of poison-
ing people with a mere breath but is also immune to toxins herself. Viper
is based on the character also known as Madame Hydra in the comics.
A lethal assassin, Viper’s connection to snakes goes as far as immunity

to certain poisons in the comics, though she has been known to utilise
snakes as weapons, for example when she contaminated Washington DC’s
water supply with a snake mutagen, turning President Reagan into a snake
(Gruenwald and Dwyer 1988). Nonetheless, Viper’s snake-like attributes
are heightened in the film as she causes disruption with her poison powers.
Her portrayal conveniently combines the aforementioned discourses of
toxic witches with classical representations of snake-women, such as
Medusa, who had snakes for hair and could turn men to stone with her
gaze, and the half-woman, half-snake Echidna.
Viper is introduced as Dr Green, the oncologist of Yashida (Hiroyuki
Sanada), an ailing Japanese businessman whose life was saved by Logan
in World War II. Yashida has called on Logan so that he may repay him
for saving his life, although his motives are not benevolent. Dr Green is
revealed to be evil through a scene in which she kisses Logan. As Logan
dreams of kissing Jean Grey, a medium close-up shows Logan in bed.
Suddenly, Grey is revealed to be Viper, and her kiss is gagging him, her
eyes glowing green and her pupils slits. She pulls back and flees, and a
close-up lingers on the green mist escaping from Logan’s mouth as he
gags (this kiss serves the purpose of Viper implanting a device inside
Logan that disables his healing powers, a part of Yashida’s plan against
Logan). As with both Typhoid and Grey, Viper’s powers are established
as being particularly dangerous in conjunction with a sexual act, which
itself is crossing the boundary of appropriate femininity. The emphasis
on Viper’s sexuality is further drawn when, in the streets of Tokyo at
night, she is pursuing a now powerless Logan and his sidekick, Yukio
(Rila Fukushima). Viper is approached by a man, who, mistaking her for
a sex worker, asks ‘How much?’ Without hesitating, Viper kisses him and
he drops dead to the ground as she walks away. The effects of her powers
on her victims are syphilitic, being visible on the skin as a kind of infec-
tion, rash and boils, in addition to the veiny blood poisoning that was also
present in Typhoid’s victims. Viper’s representation thereby draws on
discourses regarding women as the toxic transmitters of venereal disease.
Throughout the film, Viper is almost exclusively dressed in green, but
this is often emphasised through outfits that entirely consist of leather
and other slippery, shiny fabrics reminiscent of snakeskin. As the film
progresses, Viper is presented as using her poison powers in increasingly
imaginative ways, such as licking a pen or her fingernails with her poison
in shots that showcase her forked snake tongue and the hissing sound that
accompanies it and using them to stab people. Likewise, The Wolverine does
not shy away from visually signifying the abject as manifest in the character
of Viper. Her appearance gradually becomes more infused with repulsive

qualities, characterising her as that which must be cast off, eradicated.
Notably, the association of women with poisonous snakes has been estab-
lished and repurposed depending on historical context. Noddings suggests
that snakes came to be associated with women due to their connotations
of wisdom, immortality and fertility (Noddings 1989: 53). This changed
since the myth of the Fall in which the serpent instigated Eve’s temptation
(Noddings 1989: 53). However, women have been associated with snakes
despite this, perhaps precisely because the devious, slithering snake matches
the notion of the evil, toxic woman. In any case, Viper’s status as a snake-
woman reifies this association, especially when considering the film’s visual
portrayal of the character. The most notable instance of the abjection of
Viper is during the film’s climactic scenes in a facility in which Yashida’s
associates are creating a giant weaponised Silver Samurai robot with which
to fight Logan. Viper is once again positioned as antithetical and dangerous
to men when she tells Logan the reasons why she was employed by Yashida:
‘Of course, it helps to be genetically immune to every poison known to man,
as I am. And immune to the toxin that is man himself . . . as I am.’
Like the femme fatales of the 1940s, Viper sexually manipulates men
for personal gain. But Viper’s previously palatable appearance is cor-
roded in the scenes that follow, matching her external appearance to
her evil morality. After being shot with a poison, Viper demonstrates
how her powers of immunity function. When she awakens on the floor
in the facility, her skin has become green-tinted scales, matching her
scaly leather outfit. Her eyes are once again green, her pupils snake-like.
She rips off her halter-neck top in a medium close-up, and in a moment
of body horror, she lifts a fingernail to the centre of her forehead and
scores her face to the bottom of her neck, cutting the flesh. The camera
slowly zooms in as she points her head upwards, places her hands upon
it and, lowering her head again, peels the skin away from her face with
a maniacal grin (Figure 6.2). At this moment, Viper is represented as
visually repulsive, an embodiment of the abject woman, with a later
shot showing her shed skin as an explicit reference to the waste mate-
rial produced by her abject body. Post-shedding, Viper appears bald,
a marker of un-femininity (though remarkably her make-up withstood
the shedding of skin). The final fight between Viper and Yukio once
again highlights Viper’s snake-features, her tongue flicking out between
punches and kicks, spitting acid and hissing. Finally, Yukio wraps a chord
around Viper’s neck and pulls her into a lift shaft, hanging her, a death
not quite the beheading of Medusa, but still symbolically separating the
head from the body.
Figure 6.2 Viper sheds her skin in The Wolverine.
Make Asgard Great Again: Villainy and the Feminine

Spectre of White Supremacy in Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Due to the political shifts in American culture that culminated in the
presidential election of Donald Trump, it is useful to consider how modes
of feminine villainy have shifted from the representations discussed
above. Thor: Ragnarok puts forward interesting political debates through
its reworking of Marvel characters (that are themselves based on Norse
mythology). One of the central villains of the film is Goddess of Death,
Hela (Cate Blanchett), whose representation hinges on her power-hungry
plans of restoring the glory of Asgard’s empire– in other words, to make
Asgard great again. This runs alongside the film’s overarching statements
concerning Asgardian identity, explored through the (traditional, mascu-
line) figure of Thor and the people of Asgard.
Hela was the first central villainess to be included in the MCU. With
the comic book character being based on Norse mythology (which itself
has connotations of occult paganism), her adaptation to film was compati-
ble with the magical world of the Thor films due to the established cultural
association between women and dark magic. Ragnarok likewise adapts her
comic book appearance and powers. Introduced in Marvel comics in 1964
(Lee and Kirby 1964), the character has a long and convoluted history
within the Marvel Universe, key elements of which have been extracted
and expanded on in the film. Hela was initially established as a personifi-
cation of death itself (which a teenaged Thor had to defeat before he was
deemed worthy to wield legendary hammer Mjolnir and become a hero)
(Lee and Kirby 1964).
Her key appearances throughout her publication history indicate
that she has magical powers paralleling those of Thor, as is typical of an
Asgardian. She has power over dead Asgardians as ruler of the Realms of
Hel and Niflheim, where souls of the dead dwell. As ruler of these realms,
Hela has dominated the souls of Asgardians and being a villainess, she
constantly seeks to expand her powers and obtain as many Asgardian souls
as possible, especially those of Thor and Odin (Lee and Buscema 1971a;
1971b; 1971c). It is this desire to expand her power that is augmented
in Ragnarok and is largely what contributes to her characterisation as an
unhinged, power-hungry, god-like superbeing. It is particularly notewor-
thy that the character’s power in the comics is defined as a deadly touch
to both Asgardians and humans, who age rapidly and die when coming
into contact with her (Lee and Buscema 1971b). This parallels the poison
touches of previous villainesses. Hela’s femininity is likewise a crucial
component of her villainy. In Thor #190 (Lee and Buscema 1971c), Hela’s
plans to take Thor’s soul are thwarted by appeals to her feminine side– s he
releases Thor after witnessing Lady Sif’s love for Thor. Her moral devel-
opment is particularly gendered since she finally claims to have ‘learned
what it means to be a woman’ (Lee and Buscema 1971c) above all else.
Within her cultural context, cinematic Hela represents more than the
abject feminine encompassed by Jean Grey, Typhoid and Viper. Her char-
acterisation is a direct engagement with the problematics of Asgardian
politics as represented in previous films featuring Thor. In Ragnarok,
Thor discovers he has an estranged older sister in Hela, who is therefore
the rightful heir to Asgard’s throne. It is also revealed that their father
Odin, rather than being the benevolent, peaceful ruler of the Nine Realms
he was thought to be, actually achieved his status through forceful domi-
nation, violence and oppression– with Hela leading Asgard’s armies by
his side. This calls forth colonial discourses and offers a potential critique
of imperial ideologies. Realising the error of his and Hela’s destructive
colonial practices, Odin imprisoned Hela and wrote her out of history, lit-
erally painting over the mural depicting their conquests with a new, more
politically palatable account. Again, like previous Marvel villainesses,
Hela’s power is constructed in the film as that which must be contained to
avert disaster.
Before his death, Odin warns Thor and Loki of Ragnarok, a cataclysmic
event characterised as Asgard’s apocalypse, and the impending return of
Hela, who seeks once more to dominate the Nine Realms and beyond.
Hela’s hunger for power draws from similar discourses to the represen-
tations of villainesses mentioned previously in this chapter. Like Jean
Grey, Hela bears the signifiers of abject femininity though her pallid and
witch-like complexion, long black and unkempt hair and extreme eye
make-up. She also displays familiar green markers of toxicity in both her
Figure 6.3 Demonic femininity in Thor: Ragnarok’s Hela.
costuming and her powers, which are often accompanied by a green glow.
Her ripped green lizard-skin-like bodysuit at times exposes her white and
veiny shoulders and other parts of her body. Like other Marvel villain-
esses, Hela’s touch is deadly, as demonstrated by her effortless destruction
of Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. She also changes the appearance of her hair
to that of a multi-pronged antler-like headdress that recurs throughout
Ragnarok at times during which she is presented as being particularly
nefarious; her embodiment of evil thus appears almost demonic (Figure
6.3); indeed, she is referred to as a ‘demoness’ later on in the film. These
are persistent images of female villainy that have endured Marvel’s (and
Western society’s) history. It is, however, interesting that Hela’s villainy
factors into the film’s overarching critique of imperialist ideologies akin to
white supremacy.
White supremacist discourses became more visible in the lead-up to
and duration of the Trump era, as well as in the global move towards
right-wing populism. Norse and Viking mythologies and symbols have
long been associated with radical far-right and white supremacist politics,
for instance through the use of Germanic neopagan religious ideologies
(von Schnurbein 2016: 2). Such ideologies ‘merged nationalism, cultural
pessimism, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-materialism, anti-liberalism and
an enthusiasm for all things “Nordic” or “Germanic” ’ (von Schnurbein
2016: 2) and represent a romanticisation, or fetishisation, of a unified white
identity based on an ‘envisioned renewal or rebirth of the German people
living in unity’ (von Schnurbein 2016: 3). These are also the identity poli-
tics at the heart of Odinism, a set of religious beliefs and practices often
attributed to appealing to white supremacists (Kaplan 2015: 123). These
beliefs are deeply racial in positing the supremacy of a white bloodline
and gendered in their centring of Norse god Odin as masculine warrior
ideal. Further, Norse iconography is widely prevalent in the visuals of

far-right politics, circulating online and offline (Miller-Idriss 2019: 125).4
The use of these ideologies, and iconographies, by these groups serves to
strengthen an ‘imagined continuity of cultural ethnicity from the past to
the present’ according to Andrew B. R. Elliott (2018: 4), functioning to
add credibility to the ethnic distinctions on which far-right separatism
relies within a social context characterised as multicultural, and offer a
unified white (national) identity.
Dating back to the 1960s, Marvel’s Norse-inspired characters predate
a time in which right-wing extremism was highly visible within main-
stream media and so adaptations of these characters within the Trump era
context in which right-wing politics have arguably been emboldened runs
the risk of romanticising or glorifying imagery and ideologies that have
become associated with white supremacy. This is at odds with the (post)
feminist politics that inspire moves towards diversity and inclusivity of
marginalised groups within mainstream Hollywood (and, in particular,
the Marvel brand). To offset the associations between Norse mythol-
ogy and right-wing extremism, Thor: Ragnarok renegotiates the potential
for heroism in these characters through discourses of social marginalisa-
tion (Asgardians as ‘a people’) as well as through the villainous figure of
Hela. In this, the Norse identity of the characters is reconfigured to better
accommodate more liberal-leaning politics. However, in doing so, the film
relies on established tropes and discourses associated with the institutional
vilification of (white) women, while also reinstating the patriarchal rule of
Asgard by Thor at the end of the film. Odin is likewise removed from the
narrative, a move that queries both his patriarchal rule and the political
connotations of a figure associated with white supremacy. In the character
of Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), the film attempts to reconcile its Norse
heritage with notions of racial inclusivity (discussed in detail in Chapter
9). These developments mark a distinct ambiguity characteristic of con-
temporary postfeminist media texts.
Hela is a crucial component in the film’s negotiation of its Norse-
inflected characters. During her introductory scene, Hela emerges from
a green glowing portal to a clifftop in Norway, where Thor and his half-
brother (and occasional villain) Loki had witnessed Odin die. In a medium
close-up, her blue-green eyes are accentuated in the portal’s glow. In the
same medium close-up her tangled hair wafts in the wind and she smiles
deviously before saying huskily to Thor and Loki, whose shocked reac-
tions have been intercut throughout her emergence, ‘So, he’s [Odin] gone
. . . That’s a shame, I would have liked to have seen that.’ She addresses
family likenesses, pointing out that Thor does not look like Odin but that
Loki sounds like Odin before uttering a familiar line previously associated
with Loki (from his appearance in The Avengers): ‘Kneel . . . before your
queen.’
Hela’s villainy is established along familial lines here. Discourses of
nuclear family are reconfigured throughout Ragnarok, with particular
focus on royal lineage and racially superior bloodlines. These themes are
established in Hela’s introduction and returned to later on through the
film’s proposal of an Asgardian diaspora. While I examine this fully in
Chapter 10, it nonetheless confirms Hela’s character as deeply entrenched
in the maintenance of an ethnic heritage encompassed in her investment
in restoring Asgard’s empire. Hela’s villainy is therefore steeped in her
insistence on racial supremacy and rule over the Nine Realms, which she
considers her birthright. This is noteworthy within the context of Trump-
era politics, which are said to have bolstered white supremacist discourses
more widely.
Hela’s supremacist politics are particularly clear when she returns to
Asgard. In a scene in which Hela asserts her dominance over Asgard’s
army, she stands before and above the soldiers, a shot from behind that
tilts to reveal the vast scope of her newly reclaimed kingdom. A medium
shot framed by Asgard’s decorative gold structures (a reminder of its
riches, obtained through the domination of the Realms) isolates the char-
acter with only the sky behind her. She stands powerfully with her hands
on her hips and introduces herself to the soldiers as the Goddess of
Death. A shot from within the crowd of soldiers showcases their uniform
movement into a defensive stance with their shields and cuts back to
behind Hela, highlighting her towering dominance over the army. She
declares that ‘We were once the seat of absolute power in the cosmos.
Our supremacy was unchallenged. Yet Odin stopped at Nine Realms.’
The editing, here, makes attempts to position Hela against the army
as the camera tracks a path through the many soldiers from behind as
she continues, ‘Our destiny is to rule over all others. And I am here to
restore that power’, discourses that bear resemblance to far-right, even
Nazi, ideology. Despite this, Hela is unable to take charge of the army,
as Hogun (Tadanobu Asano), friend of Thor and one of the Warriors
Three, orders them to attack. A frenetic fight sequence follows as Hela is
shown single-handedly fighting the Asgardian army. She does not flinch
while being stabbed and shot at by the Asgardians. After showcasing her
fighting prowess, the film cuts to the resolution of the battle: a close-up
of a slain soldier that tilts up to reveal he is one of many, as the boots of
mercenary Skurge (Karl Urban), whom Hela designates her executioner,
enter the shot. The sequence ends with Hela’s brutal impaling of Hogun
before quipping ‘Let’s go see my palace’, finally able to take what she
believes to be rightfully hers.
Both the dialogue and cinematic execution of this scene are significant
in their framing of Hela within terms associated with far-right politics as
Hela specifically refers to the (racial) supremacy of the Asgardians and
their rule over all ‘others’. This can be seen as a response to the ongoing
white supremacist, anti-feminist and American nationalist rhetoric that
gained wide visibility during the election campaign and subsequent presi-
dential election of Trump. For the time being, though, it is useful to
consider Hela’s femininity as part of her characterisation as the harbinger
of a totalitarian Asgardian empire. Indeed, Ragnarok’s use of Hela as a
central villainess is key to its use of postcolonial discourses and (gendered)
critique of colonialism. Hela’s reassertion of her existence within Asgard’s
history reaches to the idea of women’s history that seeks to rework histori-
cal accounts that traditionally exclude women or, as it were, write them
out of history (Bennett 2006: 7). The scene featuring Hela’s destruction
of Odin’s mural is key here. Upon approaching her throne with Skurge,
in long shots once again showcasing the bodies of dead Asgardian soldiers
scattered in the throne room, Hela laments the fact that the Asgardians
could not remember her, asking ‘Has no one been taught our history?’
An aerial shot of Hela and Skurge looking upwards is followed by a close-
up of the ceiling mural, a circular painting depicting Asgard’s palace at
the centre surrounded by six smaller panels portraying various events in
Asgard’s history.
The mural is reminiscent of Renaissance art through its use of colour
and composition, an indication of its status within Asgardian culture and
history. The camera slowly zooms even closer to one panel in particular,
which shows the Asgardian royal family with Odin and wife Frigga at
the centre and Thor and Loki on either side of them. All members of the
family are painted with a golden circle around their head, an appropria-
tion of the Christian signifier of a halo that jars with the Norse elements of
the storyworld. Hela’s voice accompanies a short montage of the remain-
ing panels of the mural, none of which include her: ‘Look at these lies.
Goblets and garden parties! Peace treaties!’ A close-up of Odin’s portrait
as Hela explains that he was ‘proud to have it [the empire]’ is followed by
a medium shot of Hela and Skurge as she gestures to conjure her swords
and sends them shooting up out of the shot. She half grunts the line
‘ashamed of how he got it’ and a close-up of the mural shows it cracking
under the impact of the swords. It crumbles and falls to the floor of the
throne room; Hela stands among the rubble of the mural, signifying her
destruction of an unwarranted patriarchal rule, and her upward gaze is
mimicked by the close-up shot of what was revealed by the collapsed

mural– a painting that portrays a more menacing Odin at the centre of
the circle with the surrounding panels depicting various configurations of
bloody battles and Hela riding a vicious, oversized wolf. A new montage
of the painting is accompanied by her voice describing ‘the conquest that
built Asgard’s empire’ before Odin called a halt to the endeavour because
Hela’s ‘ambition outgrew his’. And so, he locked her away and the mural
was subsequently painted over.
Hela’s uncovering of Asgard’s imperial past and reinsertion of herself
into Asgard’s history are somewhat contradictory when considered along-
side the film’s overarching postcolonial discourses. Far from critiquing the
oppressive institution of the monarchy itself, Hela disrupts the accepted
account of Odin’s patriarchal rule based on colonial domination– which
she herself seeks to reclaim. For all intents and purposes, Hela’s feminist
reclamation of history is symptomatic of a politic of white supremacy. In
a postfeminist sense, Hela’s gender is displaced within the film’s critique
of white colonialism. It is, however, possible to make sense of Hela’s
portrayal as being representative of white women’s benefiting from, or
upholding of, oppressive white Western capitalist social structures– ideas
that have been put forward in feminist critiques of neoliberal (post)femi-
nisms (hooks 1984: 76; Rottenberg 2018). Hela feasibly represents the
mystique of the ‘right-wing woman’, a paradoxical marker of political
alliances that has long been problematised by scholars and critics due
to the assumption of the ‘often anti-woman leanings of US right-wing
politics, with its religious prohibitions, attempts to control reproductive
freedoms and disapproval of women in leadership roles’ (Downing 2018:
368). Again, this resonates within Trump-era politics due to what was
suggested to be the surprising turnout of white women who voted for
Trump (Tien 2017; Jaffe 2018).
Still, it is noteworthy that Hela’s revelations about Odin’s reign make
clear to Thor and his fellow Asgardians the horrors on which Asgard’s
dominance over the Nine Realms rests, and that it is this particular form
of vilified femininity that is used to make this case. It is an ostensibly
problematic representation, as the reclaiming of history has been justifi-
ably carried out by feminists (specifically women of colour and/or queer
women) to address historical narratives skewed towards the achievements
of white men. In Ragnarok’s terms, though, it is a marginalised person’s
rewriting of history that ultimately leads to a reassertion of cultural domi-
nance (alarmingly characterised through discourses of ethnic supremacy).
It is crucial, then, that Thor and Hela represent different responses to the
uncovering of Asgard’s colonial past– Hela seeks to reclaim and restore
the oppressive empire, while Thor ultimately reinvents and renegotiates

its meaning, as evidenced through the repeated line that ‘Asgard is not a
place– it’s a people.’ Still, that liberal politics of the Asgardian diaspora
are represented by Thor, a white, privileged god-man who, while heroic,
benefits from his royal heritage, which is reinstated, at the end of the film,
limits Ragnarok’s radical potential. Indeed, the overarching unaddressed
issue in Ragnarok is that Thor ultimately reclaims the throne of Asgard for
himself. The structure of monarchy therefore remains unquestioned (it is
subsequently offered to Valkyrie in Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe
Russo, 2019)).
While Hela’s representation is decidedly unsexual, in contrast to pre-
vious Marvel villainesses on screen, it is the adherence to discourses of
witchcraft and toxicity that remain significant, especially in how they
foster the film’s ideological rejection of white supremacist discourses.
While Hela’s death is only implied in the film, Ragnarok ensures that there
is little moral ambiguity to be read into her characterisation, with Thor
reclaiming the throne of Asgard, which has been redefined as a nomadic
tribe (‘a people’), having evacuated and destroyed Asgard (the physical
place) in the process of defeating Hela.
As discussed, portrayals of villainous women frequently draw from
patriarchal discourses that subjugate women. While Jean Grey’s repre-
sentation more broadly draws on discourses of women as evil witches,
as well as perpetuating notions of powerful women becoming mentally
unhinged and literally insane, Typhoid and Viper’s portrayals have
more directly to do with rhetoric associating women with poison and
toxicity. Meanwhile, demonstrating an adaptation of sorts of the estab-
lished discourses of female villainy to the Trump era, Hela’s repre-
sentation in Ragnarok remains embedded within occult-inflected ideas
of demonic femininity, while aiding the film’s rejection of Western
imperialism.
A common denominator for these women– save Hela– is sexuality.
Each villainess is shown aggressively utilising her powers while engaging
in sexual behaviour. The sexual acts in which these villainesses engage are
aggressive – they are using their powers aggressively while being sexually
assertive, causing physical harm to the receiver. In behaving in this kind of
sexually aggressive manner combined with an exhibition of their powers
– which is specific to the fantastical nature of the genre– they effectively
act out ‘an appropriation of the male sphere’ (Aguiar 2001: 5), while
simultaneously drawing attention to the fact they are physically powerful
beings, thereby fortifying the association between powerful women and
evil. At the same time, the emphasis on the sexual villainess runs parallel
to the sexualised heroine– both are defined through a moral gauge of sex.
While heroines are sexualised– t hey wear revealing costumes, make sug-
gestive comments, are objectified and so on– villainesses are themselves
represented as sexual. The evil woman is presented as acting in sexually
assertive ways because she can, but she is also marked as evil because of
this sexually assertive behaviour. The heroine, on the other hand, can be
erotically contemplated, both from within and outside of the narrative,
but she rarely, if ever initiates a sexual encounter. This is symptomatic
of postfeminist culture’s persistent policing of women’s sexuality while
capitalising on particular commodified versions of it.
The representations discussed here leave room for reading such as that
carried out by Deborah Jermyn upon the so-called ‘women from hell’
thriller subgenre (Jermyn 1996). Jermyn reappropriates psychopathic
female characters such as those that appear in Fatal Attraction (Adrian
Lyne, 1987), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (Curtis Hanson, 1992) and
Single White Female (Barbet Shroeder, 1992), concluding that such por-
trayals offer a ‘symbiotic representation of the conflicts of womanhood’
through its inclusion of an evil woman and her direct counterpart (Jermyn
1996: 253, 258). It is demonstrable that representations of evil women can
be shaped by interpretation, and the villainesses described here doubt-
less offer potential as projections of transgressive femininities shamelessly
acting to obliterate patriarchal limitations placed upon women’s sexuality
and morals. However, that these representations draw from patriarchal
discourses of feminine evil similarly results in women who are constructed
as the ultimate, irredeemable evil who must be eradicated diegetically. The
villainesses discussed here all exemplify the gendered dynamics at work
when considering notions of power as the status quo is restored when
these women die.
Notes
1. Indeed, Zimbardo’s later works regarding the diminishing role of men in
society and the detrimental effects of the so-called feminisation of schooling
on young boys (Zimbardo and Coulombe 2015; 2016) can be considered het-
erosexist and in many ways antifeminist.
2. Here, Zimbardo’s scarce attention to the fact that those accused by the
Catholic church of being witches were women (and hence the victims of insti-
tutional misogyny) most obviously reveals the weaknesses of his analysis but
his overarching statements regarding the evil as abject remain theoretically
useful.
3. The link between medieval witch imagery and anti-Semitism has also been
established. Sara Lipton argues that the stigmatisation of witches was informed
by the stereotyping of Jews, concluding that ‘[w]hen the visual attributes asso-
ciated with Jewish men– h ooked nose, dark hair, pointed hats, even beards
and cats– appeared on or with women in postmedieval art, the women were as
liable to be witches as Jewish’ (Lipton 2014: 369). These intersecting groups
were both positioned in opposition to state-mandated Christian ideologies.
4. Other imagery associated with far-right politics includes that of the Nazi and
colonial eras and Christian crusades, as well as ‘other contemporary and his-
torical anti-immigrant and Islamophobic references’ (Miller-Idriss 2019: 125).
C H A PT E R 7
Mutants, Cyborgs and Femininity

Unfixed? Addressing the Gendered
Bodies of Mystique and Nebula
Though Marvel superhero films often display a need to maintain gender

rigidity, two interesting cases are the mutant shapeshifter Mystique, who
appears in the X-Men films, and the female cyborg Nebula (Karen Gillen)
of the Guardians of the Galaxy films. In this chapter, I address the potential
for queer readings of these characters, while also examining how they are
placed within postfeminist boundaries. The simultaneous queering and
de-queering of Mystique (as Cocca (2016a) puts it) that occurs throughout
the X-Men films is a notable paradox. Meanwhile, Nebula can be read in
terms of the radical politics of the gendered cyborg, especially concerning
subjectivity and family.
These characters can be read in terms of both their denial or subversion
of gendered bodies and their existence beyond traditional frameworks of
humanness. This chapter therefore draws from work in both construc-
tionist accounts of gender, such as Judith Butler’s, as well as utilising ideas
that hinge on posthumanist feminism. These characters pose excellent
case studies for the subject of the posthuman (but still gendered) body due
to the representation of their bodies as explicitly pliable and questioning
hegemonic gender norms. Both characters have an alien appearance, har-
nessing the generic potential of the science fiction-superhero hybrid genre
that more recent superhero films make use of since the initial success of
2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
Ideas of gender potentially implode through the figure of shapeshifting
mutant Mystique. Her circumvention of gender fixity also reaches to dis-
courses of posthumanism, especially in relation to notions of (gendered)
embodiment. Due to her plasticity, it is possible to think of Mystique
as, to borrow a term from the philosophical critiques of Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari, a ‘body without organs’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1983;
2014), a network of potentials that can be drawn from and realised. Like
the allegorical posthuman body the authors refer to (which they char-
acterise, not unproblematically, as schizophrenic), Mystique’s is a body
of constant potentiality, the product of a machinic unconscious fuelled

by the schizophrenic process they refer to as ‘desiring-production’. The
potential for Mystique to be anything or anyone is represented through
the texts she appears in and her body ostensibly resists categorisation or
organisation within traditional structures and discourses; it ‘scrambles all
the [social] codes’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1983: 15). Her body is therefore
defined by what it has the potential to become. Mystique is perhaps the
best example of Scott Jeffery’s superhuman posthuman, which, he argues,
has been articulated within superhero comic books since their inception
(Jeffery 2016). While Jeffery does argue that the comic book posthuman
offers ‘an unbroken chain of posthuman representations put to very differ-
ent uses and given different meanings at certain times’ (Jeffery 2016: 17),
he neglects to discuss the character of Mystique, whose materiality clearly
bears relevance to his topic of discussion. Meanwhile, according to Dijana
Jelača, the very definition of posthuman ‘is a continually shape-shifting
discourse, and much like that of the body itself’ (Jelača 2018: 279), much
like Mystique.
While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to delve deeply into the
foundational philosophies of theorists such as Deleuze and Guattari, it
should be noted that these theories (perhaps implicitly) inform the founda-
tions of accounts of posthuman aliens and cyborgs. Indeed, Scott Jeffrey’s
work on the posthuman in superhero comics is a thorough account of the
shifts in representations of superheroes that can be uncovered through
posthuman, specifically Deleuzoguattarian, philosophies. This chapter
is nonetheless concerned with identifying how Mystique and Nebula’s
representations resonate with questions of gender performativity, assem-
blage and hybridity and, subsequently, how these questions are dealt with
through the films in which they appear. An overarching aim of Deleuze
and Guattari was to deconstruct the notion of the ideal liberalised human
subject, an endeavour that likewise resonates with anti-capitalist feminist
goals that query the universality of so-called personhood (which is mostly
characterised as white, male and European). These models of universal
humanity rely on Enlightenment-era dualisms that place the mind as
separate from the body and the body as being in some way limiting to
the capacity of the mind to transcend. As N. Katherine Hayles suggests,
the concept of hybridity and fluid subjectivity is key to Deleuze and
Guattari’s understanding of ‘a dispersed subjectivity distributed among
diverse desiring machines they call “body without organs” ’ (Hayles 1999:
4). Both Mystique and Nebula, in their flexibility, offer the potential to be
bodies without organs– Mystique because she is portrayed as being able
to shift her form into that of another human (with or without organs) and
mu tan ts , cybo r gs and f e minin i t y u n f i x e d? 173
Nebula due to her representation as a cyborg who has been assembled

piece by piece by a tyrannical patriarch.
While gesturing towards a radical intervention into humanist frame-
works through a reconsideration of what it means to have a gendered body,
both Mystique and Nebula nonetheless function within the boundaries of
mainstream Hollywood representations, often implicitly reinforcing the
gender binaries they have the potential to disrupt. According to Jeffery,
‘the common threads that link together work on bodies (both human and
posthuman) are concerned with social construction and, most often linked
to this, control and regulation of bodies’ (Jeffery 2016: 24). The control
and regulation of bodies is a central concern of both the X-Men films and
the MCU films in which Nebula appears.
Fluid Gender and the Politics of the X-Men Films

It is possible to read Mystique as embodying gender fluidity through
Judith Butler’s theories of gender performativity. Butler rejects the notion
that gender is determined by biological sex, also arguing that biological sex
is socially constructed. Butler elaborates that there is no ‘interior “truth”
to gender identity’ (1990: 44), but rather that gender is a process that ‘con-
geals’ over time (Butler 1990: 43). This has the effect of making gender
seem to be a naturally occurring, commonsensical phenomenon, but
Butler maintains that gender is actually a ‘doing’ and not a ‘being’ (Butler
1990: 33). Gender is thus independent of biological sex, a ‘free-floating
artifice’ (Butler 1990: 10). Thus, the terms ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ do
not constitute the respective identities of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but rather
these categories are constructed through discourse and language within
the heterosexual matrix (Butler 1990: 9). Following this, Butler argues,
bodies are automatically gendered from the moment in which they come
into being, as it is impossible to exist outside of discourse (Butler 1990: 9).
Butler subsequently makes a case for gender as being performative, ‘a
stylized repetition of acts’ (Butler 1990: 179). Like heterosexuality, gender
must be repeated in order to maintain itself. Gender is not, however, a
performance as there is no ‘actor’ who is theatrically performing gender.
Rather, certain behaviours make up particular genders– one may be a
woman because one exerts ‘feminine’ behaviours; one does not carry out
‘feminine’ behaviours because one is a woman. Further, gender is not an
‘expression’ of an underlying, pre-existing gender because ‘there is no
gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is perform-
atively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results’
(Butler 1990: 33). Herein lies the key difference between performativity as
encompassing normalised acts and masquerade as a disguise or persona.

Nonetheless, despite the potential for subversion being offered by trans-
gressions such as drag, the subject is always limited by the system itself
and is only ever able to act within the discourse. Butler continues, ‘There
is only a taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very “taking up”
is enabled by the tool lying there’ (1990: 185).
In comics, Mystique appears as a blue woman with yellow eyes and red
hair, though her mutant powers allow her to change into any shape, and
is usually a villain. She is able to shapeshift and there seem, at a glance, to
be few limitations to how she can model her appearance. The character is
at least tenuously related to conceptualisations of femininity, as her name
calls forth Betty Friedan’s notion of the feminine mystique, the idea that
women’s place in Western society is within domestic and caregiving con-
texts (Friedan 1979: 37). Friedan’s groundbreaking text of the same title
interrogated the dominant essentialist notions that women’s fulfilment is
reached when they submit to their ‘natural’ feminine roles as wives and
caregivers and is often credited as sparking the second wave of Western
feminism. As Mystique is a character with potential to question essential-
ist ideas of gender and sexuality, this link is significant. Furthermore,
Mystique is canonically queer (specifically bisexual) in the X-Men comics.
Her relationship with her lover, a precognitive blind mutant named
Destiny was hinted at throughout the comics with increasing visibility,
largely in the 1980s. In an issue of Uncanny X-Men, Destiny addresses
Mystique as ‘my Raven’ (Raven is Mystique’s given name) (Claremont
and Romita Jr 1984). In a later issue, Mystique and Destiny dance after
a heartfelt exchange in which Mystique refers to Destiny as ‘my love’,
although Mystique’s shapeshifting powers conveniently allow her to
appear as a man during this scene, further adding to the elusive quality
of her sexuality (Claremont and Hamilton 1988). The most obvious ref-
erence, though, occurs in Uncanny X-Men #265, in which Destiny is
referred to as Mystique’s ‘leman’ by the story’s antagonist (Claremont and
Jaaska 1990). ‘Leman’ is an archaic term referring to a lover or sweetheart.
Such representations, though small, are noteworthy. Furthermore, it is
worth noting that writer Chris Claremont intended to have Mystique, by
temporarily changing herself into a man, ‘father’ a child (the demon-like
X-Man, Nightcrawler) with Destiny, however this was reportedly deemed
too controversial by Marvel (Cronin 2005).
However, there is also a risk of assigning too much significance to
Mystique’s relationships with women, considering her frequent relation-
ships with men. Ross Murray, for instance, reads Mystique as a lesbian,
inferring that through her relationship with Destiny, Mystique is marked
‘meaningfully as lesbian’ (Murray 2011: 57, original emphasis). Murray

uses this ‘meaningful’ lesbianism in support of his overarching argument
that Mystique thereby refuses to take a place in the heterosexual hierar-
chy (Murray 2011: 60). This, however, ignores the oppositional potential
of bisexuality, in that, according to Maria San Filippo, ‘It is precisely
bisexuality’s epistemological and textual polysemy that generates its sub-
versive potential to lay bare the mutability, contingency, and inherent
transgressiveness of desire’ (Filippo 2013: 16). ‘Mutability’ is a key term,
here, as Mystique’s potential to interrupt heterosexual power structures is
fostered by her very mutantness but also by her bisexual desire.
Additionally, Mystique’s inclusion in the X-Men universe runs parallel
to the property’s use of metaphor to refer to the oppression of marginalised
peoples. This mutant metaphor in the X-Men comics has been exam-
ined from a historical point of view by Joseph Darowski, who argues that
‘The X-Men are mutants, people who develop special powers because
they were born different from normal humans. Besides the expected comic
book supervillains, the X-Men battle prejudice and are hated and feared by
normal humans’ (Darowski 2014: 2). Darowski notes that the metaphor has
shifted somewhat from being symbolic of race to referring more to sexual-
ity (Darowski 2014: 26, 120). Still, it is also possible to interpret the meta-
phor as being about people who are generally marked as ‘different’: ‘The
power of the metaphor is in the ability of any reader to find some way to
relate to it’ (Darowski 2014: 7). While the use of a metaphor as an argument
for minority rights may be beneficial, it also offers opportunity for audi-
ences not to interpret it as such. Jason Zingsheim, for example, proposes
that ‘this interpretation erases marginalized subject positions in favor of a
neoliberal homogenization’ (Zingsheim 2011: 244). It is also noteworthy, as
Darowski mentions, that despite the X-Men comics’ concern with minority
rights, the actual shape that these politics take within the franchise has been
complicated, with the majority of the central cast being white, heterosexual
men throughout their publication history (Darowski 2014: 140).
Likewise, the emphasis on the mutant metaphor implies a necessity
for metaphor to begin with, perhaps an inability to directly address these
varying human rights issues. Likewise, it is striking that the vast majority
of prejudice that seems to exist within the X-Men film universe (and to
some extent, the comics) is that targeted at mutants. Rather than claiming
that the films do not match up to their proposed politics, it might be more
useful to consider the ways in which these politics have taken shape within
the films. A recurring reading of the mutant metaphor has been related
to sexuality issues. The film adaptations have similarly been framed as
gay allegory in the press, in combination with openly gay director Bryan
Figure 7.1 Rebecca Romijn as Mystique in X2.
Singer and cast members Ian McKellen and Ellen Page (Boucher 2010;
Rosenberg 2011; Schrodt 2011). Purse also notes X2’s inclusion of a
‘coming out’ scene in the form of Bobby Drake/Iceman telling his parents
he has mutant powers, to which they respond ‘Have you tried not being a
mutant?’ (Purse 2011: 144–6). These readings signal an expectation that
the film in some way engages with issues related to sexuality and gender,
and thus Mystique’s inclusion in the films is thought-provoking, consid-
ering her representation.
In the films, Mystique appears blue and is often completely nude,
with reptilian scales placed to obscure the character’s breasts and genitals
(see Figures 7.1 and 7.2). There has been no unified reason presented in
extratexual materials that explains Mystique’s lack of clothing. Rebecca
Romijn, who plays Mystique in X-Men, X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand,
suggested that it would be impractical for her to wear clothes because they
would ‘get in the way if you’re trying to morph’ (Romijn quoted in Giltz
Figure 7.2 Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

2003: 54). On the other hand, Jennifer Lawrence, who took over the role
in X-Men: First Class and subsequent sequels, reads Mystique’s nudity
as representative of her being ‘mutant and proud’, relating the charac-
ter directly to the mutant metaphor (Lawrence quoted in Tyley 2013).
Meanwhile, Betty Kaklamanidou reads Mystique’s nudity as limiting,
focusing on the objectifying effect that she believes it has:
Mystique’s extraordinary shape-shifting may help her change into every male or
female form she wishes, but nothing can deter the audience from understanding that
the curvaceous and luscious creature they see on the screen is definitely a woman, no
matter how easily she can change into a man. (Kaklamanidou 2011: 70)
However, this perspective rather oversimplifies Mystique’s portrayal,

adopting a binaristic approach to a character who is at the very least multi-
plicitous. A knee-jerk reaction may lead to the conclusion that Mystique’s
portrayal is the product of a discourse that empowers the character by
overtly sexualising her. This may be the case, and postfeminist discourses
indulging in the overt sexualisation of women should be accounted for, but
Kaklamanidou’s statement also suggests that Mystique’s coding as female
is inherently limiting, ignoring the character’s potential for gender fluid-
ity. Instead, Mystique’s nudity plays a direct role in the representation of
a potentially queered, although complex, gender identity. The character
as a whole offers considerable insight into the notion of gender identity,
even beyond conceptualisations of humanness. This likewise contrasts the
postfeminist masquerade embodied by the heroines discussed in Chapter
4, since the masks of femininity they enact function on a symbolic level.
Rather, Mystique’s transformations of gender involve a literal seizing of
gendered signifiers. This links back to ideas around posthuman subjectiv-
ity and the Deleuzoguattarian concept of assemblage. Because of the flex-
ibility of the body without organs, it can merge and make connections with
any manner of beings, species and objects through assemblage, gaining
meaning in relation to other assemblages. Mystique’s doing of a gendered
body is formed of assemblages relating to pre-existing gender schemata,
whose ‘components can play different roles in diverse assemblages’ them-
selves (Jeffery 2016: 30).
However, it is Butler’s ideas of parody and gender performativity
that are especially useful when considering Mystique’s representation.
Viewing the X-Men films in their narrative order, First Class is the first to
feature Mystique, telling the story of how the X-Men formed in the 1960s,
an instance of postfeminism’s interest in revisiting and reworking the
past. Mystique, who is revealed to be Charles Xavier’s (James McAvoy)
adoptive sister, is referred to as Raven in the film and is portrayed as
considerably weaker, both in terms of character and physical strength, than

in the three core films of the franchise. She also opts to use her powers to
appear ‘normal’ in her everyday life and is cynical of Charles’s belief that
they should be ‘mutant and proud’. This discrepancy has much to do with
Mystique’s moral alignment in the film. First Class complicates the rivalry
between Xavier and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), initially portraying
them as friends before Magneto forms his own group of mutants, adopt-
ing a more aggressive stance towards the fight for mutant rights. Mystique
breaks off from Xavier’s group and joins Magneto’s morally questionable
team. Before this, though, she is clearly coded as a hero, albeit physically
weak. This changes when Magneto encourages her to stop expending so
much effort just to appear normal, and instead allow her ‘true’ blue self to
show. In this sense, Mystique’s ‘normal’, human appearance functions as
a visual and narrative frustration tactic such as those discussed in Chapter
3, limiting her overall power– she can only be strong if she is blue due to
the effort exerted when she maintains an acceptable feminine appearance.
However, she can only be blue if she is morally aligned with evil.
In Days of Future Past, which is set in 1973, Mystique’s morality takes
centre stage as the driving force that is at stake in the main narrative. The
regulation of a specific mutant body is foregrounded. Mystique’s bodily
potentiality is therefore coded within the film’s narrative as problematic.
After the events of First Class, the mutants have disbanded: Xavier is
depressed and paralysed after Magneto accidentally sends a bullet into
his spine at the end of the previous film; Magneto is imprisoned after
being accused of assassinating President Kennedy; and Mystique has
become a lone freedom fighter for mutant liberation. In the film, Logan
is sent from the future to prevent Mystique from shooting Bolivar Trask
(Peter Dinklage), a weapons designer who creates the Sentinels (giant
robots programmed to exterminate mutants). Following the assassination,
Mystique’s DNA is used to make the Sentinels adaptable and nigh invin-
cible. It is therefore imperative that the X-Men of the 1970s band together
to stop Mystique, although this is coded in the film as their reluctance to
allow Mystique to become irreversibly corrupted from the act of taking a
man’s life, for example through the repeated stressing of the fact that ‘It
was the first time she killed.’ The policing of Mystique’s morality occurs
alongside her newly naked appearance, as well as the corporate extrac-
tion and use of her DNA, her very genetic make-up being the cause of
disruption.
In X-Men, X2 and The Last Stand Mystique again appears naked and
blue as her moral alliance is entirely with Magneto (who is also positioned
against Xavier and his mutants). Mystique is at her strongest, intellectu-
ally and physically. Her corrupted persona thus functions as a safe zone
in which she is permitted to be powerful, but it also offers itself up to
fostering a queered representation of gender. Turning attention back to
the role of her nudity, the work of both Brown and Butler can shed some
light onto what is occurring in the undercurrents of this representation.
In Dangerous Curves, Brown discusses Pamela Anderson’s character in the
action/sci-fi film Barb Wire (David Hogan, 1996), based on the comic of
the same name. Anderson plays Barb Wire, the bounty hunter in a dysto-
pian future. Barb is represented as physically strong, clever and extremely
sexy. Brown dismisses the idea that Wire is merely an object of hetero-
sexual male desire. Instead, he argues that that the ‘over-fetishization of
her sexuality and violent abilities . . . facilitates an understanding of all
modern action heroines as questioning the naturalness of gender roles by
enacting both femininity and masculinity simultaneously’ (Brown 2011a:
51). Brown continues that the overtly sexualised feminine signifiers within
such characters are combined with signifiers of traditionally masculine
toughness (Brown 2011a: 55). This results in a combination of both ‘hys-
terical’ masculinity and femininity, thereby ‘ridiculing the notion of a
stable gender’ (Brown 2011a: 51). To Brown, these gendered bodies are
arbitrary symbols, suggesting that toughness does not necessarily equal
male. Most notably, Brown’s ideas speak to Butler’s theories regarding the
subversion of gender through parody. Parody, according to Butler, draws
attention to the constructedness of gender.
Mystique’s nudity functions in a similar way, as it is ridiculous, imprac-
tical (contrary to Romijn’s beliefs) and unabashedly blatant. The fact that,
for example, Mystique walks naked and barefoot through a snowy moun-
tain in X2 is ludicrous. Further, Mystique is often seen enacting cutesy
caricatures of femininity in a parodic way while taking the form of a man,
which happens on two separate occasions. In X-Men, when Mystique
adopts the form of Logan, she blows the real Wolverine a kiss. This scene
draws on notions of gender rigidity outlined at the start of this chapter by
comedically assigning feminine behaviour to a masculine body as a source
of humour. However, despite this, it showcases the constructed nature
of gender by drawing from Mystique’s embodiment of Wolverine, who
behaves in ways outside of the masculine codes the real Wolverine embod-
ies. A similar scene occurs in X2, when Mystique shifts into the villain
Colonel Stryker and blows him a kiss, again an uncharacteristic (gendered)
act for that character. Both of these situations point toward the idea that
gendered actions are socially constructed. Likewise, and much like the
transgressive posthuman, Mystique’s potential for fluidity offers myriad
responses to the narrative scenarios in which she is placed.
Mystique’s gender fluidity can also be made sense of through Tasker’s

concept of ‘musculinity’ (Tasker 1993). In her work, Tasker suggests that
strong heroines of the 1980s and 1990s transgressed traditional gendered
signifiers through their muscular physiques. In these films, she argues,
muscles are not merely signifiers of male strength but are arbitrary, avail-
able to be utilised by anyone, regardless of gender (Tasker 1993: 149).
In this sense, Mystique is represented as picking and choosing which
form she takes, which signifiers she adopts, but importantly, her skills
and intellect remain throughout. For example, in X-Men Mystique fights
with Wolverine while in the form of Wolverine. She is clearly shown to
be a match for Wolverine, carrying out impressive fighting moves, and is
resourceful in using objects from her surroundings as weapons (a chain; a
metal gate). However, the film does not suggest that she is only capable of
these feats because she has taken on the form of Wolverine, as she trans-
forms back into her blue, feminine form mid-kick and continues fighting.
Furthermore, Brown describes how characters can adopt gendered sig-
nifiers to fulfil their own purposes. He uses the French film La Femme
Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990) and its English-language remake Point of No
Return (John Badham, 1993) as examples of films in which the central
action heroine ‘reemploys feminine masquerade to further emphasize the
performative nature of gender roles’ (Brown 2011a: 22). Brown elaborates
that, much like Barb Wire, these heroines embody masculinised perso-
nae through, for example, being excellent fighters, while simultaneously
‘remaining garbed in obvious signifiers of femininity’ (Brown 2011a: 33).
Maggie possesses a vast amount of physical (coded as masculine) power,
but there are times in which she also adopts the signifiers of a weak
woman. Brown continues:
Maggie refigures gender-appropriate behavior by demonstrating that masculin-

ity and femininity are not mutually exclusive identities. At the same time, Maggie
destroys the audience’s perceptions of biologically determined identity and role
as determining biology. In other words– just because she looks like a woman does
not mean she is one, and just because she acts like a man does not mean she is one.
(Brown 2011a: 36)
Like Maggie, Mystique often ‘masquerades’ as people of different genders

and ages– m
ore accurately, she becomes those people– a nd also uses peo-
ple’s perceptions of gender to manipulate them, in ways not unlike those
adopted by heroines such as Natasha Romanoff, discussed in Chapter
4. However, Mystique’s embodiment of gender functions on a differ-
ent level to the masks of femininity utilised by the heroines discussed
previously in this book, who narratively adopt these masks as a means of
enabling their heroism, while these machinations potentially eclipse the

identities of these characters. Significantly, Mystique is shown to appro-
priate signifiers of varying genders and the process is entirely immersive
since she can physically alter her form. However, referring to Mystique’s
representation as pure masquerade is not necessarily appropriate here.
Indeed, Brown’s analysis implicitly conflates performativity and perfor-
mance, which Butler states are different occurrences. Mystique’s gender
play does not constitute acting or playing a role because she physically
becomes the people she shifts into, further complicating notions of
gender rigidity in the process. The use of the word ‘becomes’ is key here
because it reaches both Butler’s idea that ‘gender is itself a becoming’
(Butler 1990: 112).
During a key scene in X2, Mystique goes to a bar to seduce a security
guard who works for Stryker. In an elaborate plan to free Magneto from
Stryker’s plastic prison, Mystique appears at the bar in the ‘natural’ form
of Romijn. She is provocatively dressed in a short blue snakeskin PVC
dress reminiscent of her blue skin and a leather jacket. Introducing herself
with a fake name, she buys the guard a drink and sits down. Mystique
drugs the guard and the scene cuts to the characters stumbling into the
bathroom while kissing. The guard remarks that she is aggressive and
she replies ‘Yes, I am’, the irony again reinforcing the constructedness of
her current persona, while also drawing from postfeminist discourses of
playful irony. As the guard becomes unconscious, Mystique injects him
with liquid iron, allowing Magneto to later extract the metal through his
pores and escape his prison. Mystique thus grasps these signifiers to reach
her own ends. Through such a scene, the character questions the nature
of gender and what it means to act in a gendered way; moreover, it queries
what it means to be or become gendered through her use of a phrase
asserting identity: ‘I am.’ These instances involve more than simple role
reversals, since the focus here is on the interaction of the gendered body
and behaviour in an action context, how the character manipulates her
body to adapt to a situation. Additionally, whereas the heroic forms of
postfeminist masquerade discussed previously allow for varying modes
of feminine subjectivity, these modes are ultimately limiting due to their
dependence on discourses of gender promoted and encouraged by the
patriarchal symbolic (which now takes the form of the fashion-beauty
complex) noted by McRobbie (2009). While the postfeminist masquerade
outlined in Chapter 4 envisioned types of femininity sanctioned by post-
feminist culture (and ultimately relying on white, heterosexual empowered
femininity), the approach to gender encompassed in Mystique’s represen-
tation can be conceptualised as broadly queer, or at least non-normative,
in its fluidity and physical manipulation of the body across genders, which
also suggests qualities of posthuman flexibility.
Another instance in which transgressive gender irony is adopted to
showcase Mystique’s gender fluidity is in Days of Future Past. In the
scene, Mystique yet again seduces a man to meet her ends. This time it
is a North Vietnamese general whom she aims to appear as during the
Paris Peace Accords. Dressed in glamorous 1970s clothing and once again
adopting a ‘normal’ human appearance (this time as Lawrence), she allows
the general to take her back to his hotel room. Once there, he walks around
her, speaking in heavily accented English, ‘Show me more, baby. Clothes
off.’ A medium shot shows Mystique looking down at herself. The camera
tilts down as she opens her coat and her black hotpant bodysuit begins
transforming into her blue skin. This is followed by a shot of the gen-
eral’s face changing to terror before reverting to the shot of Mystique’s
transforming body and a medium shot of her head: ‘What’s the matter,
baby? You don’t think I look pretty like this?’ The knowing irony that she
is playing into male fantasy while appearing as her blue self further adds
to the constructedness of her seductress persona, while she additionally
employs the cutesy feminine signifiers referred to earlier in her use of the
words ‘baby’ and ‘pretty’.
Mystique’s parodic gender fluidity is likewise highlighted in an earlier
scene in Days of Future Past when she infiltrates an army base to liberate
the drafted mutants, who were about to be shipped to a medical facility.
Halfway through the scene, it is revealed that Mystique has been the (male)
army official who wants to send the mutants home the whole time. She
comes into conflict with a young Major Stryker who wants the mutants to
stay. Eventually, Mystique’s transformation takes place as a fight breaks
loose. The other mutants join in, causing mayhem. In the scene, the
masculine environment of the army is juxtaposed with Mystique’s very
nakedness. The army, carrying connotations of masculine protection and
defence, has been infiltrated by a naked blue woman, who in turn is the
protectress of the mutants. Her vulnerability, signified by her feminine
nudity, becomes parodic in that it is actually meaningless or irrelevant in
the context of the scene. Unlike the ironic sexism discussed in previous
chapters, the irony deployed as part of Mystique’s character takes on a
parodic form, ridiculing the very notion of fixed gender.
Despite Mystique’s appearances in X-Men and X2, Mystique is sub-
jected to depowering in The Last Stand, as she takes a dart laced with the
mutant cure to save Magneto from it. She then reverts to her human form
before his eyes. Magneto then abandons Mystique as she is no longer of
use to him, remarking ‘She was so beautiful.’ Kaklamanidou reads this
scene as drawing the focus back onto her feminine beauty (Kaklamanidou
2011, 70). Mystique’s depowering functions to frustrate her strength and
removes her from the core of the film’s narrative.
Throughout, I have referred to Mystique as ‘she’, even though, tech-
nically, she may be neither male nor female, or indeed both. If gender
‘congeals’ over time, can the gender of someone who has no gender be
conceived of? Mystique is in many ways one of the most subversive char-
acters that Marvel has to offer, but she must still be portrayed in terms
of a gender binary. As Butler describes, it is possible to subvert gender
identities, but subjects will always be limited to the system as it is impos-
sible to exist outside of language and discourse (which is what shapes
gender). Similarly, Mystique is only ever portrayed as enacting either
male-or female-bodiedness, rather than a combination of both (or, indeed,
neither), despite the potential her body offers.
Likewise, Zingsheim argues that Mystique’s gender performative char-
acterisation privileges the need for gender to be recognised by others in
order to be ‘successful’ (Zingsheim 2016). Zingsheim’s argument follows
similar reasoning to mine in that he suggests that Mystique’s gender iden-
tity functions within symbolic systems that remain static (Zingsheim 2016:
94–5). Nonetheless, Zingsheim ultimately argues that the occasions in
which Mystique’s disguise is uncovered by her opponents illustrate how
‘in terms of identity, to occupy a subject position requires that one be rec-
ognized by others as said subject’ (a point also made by Butler) (Zingsheim
2016: 101). Some confusion may arise here from Zingsheim’s characterisa-
tion of Mystique as imitating other people, whereas I have argued that she
effectively becomes them. When framed within the discourse of imitation,
or, indeed, ‘passing’, it is quite reasonable that Zingsheim’s discussion
would focus on whether or not Mystique’s performance is successful or a
failure (from which he then makes the argument that Mystique’s agency
is limited). However, a more flexible approach foregrounds gender over
configurations of agency, the use of which automatically discredits any
representation that does not correspond with a pre-existing framework of
what might be considered agentic.
Another noteworthy aspect of the films’ representations of Mystique is
her sexuality. Bisexuality is not referred to, instead exclusively positioning
her in relationships with men. While Todd Ramlow argues X2 presents
Magneto and Mystique’s relationship as a queer comradeship ‘between
a queer man and his best straight girl pal’ (Ramlow 2009: 141), the films
severely lack in joining the dots between Mystique’s queered representa-
tion of gender and her sexuality. Due to the wide-ranging forms that the
linkage between sexual identity and gender identity can take alongside the
complex relationship between gender and sexuality I outline in the fol-

lowing chapter, fluid sexuality would complement a fluid gender. Given
that Mystique’s representation may fall beyond the rigid portrayals of
hegemonic femininity, the erasure of her bisexuality is significant.
As such, Mystique becomes an (un)queer character through the process
of representation which, while offering a more fluid portrayal of gender
that questions dominant norms, still insists on the character’s assumed
compulsory heterosexuality. Such a paradox hinges on postfeminism in
its inconsistency. Mystique’s disavowal of traditional elements of het-
erosexual femininity in terms of romantic and sexual desire speaks to
the necessity for postfeminist culture to renegotiate these components in
media texts, while the films also present a character who embodies a fluid
gender identity that somewhat complicates the gender binary.
The Strangest Superhero of All:

Nebula’s Cyborg Subjectivity
Having established Mystique as a body of potential without organs, it is
worthwhile to discuss a character whose representation specifically reso-
nates with transcendental philosophies of posthumanism via her portrayal
as an alien cyborg. The character Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy
(James Gunn, 2014) and its related MCU sequels, like Mystique, is a body
of potential but, unlike Mystique, Nebula’s body is framed in terms of its
posthumanity (or inhumanity) due to its fusion with specifically mechani-
cal components. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Nebula, who works for the
film’s villain Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) and is the daughter of the evil
Thanos (Josh Brolin). Not unlike Mystique, her skin is blue, highlighting
the character’s alienness, and seems to comprise metallic segments that
have been fused together; metal plates are attached to her bald head and
her left arm is entirely mechanical. When Nebula speaks, her voice is low
with a tinny clang. Thus Nebula has left behind organic substances in her
physicality (for example hair, which is itself a gendered marker).
Nebula represents a clear contender for the claims of cyberfemi-
nism, which frequently hinge on the work of Donna Haraway. Though
Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ (2004) does not explicitly refer to Deleuze
and Guattari, it seems indebted to their conceptualisations of a posthuman
subjectivity that confounds binaristic dualisms. Querying the rational-
ism of feminist philosophers who argue for women’s rights as human
rights in that they hold that women’s personhood should make them
eligible for human rights, posthuman feminists have taken as their point
of interrogation the very notion of humanness as a source of intrinsic value
over other organisms. As mentioned, Enlightenment-era ideas of rational-

ism and humanity have privileged white, European male subjectivities.
Posthuman feminism (or anti-humanism) therefore critiques the idea of
‘ “Man” as the alleged “measure of all things,” for being androcentric,
exclusionary, hierarchical, and Eurocentric’ (Braidotti 2016: 674). Rosi
Braidotti notes that the humanist implications of second-wave feminism
(i.e. women’s rights as human rights) ran the risk of reinforcing a paradigm
of ‘Man’ that itself rests on dualisms– namely that ‘others’ are marginal-
ised (Braidotti 2016: 675). Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, first published in
1985, was informed by the increasing reliance of humans on technologies
to the extent that they reconfigured understandings of what it means to
be human. In her work, Haraway provided a utopian vision of a world in
which a rejection of dualisms is articulated through the then-novel figure
of the cybernetic organism, or cyborg, a being that comprises both flesh
and machine and is thus hybrid and beyond categorisation (Haraway 2004:
158). The cyborg functions as a metaphor to illustrate a rejection of rigid
boundaries, such as human/animal; human-animal/machine; physical/
non-physical. According to Haraway, the cyborg is inorganic, so rejects
organic boundaries and categorisation based on organic qualities (such as
body parts) (Haraway 2004: 167). Like Mystique’s characterisation, the
cyborg is capable of being ‘post-gender’ (Haraway 2004: 159). Addressing
the problematics of second- wave feminisms, Haraway called for an
embrace of a ‘monstrous world without gender’ (Haraway 2004: 178) and
communities encompassing ‘fractured identities’ (Haraway 2004: 161). In
this speculative utopia, the cyborg is capable of unifying disparate political
coalitions according to affinity rather than identity (Haraway 2004: 161),
lending to itself a quality of flexibility and fluidity.
Subsequent feminist thinkers have considered in detail the relationship
between women and technology, especially in the light of the discursive
coupling of men to technology, and its implications regarding political
feminisms (see Wajcman 1991; Balsamo 1996; Springer 1996; Plant 1997;
Toffoletti 2007). Areas of particular interest to these scholars include the
impact of reproductive technologies on women’s lives, but others have
examined technology’s presence in areas as diverse as drug therapy and
bioengineering. Since its publication, much has been discussed about the
uses and limitations of Haraway’s ideas and while the purpose of this
chapter is not necessarily to position the cyborg character of Nebula as
symptomatic of the collapse of patriarchal structures that inform repre-
sentation in Marvel superhero films, it is worth noting the proliferation of
scholarly texts that have examined fictional cyborgs and position Nebula
accordingly. In particular, the recent generic shift of superhero films from
action to be oriented more towards science fiction seems to have played a

key role in facilitating the development of this character, who had only a
small role in Guardians of the Galaxy but played a crucial role in the nar-
rative of Avengers: Endgame.
While female cyborgs occur somewhat frequently in popular culture,
there has been more scholarly interest in meanings generated by the male
cyborg and its implications regarding a masculinity in crisis. As Sue Short
argues, ‘The cyborg has served as an apt metaphor by which to inter-
rogate key concerns within contemporary feminist discourse, inspiring
renewed debate about female subjectivity and influencing a reassessment
of women’s relationship to technology’ (Short 2005: 81), highlighting the
multiplicity of meaning that such figures represent. However, Short’s
examination of specific female cyborgs is perhaps overly cynical, if sim-
plistic, in her conclusions that:
Science fiction cinema has presented a number of female cyborgs over the years that
similarly challenge Haraway’s conception of the cyborg as a ‘post gender’ creature,
with each displaying instead how gender identity is firmly inscribed upon this figure.
These representations play upon familiar stereotypes of either approved or reproved
female behaviour and may consequently be evaluated as ‘feminist cyborg stories’
also– foregrounding as they do a dichotomous and inherently patriarchal view of
femininity. (Short 2005: 83)
For Short, the inclusion of female cyborgs within popular science

fiction texts1 is ultimately unfulfilling due to the frequent reliance by these
figures on hegemonic modes of femininity. While Short does note that
these representations, such as that of replicant Rachael in Blade Runner
(Ridley Scott, 1982), call for ambiguous readings, her analysis risks the
danger of writing off explicitly gendered cyborgs as limiting despite their
reliance on parodic femininity, which is often portrayed as expressly con-
structed. While her argument does beg for an inclusion of postfeminist
culture, which, as I mention throughout this book, actively utilises femi-
nine masquerade in ways that pre-emptively account for feminist criti-
cisms, Short’s highlighting of the unabashed femininity of these cyborgs
is not unfounded. Indeed, more recent examinations of SF films such as
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013) and Ex Machina (Alex Garland,
2014) have provided slightly more nuanced accounts of the contrivances
of cyborg and alien subjectivities (see Jelača 2018).
Indeed, Nebula differs from her science fiction cyborg contempo-
raries specifically because she bears relatively few gendered markers.
As mentioned, she has no hair, her skin is blue, rendering the use of
beauty-enhancing cosmetics redundant, her voice is inhuman (therefore
potentially ungendered), and her costuming is wearable by individuals

of any gender. The only explicit marker of gender within the confines of
human distinctions of gender itself (although more akin to biological sex,
which itself is arguably, as Butler claims, arbitrary) is her body shape,
which remains that of actress Karen Gillen, albeit covered in prosthetics
and special effects, which are themselves technologies that were used to
augment Gillen’s performance.
Nebula is an alien with a humanoid form whose body parts were sys-
tematically removed and replaced with machinery by her adoptive father,
Thanos. There is a question of whether or not Nebula can be posthuman,
given that she was not human to begin with. Nonetheless, her appearance
does reach to forms of radical posthumanist thought, in particular that of
the alien cyborg put forward by Jelača, who explores recent versions of
the cinematic alien ‘who is decidedly female in an ever-recalibrating mix
of organic and inorganic parts (a shape-shifting cyborg, as it were) . . . to
probe the question of what is alien about being female and what is female
about being an alien’ (Jelača 2018: 380). An additional question posed by
Nebula’s representation, though, is about humanity: what is gendered
about being human and what is human about being gendered?
Crucially, Nebula is positioned opposite her adoptive sister, the green-
skinned Gamora (Zoë Saldaña), whose organicness is emphasised: for
example when Nebula zaps her with an electric weapon in a fight at the
end of the film, Gamora’s skeleton is ostentatiously visible for a short time,
drawing attention to the fact that she consists of flesh and bone, whereas
Nebula does not. In one instance, Nebula is on the receiving end of a blast
from an explosive weapon, seemingly defeated. However, when Nebula
next appears, lingering shots show her crumpled tin-can body unfolding,
accompanied by suitable metallic crunches as she rectifies her physicality,
her dislocated jaw relocating itself (Figure 7.3). The dualisms implicit
in the featuring of these two women as part of an inter-species family
is noteworthy and runs counter to the boundary-crossing sentiments of
cyberfeminism. At the centre of the Guardians films, as well as the final
instalments in the Avengers series, are concerns about family and what lies
beyond familial bonds based on organic biological markers.
While Nebula and Gamora compete in the first Guardians of the Galaxy
film, Vol. 2 delves deeper into previously established themes of found
family, particularly in relation to Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), the film’s hero.
Due to his intergalactic kidnapping as a child in the 1980s, Guardians of
the Galaxy characterises Quill as a man out of time through his awkward
references to popular culture texts that circulated at the time of his abduc-
tion. This, according to Terence McSweeney, places Quill as a margin-
Figure 7.3 Nebula’s distorted cyborg body reconfigures itself after she has been in an
explosion in Guardians of the Galaxy.
alised individual alongside a roster of aliens, while also recentring white

masculinity (McSweeney 2018: 175). Indeed, it is significant that the
Guardians films hinge so heavily on notions of family despite (or because)
of its literally posthuman cast. In Vol. 2, Quill encounters his biological
father, the Celestial god-like being Ego (Kurt Russel), whose comic book
origins as Ego the Living Planet set the scene for the character’s ruthless
quest to find meaning in the universe. This is articulated through the
film as Ego’s desire to conquer the universe by planting seeds of himself
within other species (in Quill’s case impregnating his human mother) on
different planets and subsequently terraforming those planets with his
self-extensions. This makes Quill a half-god, capable of transcending the
limitations of his human self, a humanist discourse that the film negotiates
alongside its mediation of posthuman subjectivities.
A conflicted critique of the cultural concept of male ego and the hubris that
accompanies it, this portrayal of Ego is doubtless a response to anticolonial
perspectives condemning the historical tendencies of white men to insert
themselves into and overrun foreign territories. Taking account of construc-
tionist ideas about gender, a point is made about Ego’s styling of himself as
a man. During an introductory scene, a holographic animation accompanies
Ego’s explanatory monologue about how he came to create what he imagined
biological life to be like. This is importantly signified as human life through
the holographic animation. Quill subsequently asks Ego whether he made
himself a penis, to which Ego responds, ‘I wanted to experience what it truly
meant to be human.’ Crucially, Ego’s envisioning of ‘human’ is realised on-
screen as a white Anglo-European man, reaching to the Enlightenment era
humanist discourses that centre white masculine subjectivity as a universal
position, a discourse disregarded by cyberfeminists.
Quill faces a dilemma when he realises that Ego is acting in his own
interests and that having god-like powers comes at the cost of reduced
humanity. In a sense, all Guardians characters fight for a humanity that is
constantly at risk of being corroded. Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista)
seeks revenge on those who murdered his wife and daughter, breaking
apart their family in a familiar turn of events for superhero narratives.
Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) is a raccoon-like genetically engi-
neered being who endured years of abuse and is, to his knowledge, the
only one of his kind. Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) is a tree-like humanoid
whose isolation is signified by his limited vocabulary of the line ‘I am
Groot’ and Gamora, as mentioned, was adopted by Thanos after he oblit-
erated half the population of her home planet. It is therefore significant
that Quill’s bloodline is the focus of several discussions and is described
by Ego as ‘a very special heritage’. Towards Gamora’s suspicions that Ego
may not have the universe’s best interests at mind in his quest to conquer
by forcible rule, Quill responds that ‘This is real. I’m only half-human,
remember?’ to which Gamora responds ‘That’s the half I’m worried
about.’ It is Quill’s humanity, and his romanticisation of the ideas of
biological lineage, that is problematised through these kinds of sequences,
and through this Vol. 2 endeavours to paradoxically reaffirm humanity as
a core source of audience identification for these otherwise alien charac-
ters.2 This means reworking traditional conceptualisations of family into
that of more explicitly found family, a key narrative strand in Nebula and
Gamora’s representations.
As mentioned, Nebula is an adoptive daughter of Thanos alongside
Gamora. Vol. 2 details her torturous process of becoming a cyborg under
the tyrannical rule of Thanos. Forced to train to be warriors by fighting
each other as youths, Nebula’s body parts were removed by Thanos when-
ever she lost a fight with Gamora, with Thanos’s intent being to reconsti-
tute her as Gamora’s equal. This was ultimately unsuccessful, and Nebula
was never to win a fight with Gamora, being cast into an eternal process
of being taken apart and put back together with additional components.
Importantly, these narrative points are not mentioned through flashback,
though Gamora’s kidnapping and adoption by Thanos are detailed in
this way. Unlike Gamora, Nebula lacks a distinct origin, as is typical for a
transgressive cyborg that confounds the need for biological conceptualisa-
tions of reproduction. Like Haraway’s cyborg, Nebula is positioned as ‘the
illegitimate offspring of militarism’ (Haraway 2004: 159) as is represented
through the aggressive patriarch of Thanos. And like Haraway’s cyborg,
Nebula ultimately rebels in order to reconstitute her own subjectivity
outside his constraints when she pledges to kill him.
In a climactic fight between the sisters in Vol. 2, Nebula’s humanity is

nonetheless reconfigured through familial discourse. The setting of Ego’s
home planet, which itself seems to be made from the decaying remains of
Ego’s illegitimate offspring– the results of his failed couplings with other
species, the children who did not inherit his godly superpowers– is telling
in the rampant destruction it undergoes during the course of the fight.
Intending to finally beat Gamora, Nebula attacks with various firearms
and automated weapons, falling into old, destructive habits cultivated for
so long by Thanos. Trapped in a spaceship she hunted Gamora down
with, Nebula endures more violence as Gamora retaliates with an oversized
machine gun perched on her shoulder, her vocal war cries highlighted in
several close-ups of her face. The ship explodes and crashes through the
fragile ground into a chasm; Gamora is filmed from below, casually looking
down at the victimised Nebula, who is unable to escape the now-alight
ship. Unexpectedly, the debris moves out of the shot, revealing Gamora,
who is able to extract Nebula just before an explosion takes place. The
two are shot from afar, sent across the cavernous space by the force of
the explosion. This cuts to Gamora on her back, visibly in pain as the
shot tracks across to Nebula, who is once again in her crumpled state and
piecing herself together. The contrast in the materiality of these characters
is once again evident and Nebula continues her attack. Fast-paced frenetic
editing highlights the desperation in these characters’ drive for survival,
at times the camera zooms in violently onto the women’s faces, an attempt
to assign emotive qualities to an otherwise inhuman(e) scenario. Nebula,
knife raised, her other hand around Gamora’s neck, shakes at the centre of
a lengthy shot before emitting a roar of frustration and letting her sister go.
Both breathless and on their knees, the two of them argue over who won
the fight, culminating in a close-up of Nebula, distressed, shouting ‘You
are the one who wanted to win and I just wanted a sister.’ This is a pivotal
moment for these characters, whereby Nebula’s posthumanity intersects
with notions of familial bonding, as she continues ‘Thanos pulled my eye
from my head and my brain from my skull. And my arm from my body.
Because of you.’ The lingering close-up of the two cuts to a long shot
of them both kneeling in front of the wreckage of the ship, a physical
indication of the destruction they both endured under Thanos. Nebula’s
identity is, via her narrative trajectory, shaped by Thanos. She is forcibly
plugged into his will via eternal competition with Gamora. Essentially,
though, the arguably human concept of sisterhood (which has additional
feminist connotations) is presented as the absence behind the destruction.
Indeed, towards the end of the film, the two reconcile alongside the other
Guardians, albeit reluctantly. Before the team embark on the mission of
defeating Ego, Nebula remarks ‘All any of you do is yell at each other.
You’re not friends.’ To this, Drax– i n a mode of abstract thinking unchar-
acteristic for the character, whose species is presented as understanding
words only literally – remarks ‘You’re right. We’re family.’
This highlights the importance of the notion of found family in the
Guardians films. As noted earlier, this is somewhat of a paradox, in that
the films’ rejection of literal human characters appears to result in a nar-
rative reinsertion of the idea of humanity as signalling the value of these
characters. This point also made by McSweeney, who notes the signifi-
cance of Groot’s uttering of the line ‘We are Groot’ as ‘he elects to give
his life to save his new family’ in the first Guardians film (McSweeney
2018: 177). However, for all intents and purposes, these characters are
not human in their materiality, with Nebula being a key signifier for this.
In her gendered cyborgian state, she represents a version of the posthu-
man condition that is nonetheless returned to familial discourse, albeit
a reconfigured non-traditional, even queer, family. A key moment that
denotes Nebula’s ultimate humanity is when she expresses her yearning
for a sister, a specifically female sibling.
It is Nebula’s initial rejection of herself that articulates how the ‘tension
between the human and technological . . . disrupts traditional understand-
ings of selfhood, identity, the body and reality’ (Toffoletti 2007: 4). It is
important to note that Nebula is not represented as actively engaging with
her cyborg self until later MCU instalments; it is quite clear through nar-
rative exposition that Nebula’s cybernetic body parts were forced upon
her by Thanos. Nonetheless, as a cyborg, Nebula confounds the dualisms
critiqued by Haraway and other posthuman feminists. The process of
Nebula reconfiguring herself as a heroic figure culminates in the plotline of
Endgame in which she literally confronts her past self, who hopes to thwart
the Avengers’ plans to change history after Thanos becomes too powerful.
Able to exist within two timelines, Nebula’s subjectivity is atemporal. To
quote Kim Toffoletti, ‘The posthuman inhabits a space beyond the real
where time and history defy linear progression’ (Toffoletti 2007: 5), a
concept clearly articulated through Nebula’s narrative in Endgame.
In Toffoletti’s terms, posthuman subjectivity ‘is the bodily transforma-
tions and augmentations that come about through our engagements with
technology that complicate the idea of a “human essence” ’ (Toffoletti
2007: 13). Importantly, the idea of human essence is central to Guardians
of the Galaxy Vol. 2. There is a concerted effort in the film’s form and nar-
rative to reinsert humanity into alien characters. This does not, however,
query the problematic centrality of ‘humanity’ to justify an entity’s
existence (or promote sympathy with it). It does however emphasise the
concept of kinship between species in a way that gestures towards desta-

bilising the anthropocentrism that counters much anti-humanist feminist
thought. Indeed, Haraway maintained in her Manifesto that technological
advances would ultimately destabilise traditional family structures as the
public-domestic dualism is corroded and the patriarchal nuclear family is
made irrelevant (Haraway 2004: 169). The Guardians films depend on the
very notions of humanity and family they ultimately revoke and rework in
what is perhaps another complexity of postfeminist culture.
Like Mystique, Nebula’s body offers the potential to adapt to what-
ever the situation requires (at one point in Vol. 1, she cuts off her own
mechanical hand to escape from the heroes). These characters elaborate
the flexibility of transgressive subjectivities. Through her immortality and
cyborgian presence, Nebula embodies the malleability of a post-human/
post-woman subjectivity. This opens up filmic dialogues that offer flex-
ibility in terms of gendered characters. In the words of J. Jack Halberstam
and Ira Livingston, ‘The posthuman does not necessitate the obsolescence
of the human: it does not represent an evolution or devolution of the
human. Rather it participates in re-distribution of difference and iden-
tity’ (Halberstam and Livingston 1995: 10). While the mutants of X-Men
are (often disparagingly) described as the next stage in human evolution,
making them post-human in a literal sense, it is the humanity of the
Guardians that is foregrounded. This is inevitably gendered, as demon-
strated by Nebula’s longing for a sister, although Nebula also displays
few, if any, gendered markers. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 can be seen
as questioning social and cultural binaries in its use of hybrid characters,
but equally has a need to consider what it means to be human in doing so.
In summary, if anything, the characters of Mystique and Nebula demon-
strate the persistence of the body as a site of contestation in tandem with
wider gendered concerns to do with queerness and family.
Notes
1. These she characterises, perhaps unconsciously, specifically as popular, invok-
ing a familiar hierarchy between literary/progressive science fiction texts
versus filmic/conservative ones.
2. Captain Marvel makes similar attempts to recuperate Danvers’s humanity at
the film’s climax when Yon-Rogg briefly removes her powers.
C H A PT E R 8
Disrupting the Rainbow Bridge:

Dysfunctional Heterosexuality and
Reinforcing Gender Difference in
Marvel Adaptations
As the previous chapters illustrate, there is some scope for transgres-

sive gender representation through the figure of the superheroine, but
such representations remain scarce and undeniably informed by post-
feminist power structures. This chapter expands on this by focusing on
the particular representations of heterosexual romance that Marvel film
adaptations offer, and drawing out how these relate to the preservation of
hegemonic modes of femininity (and masculinity). In Western cultures,
the categories ‘men’ and ‘women’ must be distinct and difference between
them is harnessed. Indeed, Judith Lorber argues that the gender binary
is one of the foundational elements of society, in which biological sex and
other factors such as race are used as ‘crude markers’ of ‘ascribed social
statuses’ (Lorber 2000: 56). The gender binary thus functions within
political hierarchical terms, maintaining the gender order.
Disputes over the relationship between gender– that is, a ‘system of
social practices’ shaping individuals’ identification as man or woman (as
opposed to biological sex) (Wharton 2012: 8)– and sexuality – which refers
‘to all erotically significant aspects of social life and social being’ (Jackson
2005: 17)– h ave been expressed throughout the last several decades and
are challenging to navigate. Nonetheless, I provide here a summary of the
contextual discourses involving sexuality and gender, and why it is benefi-
cial to consider them as twinned occurrences. As Chris Beasley notes, the
majority of gender theorists ‘continue to perceive gender and sexuality as
strongly linked’ but ‘queer theorists, in particular, dismiss any assertions
that gender and sexuality are inevitably joined’ (Beasley 2005: 4). Further,
Richardson has identified at least five different ways of conceiving of
the linkage between gender and sexuality, from naturalist approaches in
which the dual binaries of male/female, heterosexual/homosexual and
masculine/feminine are considered part of a ‘natural order’ (Richardson
2007: 460) to sociological perspectives which, for example, see gender
as an effect of sexuality (Richardson 2007: 462). Richardson stresses the
importance of considering historical context in seeking the interconnec-

tions between gender and sexuality (Richardson 2007: 465). Her opinion is
that two qualifying questions must be asked: ‘Can we think about gender
without invoking sexuality?’ and ‘Is sexuality intelligible to us outside of
a gendered discourse or subject?’ (Richardson 2007: 466). When invok-
ing the notion of a heterosexual man, it may seem impossible to conceive
of him as anything outside the definition of a gendered person, who is
a man, who is sexually attracted to the ‘other’ gender, namely women.
However, it is queer theory’s role to aid in the deconstruction of such
questions. Thus, Richardson argues that ‘gender’s link to sexuality is not
determinate or unidirectional, but complex, dynamic, contingent, fluid
and unstable’ (Richardson 2007: 464).
Stevi Jackson offers equally enlightening theories, arguing that
sexuality and gender are empirically interrelated, but analytically distinct. Without
an analytical distinction between them, we cannot effectively explore the ways in
which they intersect; if we conflate them, we are in danger of deciding the form of
their interrelationship in advance. (Jackson 2005: 17)
It is thus preferable to consider the interrelations of sexuality and gender,

for example the question of why, when we refer to one, we also think of
the other, whilst also maintaining the analytical differences between them.
Like Richardson and other theorists such as Beasley (2010), Calvin
Thomas (2009), Nancy L. Fischer (2013) and others, Jackson is inter-
ested in heterosexuality as a social institution which shapes individuals’
lives and behaviour as well as social hierarchies. Indeed, she states that
‘Heterosexuality is the key site of intersection between gender and sexual-
ity, and one that reveals the interconnections between sexual and non-
sexual aspects of social life’ (Jackson 2005: 17). Jackson traces the varying
accounts of gender and sexuality throughout history, leading to the resur-
facing of attitudes inflected by ‘New Darwinism’ in recent times (Jackson
2005: 15). Such rhetoric privileges the idea that heterosexuality is most
‘useful’ in evolutionary terms as it is driven by ‘the “need” to find a mate
and pass on our genes to the next generation’ (Jackson 2005: 15). Much
like in the naturalist approaches outlined by Richardson, heterosexuality
thus becomes part of ‘human nature’. In light of this, Jackson stresses
that it is ‘crucial to reassert the political relevance of social constructionist
analyses of gender and sexuality and to challenge the taken-for-granted
view of heterosexuality as a natural, uncontestable fact of human nature’
(Jackson 2005: 16).
Views of heterosexuality as ‘natural’ drive heteronormative discourses
in Western culture. Following this, Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner
d i s r upt ing the ra inb o w b r i dg e 195
define heteronormativity as ‘the institutions, structures of understanding,

and practical orientations that make heterosexuality seem not only coherent
– that is, organized as a sexuality – but also privileged’ (Berlant and Warner
1998: 548). Therefore, heteronormativity, as a dominant discourse, crops
up in all areas of Western culture. Berlant and Warner continue that:
Contexts that have little visible relation to sex practice, such as life narrative and
generational identity, can be heteronormative in this sense, while in other contexts
forms of sex between men and women might not be heteronormative. (Berlant and
Warner 1998: 548)
It is also important to note that heteronormativity serves the purpose of

marginalising and stigmatising any sexualities which are not heterosexual.
Furthermore, ‘Heteronormativity extends beyond the normalization of
heterosexuality to encompass the normalization of a certain type of het-
erosexuality that involves marriage and monogamy while single, non-
monogamous, or voluntarily celibate individuals are viewed as deviant’
(Charlebois 2011: 15).
Thus, though gender may not cause an individual’s sexuality or vice
versa, heteronormativity dictates that certain genders are aligned to certain
sexualities. Heteronormative sentiments are expressed and reinforced by
media representations, particularly mainstream Hollywood films, includ-
ing Marvel adaptations. It would be careless to presuppose that there is
no connection between gender and sexuality, and even if there is not one,
these texts ensure that there is a message that there is a connection. The
institution of heterosexuality has been evident in the previous chapters,
for example in my discussion of villainesses, who embody the ‘wrong
sort’ of heterosexual femininity (too sexual; too strong) to be ideologically
stable. It therefore is desirable for the ‘good’ woman to embody socially
desirable aspects of heterofemininity, such as fear and victimisation, to
allow for no sexual/gender (and hence moral) ambiguity. Such sentiments
also fuel the aforementioned women-in-refrigerator narratives, although
the purpose of this chapter is to navigate the arena of heterosexuality and
its relationship to femininity specifically. Marvel films display an insist-
ence on heterosexual displays of romance, and this is partly achieved
through their reliance on a gender binary and its supposed rigidity. That
said, a discussion of gender requires a discussion of sexuality, even if their
exact relationship is ambiguous.
Feminist writers have assessed what it means for women to be sexual
in films (Mellen 1974; Kaplan 1983; Kuhn 1994), but few have actively
investigated the role of heterosexuality within the films and the female
characters’ narratives in great detail. While such texts prove enlightening
to the issue of women’s representations in films, they do not specify what

it means for these women to be represented as heterosexual. Another issue
is the lack of studies about heteronormative and hegemonic representa-
tions of heterosexuality. Theorists have tackled heteronormativity from an
angle that does not speak directly to the purpose of this chapter but still
offers some contextual background. Importantly, they have been inter-
ested in queering the notion of heterosexuality. That is, in Beasley’s terms,
they intend to break away from notions of heterosexuality as the antithesis
of queer, and rather offer readings of heterosexuality against the grain of
heteronormativity, to ‘upset accounts of heterosexuality as uninteresting’
(Beasley 2010: 204). Such contemplations have brought about new con-
figurations of what heterosexuality incorporates, such as that of the ‘queer
straight’ or ‘queer heterosexual’ (Mock 2003; Schlichter 2004), or even
‘nonnormative heterosex’ (Gregory 2018), which open up new opportuni-
ties for how individuals consider their own sexual identities.
Further, writers have applied this perspective to Western mainstream
cultural products such as film, thereby ‘queering’ representations of het-
erosexuality on screen. Wheeler Winston Dixon, in his work Straight
(2003), is thus only interested in films which he perceives as offering
eccentric representations of heterosexuality, while Sean Griffin’s edited
collection Hetero (2009b) offers queered readings of mainstream repre-
sentations of heterosexuality that defy the notion that heterosexuality is
‘bland, white bread, vanilla, missionary position, monogamous, married,
patriarchal’ (Griffin 2009a: 4).
An issue with these readings is not that they are not useful, but rather
that they do not address the issues raised by representations that are very
much in the mainstream. Further, they do not account for the mainstream
blending of the ‘queer’ and ‘hetero’ categories that has occurred in recent
decades. While I agree that representations of heterosexuality should be
read as incorporating dysfunction, I also argue that this dysfunction is
presented as a crucial component of normative heterosexual relationships
in Marvel texts, complicating the notion of a queered reading of het-
erosexuality. When a reading that is against the grain is already contained
within the grain, these kinds of analyses become less insightful. Finally,
there has also been notable compartmentalisation of much queer theory in
relation to its actual application, for example writers such as Berlant and
Warner have been more invested in cultivating a queer counterculture
than they have been with analysing the existing structures of power found
within mainstream cultural spaces.
As noted, there have been certain theoretical approaches that have
maintained that gender occurs as part of a natural order based on binaris-
tic frameworks. Attitudes that preserve essentialist notions of gender are

likewise present in cultural products. Kimmel notes that an ‘interplan-
etary’ approach to gender is widespread in the media and other parts of
everyday life (Kimmel 2000: 1). This interplanetary point of view, which
became increasingly popular with the release of pop psychology self-help
guides such as John Grey’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
(1995), perpetuates the notion that men and women are so inherently dif-
ferent that they may as well be from different planets (Kimmel 2000: 1).
The theory reinforces not only gender difference but gender inequality,
offering an essentialist, rigid reading of gender difference. That is to say
that this approach ‘assumes, whether through biology or socialization, that
women act like women, no matter where they are, and that men act like
men, no matter where they are’ (Kimmel 2000: 12). This perspective is
limiting and ignores the myriad similarities between genders.
The maintenance of this gender order, the essentialist notion that men
must always act like men and that women always act like women, informs
Judith Butler’s idea of the ‘heterosexual matrix’ (Butler 1990: 9). To sum-
marise Butler’s dense theories, she notes the gender hierarchy, by which
men are dominant in society and women submissive, is a political instru-
ment. Drawing from the work of Monique Wittig, she states, ‘Gender
not only designates persons, “qualifies” them, as it were, but constitutes
a conceptual episteme by which binary gender is universalized’ (Butler
1990: 29). Much like Adrienne Rich, an early theoriser of heterosexuality
as a ‘compulsory’ sexuality to which all people must adhere (Rich 1980),
Butler maintains that dominance is fostered through ‘the culturally intel-
ligible grids of an idealized and compulsory heterosexuality’ (Butler 1990:
185). This grid is the heterosexual matrix, which thus creates meaning out
of the combined efforts of sex, gender and sexuality. Here, the interlocking
notions of sexuality and gender culminate to maintain the gender order.
Furthermore, Butler argues that heterosexuality must be con-
stantly repeated and emphasised to perpetuate the heterosexual matrix.
Heteronormative structures present heterosexuality as the ‘original’ sexu-
ality, while homosexuality is merely a copy. However, Butler argues, this
only occurs as a result of heterosexuality’s compulsory nature, and that
heterosexuality will only ever be a copy of itself (Butler 1993: 313). This is
because heterosexuality is constantly reproducing copies of itself to allay
the anxiety that it could be questioned and rendered optional instead of
compulsory (Butler 1993). Butler argues:
heterosexuality is always in the process of imitating and approximating its own

phantasmatic idealization of itself– a nd failing. Precisely because it is bound to fail,
and yet endeavors to succeed, the project of heterosexual identity is propelled into
an endless repetition of itself. (Butler 1993: 313)
Media representations actively contribute to this heterosexual matrix.

Indeed, Griffin has noted the importance of analysing heterosexuality in
film, and other texts, but stresses that heterosexuality occupies an ‘unspo-
ken invisible centrality’ (Griffin 2009b: 13). Further, Berlant and Warner
argue for an inclusive perspective of the ways in which heteronormativity
informs individuals’ daily lives in ways that are not solely related to sexual
acts:
This utopia of social belonging is also supported and extended by acts less com-
monly recognized as part of sexual culture: paying taxes, being disgusted, philander-
ing, bequeathing, celebrating a holiday, investing for the future, teaching, disposing
of a corpse, carrying wallet photos, buying economy size, being nepotistic, running
for president, divorcing, or owning anything ‘His’ and ‘Hers’. (Berlant and Warner
1998: 555)
These factors make heterosexuality difficult to see as it is the default or

norm against which other sexualities are measured. As outlined by Negra,
heterosexual marriage has prominently resurfaced in postfeminist media
products as a highlight of a woman’s life cycle (Negra 2009a: 175). She
argues that such portrayals
consistently and insistently display and perform femininity as heterosexual, white,

affluent, and family-focused, and those women who cannot be recuperated into one
of these life stage paradigms generally lose representability within a landscape domi-
nated by these categories. (Negra 2009a: 173)
Thus, despite the advances made in terms of gender equality fostered

by feminist activity, there has been a significant call for traditional femi-
ninity within contemporary media. Evidently, this also ties into notions of
heteronormativity, as ‘the distinct overvaluing of female heterosexuality
and maternity’ that can be seen as a reaction to increasing instances of
‘alternative concepts of sexual identity and family’ in the media (Negra
2009a: 175), including but not limited to the foregrounding of ‘same-sex’
marriage as being the crux of LGBTQ human rights in recent years.
The furore over marriage can be seen in Marvel comic books when
beloved characters get married. In Fantastic Four Annual #3, ‘Possibly
the greatest annual of all time!’ and deemed ‘The most sensational super-
spectacular ever witnessed by human eyes!!’ (Lee and Kirby 1965), Reed
Richards and Susan Storm finally tie the knot. In the issue, the wedding
is such a phenomenon that it occupies the front page of the newspaper
that is being begrudgingly read by a furious Doctor Doom, who aims to

seek revenge on Richards for defeating him previously. Similarly, Spider-
Man’s wedding to Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual
#21 is prominently displayed on the cover of the issue, with the happy
couple beaming in front of the heart-shaped Spider-Man emblem and the
wedding attendees (an alternate cover shows Parker in his Spider-Man
costume and replaces the wedding guests with an assortment of Marvel
heroes and villains in confrontational poses, exemplifying the collision
between superheroics and heterosexual union) (Michelinie et al. 1987).
Representations of heterosexuality, while seeming difficult to make
sense of due to their implicit invisibility, have been theoretically com-
plexified. In her analysis of heterosexuality in the sci-fi television series
Star Trek: The Next Generation (CBS, 1987–94), Lee Heller argues that
heterosexuality is presented as both utopic and unfulfilling. She suggests
that the series ‘tries to imagine utopian romantic configurations and ideal
sexual others, only to tell us, first, that such relationships are necessar-
ily heterosexual, and second, that heterosexuality is inherently unable to
fulfill the desire it is supposed to serve’ (Heller 1997: 226). This paradox is
based dually on the idea that men and women are complementary (Hunter
2011: 311) but also draws from the interplanetary perspective of gender.
In this sense, Heller notes, postfeminist texts offer a view of men and
women as made for each other because they are different, and yet totally
incompatible– also because they are different. She continues that ‘in
popular media accounts of heterosexual gender trouble, the key term is
not just difference, but difference that divides’ (Heller 1997: 227). This
dividing difference is a foundational element of Marvel’s representations
of heterosexual romance and is interestingly intertwined with the super-
heroic narratives.
Dysfunctional Heterosexuality in Marvel Films

Numerous Marvel films draw on the idea that the central characters– the
romantic couple– are meant to be together. In Thor, this occurs as part of
Jane Foster’s (Natalie Portman) main narrative arc. Throughout the film,
Foster, an astrophysicist who discovers god-like superhero Thor in the
desert after he is expelled from Asgard, changes how she perceives Thor.
To begin with, Foster views Thor as an interesting object that can support
her scientific research, since he seemingly fell from space. This is evi-
denced by her outrage when her research is confiscated by S.H.I.E.L.D. –
she states ‘I just lost my most important piece of evidence. Typical!’ This
cold and clinical attitude towards Thor is remedied during her narrative
arc. A major turning point for Foster is an outdoor scene by a campfire in

which Thor describes the machinations of his magical world to her. The
close-up of the burning fire zooms out to show them sitting behind it,
accompanied by soft, romantic music (occurring extradiegetically). Thor
then takes some of Foster’s notes (which he heroically retrieved from the
S.H.I.E.L.D. facility) and draws the planets. A medium close-up shows
how he looks at her and says ‘Your ancestors called it magic, and you
call it science. Well, I come from a place where they’re one and the same
thing’ and Foster is shown smiling at him in the reverse shot. The scene
is framed by romance through the music, the warm glow of the fire at
night and camerawork. After he has finished explaining, it cuts to a shot of
the moon and the music becomes even softer, further contributing to the
scene’s heartfelt romance. This is followed by a shot of Thor looking up at
the sky, panning round to show Foster has fallen asleep. He says ‘Thank
you, Jane’– he thanks her for finally accepting him as an individual, rather
than a science project.
Thus, Foster and Thor are shown as destined to unite since Foster
has undergone this dramatic transformation in her attitude. Meanwhile,
Thor is shown after a dramatic battle with a giant fire-breathing robot
(the Destroyer) to be relieved that Foster is unscathed when he says to
her ‘It’s over . . . I mean, you’re safe, it’s over.’ In this sense, the hetero-
sexual union was imperilled through the threat of the Destroyer. Once the
Destroyer is defeated, the two can finally be together. The Destroyer thus
is a contradictory figure that both reinforces the institution of heterosexual
romance at the same time as poses a threat towards it. In such ways, Thor
entangles the film’s heterosexuality with its superheroic narrative.
After Thor departs to stop his brother Loki, who has allowed the evil
Frost Giants access to Asgard, Foster utters ‘Oh. My. God’, a line that
ironically acknowledges Thor’s place as her man, while also playing with
the fact that he is a Norse god. However, this bliss is momentary. Since
heterosexuality must also imply dysfunction, it therefore follows that Thor
and Foster can, in fact, never be together. The final confrontation between
Loki and Thor takes place in Asgard, on the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge
that connects Asgard to the other realms. Since Loki wants to annihilate
humankind, Thor opts to destroy the Bifrost on which Loki is lying after
the fight. When Thor reaches for his magical hammer Loki tells him, ‘If
you destroy the bridge you’ll never see her again.’ Again, the main heroic
narrative is conceived of in terms of the heterosexual union. Before Thor
swings the hammer, he says ‘Forgive me, Jane’, cementing this point, as
the bridge explodes. Thus, Foster and Thor, seemingly meant for each
other, can never be together. The end lines of the film accentuate this, as
they reinforce the distance between the characters alongside the sense of
yearning, as Thor asks Heimdall (Idris Elba), the omniscient guardian of
the Bifrost, what Foster is doing at that moment, and he responds ‘She
searches for you.’
What Heller describes as the dysfunctional-utopic nature of hetero-
sexuality is similarly highlighted in both The Incredible Hulk and Captain
America: The First Avenger, which similarly intermingle heterosexuality
with the superheroic narratives. Bob Rehak has noted that in The Incredible
Hulk’s predecessor, Hulk (2003), the authoritarian father figure is a source
of threat to the happy union of the central romantic couple (Rehak 2012:
95–8). However, I would argue that both films wrestle with the need to
include a heterosexual union while one half of the couple is also portrayed
as a raging green monster. The Incredible Hulk (a remake more than a
sequel) incorporates this as an element of dysfunction within its utopian
heterosexuality. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton), who turns into the Hulk
when he becomes angry after being infected by gamma radiation, lives in
Brazil, desperately trying to find a cure for his condition: a rage so great
that it causes him to turn into the Hulk, or ‘Hulk out’. The film indicates
that Bruce is so eager to find a cure because he is in love with his former
associate, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), in the opening of the film during which
Banner is concocting a potential cure. This is intercut with frequent shots
of a newspaper clipping Banner keeps that includes a picture of Ross.
Banner is therefore depicted as devoted to Ross. Meanwhile, Ross is also
unconditionally devoted to Banner, as during their unexpected reunion,
while Banner is on the run from the US Army (led by Betty’s father,
General Ross), Ross invites Banner to stay with her, even though he is a
wanted man. This reunion scene takes place at night, outside in the rain,
with long shots showcasing the couple as they embrace.
The characters’ yearning for each other is highlighted in a following
scene, in which both characters lie in their beds in separate rooms. An
aerial shot of Ross gradually zooms in as she is lying in her bed, looking
concerned. It cuts to a similar shot of Banner, then back to Ross, who is
close to crying, then back to Banner. The next shot is of Ross, touching her
face and closing her eyes. The concern, here, is presented as the dilemma
of the great danger they face– Ross harbours a known fugitive; Banner is
on the run– but it is framed within the heterosexual conundrum, asking
how their love can survive. This is achieved by the juxtaposition of both
characters lying awake in bed, but separately. Thus, Ross and Banner
are destined to be together as complimentary soul mates, but ultimately
cannot be together because he is the Hulk. Banner’s status as the Hulk
also contributes to this heterosexuality’s dysfunction, which is explicitly
expressed during a would-be sex scene: Banner and Ross are unable to
have sex because it would increase his heart rate, which, in an awkward
discursive conflation of aggression and arousal, would essentially cause
him to Hulk out.
At the end of the film, Banner must bid farewell to Ross to defeat the
film’s villain, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who has turned himself into
the Abomination, a kind of mega-Hulk. This takes place in a helicopter
that is transporting the two to safety while Blonsky goes on a rampage in
the city. Banner tells Ross he has to stop Blonsky, while Ross begs him not
to go. The night sky with violent clouds is representative of both the peril
in which the heterosexual union is placed and the danger that Banner is
putting himself into as they finally kiss goodbye in close-up. This is fol-
lowed by a medium shot of Banner allowing himself to drop to the ground
so that he can fight Blonsky. Again, the heterosexual union and danger of
the narrative coagulate and become inseparable.
Captain America: The First Avenger, set in 1942, is also a notable
example of the way in which heterosexuality’s dysfunction is intertwined
with the narrative alongside its utopic principles. The film’s romance nar-
rative focuses on the potential love between Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell)
and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans). Significantly, they are
portrayed as complementary because they both, on separate occasions,
explicitly state that they are looking for the ‘right partner’ to dance with.
This first happens when Carter and Rogers discuss Rogers’s love life, or
lack thereof (a scene I further examine later) and how Carter is going to go
dancing with him, and then again in a subsequent scene in which Rogers’s
friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan) makes a pass at Carter in a bar, only for him
to be rejected because Carter is interested in Rogers.
However, predictably, Rogers and Carter will never be united as Rogers,
after becoming Captain America and defeating the villainous Nazi the Red
Skull (Hugo Weaving), is portrayed alone on an aircraft carrying weapons
of mass destruction over which he has lost control. With the plane heading
to New York, he calls Carter over the radio and explains that he must land
the plane in the sea, leaving a slim chance of his survival. Soft, romantic
music is in the background of these shots, which cut between Carter at
the army headquarters and Rogers in the plane. Rogers looks out of the
plane in a medium shot, telling her ‘Peggy, this is my choice.’ This cuts to
Carter, sad, with tears in her eyes. In the next shot, Rogers takes out a pho-
tograph of Carter and places it on the dashboard. Again, this showcases
the intermingling of what Heller terms heterosexual dysfunctionality with
the heroic narrative. Following this is an exchange that again refers to
Carter and Rogers’s doomed dance that will never be: Rogers tells her
‘Peggy, I’m going to need a rain check on that dance.’ After Carter tells
him where and when they will meet to dance, Rogers tells her he still
doesn’t know how, and the final tragic exchange takes place. The scene
stays with Carter, showing her in medium close up with her eyes closed
and face strained, after Rogers has told her they will ask the band to play
something slow, his voice on the radio says ‘I’d hate to step on your –’
before being cut off. Carter repeats Rogers’s name before being shown in
a long shot, hunched over her desk, with sad diegetic music. These final
scenes are a culmination of the inseparability of heterosexuality and the
heroic narrative. Further, Carter and Rogers’s complementarity is again
coupled with the unfulfilled union– this time, Carter and Rogers will
never be together as Carter will be an old woman by the time Rogers is
thawed out of the ice that preserves his body after he crashes in the sea.
The period in which The First Avenger is set is particularly convenient
for postfeminist culture, as it functions as a distancing mechanism against
what once was. Alongside its focus on a patriotic soldier-hero who embod-
ies hegemonic masculine American ideals through a white, heterosexual,
body that is at peak physical condition, that the film also showcases scenes
framed by Girl Power sentiment fostered by Carter’s introduction as a
tough girl who does not allow unruly men to harass her is also significant.
Carter’s appearance in the film as a high-ranking military woman seems
unexpected for its 1940s setting, however it was not entirely unlikely for
women to have had such roles in the army (though officially it was deemed
unacceptable in the US military for women to have combat roles). As a
postfeminist period piece, The First Avenger speaks to the notion of ‘tem-
poral slippages’, which Munford and Waters suggest are a defining trait of
postfeminist culture (Munford and Waters 2014: 8), much like the 1990s
setting of Captain Marvel. Within these modes of representation, the past,
future and present collide as ‘images or ideas from the past might return
to haunt us’ while helping to shape new feminisms, ‘the ghostly projection
of a feminist future’ (Munford and Waters 2014: 8) that is nonetheless
steeped in gender traditionalism.
Heterosexuality is intertwined within these films’ fibres. Simultaneously,
this functions both to showcase the utopic (they were meant for each
other) yet dysfunctional (they can never be together) qualities of hetero-
sexuality and to make it appear natural and invisible. Whereas the women-
in-refrigerators narratives discussed in Chapter 1 explicitly implicate the
superhero girlfriends within the action by utilising them as plot points,
the intermeshing of heterosexuality and narrative peril undertaken here
is a more covert formation of dominant ideologies, drawing the women in
as part of the overall representation of heterosexuality. The heterosexual
matrix can thus be seen to function on the tangible level of the women-in-
refrigerators narrative but becomes even more naturalised when the perils
of heroism and the dysfunction of heterosexuality are presented as one
naturally occurring, commonsensical phenomenon.
This bond between the heroic narrative and heterosexuality is so strong,
that when male characters enter the world of superheroics (i.e. they acquire
their powers), they actually enter the world of heterosexual dysfunction.
The most notable example of this occurs in Captain America: The First
Avenger. When Rogers is introduced in the film, he is portrayed as small,
weak and sickly, and unable to fulfil his patriotic dream of joining the army.
This is framed by heterosexual discourses in the aforementioned scene with
Carter. Carter escorts Rogers to the secret lab where he will receive the
Super Soldier Serum that turns him into Captain America. In the car on
the way there, Rogers and Carter talk about women. At one point, Rogers
tells Carter ‘I guess I just don’t know why you’d want to join the army if you
were a beautiful dame. Or a . . . A Woman.’ Rogers is flustered by Carter’s
facial expression, shown as a frown in the following medium shot, and
further stumbles over his words: ‘An agent. Not a dame. You are beauti-
ful, but . . .’ At that moment, Carter interjects, ‘You have no idea how to
talk to a woman, do you?’ to which he replies, ‘I think this is the longest
conversation I’ve had with one. Women aren’t exactly lining up to dance
with a guy they might step on’, which leads to the exchange about dancing.
Importantly, Rogers’s status as a puny, weak, powerless man is also pre-
sented as what makes him unattractive to women. He thus exists outside of
heterosexual dysfunction, or even any sort of sexuality. It therefore follows
that, after Rogers receives the Super Soldier treatment, he immediately
becomes attractive to women, which is signalled by Carter clearly eyeing up
his newly muscular body, touching his naked chest after he is removed from
the machine that grants him his powers. Now taller, stronger and more
conventionally attractive, Rogers has entered the world of superheroics, but
he has simultaneously entered the world of heterosexual dysfunction. The
women around him thus serve to reinforce his heterosexuality.
The parallel introduction of male characters to the realm of heroism and
heterosexuality has been present in Marvel comic book narratives. Joseph
Willis, for example, notes that in Spider-Man’s origin story in Amazing
Fantasy #15 (Lee and Kirby 1962b), pre-spider-bite Peter Parker is shown
as being specifically unattractive towards women, with his female classmates
shown making unkind comments towards him (Willis 2014). In this sense,
he has been barred from partaking of heterosexuality (and hence from any
sexuality since heteronormativity negates the possibility of alternatives).
After he acquires his powers, however, he becomes more integrated into the
group of teens and is admired by women while in his Spider-Man persona.

Willis thus argues that after Parker acquires his powers and becomes a hero,
he also realises his heterosexual potential. Willis argues, ‘With powers,
comes a superhero identity, and a sexual identity. However, in the superhero
narrative, this development of a sexual identity is framed in a specifically
hetero-normative construct and subject to patriarchal power structures of
strict gendered performances’ (Willis 2014). This twinning of superheroic
narratives with heterosexuality has thus been a staple of the superhero nar-
rative throughout both film and comic book media. However, I would take
this argument a step further by suggesting that these heroes not only enter
the world of heterosexuality on receiving their powers but that it is a world
in which heterosexuality is dually utopic and dysfunctional, thus indicating
an adaptation of these discourses to contemporary postfeminist rhetoric,
following the sentiments expressed by Heller.
Such sentiments are further evident in contemporary Marvel comics,
particularly a recent storyline centring on Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary
Jane Watson. After the couple got married in 1987, Marvel subsequently
decided to erase the story from existence in the late 2000’s storyline ‘One
More Day’. In this, Parker makes a deal with the demon Mephisto to save
Aunt May’s life. In return, Mephisto removes the marriage from living
memory (Straczynski and Quesada 2008). ‘One More Day’ can be seen
as disrupting the utopic constitution of Parker and Watson’s marriage.
Further, statements leading up to the story’s publishing by Marvel’s then-
Editor-in-Chief and artist of the storyline, Joe Quesada, are illuminating.
Chronicling his loathing for the wedding since the story was told in the
1980s, Quesada expresses a duty towards the character to undo the mar-
riage, stating ‘Are Peter and MJ okay as is, sure, but a lot of the drama
and soap opera that was an integral part of the Spider-Man mythos is
gone’ (Quesada in Newsarama 2006). Hence, Quesada’s reasoning with
regards to the marriage is that a married couple is too utopic, which results
in a lack of drama, which he perceives as the main attraction of Parker’s
storylines. On the other hand, Quesada continues:
I always hated the portrayal of the marriage, and by that I mean that for years after
they were married they were never really portrayed as truly happy, I don’t under-
stand in a way why that was done. I believe it was an attempt by the creators back
then to bring back a much-needed tension to the relationship side of Peter’s world
that was now missing because he was no longer single. It was an attempt to bring back
the soap opera. (Quesada in Newsarama 2006)
Here, Quesada expresses what he perceives as an inconsistency in Parker’s

marriage– that marriages should be perfect, that there is no room for ‘soap
opera’ in representations of marriage (this is also ironic given the frequent

association of Marvel storytelling with soap opera). Here, incongruities of
heterosexual romance resurface. Marriage, culturally positioned as the ulti-
mate, perfect heterosexual union, was considered inappropriate for Peter
Parker. It was preferred that he partake of the combined dysfunctional-
utopic heterosexuality that accompanies single/dating life. The hetero-
sexual utopia must be fulfilled, but at the same time, it cannot flourish.
Heller’s overarching argument is that characters in her discussion are
prevented from fulfilling their heterosexual desires because men and
women, despite being complimentary, are presented as being simply too
different. Subsequently, Heller extends this argument in terms of postfem-
inist discourses, arguing that postfeminist rhetoric has resulted in a call for
a return to traditional gender roles (Heller 1997: 229). On the other hand,
it has also resulted in a resurgence of a demand for women to be accom-
modating of men’s flaws, to carry out additional emotional labour, and not
prevent men from embodying their true ‘nature’ (Heller 1997: 230). Only
then can the heterosexual relationship be made to ‘work’. Thus, she states,
women are encouraged to ‘tolerate, rather than challenge, difference as an
essential component of heterosexual relationships’ (Heller 1997: 228).
Significantly, it is the different-yet-made-for-each-other qualities of het-
erosexuality that are stressed as crucial elements of heterosexual romance.
Thus, this reading of heterosexuality in Marvel films is not necessarily a
queering of banal romance; rather, it is in postfeminist culture’s interest
to present such relationships as desirable. Indeed, Heller determines that
it is women who are left to deal with any challenging behaviour men may
present in relationships, to ‘persuade women to preserve difference as an
expression of male desire’ (Heller 1997: 229). Such discourses can also
be seen in Marvel films as women are the ones who bear the brunt of the
drama; all of the women discussed in this section are left behind by their
respective heroic lovers.
In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Sue Storm is presented as
needy and demanding towards Reed Richards, who is more interested in
his job than their wedding. Rather than accommodating Richards’s needs,
Sue effectively forces Richards to give up superheroing in favour of family
life. However, at the end of the film, Sue is clearly shown to make the com-
promise for Richards, and they decide to remain superheroes after their
wedding. Here, Sue accommodates Richards’s quirks without stifling his
masculine nature in accordance with postfeminist discourses. Likewise, at
the end of Iron Man 2, Pepper Potts is shown to make the compromise for
Tony Stark. Even though she makes it clear that she cannot accommodate
either Stark’s erratic actions or her highly demanding job as CEO of Stark
Industries, Stark overrides her concerns and essentially forces her to remain
in this position (which is portrayed in a light-hearted manner). The film
ends on this note, indicating the ultimate narrative closure for this het-
erosexual relationship. Heller is not the only writer to have made this link
between heterosexual dysfunction and postfeminism. Debbie Epstein and
Deborah Steinberg likewise argue that popular narratives promote ‘the idea
that you have to work on your relationships and the idea that heterosexual-
ity works if you work on it’ (Epstein and Steinberg 2003: 99). Typically, it
is not men who are encouraged to carry out this work: ‘it is women who are
expected to undertake the labour of making heterosexuality work, a conven-
tional gender role if ever there was one’ (Epstein and Steinberg 2003: 99).
Thus, while representations of heterosexuality persist, they combine
utopic-dysfunctional elements in accordance with postfeminist culture and
a nostalgia for traditional gender roles, which call for women to respond
in compromising ways towards men’s needs. This, in turn, contributes to
the rigidity of the heterosexual matrix outlined earlier. Meanwhile, het-
erosexuality, though a challenging subject of analysis, takes on a form that
is tied to the complexities of the superhero narrative. In this, women play
a crucial role in upholding an image of idealised sexuality that nonetheless
incorporates significant dysfunction. These representations heavily relate
to postfeminist discourses. Likewise, the interrelations between gender
and sexuality must be acknowledged as it is currently difficult to conceive
of one without the other. Following this, the prevalence of gender rigidity
combined with an emphasis on a dominant mode of heterosexuality leads
to largely limiting representations.
This is not to say that there have been no flexibilities in the films. Ironically,
considering The First Avenger’s insistence on dysfunctional-utopic hetero-
sexuality, Rogers is left without a romantic partner in Captain America: The
Winter Soldier, opening up a potential opportunity for queer readings. To
add to this, Natasha Romanoff, who teams up with Rogers throughout the
film, constantly attempts to set Rogers up with women, offering sugges-
tions to him during critical fight scenes (‘Kristen from statistics’, ‘the nurse
who lives across the hall from you’, ‘that girl from accounting’). Rogers’s
answers to these suggestions are conspicuously vague; for instance that he’s
‘too busy’ or ‘I’m not ready for that’, opening a fissure in the institution of
heterosexuality that has been promoted in Marvel films thus far. In early
2013, Marvel released the second volume of Young Avengers (Gillen and
McKelvie 2013), featuring what is implied to be an all-queer team. The
comic’s success demonstrated the demand for inclusivity in comic books;
the first issue quickly sold out and received a second printing.
The inclusion of queer qualities in a Marvel character accompanied
much of the discourse around Thor: Ragnarok’s Valkyrie. Similarly, it is

significant that throughout the release schedule of Deadpool and beyond,
the character was been referred to as pansexual1 (Myers 2015; O’Toole
2015; Setoodeh 2016). Deadpool was presented as non- normative in
paratexts, although his pansexuality is merely hinted at within the film
itself. Further, how his non-normativity is connoted in the film hinges on
gender markers, again indicating the ways in which gender and sexual-
ity are conflated in such texts. Throughout the film, Deadpool is shown
enacting ‘feminine’ behaviours, such as skipping after having carried out
brutal killings, carrying a Hello Kitty backpack or having an affinity for
Wham!’s music. Such cutesy behaviours are not unlike those carried out
by Mystique when she is a man, as discussed in the previous chapter and
draw attention to the constructedness of gender in a similar way. However,
the function of these gender markers is somewhat different, since the film
utilises them to indicate Deadpool’s sexual non-normativity – the film
articulates Deadpool’s pansexuality (as expressed outside of the film) by
showing that he likes girly things. Further, the film uses these signifiers to
illicit humour which itself mocks the very notion of gender-nonconformity.
As such, Deadpool’s gender and sexuality remain entrenched in domi-
nant modes of femininity and masculinity. Likewise, the film hints at the
character’s potential queerness while recentring the relationship between
the male hero and female damsel (who, in a way which takes account of
feminist criticisms of her being a damsel, is nonetheless suggested to be,
literally, ‘ball-busting’, strong and capable).
Deadpool is perhaps one of the strongest examples of a film which is the
product of a ‘post-’ culture. The character’s queerness, as it is framed in
the popular discourses, still makes way for traditionalist modes of gender.
In such a way, LGBTQ politics are made use of, only for them to be ulti-
mately cast off. This is evident in the numerous occasions when Deadpool
jokes that strong women present in the film actually have penises and are
thus men. For instance, while being forcefully strapped to a stretcher by
the super strong Angel Dust (Gina Carrano) before undergoing treatment
that eventually results in his superpowers, Deadpool says ‘Aren’t you a
little strong for a lady? I’m calling wang’, a gag whose humour rests on
the notion of the biological weakness of the female body, the transgression
of which must stem from the possession of a penis, rendering the woman
a man. The film therefore incorporates LGB notions of sexual equality
(although with limitations), while the transgender issues invoked remain
one of the cultural taboos that are made fun of for the sake of irreverence.
Other ‘taboo’ topics mocked in the film include, on multiple occasions,
‘indecent’ sex acts, child abuse and, indeed, feminism. In one scene in
which Deadpool goes on a rampage trying to track down the film’s villain,
he is shown fretting over the moral conundrum of whether or not it is
acceptable for him to beat women. Confronted by the two women, one
of whom initially pretends to have been innocently injured, Deadpool
apologises before the other woman jumps him from behind. Freeing
himself from the woman, with the other on the ground in front of him,
he laments, ‘This is confusing! Is it sexist to hit you? Is it more sexist to
not hit you? I mean the line gets more blurry!’ During the final sentence,
he draws his gun and points it at the woman on the ground, though
the scene cuts before he shoots. This scene, and the moral bind stated
by Deadpool, is further indicative of the incorporation of the imaginary
feminist on which postfeminist culture relies. Derailing discussions of
violence against women to focus on what actions by men are considered
sexist or not, the scene presumably aims to relinquish any moral respon-
sibility for the central (anti)hero shooting a woman in the face precisely
because it has demonstrated an awareness of the implications of such a
scene. Rather than criticising the patriarchal mechanisms which facilitate
such instances of violence against women, though, the scene essentially
casts these (imagined) feminist criticisms aside to (a) derive humour from
the situation, and (b) leave the status quo intact. Perhaps more than any
other film considered in this project, Deadpool incorporates the sentiments
of political movements in order to reconfigure them within a masculinist
humour framework that ultimately bolsters traditional cultural hierar-
chies. Indeed, Deadpool 2, while similarly discussed in the media through
the strengths of the character’s non-normativity (Delbyk 2016; Kyriazis
2016; Hawkes 2017; O’Connor 2017), nonetheless begins with the violent
death of Wilson’s girlfriend Vanessa (after the two discuss the possibility
of starting a family) in yet another self-aware incorporation of established
superhero conventions that nonetheless does little to resolve its underly-
ing gender dynamics, as Deadpool immediately vows to avenge her. While
it is notable that the film portrays disaffected teen mutant Negasonic
Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) in a relationship with another
female mutant, the two occupy little screen time.
Note
1. Pansexuality denotes an attraction to all genders and sexualities, rejecting the
supposedly binaristic connotations of gender in the term ‘bisexuality’.
C HA PT E R 9
Black Skin, Blue Skin:

Race and Femininity in Marvel Films
Throughout this book, I have argued that representations of women in

Marvel films are multiplicitous while often drawing from established tropes.
However, the fact remains that these representations of women have been
distinctly white. As is discussed in this chapter, this is partly facilitated
by the machinations of both mainstream Hollywood and the postfeminist
landscape within which it is situated. However, it is not enough to merely
draw attention to the prevalence of whiteness within these films. This
chapter thus interrogates issues of race within a postfeminist culture, spe-
cifically assessing the roles played by women of colour in these films. The
particular characters and narratives examined in this chapter are mostly
limited to those with black or East Asian (particularly Japanese) identities.
That racial representations are limited to these two ethnicities is itself
indicative of the lack of women of colour in Marvel films. I situate these
films within a cultural moment that is both postfeminist and postracial
and ultimately discuss portrayals of black women in Blade and the X-Men
series, and East Asian women in The Punisher (1989) and The Wolverine.
Race representation has been a topical issue within disciplines invested
in unpacking how the systemic oppression of marginalised peoples extends
to popular media. Benshoff and Griffin, for instance, provide a detailed
overview of how racial minorities have been portrayed in oppressive ways
in Hollywood film (Benshoff and Griffin 2009: 127–324). Further, while
the initial purveyors of feminist film criticism focused on gender as the
locus of oppression for women, theorists moved on to consider the inter-
section between gendered and racial oppression (Gaines 1986). In her
quali-quantitative study surveying representations of both women and
racial minorities (as well as overlapping identities), Maryann Erigha con-
cludes that these identities have been consistently under-represented both
in front of and behind the camera (Erigha 2015). This contributes to
the dominant power structures that foster racial and gender stereotypes
within Western culture (Erigha 2015: 85).
bl a c k s kin, bl ue s ki n 211
However, looking beyond this, it is necessary to discern further impli-

cations of these deductions with regards to how these images link to post-
feminist culture, which, as I discussed in previous chapters, has been
characterised as privileging an idealised white, heterosexual, affluent femi-
nine subjectivity. While race has been a rich point of scholarly interest in
film studies (and, to a certain degree, comics studies), scholars have not yet
fully examined portrayals of women of colour in Marvel superhero narra-
tives in a postfeminist context. Many contemporary portrayals of women
of colour, particularly East Asian and African American women, still
draw from the Orientalist discourses discussed by Edward Said (1988).
Orientalist discourses promote the West’s supposed superiority over the
East, ‘dividing the world into two unequal parts, the larger, “different”
one called the Orient, the other, also known as “our” world, called the
Occident or the West’ (Said 1981: 4). Within Orientalist representations,
then, the East is positioned as ‘Other’ to the West, as a ‘monolithic thing’
(Said 1988: 4). This othering of the East often involves both sexualising
and feminising discourses, again bringing to light the intersection of race
and gender.
Orientalist rhetoric, though it has shifted and adapted to postfeminist
culture, still informs many portrayals of women of colour as exotic, mys-
terious, sensual and dangerous. Despite Said’s silence on feminism itself
(Boehmer 2009), his theories have remained valuable within postcolonial
feminist theory. Likewise, it is important to consider the wider visibility of
people of colour within the Trump era, which, as mentioned throughout
this book, is an era that has been culturally polarised across divisions of
race, gender and class. To account for this, I end the book with a discus-
sion of the racial politics at work in Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther,
both of which mark a distinct critique of Western colonial ideologies and a
reification of racial difference, while also leaving deeply rooted structures
of inequality unquestioned.
Nonetheless, when surveying literature regarding race representation,
it is clear that there has, in the past few decades, been an increased focus
on the importance of whiteness as a social construct and the representa-
tion of white people in the media (Dyer 1988, 1997; Bernardi 1996, 2007;
Negra 2001; Foster 2003; M. A. Berger 2005; Vera and Gordon 2006;
Benshoff and Griffin 2009: 127–64). As such, there has been a trend within
scholarly writing in which feminist authors critiquing postfeminist culture
opt merely to state that postfeminism privileges whiteness. Springer, for
example, states that ‘Studies of postfeminism have studiously noted that
many of its icons are white and cited the absence of women of color, but
the analysis seems to stop there’ (Springer 2008: 72), a point also addressed
by Jess Butler (2013). Considering that postfeminism privileges the white,

affluent, heterosexual female subject and that analyses ‘stop there’, an
interrogation of specific representations of women of colour is not only
necessary but crucial in understanding postfeminist culture more fully.
Even so, there have been beneficial forays into the topic of race and
postfeminism. McRobbie, for example, applies her concept of disarticula-
tion in postfeminist culture to issues of race, in which solidarity between
women across races is obstructed and familiar Orientalist discourses of
the oppressed East versus the liberated West resurface (McRobbie 2009:
41–3). Feminist and anti-racist discourses thus become disarticulated and
considered unnecessary, a relic of the past, resulting in ‘a norm of nostalgic
whiteness’ (McRobbie 2009: 43). Meanwhile, Projansky similarly notes
postfeminism’s centralising of white women but holds that the occasional
appearance of women of colour in some postfeminist texts results in the
erasure of politicised racial identities and active discussion of race and
gender since these women of colour are shown to have had the same
opportunities as white women (Projansky 2001: 87). As such, women
of colour appear within postfeminist texts when they have successfully
assimilated to dominant postfeminist discourses of idealised white femi-
ninity, and racialised identity is disowned (McRobbie 2007: 43; Springer
2008: 88; Butler 2013: 50). While Dyer argues that ‘the colourless multi-
colouredness of whiteness secures white power by making it hard . . . to
“see” whiteness’ (Dyer 1988: 46), multiculturalism and the ‘colourblind’
attitudes promoted within has made it difficult to ‘see’ people of colour,
since doing so is considered taboo, or racist, in itself (Lentin and Titley
2011: 3–4).
Colourblindness, described by Tyrone Forman and Amanda Lewis as
‘racial apathy’ (Forman and Lewis 2006), is a form of racism that has
proliferated in a supposed postracial society in which racial inequalities
are presented as non-existent. Individuals are encouraged not to ‘see’ race,
or even acknowledge its existence, because of a predominant message that
claims that ‘we are all the same’. It thus also becomes impossible to ‘see’
racial discrimination and prevent it from occurring. Any racial inequal-
ity, much like sexism, is perceived to be caused by individual prejudices,
rather than systemic oppression on an institutional level, and thus race
and gender are characterised as ‘personal, individual, and mutable traits
and not structural, institutional, and historic forces’ (Joseph 2009: 237).
This is the era in which the Marvel movie boom fully took hold. These
films, as I discuss here, actively enforce postracial discourses alongside
(or as part of) their postfeminism. Indeed, as noted by Ralina L. Joseph,
‘Twenty-first-century U.S. culture is replete with the idea that we are
beyond, past, or “post-” notions of race-, gender-, and sexuality-based

discrimination’ (Joseph 2009: 238). As Joseph illustrates, both postfemi-
nism and postracialism– as well as emerging postgay discourses (Ng
2013; Walters 2014; Hilton-Morrow and Battles 2015)– interlock within a
multicultural, neoliberal, globalised society. Indeed, Julietta Hua suggests
that multiculturalism, which seeks to reduce racial difference in favour
of an assimilative postracial subjectivity, ‘makes possible’ postfeminism
(Hua 2009: 64). This is in part caused by the increasing commodifica-
tion of racialised feminine subjectivities (Kim and Chung 2005; Braidotti
2006: 55; Banet-Weiser 2007; Hua 2009: 65; Joseph 2009: 241–4), as well
as the marketability of what Caren Kaplan describes as ‘global feminism’
(Kaplan 1995: 48).
In a postfeminist culture, as Sarah Banet-Weiser suggests, race can be
a viable commodity (sold largely to white audiences) because ‘racial dif-
ference and gender discrimination are no longer salient’ (Banet-Weiser
2007: 204). Identities of people of colour in a postfeminist culture are
therefore considered unique curios, features that make a text more inter-
esting, while the real-life implications of racial identity with regards to
racial/gendered/sexual discrimination are rendered meaningless. This
marks a continuation of bell hooks’s notion of ‘eating the Other’ in which
‘there is a pleasure to be found in the acknowledgement and enjoyment of
racial difference’, where ‘ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven
up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture’ (hooks 1992: 21).
Most significantly for this chapter, though, is the postfeminist goal of
‘universal womanhood’ that is promoted in texts that incorporate women
of colour. This false notion of ‘common oppression’ (hooks 2000: 43–4)
leads to the erasure of the specificity of an oppression that is both gen-
dered and racial, eliminating the complexity of racial experiences. As
noted, global feminism has been a profitable neoliberal endeavour. Caren
Kaplan argues that such a brand of global feminism (which functions as
part of postfeminist culture) ‘homogenizes economic and cultural differ-
ence in favor of a universalizable female identity or set of sexual practices
while simultaneously stressing cultural “difference” as a marker of value
in an increasingly homogeneous world’ (Kaplan 1995: 50). Thus, post-
feminist culture is interested in promoting a universal model of wom-
anhood through which all women, everywhere, are united due to their
experiences as women, while other identity factors such as race are disre-
garded. This ‘universality of racially or gender-specific images’ harnesses
an ambiguous media landscape that is markedly ‘diverse’, yet does not
actively address issues of racial and gendered oppression (Banet-Weiser
2007: 217). Indeed, Rosi Braidotti argues that diversity is a highly valuable
commodity in a neoliberal era in which ‘globalization functions through

the incorporation of otherness’ (Braidotti 2006: 55). Racial and gender
identity thus become depoliticised, since ‘corporations are able to disas-
sociate everyday Americans from the structural context of oppression and
the historical context of struggle that define the post-industrial world by
laying claim to the bodies and cultures of the “Other” ’ (Kim and Chung
2005: 73).
The Politics of ‘Diversity’ in Marvel Properties

Representation of socially marginalised identities becomes an acute point
in superhero stories featuring characters such as the X-Men due to the
allegorical potential of these storylines. However, these texts tend to
engage with these issues of identity metaphorically while rarely overtly
referring to them, in that homophobia, racism and sexism are never expe-
rienced by these characters diegetically even though they occupy a world
in which gender and racial politics crystallise in a way that is at least tan-
gentially related to the cultural contexts in which these films are made. As
Darowski deduces:
The X-Men were created at the time when race and prejudice were among the most
pressing issues in America. The mutants who made up the X-Men were literally a
separate race in this narrative, and the issue of prejudice has long been the prevalent
theme in the series. (Darowski 2014: 30)
Yet race representation has been far on the side of whiteness. Further to
this, that racial elements of the mutant metaphor have been abandoned
in favour of a discourse of LGBT rights speaks further to the notion that
these texts function within a postracial context. Here, attention to the
political and social oppression of one group has been shunted in favour of
another group, a dichotomy that does not consider the intersection of race,
gender and sexuality.
However, the X-Men are not the only relevant characters when consid-
ering Marvel and race. Interestingly, most academic texts examining race
representation in comics focus more on properties released by DC, with
an overwhelming focus on black male superheroes (Brown 1999; Singer
2002; Nama 2011; Lackaff and Sales 2013; Gateward and Jennings 2015),
although some consider wider racial issues (see contributions to Aldama
2010). Still, the conclusions made by these writers are valuable. Ronald
Jackson and Sheena Howard, for instance, note that superhero comic
books have classically promoted an ideal of ‘White patriarchal universal-
ism’ which ‘leaves a concealed residue of minority inferiority’ (Jackson
and Howard 2013: 2). Meanwhile, Derek Lackaff and Michael Sales argue
that ‘comic books are a symbolic playground where we let our idealized
versions romp; yet relatively few characters of color take part in the fun’
(Lackaff and Sales 2013: 67).
In Superblack, Adilifu Nama carries out a detailed analysis of black
superheroes as being representative of ‘America’s shifting political ethos
and racial landscape’ (Nama 2011: 2). However, as mentioned, Nama
mostly limits his discussion to DC comics and, disconcertingly, barely
considers the importance of black female superheroes in comic books.
While he does briefly refer to X-Man Storm as fostering an idealised
narrative of a poor Third World girl realising the American dream, she
is positioned within his analysis against DC’s Nubia, the black Wonder
Woman, a character Nama clearly prefers and whose lack of mainstream
success he attributes to Storm’s popularity. Further, while I contest Marc
Singer’s argument that superhero comics are particularly culpable of pro-
moting racist stereotypes (Singer 2002: 107)– they are not any more
guilty of racism than other media– Singer draws attention to the many
ways in which comic books have promoted colourblind multiculturalism.
He notes that the mainstream superhero comic is subject to championing
the concept of diversity, ‘while actually obscuring any signs of racial dif-
ference’ (Singer 2002: 107). Singer discusses a particular issue of the DC
series Legion of Super-Heroes in which its multicoloured cast exclaims to a
black character ‘We’re color-blind! Blue skin, yellow skin, green skin . . .
we’re brothers and sisters . . . united in the name of justice everywhere!’
(Singer 2002: 110). Indeed, Brown claims that ‘the presence of purple-,
orange-, and green-skinned characters allowed the comics industry to
delude itself for decades that superheroes were beyond the real-world
concerns about skin color’ (Brown 2011a: 172). Singer ultimately con-
cludes such instances show that comics are ‘[t]orn between sci-fi fantasy
and cultural reality . . . ultimately eras[ing] all racial and sexual differences
with the very same characters that it claims analogize our world’s diver-
sity’ (Singer 2002: 112).
Alongside these comic book narratives in which race is analogised only
to be erased are narratives that include the appropriation of race to, as
hooks would have it, add spice to a story. Psylocke (Betsy Braddock) is
an Asian X-Woman who gained much attention in the 1990s due to her
transformation from a white, British heroine into a deadly Japanese ninja
(Claremont and Lee 1989). Due to a convoluted string of events, white
Braddock’s mind is transferred to that of the Japanese assassin Kwannon,
where she takes on Kwannon’s fighting abilities alongside her Asian body.
Psylocke ultimately retains this body even after the storyline has been
resolved. Madrid notes that the inclusion of Asian Psylocke added some
racial diversity to Marvel comics on a visual level, however this was limited
to appearances since ‘she only looked Asian on the outside’ (Madrid 2009:
275). Indeed, Madrid links this to a more general trend in comics in the
1990s: ‘Psylocke’s transformation from intellectual English lady to sexy
ninja seductress represented the basic belief of the 90’s [sic] that image
was all that mattered’ (Madrid 2009: 275). Psylocke’s Asianness therefore
takes the form of a racial costume. On the other hand, it has been pointed
out that many white comic artists struggle to signify racial difference,
more often than not relying on white body shapes and markers such as
hairstyle and colour, which are then coloured brown. David Taft Terry,
for instance, notes that while the character appears broadly ‘exotic’, some
readers perceived her to be ‘little more than “a white woman dipped
in brown paint” ’ (Terry 2014: 183). Psylocke’s transformation was also
accommodated by Orientalist discourses. As well as becoming a ninja,
Asian Psylocke was portrayed as much more alluring and sexual than
she ever had been in her white body, being portrayed wearing revealing
swimsuit costumes typical of that era of comics. The Orientalist image of
the mysteriously sexual, but deadly Asian woman was thus incorporated.
Indeed, Brown remarks that Orientalism has consistently played a large
part in the comic book representation of such characters, noting the fre-
quent exoticisation of the racialised female Other (Brown 2011a: 168–9).1
Thus, superhero comic books, while not necessarily more susceptible
to the promotion of racist discourses than other media, have provided
ample material for adaptation in the contemporary postracial era of the
Marvel boom, in which racialised identities are both commodified and
framed by colourblind discourses. Indeed, Zingsheim argues that the
X-Men film series ‘capitalizes on shifting identity discourses to recon-
struct White masculinity as the superior subject position’ (Zingsheim
2011: 225). Zingsheim, for example, points out that in X-Men: The Last
Stand, ‘the winners and heroes are constructed as largely White while the
ranks of the villains are constructed as predominantly racially marginal-
ized’ (Zingsheim 2011: 232), again presenting an imbalance in portrayals
of people of colour.
In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Logan’s girlfriend, Kayla Silverfox is
suggested to descend from the indigenous peoples of Canada (and is por-
trayed as accordingly spiritual). She tells Logan a romantic tale about ‘why
the Moon is lonely’, referring to the character Kuekuatsheu, the wolver-
ine. This story was fabricated for the film, for while there exists a figure
called Kuekuatsheu in Canadian Innu legend referred to as ‘the wolverine’
or ‘trickster’, the film’s legend contains conflicting accounts of various
legendary characters. As such, indigenous folklore is co-opted by the film

to enhance its central romance. It should also be noted that Silverfox’s
native identity is completely incidental, existing merely to serve within
that scene. This becomes particularly obvious when Silverfox’s sister,
whom Logan must rescue, is revealed to be a blonde, white young woman
(credited as ‘Emma’ and bearing some resemblance to X-Men: First
Class’s Emma Frost).
The inconsistency of Silverfox’s and her sister’s race illustrates how
these films eschew the implications of racial identity. As a result, Marvel
films often reach to stereotypical images– such as the portrayal of Romani
people as thieving criminals in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Mark
Neveldine and Brian Taylor, 2012)– or erase characters of colour by casting
white actors– such as Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) in The Avengers, who
appears dark-skinned in the comics; and the Maximoff Twins (Elizabeth
Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in Age of Ultron, who have appeared
in the comics as the children of Romani parents. Postracialism brought
to its logical conclusion, though, has allowed for the casting of Jessica
Alba (who is of Hispanic descent), in a blonde wig, as Susan Storm in
the Fantastic Four films. At this point, it seems, race is so irrelevant that
women of colour receive the same casting opportunities as white women
do, but this is only enabled through assimilation. Similarly, Zoë Saldaña’s
inclusion as a prominent character, Gamora, in Guardians of the Galaxy is
noteworthy; however, Gamora has green skin. Saldaña is visually coded as
a woman of a colour, but not as a woman of colour who resonates with real
racial identities. Some have argued that a defining feature of the superhero
genre is its conflicted presentation of political and racial issues (Singer
2002: 110), with Brown suggesting that ‘it is not a medium or a genre that
lends itself well to mature and nuanced storytelling’ (Brown 2015a: 134),
a radical, if reductionist, statement in its own right. William Svitavsky
similarly argues that
ironically . . . the imaginative freedom of the superhero genre has often enabled
readers to empathize with the position of ‘the other’ without needing to consider
genuine cultural differences or the actual experiences of real social minorities . . .
[C]omic book readers can empathize with a feeling of ‘otherness’ wholly abstracted
from genuine experience. (Svitavsky 2013: 160)
Blade is one of the few films based on Marvel comics released before
the boom of the 2000s. It is also notable for its violent content and its
focus on black central characters, the half-vampire hero Blade and his
female companion Karen Jenson (N’Bushe Wright). As part of Marvel
adaptations’ experimental pre-boom output, it is the first Marvel film to
be led by a black superhero– B lack Panther would be the second in 2018.

The character Blade first appeared in Marvel comics as a product of 1970s
Blaxploitation aesthetics and form (Later 2016: 206). Blaxploitation films
were exploitation films that gained popularity in the US in the 1970s,
catering to urban black audiences, focusing on black action heroes and
undeniably linked to the politics of race relations of the time. In the
comics, Blade was born in 1929 to a prostitute who was bitten by a vampire
while in labour, killing her but bestowing upon Blade semi-vampiric abili-
ties (Wolfman and Colan 1973). Bringing his character’s origin up to
1967, the era of the Civil Rights Movement, the film trades on the comic’s
Blaxploitation atmosphere. According to Nama, the marriage of super-
heroes and Blaxploitation themes comes naturally, since they share ‘the
same signifiers of a superhuman status and often comment on the tensions
expressed between black self-determination, racial authenticity, political
fantasy, and economic independence’ (Nama 2011: 6). This was also the
era that brought Marvel characters Luke Cage (Power Man) and Iron Fist
(Danny Rand) to the fore, both of which drew from racialised exploitation
cinema formats– Luke Cage from Blaxploitation cinema and Iron Fist
from kung fu films popularised in the 1970s. Black superhero Luke Cage
would later be adapted into Netflix’s Marvel’s Luke Cage (2016–18), which
transposed the character into a contemporary Harlem using imagery and
themes tied to the Black Lives Matter movement. The series received
critical acclaim for Mike Colter’s portrayal of the character, its exploration
of race in American society and its update of the comics’ Blaxploitation
traits. It is noteworthy that this acclaim frequently centred on the charac-
ter’s relation to racial themes, especially because Netflix’s Iron Fist series
was critically shunned due to the perceived appropriation of martial arts
and East Asian iconography through the white character of Danny Rand
(played by Finn Jones). What these racialised superhero media highlight,
though, is the interconnectedness of the various cultural contexts involved
(Civil Rights Movements, Blaxploitation cinema; Black Lives Matter;
kung fu cinema, Orientalist mysticism; issues of ‘diversity’ and cultural
appropriation discussed in popular venues) and the different media in
which these characters would appear (comics, film, television series).
Blade similarly deals with racial themes, although its inclusion of vam-
pirism is significant. In the film, Blade rescues Dr Karen Jenson, a haema-
tologist, from a vampire who is mistakenly brought to her hospital after
being burned in an attack by Blade. Having been bitten, Jenson is deter-
mined to find a cure before she turns into a vampire herself, but after her
encounter with Blade, she is thrust into the world of vampires and horror
and helps Blade defeat the film’s villain Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff),
who wants to resurrect a vampire god and dominate the world. The rela-
tionship between vampire and victim is, ‘irreducibly sexual’, having often
formed an analogy for sexuality (and the dangers thereof) (Tudor 1989:
163). Nama likewise argues for the analogous qualities of the film:
The linkage in the film between blood, vampires, and world political power sug-
gested that vampirism is a politically destabilizing pandemic and biological affliction
more than it is a supernatural curse. In this sense, Blade is easily read as a film that
reflects multiple anxieties concerning eugenics, HIV infection, genetics, and racial
purity. (Nama 2011: 139, 141)
While there is merit to Nama’s claims, I would suggest that Blade’s con-
ceptualisation of black sexuality is one that hinges almost entirely on the
gendered power dynamics of rape. A vampire attack is presented as a
physical violation of the (female) body by a (male) aggressor. Blaxploitation
has been theorised as actively incorporating sex and violence (Benshoff
and Griffin 2009: 204–5) and as such Blade relies on rape discourses for
much of its dramatic effect. With this in mind, it should also be noted that
Blaxploitation has been considered to have offered black women alterna-
tive roles in a time in which black female heroism was virtually non-
existent in mainstream cinema (Sims 2006). Thus, Blade also attempts to
highlight Jenson as a character who transforms a weak, sheltered woman
to a heroic, aggressive vampire huntress. These factors carry further cul-
tural implications regarding the portrayal of black femininity in relation to
postfeminism.
The rape discourses of the film are expressed largely through the char-
acter of Jenson, who effectively moves from the safe zone of economically
empowered postfeminist security to one in which vampirism, or rape,
is a real and current danger. When she meets Blade, she encounters the
horrors of the real (vampire-inhabited) world. Blade lectures Jenson about
the harsh reality she now occupies: ‘You better wake up. The world you
live in is just a sugar-coated topping. There is another world beneath it–
the real world. And if you want to survive it, you better learn to pull the
trigger.’ Through this scene, Blade effectively forces Jenson to toughen
up. This is a world where the danger of being bitten by a vampire– b y
extension an act of gendered violence– is very real indeed.
Before this scene, Jenson occupied a space that was free from (sexual)
violence and thus free from gendered oppression. This is largely achieved
through her presentation as a ‘success story’ of black femininity, a term
utilised by Springer to address how financially independent black women
are presented as evidence that women of colour make use of the same
professional opportunities as do white women (Springer 2008: 88).

Jenson’s life as a successful scientist is part of a veneer that is stripped

away when she discovers that vampires exist. Her life is radically altered –
she is no longer a member of the empowered (black) middle class and her
medical education is valueless on the streets when she has to physically
combat vampires (which she does partially through carrying a mace-like
garlic spray similar to those marketed towards women to aid self-defence).
One scene in which rape discourses are particularly prevalent is
Jenson’s encounter with Frost. Having been taken prisoner, she is seated
in a living-room area in Frost’s lair. Jenson is the focal point of the initial
tracking shot, in which she occupies an armchair, to the left of which sits
a blonde female vampire, and to the right, Frost, smoking a cigarette. The
shot cuts to alternating reverse medium shots between Frost and Jenson.
Frost tells her:
You seem a bit . . . tense. A bit pent-up maybe, like you need to release something.
You know? Blade not givin’ it to you maybe. I dunno, I just . . . I see such a beautiful
woman. Great skin. I’d like to see you happy, that’s all.
This predatory language is framed by Jenson’s reverse shots in which she

remains stony-faced. Still, the power dynamic presented is that of the
white predatory male making lecherous comments to a victimised black
woman. She asks him whether he will offer to turn her into a vampire, to
which he answers in a similarly predatory way, ‘Well it’s either that or a
body bag.’ Jenson replies, ‘Go ahead. Bite me. I’ll just cure myself. I did it
before and I can do it again.’ This answer is significant, particularly in the
ways it queries the rape discourses of the scene. In essence, she permits
him to violate her body, questioning the power dynamic.
The nature of her consent is ambiguous, though, and this resurfaces in
the climactic final scenes of the film. With Frost having drained Blade’s
blood as part of his ritual to summon the vampire god, Jenson offers
herself to him to relieve his thirst and strengthen him. This is portrayed
as an entirely sexual act, featuring a shirtless Blade panting and moaning
throughout. Indeed, Jonathan Gayles wholly characterises this scene as a
rape scene:
Blade uses his physical strength to aggressively hold Jensen in place as he forces
himself on her . . . Blade’s growling, snatching treatment of Jensen in combination
with her subdued cries of ‘stop, please stop’ make it clear that the exchange that she
initiates has culminated in an act over which she has no control. (Gayles 2012: 291)
While there are distinct rape elements in the scene (as there are through-
out the film), I would complicate Gayles’s statement and argue that there
is far more ambiguity in the scene than he implies. For instance, it is
unclear whether Jenson is moaning ‘stop’ or ‘don’t stop’. However, the

result, ultimately, is that Jenson sacrifices herself so that the masculine
hero may continue his narrative, which Gayles suggests is emblematic
of the oppressive, rather than transformative, gender and racial politics
within the film (Gayles 2012: 297).
Such ambiguities, though, are significant when considering the film in
terms of broader discourses of race and gender, particularly with regards
to rape. First, the ways in which Jenson is propelled into the sexually
violent world of vampires speak to established discourses in the represen-
tation of black femininity. There is consensus that black femininity has
been associated with overt sexuality (hooks 1992: 62, 73–4; Springer 2001:
175; Manatu 2003; 10). The association of black femininity with sexual-
ity stems from the white supremacist notion that black people possess an
animality that white people do not, also rendering them inherently violent
‘due to their “savage” ancestry’ (Springer 2001: 174). Blade’s reliance on
violence and rape discourses therefore reaches back to such phenomena.
It is, for instance, interesting that Jenson slips so easily into the role of
female aggressor in a way not dissimilar to the black heroines portrayed in
Blaxploitation cinema. This is evidenced when she tells Blade ‘I’m damn
sure I’ll learn quickly’ when he asks her if she knows how to use a gun.
In a scene in which she and Blade interrogate the vampiric record-keeper
Pearl, it is even suggested that Jenson has gone too far in her ruthlessness
when she needlessly tortures Pearl with UV light. When Blade gives her a
stern look, she answers, ‘He moved.’ As such, Jenson quickly realises her
potential for violence to make her way in this violent world.
And yet, Jenson’s status as fair game to the vampires also renders her
a victim, or even, as Projansky would have it, a ‘hypervictim’ (Projansky
2001: 169). This is especially acute when considered in conjunction with
the film’s rape discourses. Projansky (2001) outlines the role of rape narra-
tives in postfeminist media and pays particular attention to the absence of
black women from such rape discourses. Projansky theorises the concept
of displacement, through which black women’s experiences of rape
become erased or otherwise overlooked (Projansky 2001: 154–95). In part,
this occurs due to the centring of black men in such discourses (Projansky
2001: 166). In Blade, it is the actual engagement with the rape of black
women that becomes displaced due to its reliance on metaphor and the
fact that the film speaks around the topic of rape rather than to it. It con-
sistently characterises vampirism as sexual, for instance through referring
to vampirism as a sexually transmitted disease or virus, but despite the
obvious physical violations that seem to be focused on female victims,
it is never explicitly likened to rape. Since black women are in much
more danger of being raped than are white women, this displacement is
discordant, particularly since the film projects these discourses through
a black woman. The film’s ambiguity thus contributes to postfeminism’s
displacement of black femininity in such rape discourses, providing a
convoluted picture of empowered black femininity.
These complex images of black femininity are likewise present in the
X-Men films. As mentioned earlier, the franchise’s seeming engagement
with minority metaphor is often inconsistent, since the films ultimately
focus on heterosexual white masculinity, marginalising ‘Other’ subjec-
tivities. Notably, only a handful of black superheroines have appeared in
the X-Men films. Storm (Halle Berry) has consistently been a popular
character of Marvel comics and likewise occupies a fairly prominent role
in the first three films of the franchise, in particular X2. In the film, Storm
showcases her weather-controlling powers when she successfully conjures
tornadoes to prevent missiles from hitting the X-Men’s jet, as well as
rescuing the imprisoned Xavier. However, Storm is effectively removed
from combat in The Last Stand to take on the role of headmistress to
Xavier’s school after his death.
Notably, throughout the series, Storm is consistently portrayed as being
concerned for the mutant students of the school (whom she refers to as ‘the
children’) in a way that, according to Zingsheim, harks back to stereotypi-
cal ‘mammy’ figures of black femininity, through which black women are
portrayed as nannies or housekeepers. He notes that ‘her identity is per-
formed in service to White males and caretaking White children– evoking
a history of Black women specifically . . . forced into caring for privileged
children of White masters’ (Zingsheim 2011: 235). The mammy, or Aunt
Jemima, role presents an idealised black, asexual submissiveness.
Indeed, Zingsheim also notes that Storm is portrayed as distinctly
asexual, in contrast to the films’ white characters who are frequently
shown expressing their romantic desire for one another (Zingsheim 2011:
235). This asexual blackness is also pointed out by Gayles with reference
to Blade, in which Jenson and Blade are never portrayed as being romantic
or sexual (Gayles 2012: 289) (save the paradoxical ‘rape’ scene). The fact
that Storm is presented as asexual indicates the need for popular texts to
quell anxieties stemming from empowered black womanhood, according
to Tasker. Tasker also notes the tendency to present black action hero-
ines as fundamentally aggressive and sexually assertive (Tasker 1993: 21).
However, this too is accompanied by a paradox, in that
the ‘macho’ aspects of the black action heroine– her ability to fight, her self-
confidence, even arrogance– are bound up in an aggressive assertion of her sexual-
ity. Simultaneously it is the same stereotypical attribution of sexuality to the black

woman which generates anxiety around her representation. (Tasker 1993: 21–2)
The anxieties stemming from these portrayals are alleviated either by

fetishising (sexualising) the black female body and, through this, exert-
ing control over it, or through making it harmless and asexual (Tasker
1993: 33). In the 1980s comics, Storm underwent a dramatic makeover
which incorporated a punk aesthetic with leather clothing and a partially
shaved head. The so-called ‘Mohawk Storm’ was not included in the films
until the prequel X-Men: Apocalypse, in which the character appears as a
teenager (Alexandra Shipp) who is recruited by the film’s villain to carry
out acts of evil, suggesting the emphasis placed on the character with
regards to her outward appearance as oppositional in relation to her moral
positioning in the films.
Equally noteworthy is the character of Angel Salvadore (Zoë Kravitz),
who features as a secondary character in X-Men: First Class. Salvadore is
introduced as a mutant who works as an exotic dancer and is tracked down
by Xavier and Magneto assembling their team of mutant superheroes.
Salvadore is young, slim and of indiscernible racial heritage. The strip
club setting, and her position as a dancer reach to fetishising Orientalist
discourses that present her as exotic and mysterious. In her introductory
scene at the club, she is positioned at the front of the shot alongside other
young women dancing, wearing black fringed underwear and knee-high
boots marking her out visually as sexualised. Xavier and Magneto pur-
chase a private room with Salvadore in order to speak to her and she
reveals that the dragonfly wing tattoos on her shoulders are real wings,
allowing her to fly. She demonstrates her powers for the (white) men, as
shot from behind, but to do so she removes her bra (which implausibly
reappears in the subsequent shot). Here, Salvadore is narratively and visu-
ally positioned in a way that marks her as an exoticised, fetishised object
who is racially Other to the central white male characters involved in the
sequence.
Being an exotic dancer, Salvadore occupies a space of postfeminist
professional empowerment. Displaying her body allows her to earn money
through commodified sexuality. Thus, following postfeminism’s logic of
empowered sexuality, Salvadore has grasped the same commercial and
sexual opportunities as white women. Bearing in mind that the film is set
in the 1960s, amid the Civil Rights Movement, this is significant. In this
way, the film’s postfeminism functions retrospectively. This is especially
expressed in a subsequent scene in which Salvadore and the other mutants
are harassed at the X-Men’s training facility. Here, CIA agents make
leering taunts at the young mutants through a window. These taunts are
meant to analogise sexual harassment, meanwhile the film’s postfeminism
suggests that this kind of harassment can be simply shrugged off. One
agent shouts at Salvadore, ‘Hey, come on honey! Give us a little –’ and
gestures flapping wings. Mystique tells Salvadore not to allow the agents
to bother her because ‘They’re just guys being stupid.’ This disregard of
men’s harassment of women is another factor that plays into the postfemi-
nist goal of maintaining gender difference. Salvadore’s reply solidifies this
goal when she says ‘Guys being stupid, I can handle, okay? I’ve handled
that my whole life. But I’d rather a bunch of guys stare at me with my
clothes off than the way these guys stare at me.’ Once again the mutant
struggle takes precedence.
The film thus evokes feminist issues by presenting men harassing
women through mutantphobic acts coded as harassment, and yet engage-
ment with these issues is written off since men are expected to behave
in such ways. Crucially, though, Salvadore’s status as a woman of colour
makes these discourses more complex due to the complicated relation-
ship of black female sexuality with postfeminist notions of empower-
ment. As mentioned, the portrayal of the black woman as ‘oversexed
Jezebel’ (Manatu 2003: 10) is well established within Western cultural
discourses. However, since the idealised (white) postfeminist subject plays
an active role in self-monitoring and self-objectification (Gill 2007: 151),
Salvadore’s retort marks her seizing of postfeminist empowerment. The
nuances of this occurrence, however, are lost. The (self-)sexualised black
feminine body in postfeminist culture occupies a distinctly different space
than that of the idealised white feminine body, as has been noted by Aisha
Durham (2012), Dayna Chatman (2015) and Jess Butler (2013). The cel-
ebration of sexualised black femininity is thus not as straightforward as
the film suggests.
Postfeminist texts seek to present racial ambiguity to appeal to broad
audiences. It should therefore be noted that both Storm and Salvadore are
portrayed by distinctly light-skinned black actresses, appearing racially
ambiguous, while still retaining ‘exotic’ traits. Both Storm and Salvadore
thus fulfil the postfeminist task of occupying an ambiguous racial iden-
tity, which can be successfully commercialised as part of postfeminist/
postracial culture. Norma Manatu also notes the significance of skin colour
in portrayals of black women. She argues that colourism has had the effect
of higher cultural value being placed on light-skinned black women in
Hollywood films (Manatu 2003: 89–94). This is a practice which dates
back as far as The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915), which fea-
tured ‘ “cinnamon-colored gals” with Caucasian features’ as preferable
to dark-skinned black women (Bogle 2010: 15). Mia Mask similarly taps
into the commercial implications of these casting decisions, discussing
Halle Berry’s success as symptomatic of multiculturalism (Mask 2009:
185–232). Actors with mixed racial heritage are thus seen as more desir-
able in Hollywood films which ‘utilize bifurcated subjectivities to reach
growing multiethnic populations’ (Mask 2009: 185). Regarding contem-
porary action cinema and using actresses Halle Berry, Zoë Saldaña and
Jessica Alba (who have all appeared in Marvel adaptations) as case studies,
Brown similarly argues that action cinema
both challenges and reinforces genre conventions about ethnicity and sexuality,
ultimately using racial indeterminacy as a means to capitalize on the shifting racial
identities of viewers and to literally spice up the heroine’s image without sacrificing
white womanhood as a cultural ideal. (Brown 2015a: 81)
Ultimately, these subjectivities feed into a US-melting pot myth. However,

there is still the issue that African American women represent the most
marginalised group in mainstream Hollywood action cinema (Purse 2011:
116).
Portrayals of East Asian, specifically Japanese, women in Marvel films
have been similarly shaped by the discourses outlined above, though these
manifest in slightly different ways. The Punisher (1989) exists on the cusp
of the postfeminist era and is thus more prone to portraying East Asian
women in more traditional ways. These portrayals do not necessarily seek
to capitalise on the commercial potential of racialised feminine identities
in the same way as do later postfeminist films. Rather, The Punisher vilifies
the Asian woman through the twin strands of gendered and racial oppres-
sion, reaching back to the discourses of feminine evil outlined in previous
chapters, but adding to it the additional dimension of Othered race.
The central villains of The Punisher are the Yakuza, the Japanese mob.
Importantly, they are positioned as villains to the Italian Mafia. With Frank
Castle having weakened the Mafia due to his activities as the Punisher,
the Yakuza seek to take the Mafia’s place as the prime crime syndicate.
To do this, the Yakuza kidnap the children of the Italian Mafia bosses
and hold them for ransom. Castle therefore begrudgingly saves the Mafia
children. In the film, the Japanese are positioned as yet more villainous
than the Italians. This is interesting and illustrates how Italians, despite
having been marginalised as immigrants in the United States previously,
were portrayed in increasingly sympathetic ways (despite still relying on
mobster stereotypes) (Benshoff and Griffin 2009: 145–54).
Most significantly, the leader of the Yakuza is a woman named Lady
Tanaka (Kim Miyori) and introduced as the ‘first female ever to head the
Yakuza’. Immediately, then, Tanaka’s gender is foregrounded, alongside

her race. Tanaka is portrayed as overtly feminine with a slight build. She
is considered powerful due to the resources being the leader of the Yakuza
grants her. As such, Tanaka’s portrayal draws on the existing figure of
the Dragon Lady, which characterises the Asian woman as ‘belligerent,
cunning, and untrustworthy’ (Kim and Chung 2005: 79) and ‘a diabolical
wielder of power’ (Hyde and Else-Quest 2013: 100). Importantly, such
women are also portrayed as ‘dangerously and exotically sexual’ (Holtzman
and Sharpe 2014: 321), illustrating again how Orientalist discourses pen-
etrate such portrayals, but also how discourses of evil feminine sexual-
ity adapt when considered in conjunction with non-white subjectivities.
Indeed, Tanaka’s Asianness and her femininity act as a counterpoint to
Frank’s European-American white masculinity.
Another noteworthy figure in the film is a character credited as ‘Tanaka’s
daughter’ (Zoshka Mizak) though she is never referred by name on-screen.
Indeed, the character never even speaks, she merely accompanies Tanaka
in several scenes, also drawing from the Dragon Lady image due to her
impressive fighting skills. Though she is dressed in a traditional Japanese
sailor fuku schoolgirl uniform, Tanaka’s daughter does not appear to be
Japanese at all. Despite this, she is presented as the silent, subservient
Asian assistant, in a role similar to that of Lady Deathstrike (Kelly Hu)
in X2. Deathstrike is an Asian mutant who is being mind-controlled by
Stryker to do his bidding. Such a portrayal, Zingsheim argues, ‘retains the
silence and dutiful obedience required to performatively (re)construct the
model minority myth’ (Zingsheim 2011: 232). And yet, Tanaka’s daughter
appears to be a continuation of the classical Hollywood tradition of yel-
lowface, in which white actors portrayed Asian characters.
The Wolverine offered a counterpoint as a film set almost entirely in
Japan and featuring an Asian supporting cast, though villainous figures
still appeared as members of the Yakuza. Key figures in the film are the
Japanese women, Logan’s plucky sidekick Yukio (Rila Fukushima), and
his love-interest Mariko (Tao Okamoto). While Mariko follows in the vein
of the submissive, delicate Asian woman, Yukio’s portrayal draws from
complex multicultural and postfeminist discourses, particularly since the
film offers a Western interpretation of empowered Asian femininity. The
Wolverine’s uniqueness thus stems from the fact that it does not offer
a representation of women of colour in the US; rather, the white male
protagonist is inserted into the foreign environment of Japan, which is
nonetheless informed by Western imaginary notions of Asia. In the film,
Logan is called by Yukio on behalf of Ichirō Yashida, whose life Logan
saved during the US bombing of Nagasaki. Yashida is dying of cancer and
seeks to repay the debt he owes Logan for his life. Along the way, Yashida
appears to die, making his granddaughter Mariko head of his successful
business conglomerate. This, in turn, leaves Mariko vulnerable and she is
attacked by the Yakuza at Yashida’s funeral. Logan must therefore protect
Mariko, the film’s resident woman in the refrigerator, with the aid of
Yukio.
The Wolverine functions as a white saviour film, a narrative format
discussed by Matthew W. Hughey in which people of colour are rescued
by a ‘white messianic character’ (Hughey 2014: 1). Such films have gained
success in a postracial era, in which blatant white supremacist discourses
are avoided, but in which texts still ‘rely on an implicit message of white
paternalism’ (Hughey 2014: 8). Such sentiments are evidenced in The
Wolverine, in which Logan effectively learns the art of being a Japanese
warrior, and through this can save Mariko from her grandfather (who, it
turns out, planned to exploit Logan’s healing factor and build his Silver
Samurai robot out of adamantium). The film’s portrayal of Japan uses dis-
tancing techniques to highlight the setting’s exotic qualities, for instance
through the showcasing of Yashida’s traditional funeral or the inclusion
of wacky themed hotel suites that Logan and Mariko flee to. And yet, it
is imperative for Logan to learn the secrets of the Japanese warrior way
of life to become a better fighter and realise his potential for heroism. At
first, he fails miserably, for instance when Mariko teaches him Japanese
table manners. When she reveals to Logan that her father has arranged
a marriage for her, she refers to notions of ‘honour’. In this way, Mariko
is positioned within the ‘backwards’ Eastern discourses that McRobbie
argues function to disarticulate feminist solidarity between women across
cultures (McRobbie 2009: 41–3).
Mariko is juxtaposed against the role of Yukio in the film. Where Mariko
is soft and delicate, Yukio is tough and fierce. In the scene introducing
Yukio, she is shown to partake of heroic fighting practices in a seedy bar.
There are other scenes in which Yukio is demonstrated to possess ample
fighting skills, being capable of fending off villains and ultimately killing
the evil Viper. Notably, there has been an increased interest in Asian fight-
ing styles within Hollywood cinema in recent decades, a further symptom
of globalisation (Funnell 2010). The Wolverine continues the tradition
of Hollywood’s ‘Asian invasion’, a phenomenon noted by Minh-Ha T.
Pham. Situating the increasing visibility of Asian actors in Hollywood film
within a postracial moment, Pham argues that these instances ‘re-present
and reactivate a particularly American drama of assimilation and socialisa-
tion at both the national and international levels’ (Pham 2004: 122).
The film is also an example of the contemporary Orientalist buddy
film, a trend identified by Brian Locke (2009). These films rework familiar
pairings in which the white protagonist teams up with non-white buddies.
Locke traces the inclusion of the Japanese buddy to the shifting relation-
ship of the US to the world in a post-9/11 global culture. Unlike in previ-
ous decades in which the Japanese were vilified in Hollywood films, due
largely to the role the country played in World War II and Pearl Harbour,
Japan became an ally of the US in the War on Terror (Locke 2009: 155).
Locke remarks that the 9/11 attacks ‘rendered it politically unfeasible for
popular films to vilify Japan’ (Locke 2009: 157). Hence, though Yashida
is a villain of the film, it is established at the beginning that their relation-
ship began with a mutual trust when Logan saved his life in Nagasaki.
The unity between the cultures is further enhanced by Logan’s teaming
up with Yukio. However, David Oh characterises the film’s central villain
as ‘techno-Orientalist’, elaborating Western fears of Asian practices and
technologies, which are similarly shown through a mystified lens (Oh
2016: 153). He notes that the film is ambivalent in its portrayal of Japan
and ultimately normalises white male heroism while disguising this behind
postracial discourses (Oh 2016: 152).
As has been described by Hua, postfeminism is a distinctly Western
phenomenon (Hua 2009: 69), but the multicultural notion of ‘universal
womanhood’ has the effect that postfeminism is frequently inserted into
non-Western contexts, thereby universalising the postfeminist ideal (Hua
2009: 68). Hua focuses on the figure of the geisha in Western popular
culture as a Japanese cultural phenomenon which has frequently been
framed by postfeminist discourses of women’s empowerment. In a similar
way, Yukio’s empowerment is universal; she is seen to partake of the same
discourses of empowerment as the white postfeminist superheroine. She
is tough, sassy and physically attractive. Thus, Western postfeminism is
injected into this Japanese setting, becoming universal, while Yukio is
presented as familiarised through postfeminist notions of empowerment.
However, these representations are still complicit in upholding struc-
tural inequalities of race and gender, since the white male hero ultimately
succeeds.
Another mechanism through which Yukio’s portrayal is familiarised
but exoticised is through her appearance. In the comics, Yukio appears
as a stern, highly skilled martial artist, with cropped hair and practi-
cal (usually black) attire (Claremont and Miller 1982). In The Wolverine,
Yukio has been revamped to incorporate an air of feisty youthfulness that
resonates with existing Japanese texts that have gained global popularity
(Figure 9.1). Yukio’s representation clearly draws on established tropes
of Japanese manga and anime, such as those of shōjo. Shōjo is manga
Figure 9.1 Rila Fukushima as Yukio in The Wolverine.
aimed at a young female audience and offers portrayals of heroic girlhood

(Gwynne 2013: 331). Oh likewise suggests that Yukio’s style draws from
Harajuku, a rebellious teen fashion (Oh 2016: 160). Anne Allison notes
that the popularity of shōjo texts stems from their negotiation of gender
roles. She claims that the character Sailor Moon, a magical girl who fights
evil by transforming into fighting warrior princesses, ‘is something of a
hybrid, embodying conventions both of boys’ culture– fighting, warrior-
ship, superheroes– and shōjo (girls’) culture– romance, friendship, and
appearance’ (Allison 2000: 260). Yukio follows such trends that have been
established as popular: she has a punk-rock look, for instance wearing
short culottes and striped socks, and having flaming red dyed hair. Her
appearance is simultaneously cute and ferocious, much like that of Sailor
Moon.
As noted by Susan Napier, ‘shōjo seems to signify the girl who never
grows up’ (Napier 2005: 94), it therefore follows that Yukio is ambig-
uously aged (her appearance seems to suggest she could be anywhere
between sixteen and thirty-five years old). She is also notably referred
to in the film by Shingen as a ‘toy doll’, further infantilising her. Thus,
since Yukio’s portrayal draws from already familiar generic conventions
of Japanese popular culture, the exoticism of the narrative is contained
within Japan while cultural signifiers that resonate with ‘universal’ notions
of feminine empowerment are effectively commodified. Both Gwynne
(2013: 331) and Allison (2000: 260), for instance, note the global appeal of
characters such as Sailor Moon, who has received much popularity around
the world. The potentially sexual appeal of the girls of shōjo is also worth
noting. Napier argues that, as girls constitute the ‘liminal identity between
child and adult’, there is an ‘innocent eroticism’ that accompanies such
representations (Napier 2005: 148).
In these ways, The Wolverine offers an image of exoticised, yet familiar,

empowered Asian femininity that is commodified as part of the ‘Japanese
experience’ sold within the film. As part of a global, multicultural media
landscape, Japanese culture is, as Antonia Levi describes, ‘deodorized’
(Levi 2013: 9). Through this, distinctly Japanese characteristics are inte-
grated into North American cultural products, such as Hollywood films,
becoming naturalised, although the intrigue of consuming the Other
remains. Regarding gender and race, this becomes increasingly problem-
atic as the ‘universal’ womanhood promoted by globalised postfeminist
discourses ultimately erases experiences of racial difference.
Marvel adaptations rely on marginalising discourses with regards to
race even though the majority of these films exist within an era which has
been declared beyond racial difference. The lack of visibility for women
of colour in these films supports the notion that Hollywood films are still
dominated by white men. Indeed, X-Men: Days of Future Past, presents a
problematic image of race, continuing the tradition of the previous X-Men
films. As mentioned, the film focuses on a team of future X-Men in their
attempt to prevent a dystopian future where mutants are systematically
exterminated by invincible killer robots known as Sentinels. Logan is sent
to the 1970s to stop Mystique from assassinating Bolivar Trask, the action
which sets in motion the series of events leading to the Sentinels’ crea-
tion. The opening scenes of the film showcase a cast that is more racially
diverse than that of the average Marvel film, featuring Storm alongside
black energy-absorbing mutant Bishop (Omar Sy), Asian teleporter Blink
(Fan Bingbing), solar-powered Latino Sunspot (Adan Canto) and Native
American superhuman Warpath (Booboo Stewart), as well as the central
(largely white) cast of familiar X-Men.
However, throughout the film, it becomes clear that the future the
X-Men are fighting for is one which is distinctly white, as is evident
through the climactic final moment in which scenes with the 1970s X-Men
are intercut with scenes with the future X-Men in their respective battles.
One after another, the future X-Men are killed. Blink, in particular, is
shown to undergo an especially gruesome death, being impaled by two
Sentinels, as shown in an aerial shot, falling to her knees and crying
towards the camera in following shots. However, at the end of the film, the
X-Men have successfully fixed the future, with Logan waking up safely at
the Xavier school surrounded by his friends. Conspicuously absent from
these new future scenes are any people of colour whatsoever, implicating
that the dystopian future that needed to be eradicated was a markedly
racialised one. The result is a similar vilification of racial subjectivities
that has been present throughout the X-Men series. Equally noteworthy
is director Bryan Singer’s descriptions of the future mutants as ‘refugees

that are living day to day in this hideously ruined world’ (Singer in Hewitt
2013), implicitly touching on contemporary issues of immigration and
multiculturalism. According to Days of Future Past, such ‘refugees’ have
no place in a utopian future.
Women of colour represented in Marvel film adaptations must negoti-
ate very particular discourses, adhering to the demands of both post-
feminism and postracialism. Women of colour appear rarely in Marvel
films, and their inclusion within these discourses renders them, in hooks’s
terms, spice. Their racial identity is commodified in order to capitalise
on culturally mandated notions of ‘diversity’. In this sense, the explicit
racial identities of characters such as Storm and Angel Salvadore are
eclipsed in favour of a more ambiguous ‘ethnic’ presence. On the other
hand, The Wolverine presents a contemporary, globalised portrayal of the
empowered Japanese woman, who simultaneously resonates with modern
postfeminist culture. In these portrayals, all women are equally capable of
being empowered, while multiculturalist sensibilities eliminate the need
for explicitly feminist and anti-racist discourses. These films thus inject
a version of postfeminist femininity into cultures that may have had very
different historical trajectories regarding women’s rights, offering an illu-
sion of universal female empowerment that nonetheless remains Othered
and exotic, a spice or flavouring of the Orient. As Braidotti argues, ‘post-
feminist liberal individualism is simultaneously multicultural and pro-
foundly ethnocentric. It celebrates differences, even in the racialized sense
of the term, so long as they conform to and uphold the logic of Sameness’
(Braidotti 2006: 46). Through a consideration of postfeminist discourses,
one can thus make sense of the limited inclusion of women of colour in
Marvel films, which tend to support the notion of ‘diversity’, for instance
through the use of the mutant metaphor, but remain noticeably homog-
enous when examined closely.
It is also clear that there has been a push for racial ‘diversity’ in Marvel
comics in recent years. In 2015 it was announced that Miles Morales, the
black-Latino Spider-Man of Marvel’s Ultimate universe, would enter the
mainstream Marvel universe (Hickman and Ribic 2016). Writer Brian
Bendis expressed that the decision was made for the comics to better reflect
their varied audiences, stating, ‘our message has to be it’s not Spider-Man
with an asterisk, it’s the real-Spider-Man for kids of color, for adults of
color and everybody else’ (Bendis in Wyatt 2015). This resonates with the
discursive framework of Kamala Khan around the apex of ‘relatability’,
which, while accounting for the need for mainstream media to include
more characters of colour, nonetheless dislocates the specificities of the
lived experiences of marginalised peoples, creating a homogenous ‘differ-

ence’ that can be consumed by any (see Kent 2015). The recent success
of animated Marvel feature Spider- Man: Into the Spider- Verse (Bob
Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman, 2018) also attested to
the widespread appeal of Miles Morales, albeit within the parameters of an
animation, a form that culturally has less prestige than live-action cinema
due to its associations with children. Such sentiments (and the use of
‘diversity’ discourses in popular media more generally) similarly resonate
with the commodification of difference, a dominant trait of the globalised,
postfeminist, postracial context in which these texts exist. However, their
presence is still noteworthy in a time in which the cinematic Spider-
Man at one point was established specifically not to be permitted to be a
person of colour (or gay) as a contractual obligation (Biddle 2015). Indeed,
the success of books such as Ms. Marvel and Silk (Thompson and Lee
2015), which focuses on an Asian-American Spider-Woman, suggests that
Marvel films have more than enough potential to broaden their racial rep-
resentations. Indeed, these discussions finally culminated in the release of
Black Panther, which I discuss in the following chapter.
Note
1. Notably, Psylocke has since been restored to her white body (Zub et al. 2018),
posing a further problematic of representation in which whiteness is privileged
in this character’s highly convoluted ongoing narrative.
C HA PT E R 10
The (Afro)Future of a Diverse Marvel:

Gender, Race and Empire in Thor:
Ragnarok and Black Panther
The post-Trump, post-Brexit cultural climate has resulted in political

shifts that took form in Marvel film adaptations and wider media. It is
useful to think of texts such as Luke Cage and Black Panther within a
framework of Trump-era politics, which have been characterised as reig-
niting and normalising a politic of white supremacy alongside an over-
blown neoliberal, capitalist conservatism. Arguably these developments
put the lie to any modicum of the idea of a postracial goal having been
achieved. Indeed, Alison Landsberg argues that the mystique of postrace
‘was firmly and finally extinguished’ with the election of Trump as the
rhetoric of racial prejudice was alarmingly brazen throughout his cam-
paign (Landsberg 2018: 199). Landsberg nonetheless maintains that ‘the
racially depoliticized myth of the “postracial” ’ present in media texts
should still be considered when evaluating such texts, as well as those that
explicitly point to issues of race relations (Landsberg 2018: 198). This final
chapter culminates in a meditation on the significance of Marvel’s Black
Panther adaptation, alongside Thor: Ragnarok regarding wider social and
political issues. Both films are concerned with similar themes of ethnic
bloodlines, royalty and marginalisation.
Jessica Gantt Schafer suggests that the normalisation of Trump’s rallies
against ‘political incorrectness’ is ‘situated in a neoliberal belief that racial
(and other) equality has been achieved in the United States’ (Shafer 2017:
3), signalling a continuation of the postracial discourses discussed in the
previous chapter. The idea of political correctness in these discourses is
an incorrect assumption that acknowledging systemic oppression mar-
ginalises white people and panders to people of colour (Shafer 2017: 8).
The rhetoric of racial prejudice has become discursively refocused as
‘telling it like it is’, resting on language that previously carried conno-
tations of racism (through being ‘politically correct’ within a postracial
cultural landscape). Trump’s political incorrectness, and that of his voters
as represented in the media, is thus ‘motivated by neoliberal arguments of
achieved racial equality and finally speaking the “truth” about groups who
do not make the cut. . . . In this neoliberal version of truth, individual and
systemic racism are not included’ (Shafer 2017: 8). Thus, postracial dis-
courses have adapted alongside the emboldening and reframing of racial
prejudice in the Trump era, which should be considered when consider-
ing racial issues in recent Marvel films. Both Thor: Ragnarok and Black
Panther attempt to delegitimise racism, but also reinstate particular forms
of institutional oppression in their centring of monarchy. These repre-
sentations have racial and gendered dimensions within a cultural context
that mainstreamed white rage and misogyny, alongside which there has,
paradoxically, been increased visibility of people of colour through media
platforms and texts.
Ragnarok and Black Panther represent case studies here as both rely
on discourses of ‘diversity’ similar to those discussed in the previous
chapter. Likewise, as we approach the end of this book, I want to draw
attention to an intriguing, if problematic, theme that is present in both
of these films and that bears racial, as well as gendered, implications:
that of empire. Within the Marvel Universe spanning back to comics,
the concept of empire is central to several major storylines and it is not
unusual to encounter characters of varying alien origins who are part of
a specific civilisation often characterised within imperial or militaristic
frameworks. Neil Curtis has argued that the related theme of sovereignty
is key to his understanding of superheroes as it illustrates ‘how these
characters represent very complex and nuanced considerations of a range
of other issues, such as legitimacy, authority, kinship and community, the
enemy and emergency powers’ (Curtis 2015: 1). Discourses of sovereignty
have also been central to political shifts in recent years, not only within
Trump’s determination to put ‘America first’, but also in the rhetoric of
Brexit that encouraged British voters to ‘take back control’, in what Paul
Richardson has defined as the ‘sovereignty delusion’ characteristic of both
contexts (Richardson 2019: 2006). On the subject of sovereignty, Curtis
further elaborates that
while superhero comics are imbued with the legitimacy assumed by democracy, there
are numerous characters that are sovereign in a manner much more in keeping with
monarchy. From the rulers of Atlantis, Marvel’s Prince Namor or DC’s Aquaman,
to the king of Wakanda, T’Challa, these stories are packed full of sovereigns: Black
Bolt is king of the Inhumans; Doctor Doom is the dictator who rules Latveria; Odin,
the All-Father, rules Asgard; the X-Men’s one-time leader, Storm, is an African
goddess, who has been queen of Wakanda, Mole Man is the ruler of Subterranea;
Wonder Woman is an Amazonian princess. (Curtis 2015: 4–5)
th e (a f r o )f uture o f a div e r s e m a r v e l 235
Marvel’s back catalogue includes alien civilisations such as the Shi’ar

Empire, the Kree Empire (policed by the militaristic Accuser Corp),
the Nova Empire, the Inhumans (a group of superpowered beings who
have their own Royal Family), the Rigellians and, more recently, the
Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. Some of these have appeared in Marvel
films; these representations are both gendered and raced.
The Guardians of the Galaxy films, providing intergalactic settings
inhabited by myriad alien species, still rely on raced depictions of exotic
female aliens that have fantastically coloured skin, much in the mode of
what Elana Gomel terms ‘corporeal otherness’ (Gomel 2014: 118) and
‘interstellar Orientalism’ (Gomel 2014: 127). Likewise, Gomel argues
against the postracial allegory I outlined in the previous chapter, for
instance the use of fantastical skin colour to allegorise racial (in)toler-
ance (Gomel 2014: 119–20). Characters such as the green Gamora are
clearly marked as racialised (i.e. they are non-white) but not within terms
that exist extradiegetically. But being green still somehow has racial con-
notations, especially if audiences are aware of the actors playing them.
Gamora’s green skin reads similarly to Mystique and Nebula’s blue skin,
yet there are qualities of the latter characters that mark them as ethnically
white beneath the blue. This is especially noticeable with the knowledge of
Romijn and Lawrence’s whiteness when portraying Mystique, signalled
when they shift into human form.
Guardians of the Galaxy also features a pink-skinned species of female-
coded aliens who are slaves (evoking the green-skinned Orions of the
Star Trek franchise), while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 features the
bug-like pink Mantis (played by French actress of Korean descent Pom
Klementieff). That half the population of Gamora’s home planet was
obliterated by Thanos via genocide is also striking, since it reaches to
ongoing cultural memories of the Holocaust and recent occurrences of
ethnic cleansing, such as the Armenian Genocide or the forced migration
of the Rohingya from Myanmar. Meanwhile, Saldaña’s ethnicity, which,
ordinarily would fall well within the conventions of postracial ambiguity,
is further eclipsed by the rendering of her green skin. It is noteworthy that,
while Thanos is one of the MCU’s most domineering villains, seeking to
rule the universe literally with an iron fist (the Infinity Gauntlet), his form
of patriarchal authority is not necessarily distinct. Recent Marvel films
bear an ambivalence towards ideas of patriarchy and royalty, with cultural
definitions of family and bloodline intersecting with the problematics of
patriarchal rule. Contextualising these films, then, is beneficial in discern-
ing how gender (specifically femininity) factors into these representations
of otherworlds and empires but also points towards what may lie ahead for
Marvel adaptations to come. In this final chapter, I take two recent Marvel
films to examine the relevance of enduring imperial themes and their rela-
tion to gender, particularly within a complex era that is in many ways still
postrace, but is also polarised.
Asgard as a People– Racial Ambiguity in Thor:

Ragnarok’s Heroines
Thor: Ragnarok was the first MCU film to be directed by a non-white
person1 Taika Waititi. A New Zealander of Māori and Russian-Jewish
descent, Waititi also voiced comedic alien character Korg. Waititi’s
authorial presence was highlighted within media discourses, both pre-
and post-release, with emphasis on his indigenous heritage, the film’s
use of indigenous actors and small references to indigenous Australian
and New Zealand culture throughout (see Yamato 2016; Adlakha 2017;
Brayson 2017; Connellan 2017; Jasper 2017; Klein-Nixon and Kilgallon
2017; Robinson 2017; Sargeant 2017; Tracy 2017). Without lending too
much significance to Waititi as Ragnarok’s auteur, it is still useful to think
of Ragnarok within the scope of Marvel’s insistence on diversity and the
racial discourses in the film– both literal and analogous.
As discussed in Chapter 6, Ragnarok articulates matters around
Asgardian identity in the light of the white supremacist connotations
potentially present in its focus on characters based on Norse mythol-
ogy. Ragnarok offsets these anxieties and recuperates Asgardian identity
through positioning its hero Thor against the villainess Hela, whose poli-
tics evoke white supremacy in her insistence on restoring Asgard’s empire.
Before defeating Hela, though, Thor finds himself stranded on the garbage
planet Sakaar, ruled by the authoritarian Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum),
who holds gladiatorial battles for entertainment. His champion gladiator
happens to be the Hulk, who himself crash-landed on Sakaar after escap-
ing the events of Age of Ultron. Importantly, the Grandmaster enslaves his
gladiators, who are captured by slave traders. It is through these events
that Thor meets Scrapper 142 (later known as Valkyrie and played by
mixed-race actress Tessa Thompson), a slave trader who captures Thor
for the Grandmaster, after which he must face the Hulk in a duel.
Ragnarok is noteworthy for its postcolonial critiques of totalitarian dic-
tatorship in both Hela and the Grandmaster. The planet Sakaar accom-
modates discourses that account for the construction of identities such
as those of Valkyrie, who is revealed to have been an Asgardian warrior
who previously faced Hela. Sakaar is presented as a patchwork dysto-
pia exploiting the film’s exaggerated use of science fiction conventions
and space-age neon aesthetics also utilised in Thor’s iterations in comics.

Sakaar is both futuristic and obsolete– the Grandmaster’s announce-
ments are projected holograms on the sides of buildings made of discarded
rubbish and crammed together in shantytown-like arrangements.
Ironic and self-aware humour is prevalent in Ragnarok, marking a
departure from previous MCU fare that is perhaps the result of the critical
acclaim of Deadpool. The tonal shift of the film to postmodern, dystopian
futureworld is marked by its distinct electronic musical score that occurs
in scenes that take place on Sakaar and deviates from the traditional clas-
sical orchestral sounds that feature in scenes on Asgard, a transition that
presents the camera’s point of view drifting through space from Asgard
towards Sakaar. Here, Thor is projected in a wide shot onto a far-reaching
landfill, where he is surrounded by Sakaaran scavengers, marked as native
through their robe-like dress, face paint and masks. Thor is subsequently
captured by Valkyrie, who is introduced swaggering out of her ship and
swigging a bottle of wine, which she listlessly tosses off-screen before
telling the Sakaarans ‘he’s mine’ and claiming Thor as her slave. It note-
worthy that Valkyrie is a woman of colour who is represented as a slave
trader. As such, Ragnarok is postracial in its proposal that, on Sakaar,
anyone can be enslaved (and anyone can be the slavemaster). Slavery
on Sakaar therefore exists outside the perimeters of the institutionalised
racism associated with US history. The film is, in a sense, postracial in its
egalitarian representations of enslaved peoples. Like Thor’s royalty, race
is devoid of meaning in this setting.
While strapped to a chair and forcibly transported to the Grandmaster’s
headquarters, Thor is told by a paradoxically calming, robotic female
voice ‘Sakaar lives on the edge of the known and unknown. It is the col-
lection point for all lost and unloved things. Like you. But here on Sakaar,
you are significant.’ He is carted into a holographic corridor showcasing
Sakaar’s location in space, intercut with medium shots of Thor’s horrified,
confused reactions. In a long profile shot, the Grandmaster appears in
electric blue pixellated animations reminiscent of the 1982 science fiction
film Tron and 8-bit video games. The iconography here, alongside the dis-
embodied female computer voice, situate the Sakaar portions of Ragnarok
within the generic parameters of science fiction, providing a venue to
explore postcolonial themes in advance of Black Panther while also disa-
vowing racial specificity in relation to the film’s cultural context. The
voice subsequently tells Thor: ‘You are the property of the Grandmaster’,
cementing his slave status, no longer an autonomous, or sovereign, subject.
A humorous figure in Ragnarok, often speaking in comic book hyper-
bole, the Grandmaster represents an outmoded residue of colonial rule
and appeals to a critique of the prison-industrial complex. His gladiatorial

contests, suggestive of Roman games, are portrayed as brutal, senseless
violence serving no purpose other than to pacify Sakaaran citizens and
entertain himself. This is often represented through ironic humour: he
at one point argues with his second in command that he dislikes the
term ‘slave’ and prefers to refer to his gladiators as ‘prisoners with jobs’.
In this, the film makes efforts towards a productive commentary on
race relations and the oppressive nature of colonialism, which, along-
side Waititi’s involvement, was seen as signifying progressivism on the
part of Marvel and the Hollywood industry. However, these feats remain
jarring in Ragnarok, which presents these phenomena in a seeming cul-
tural vacuum, on a planet where racial oppression is not a component of
slavery. Meanwhile, the film presents Hela’s attempts to rekindle Asgard’s
empire, based on the racial distinction of Asgardian identity as a stand-in
for white supremacy, in a parallel narrative. The co-existence of the two
marks Ragnarok’s tonal dissonances, its postmodern, postracial melding of
two seemingly opposing discourses, both based on race.
Ragnarok essentially redefines Asgardian identity as diverse and
inclusive– or, indeed, postracial– and rejects Hela’s white suprema-
cist ideology, which is at risk of being associated with the franchise in a
Trump-era context. A key figure in this is Valkyrie, who, as a woman
of colour implied to be queer,2 is extradiegetically marked as marginal-
ised. Diegetically, Valkyrie’s race has few, if any, implications. Her race is
ambiguous enough to be considered inclusive as part of a postracial media
culture that trades on racial difference. However, a pivotal moment for the
character is her reclaiming of Asgardian identity. When Thor discovers
she was formerly part of the Asgardian warrior women known as the
Valkyrior, he is portrayed as being in awe of her, stating ‘I used to want
to be a Valkyrie when I was younger’, a statement framed humorously by
the fact that the Valkyries were women. In this scene, Thor is imprisoned
behind a laser-beam fence with other slaves, awaiting his summoning
to the Contest of Champions. Valkyrie is on the other side of the fence,
drinking at a bar. Thor’s comments about women warriors are repre-
sented as patronising to Valkyrie and she turns from him; both characters
are visible in the shot, with Valkyrie in focus in the foreground. Thor
calls to her ‘You must be a traitor or a coward because the Valkyrie are
sworn to protect the throne.’ It cuts to a split-screen profile view of both
characters on either side of the fence, in opposition, with Valkyrie telling
Thor ‘This is Sakaar, not Asgard. And I’m a scrapper, not a Valkyrie.’ A
medium close-up of Valkyrie from behind Thor emphasises his presence
in relation to hers but in a reverse shot, Thor falls to the ground, given
an electric shock by guards, and is dragged away. The reverse shot shows
Valkyrie now looking down at him as she says ‘No one escapes this place.
So you’re gonna die anyway’, indicating her superior position to Thor
here, and again highlighting the irrelevance of race on Sakaar. Indeed,
racial identity is so elusive that Valkyrie has simply rejected her Asgardian
roots, now considering herself a scrapper.
Later, the extent of Valkyrie’s involvement with Hela’s conquests is
revealed, as Odin sent the Valkyrior to battle Hela when she tried to seize
the Asgardian throne. The medium close-ups focusing on Valkyrie high-
light her vulnerability in these moments and she is suggested to have taken
up drinking as a result of her loss in the battle. Significantly, Valkyrie
states that she no longer believes in the throne, a moment cutting to
Thor’s wounded expression. Cutting back to her, she states ‘It cost me
everything. That’s what’s wrong with Asgard. The throne, the secrets,
the whole golden sham.’ This moment indicates a distinct critique of the
inequities of Odin’s monarchic rule– V alkyrie contributed to protecting
the throne as a soldier but was left disenfranchised and received little in
return. When she steps past Thor in a medium shot, then, she rejects
Thor’s attempts to console her and instead draws her knife, pointing
it towards him defensively. Helping Thor beat Hela is discordant with
Valkyrie’s stance against the throne. To this, Thor states ‘I agree, that’s
why I turned down the throne. But this isn’t about the crown. This is about
the people. They’re dying and they’re your people, too.’ This is delivered
with severity in close-up; Valkyrie is barely positioned within the shot at
this point. Significantly, Thor’s discussion derails from the topic of the
throne and whether or not the Asgardian monarchy is fair (indeed, Thor
rejected the throne at the end of The Dark World, presumably to be with
Jane Foster on Earth). Central to this discussion– a nd Thor’s winning
argument– is the idea of Asgardian identity, suggested to be at risk under
Hela’s authority. Hela’s ideology of empire to Thor, it seems, is incongru-
ent with his own ideals of what it means to be Asgardian. His reminder
to Valkyrie of her own investment and potential participation in shaping
that Asgardian identity is in stark contrast to Hela’s totalitarian leanings
and signifies Ragnarok’s overall redefinition of and reconciliation with
Asgardian ethnicity in the light of the Trump era.
Valkyrie, who has been adapted from the comic to be portrayed by an
actress of colour in a gesture of colourblind casting, ends up reclaiming
her Asgardian heritage. Yet, the racial difference celebrated in Ragnarok
is not multiracial, but Asgardian– presented as encompassing all kinds
of people. The climax of the film sees the physical Asgard’s destruc-
tion, as Thor realises this is the only way to defeat Hela. In these final
scenes, Asgard is reimagined as a diaspora through the repeated line that

‘Asgard’s not a place– it’s a people.’ Thor realises this when Odin says
this to him in a vision: ‘Asgard is where our people stand.’ Those people,
having gone into hiding under the leadership of Heimdall, former pro-
tector of the Bifrost bridge between Realms, are led aboard a spaceship
(stolen and repurposed from the Grandmaster) that will take them to
safety. It is noteworthy, here, that Heimdall is presented as a revolutionary
figure, given that colourblind production decisions were also functional in
the casting of Idris Elba, since the character appeared white in the comics.
His presence as a character of colour begs the question of the role of race
in Asgardian culture; in the film, his race remains irrelevant, yet he is
still paradoxically marked as racialised against the largely white crowd of
Asgardians. This is particularly noticeable in wide, high-angle shots of
Heimdall leading the Asgardian people, who essentially become refugees,
across the Bifrost.
After his vision of Odin and epiphany about the Asgardian diaspora,
Thor joins Valkyrie and the other Asgardians in a final battle to the famil-
iar sound of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’, reaching back to the film’s
opening scene, which also featured the song and its lyrics referring to Norse
mythology. It marks a reinstatement, but also reinvention, of the status
quo within Ragnarok. The song is also apt in relation to the Asgardians,
who are now forced to immigrate or at least relocate. Finally, looking out
of the ship’s window and unified within the frame, the Asgardians, and
Korg and the Hulk, watch as Asgard, the place, is destroyed. Korg’s state-
ment that ‘We can rebuild this place. It will become a haven for all peoples
and aliens of the universe’ humorously marks the film’s engagement with
ideas of racial inclusivity; however, in an ironic twist Asgard explodes,
obliterated into nothing, prompting Korg to apologise. The camera pans
across the gathered Asgardians gazing mournfully at what used to be their
home, presented in reverse shots as a ball of light and rubble in space.
Heimdall again repeats that ‘Asgard is not a place– but a people’ and the
ship is shot from outside making its way through the debris. In the con-
cluding scenes, Thor is shown in a long shot walking towards the captain’s
chair in the foreground of the shot through the crowd of Asgardians, a
makeshift throne, as his reign is finally instated (Figure 10.1).
Valkyrie and Heimdall are positioned beside the throne; Heimdall
addresses him as ‘King of Asgard’ and asks ‘Where to?’ To this, Thor
eventually responds ‘Earth it is.’ This positioning of Asgardians as refu-
gees is significant in a political context in which there has been widespread
anxiety over immigration regulation (see Kellner 2016: 41–43; Shafer
2017; Abramowitz and McCoy 2019). The film’s ostensibly pro-refugee
Figure 10.1 Asgard as a people: Thor and his multicultural and multispecies subjects in
Thor: Ragnarok.
stance, and especially Thor’s unquestioning assumption that ‘Earth’ will

accept the Asgardians’ presence, speaks to ongoing issues of immigra-
tion that culminated in the rise of right-wing sentiments and the election
of Trump. Meanwhile, its redefinition of racial categories in the face
of an emboldening of white supremacist discourses within this cultural
landscape is also noteworthy. Through the figure of a superheroic woman
of colour, the film reconfigures meanings of what constitutes Asgardian
ethnicity, even through its overt lack of acknowledgement of Valkyrie’s
race. The film also remains entrenched in traditionalist discourses of
white, patriarchal dominance in Thor’s taking of the throne, as well as its
problematic postracial ignorance of the implications of race on people’s
lives. In effect, the film trades on exactly the discourses that it disavows–
namely, identity politics.
Wakanda Forever: Black Femininity and the (Afro)Future

Announced in 2016 as featuring ‘a ninety per cent’ African or African
American cast (Melrose 2016), Black Panther marked a watershed in
Hollywood filmmaking, specifically superhero narratives. Black Panther
and its paratexts indicated engagement anti- racist and anticolonial-
ist politics in the popular media through mainstream exposure of terms
such as ‘wokeness’ and ‘intersectionality’ as markers of ‘good’ or ‘bad’
feminism.3 Much like the discourses of revolution surrounding Wonder
Woman a year earlier, the revolutionary potential of Black Panther was
highlighted within popular culture through hyperbolic headlines such
as ‘Daring, diverse “Black Panther” promises to be Hollywood’s latest
“cultural touchstone” ’ (Truitt 2018), ‘Black Panther: does the Marvel
epic solve Hollywood’s Africa problem?’ (Rose 2018), ‘More than a movie,
“Black Panther” is a movement’ (France 2018), ‘The “Black Panther”
Revolution: How Chadwick Boseman and Ryan Coogler created the most
radical superhero movie of all time’ (Eels 2018) and ‘The Revolutionary
Power Of Black Panther’ (Smith 2018). A teaser clip shown at San Diego
Comic Con in 2017 reportedly received a standing ovation when Marvel
occupied the packed venue with Black Panther’s cast and crew (Kelley
2017). Upon release, the film rapidly broke box office records, potentially
confirming the prior hyperbole of critics in terms of purely financial gain.
The film’s cultural impact remains yet to be demonstrated in radical
ways but was nonetheless implied throughout the film’s release cycle.
Black studies scholar Renée T. White remarked that the release of the film
induced a ‘seismic reaction from black audiences around the globe . . . It
is as if audiences are experiencing mass psychic relief’ (White 2018: 426).
Further, in discussing Black Panther, Marvel Comics’ first black super-
hero, as a character, André Carrington has argued that ‘the Black Panther
phenomenon is already situated in a dense network of desiring practices’
(Carrington 2018: 222). Black Panther thus rests on an intertextual net of
corresponding contexts (including the comic book character on which it
is based), all of them with racial dynamics. Afrofuturist aesthetics exploit
the generic potential of science fiction to present a utopian image of tech-
nologically advanced African nations and individuals. Meanwhile, Ryan
Coogler, the film’s director, previously made Fruitvale Station (2013), a
biographical drama about the murder of 22-year-old African American
Oscar Grant by way of police brutality, as well as Creed (2015), the seventh
Rocky, which utilised the familiar boxing franchise to offer a medita-
tion on black masculinity. Both films starred Michael B. Jordan, who was
cast as the ambiguous villain of Black Panther, as their central character.
Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther, previously played biographical
roles of Jackie Robinson in 42 (Brian Helgeland, 2013), James Brown
in Get on Up (Tate Taylor, 2014) and Thurgood Marshall in Marshall
(Reginald Hudlin, 2017; Hudlin previously had an acclaimed run on the
Black Panther comics), among others. Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o
starred in Black Panther as supporting character Nakia, having come to
Hollywood prominence via slave memoir adaptation 12 Years a Slave
(Steve McQueen, 2013) and her subsequent Oscar win. Black Panther’s
Costume Designer, Ruth E. Carter, had likewise worked on historical
slave drama Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997), as well as biopics Malcolm
X (Spike Lee, 1992), What’s Love Got to Do with It (Brian Gibson, 1993),
Selma (Ava DuVernay, 2014) and Marshall (she subsequently won an
Academy Award for her work on Black Panther). The hair design of white
dreadlocks for Black Panther’s mother, Ramonda, was inspired by writer

Toni Morrison (Kai 2018), herself an Afro-diasporic cultural icon (see
Weheliye 2013: 216; Womack 2013: 103). The film’s soundtrack was
curated and contributed to by hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar, whose
output has included Afrocentrist themes and elaborations of contempo-
rary black existence (see Love 2016; McLeod 2017). Much of the film’s
promotion was carried by a presumed anticipation for a film that had both
a narrative pertaining to black experiences and a majority black cast and
crew.
These apparent links highlight the forms of black and African narratives
that, thus far, had been marketable in both Hollywood and wider institu-
tions. That most of the films mentioned here centre on black experiences
and are, by and large, couched in black history and/or the collective
trauma of slavery is illustrative of both the marginalisation of black identi-
ties in Hollywood but also how black representation is productive and
collaborative. While not all of these links are inherently related to gender
(specifically femininity), they aid in making sense of Black Panther’s com-
plexities and contradictions, as what Isiah Lavender would refer to as to as
the film’s ‘blackground’ or its ‘embedded perceptions of race and racism
– intended or not’ (Lavender 2011: 6–7).
The superhero Black Panther, T’Challa, debuted during a time of
upheaval in American society. Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and
first appearing in Fantastic Four (Lee and Kirby 1966), the character
was a response to the political struggle of African Americans during the
Civil Rights Movement. Nonetheless, his debut in a series whose narra-
tive functions as a mediation of the traditional nuclear family – with the
Fantastic Four being colloquially known as Marvel’s First Family – is
interesting, given the complexity of the space and settings in which he
would later appear. T’Challa hails from and rules the fictional African
nation of Wakanda, which, due to its geographical positioning on a moun-
tain made up of the highly valuable element vibranium, has remained
uncolonised and hidden from the rest of the world through technological
ingenuity. The anticolonialism behind Black Panther is clear, and while
neither Kirby nor Lee were black, the creation of the character was in line
with previous Marvel creations, many of which mediated marginalisation
and identity, even if only through metaphor. Julian Chambliss remarks
that
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby began a dialogue about the implication of black agency
throughout the African Diaspora. The Black Panther reflects broader debates about
the impact of black social power within the United States and the postcolonial expe-
rience in Africa. (Chambliss 2016: 189)
The character was not inspired by the political organisations, Black Panther
Party (formed in 1966) or Lowndes County Freedom Organization– b oth
of which used panther imagery to signify black unity and freedom– n or
were these parties referring to the comics. Nama identifies the spontane-
ous appearance of panthers in relation to Civil Rights as an ‘example of . . .
synchronicity, whereby coincidental events speak to broader underlying
dynamics’ (Nama 2011: 42). He continues that these ‘manifestations of a
black panther are a consequence of the politics of the period, during which
“black” became a defining adjective to express the political and cultural
shift in the civil rights movement’ (Nama 2011: 42).
Black Panther later appeared in the Jungle Action comic book series
(1954–5), whose title is evocative of colonial exoticism and noted as prob-
lematic (Nama 2011: 44), during a time when Marvel’s interest in racial
equality had not translated to its industrial practices, with the company
employing just a handful of black creators. Nonetheless, black artist Billy
Graham contributed to most Jungle Action issues, which initially placed
the Black Panther within his home country of Wakanda. Nama suggests
that these portrayals offered an alternative to the Blaxploitation-infused
representations of the urban ghetto that had become widespread in the
media at this time (Nama 2011: 44). The comic, and Nama’s commentary,
highlights the importance of setting and space in relation to the character.
Scholars have noted this: the character was frequently configured within
the ghetto (to comment on African American existential questions) and/or
in the Wakandan jungle (to explore themes of empire and duty through
Afrofuturist aesthetics). Indeed, Marvel’s black superheroes were consist-
ently placed back and forth between the ghetto and the jungle, particularly
during the 1970s, when urban reform framed the debates around black
integration (Terry 2014: 155), although later runs on the character by
Christopher Priest4 and Reginald Hudlin5 in the 2000s returned T’Challa
to familiar urban settings to critical acclaim.
A different period for T’Challa, however, occurred when Marvel
reportedly requested that (white) writer Don McGregor include more
white people in Black Panther comics (Terry 2014: 178). McGregor’s
response transcribed the character into the American Deep South, where
he encountered the Ku Klux Klan. While in some ways problematic, these
issues are also radical: Marvel’s metaphor for marginalisation directly
mapped onto black experience, conveyed through disturbing imagery. A
key issue (McGregor and Graham 1976) features T’Challa crucified on
a burning cross, a ritual practice historically held by the Klan to terror-
ise and intimidate (Cunningham 2013: 45). When Kirby took over the
character, the tone was significantly more fantastical and less rooted in
black trauma. These Kirby issues are not held to particularly high esteem
within academia; however, they do showcase the character’s relationship
to speculative science fiction and the aesthetics Afrofuturism, through
which the film Black Panther was widely discussed in popular discourse.
While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the nuances of
Black Panther’s publication history, valuable work has been undertaken
by scholars who examine the character alongside other black heroes such
as the Falcon and Luke Cage concerning racial contexts (see Nama 2011;
Chambliss 2015). Indeed, as discussions of racial equality shifted in US
history, so, too, did the Black Panther storylines. Chambliss, for instance,
notes the intervention represented by a Hudlin-scribed storyline around
Hurricane Katrina that
juxtaposes Black Panther symbolism with the black-power-inspired origins of char-

acters such as Luke Cage, Brother Voodoo, and Blade to great effect, as the black
characters pledge to protect African Americans in New Orleans from predatory ele-
ments attempting to displace the residents. (Chambliss 2012: 113)
Importantly, as mentioned in the previous chapter, Marvel’s roster of

black heroes was largely male until the creation of X-Man Storm. The
representation of these heroes is therefore inevitably gendered, while the
Black Panther film is likewise largely concerned with black masculinity.
Black Panther was released to wide acclaim but was nonetheless the
target of online backlash characteristic of the Trump era and its wide-
spread exposure of popular misogyny alongside popular feminism. Before
its release, Black Panther’s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the film
review aggregator site, was targeted by an alt-right campaign to give the
film a ‘rotten’ audience score while it received an overwhelmingly positive
response by critics (Desta 2018).6 Claims of progressivism should, none-
theless, be considered carefully. The film is doubtless an unapologetic cel-
ebration of African iconography and themes, what Dee Marco describes
as ‘a kind of spectacularization of blackness, a kind of exceptionalism both
celebrated and desired in ways that have seemingly never been experi-
enced in relation to blackness’ (Marco 2018). Likewise, Chambliss points
out that the character’s cinematic debut late within the Marvel boom ‘is a
reflection of a persistent white privilege linked to the alignment between
power and identity in the superhero genre’ (Chambliss 2016: 189). I there-
fore tread carefully upon the critical and cultural significance of the film,
while also bearing in mind its representation of patriarchal monarchy,
which corresponds, interestingly, to the thematic undertones of Ragnarok.
The concept of Afrofuturism was a structuring factor of both the film
and its framing within the media. If the film achieved anything, it was to
showcase the radical potential of Afrofuturism and to bring the term to

mainstream discourse. Like Ragnarok, Black Panther makes use of Marvel
films’ turn to science fiction to make ideological points regarding nation-
hood, gender and identity, although Black Panther’s final act keeps with
the previous emphasis on action and unbound energy portrayed through
an extended battle sequence. Indeed, the film is kinetic in its cinema-
tography, which weaves through action scenarios such as dynamic fight
sequences, further establishing its entanglement with the action genre
through which superhero adaptations have traditionally functioned. Even
so, the Afrofuturistic qualities of the film are pronounced, and, indeed,
these correspond to the postmodern aspects of Ragnarok’s settings, which
emphasised the collision of old and new in the representation of Sakaar the
trash planet. The connotations of these contradictory aesthetics, though,
are specifically racial due to the enduring practices of Afrofuturism.
In exploring the links between black identity and technology,
Afrofuturism has parallels and intertextual links with cyborg feminism
covered Chapter 7 of this book, although, again, the connotations of this
become quite different when the characters, settings and narratives spe-
cifically pertain to black subjectivity. As argued by Mark Dery, who first
theorised Afrofuturism, the racial dynamics of alien metaphors often
articulated within science fiction have a specific resonance with black
identities:
African Americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they
inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of
intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done;
and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies (branding, forced sterili-
zation, the Tuskegee experiment, and tasers come readily to mind). (Dery 1994: 180)
Dery elaborates that Afrofuturism can broadly be defined as ‘[s]pecula-

tive fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-
American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture
– and . . . African-American signification that appropriates images of
technology and a prosthetically enhanced future’ (Dery 1994: 180). As an
aesthetic and series of practices of black art production, Afrofuturism has
links to Pan-African Afrophilia that appeared within artistic movements
of the 1970s (Eshun 2003: 294). Later, science fiction became a key venue
for Afrofuturism, elaborating the, in hegemonic terms, paradoxical con-
nection between technological advancement and black identity.7 From
this developed a distinctive philosophy in which prior science fiction
by black artists and writers such as jazz musician Sun Ra and novelist
Octavia E. Butler were reconsidered through the lens of Afrofuturism
(Womack 2013: 16). More recently, artists such as popstars Janelle Monáe
and Beyoncé, and writers Gayle Jones and Balogun Ojetade and have
been considered in terms of Afrofuturism (see Yaszek 2015; Gipson 2016;
Lillvis 2017; Haynes 2018), although this is not to say that they are not
exempt from being situated within varying forms of neoliberal feminisms,
and indeed, a complex form of postfeminist racial awareness.
A fluid concept, Ytasha Womack defines Afrofuturism as ‘an inter-
section of imagination, technology, the future, and liberation . . . an
artistic aesthetic and a framework for critical theory’ (Womack 2013: 9).
Afrofuturism is a productive rendering of history and the future simul-
taneously that accounts for the exceptionality of Africans, and those of
African descent, by way of the forced migration of the Middle Passage,
rewriting Africans into history and envisaging a future where technol-
ogy coincides with the ingenuity of African peoples. Through futuris-
tic themes, technological advancement and ancient African cosmology
(Brown et al. 2018: 71), Afrofuturism goes beyond merely recuperating
the past to account for African subjectivities. To quote Ruth Mayer:
Afrofuturist artists turn to black history in order to recreate it in a markedly fantastic

mode. Mixing up the imagery of the Middle Passage with contemporary experiences
of displacement, migration, and alienation, they turn the project of recuperating the
past into a futuristic venture. (Mayer 2000: 555)
The outcome is the contemplation of the following question: ‘Can a com-

munity whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose ener-
gies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces
of its history, imagine possible futures?’ (Dery 1994: 180). In summary,
Afrofuturism makes use of the liberating potential of speculative science
fiction– it ‘disrupts our understanding of blackness by rethinking the
past, present, and futures of the African Diaspora; they merge culture,
tradition, time, space, and technology to present alternative interpreta-
tions of blackness’ (White 2018: 422).
Black Panther exploits Afrofuturist aesthetics, with the production crew
drawing from traditional and indigenous African design. For instance, the
Black Panther suit was subtly etched with a distinctive triangular pattern,
‘the sacred geometry of Africa’, while also drawing from contemporary
superhero suit designs (Carter quoted in Ryzik 2018). Meanwhile, the
film’s representation of the African nation of Wakanda is replete with
futuristic holographic screens, space-age transport systems and an inven-
tive means of generating power, most of which stem from T’Challa’s
inventor sister, Shuri (Leticia Wright), whose role in the film I discuss
later. Much of this technological innovation is signified through bright
lights, futuristic metal surfaces and translucent holograms. However,

alongside these elements, Black Panther’s affinity to African design is
signified through intricately constructed props, costuming and sets, often
crafted in a way that is itself technologically advanced. For instance, the
elaborate headdress worn by Queen Mother, Ramonda (Angela Basset),
was inspired by traditional cylindrical Zulu headdress and crafted out of
strong 3-D printed plastic (Ryzik 2018). Moreover, shots of Wakanda’s
landscape– untarnished by industrialism– are wide-ranging, showcasing
the scope of T’Challa’s kingdom. In this sense, Black Panther’s portrayal
of an idyllic, natural Wakanda somewhat plays into quasi-Orientalist artic-
ulations of ‘the utopian valorization of tribal or “primitive” societies as
being more equitable, more ecologically sound, or more natural’ (Gomel
2014: 121), a characteristic nonetheless offset by futuristic imagery.
Further drawing on the idea of monarchical tradition (in this case, spe-
cifically African) Black Panther, like Ragnarok, is concerned with identity,
ethnicity and nationhood as expressed largely through the characters of
T’Challa and Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens. When his father King T’Chaka
is killed during the events of Civil War, in which T’Challa first appeared
in film form, T’Challa is crowned king of Wakanda following a contest
where he must fight anyone who seeks to challenge the throne. Much like
Thor must be deemed worthy of wielding Mjolnir, T’Challa’s victory in
the combat makes him worthy of the power of the Black Panther, which is
imbued within him through the ceremonial ingestion of a special herb. It
is significant (and paradoxical) that Black Panther’s celebration of African
aesthetics and spirituality exists in tandem to the recuperation of the
Norse mythology (which is at risk of association with white supremacy)
that underpins Marvel’s Asgardian storylines. Both films are concerned
with an ethnic diaspora pertaining to a fictional nation state, elaborated
specifically through a central male hero, only that Wakanda’s racial sen-
sibilities directly map onto the lived experiences of African Americans,
particularly through its evocation of anticolonialism and the history of
slavery.
In the film, T’Challa undergoes a struggle to reconcile Wakandan isola-
tionism (often presented as needlessly pragmatic) with his own world view
and status as king. T’Challa is challenged for the Wakandan crown by his
long-lost cousin Erik, the child of an American woman and Wakandan
War Dog (an agent of the Wakandan intelligence) and brother of King
T’Chaka, N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown). Querying Wakanda’s interna-
tional policies and, crucially, witnessing the systemic oppression faced
by people of African descent in the US, N’Jobu aimed to cause a revolu-
tion, sourcing arms through criminal South African arms dealer Ulysses
Klaue (Andy Serkis), a character whose ideology White describes as as

‘a modern version of the colonizing mentality’ (White 2018: 425). In
the process, N’Jobu reveals to Klaue the existence of Wakanda and its
access to vibranium, which Klaue unsurprisingly wishes to exploit for
his own gains. N’Jobu is killed in the ensuing clash with T’Chaka and
his fellow Wakandans, who immediately flee, leaving Erik behind. Erik
would become the villainous Killmonger after serving as a Navy SEAL
and, later, a black-ops unit, in which he honed his ruthless fighting skills
as preparation to challenge T’Challa and seize the Wakandan throne. He
would also seek to fulfil his father’s ambitions to cause a global revolution.
Importantly, Killmonger occupies the position of both Wakandan and
African American and can pass as either. Like the diasporic descendants
of Africans, then, Killmonger has a spiritual connection to his ancestral
locality.
Since I want to maintain the focus on the rendering of race and femi-
ninities through these imperial storylines, it is outside the scope of this
chapter to discuss how T’Challa and Killmonger are made to navigate a
balancing act celebrating blackness alongside the need for the ideologi-
cal containment of black (masculine) subjectivities. Killmonger remains
one of the most elusive, and compelling, of the film’s complexities and
speaks to the notion of double consciousness put forward in 1903 by
W. E. B. DuBois (1990), himself a science fiction writer, and further
elaborated on by theorists such as Paul Gilroy (1993), Frantz Fanon
(2008: 82–108; see also Moore 2005) and, from a black feminist perspec-
tive, Deborah Gray White (1999) and Patricia Hill Collins (2004: 282).
Double consciousness is the state experienced by individuals who are
both African (black) and American (white), two facets that are cultur-
ally opposed, leading to internal conflict. The film shows a distinctive
awareness of ongoing issues racial tensions in the US, for instance in
its setting of Killmonger’s formative childhood experiences in 1992, the
year, as identified by Renée White (White 2018: 425), of the Los Angeles
riots that were the result of police brutality inflicted on Rodney King.
Indeed, Marco suggests that ‘Wakandans present themselves as somewhat
conflicted but only Killmonger lives that personal double consciousness’
(Marco 2018: 6). Like the comics, then, Black Panther has an ambivalent
relationship to blackness as articulated through the settings of the ghetto
and Wakanda. It also presents, without query, a hero in a male monarch
who upholds tradition.
While Black Panther remains a radical figure, the film does little to
address the problematics of a superhero-king who, despite ultimately
reforming Wakanda’s isolationist policies to an extent, functions within
the domineering practices of what Black Panther vaguely frames as ancient

African tradition. This is particularly obvious in a sequence in which
Okoye (Danai Gurira) of the Dora Milaje, the king’s bodyguards and key
members of Wakanda’s Special Forces, declares her duty-bound loyalty
to Killmonger when he forcibly seizes the throne. Indeed, Carrington
establishes the problematic origins of the Dora Milaje (the ‘Adored Ones’)
within Priest’s run writing Black Panther comics, and later on during
writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’ tenure (Carrington 2018: 227). Conceived as a
warrior/concubine hybrid, Carrington discusses early comic appearances
of the Dora Milaje in terms of their positioning as ‘subordinate compan-
ions who hope to become his [T’Challa’s] wife . . . [who] make a show of
his command over their bodies, surrounding him as objects of an acquisi-
tive desire’ (Carrington 2018: 227). Carrington argues for the comparison
of Dora Milaje to real-life tribeswomen of Dahomey Amazons, as well as
Colonel Gaddafi’s Amazonian Guard, also known as Revolutionary Nuns,
‘evoking members’ dedication to the nation and citing their putative chas-
tity as proof’ (Carrington 2018: 238–9). He simultaneously identifies two
queer Dora Milaje characters in Coates’ comics as adding complexity
to the positioning of the warriors as concubines available to the king in
(hetero)sexual terms (Carrington 2018: 229). It is also noteworthy that
the filmic versions of these characters’ costuming– c ombining red fabric,
leather harness and intricate beadwork– w ere stated to be inspired by the
Turkana, Maasai and Himba people (Francisco 2019). Carrington none-
theless maintains that the Dora Milaje are ‘neither a dubious homage to
a Pan-Africanist patriarch nor an invention cut from whole cloth’, which
‘requires a concerted effort to bridge the gap between black diasporic
heritage and its roots’ (Carrington 2018: 238).
Concurrently, though, Okoye was promoted as a radical intervention
into women’s representation in superhero films, with several feminist read-
ings of the character taking place (Brockington 2018; Coleman 2018; Harris
2018; Lee 2018; Rhiannon 2018). Again, the specificity of context(s) is
important, and the lack of a defined and coherent political feminism in
these venues, typical for both popular-and postfeminisms, is noteworthy.
As a warrior woman, Okoye resonates with existing frameworks of empow-
ered femininity exemplified by superheroines discussed throughout this
book, but the fact that her power is racialised, as well as speaking to nation-
ality, must be considered. There is little use in applying a broad framework
of ‘feminism’ to the character in to measure her radical qualities.
The film aligns Okoye both to problematic patriarchal ideals of tradition
and to a progressivist, or postfeminist, taking account of racial oppres-
sion. As with previous Marvel superheroines, this takes the form of ironic
Figure 10.2 Black Panther’s Dora Milaje Ayo, Queen Mother Ramonda and Shuri.
comments made by the character, as well as Shuri and Nakia. During one
sequence, on an undercover mission to catch Klaue in Busan, South Korea,
Okoye vocally complains about the discomfort of the wig she wears (Okoye
is usually bald, a style uncharacteristic of Western feminine beauty stand-
ards). The shot is tight on the women on either side of T’Challa, who wears
a black formal suit, and there are few South Korean people visible (occa-
sionally one or two pass through the shot). Okoye remarks that she ‘can’t
wait to get this ridiculous thing off my head’, referring to the wig, to which
Nakia humorously responds, ‘It looks nice, just whip it back and forth’, a
reference to the 2010 pop single ‘Whip My Hair’ in which Willow Smith
promotes a carefree attitude expressed through the hair-whipping gesture
(also marked as an oppositional-yet-mainstream celebration of black hair).
This ironic repurposing of an American pop song by Wakandan characters
is a distancing mechanism, rendering the American pop culture artefact
alien to the Wakandans. Okoye later rips the wig off her during a fight,
throwing it at her opponent to immobilise him, an act in which she literally
and figuratively rejects her Western costume.
This is not the only instance of Wakandans referencing American pop
culture in the film. Shuri later refers to ‘the old American movie Baba
used to watch’, by which she means Back to the Future Part II (Robert
Zemeckis, 1989),8 which she is implied to have used as inspiration for
the high-tech self-lacing shoes she designs for T’Challa, also ironically
termed by Shuri as ‘sneakers’ and bearing Wakandan lettering that reads
‘heir T’Chaka’, a play on Nike’s famous Air Jordan brand trainers. These
ironic intertextual jabs reconfigure the significance of American culture
as foreign to the Wakandans, whose subjectivity is prioritised. This is
most obvious in a car chase that takes place after Klaue’s capture collapses
into chaos. Okoye and Nakia drive after Klaue and his henchmen, who
shoot at them from a getaway vehicle. Nakia and Okoye, are presented
via a medium close-up of the front of their car as they drive through
the streets of Busan, safe in their bulletproof vehicle, and Okoye quips,
‘Guns. So primitive.’ These are colonial discourses of African primitiv-
ism reversed, as Wakandan technology is so advanced that it is suggested
to make Western firearms obsolete. That this is expressed by women
specifically is also significant, given the cultural links between (American)
masculinity and guns. The use of guns by the masculine villains of the
film is therefore made Other, a striking feat in the context of Hollywood
action cinema. With this in mind, it is not entirely clear as whom Okoye,
T’Challa and Nakia are attempting to pass through their disguises. Nakia
identifies herself as Kenyan and the South Korean locale of a busy street
market at night, in addition to the golden interior shots of the illegal casino
they infiltrate to attempt to catch Klaue, adds an overarching ambiguity
as to whom the characters are trying to convince, as well as what kind of
setting they are attempting to blend into. That South Korea is an East
Asian country that has undergone significant Westernisation since the
1980s, evoking questions of tradition and nationality, is also noteworthy
as it provides a setting that is as ambiguous as the Wakandan characters
appear in their disguises. While Carrington argues that the mish-mash
of (Pan)Africanities present in the Black Panther comics render them
‘[v]ernacular texts that synthesize disparate currents in American, Africana,
and postcolonial thought . . . [and] ensure that African pasts remain avail-
able to the many and varied desires of the black diasporic reading public’
(Carrington 2018: 237), I suggest this melting pot of Africanness in the
film is also the result of the ambiguities of contemporary culture.
Another female character significant to Afrofuturism is T’Challa’s sci-
entist sister Shuri, who was declared in popular media outlets as Black
Panther’s ‘female Q’, referring to the advisory character in the James
Bond franchise (Buxton 2018; Davis 2018; Framke 2018; Sherlock 2019).
This likening to a white Western male figure associated with advanced
technology used to aid the central hero is problematic, measuring Shuri
against a norm of patriarchal whiteness. However, the character remains
compelling through her representation as a black (specifically African)
geek, a phenomenon that has largely been limited to male characters such
as Steve Urkel in sitcom Family Matters (ABC, 1989–98). According to
Womack, the celebration of black intellectualism ‘totally shatters limited
notions of black identity’ (Womack 2013: 13) due to the assumption of
African people’s intellectual and biological inferiority in the enterprise of
white supremacy and justification of Western colonialism (Crenshaw et
al. 2019: 5–6). Shuri’s representation as a scientist with her own labora-
tory aligns with recent characterisations of Marvel women as successful

professionals within STEM fields (see Chapter 2). Indeed, the number
of black women in STEM fields is significantly lower than white women
due to the racial discrimination that accompanies class and gender barriers
preventing black women from accessing these spaces (for instance within
higher education). Given postfeminist culture’s legitimation of essential-
ist discourse as well as the recent (re)turn within popular culture towards
evolutionary biology legitimating racist science (Gallagher 2018: 5; Saini
2019; Evans 2014), Shuri presents an interesting representation of black
female intellect. Her exceptionality is doubtless enabled by her privileged
status as a Wakandan, rather than as an ‘other’ African. Marco posits that
despite its radical undertones and alignment with Afrofuturism, Black
Panther still relies on binaristic notions of Otherness in its representation
of Wakanda’s relation to other African nations that have been colonised:
The Wakandans ‘are themselves “othered” from other Africans and black
people in the diaspora’, and as a result ‘Wakandans in this film stand in
for Africans but they also do not, as Wakanda had never been colonized’
(Marco 2018: 6). It is therefore taken for granted that Shuri has had access
to Wakanda’s knowledge and science. Within the film, then, Shuri’s genius
is somewhat unexceptional in its exceptionality – on an extradiegetic level,
though, Shuri’s presence as a black female scientist in pop culture among
white, male geeks and intellectuals is significant.
Shuri’s portrayal addresses the wider discourse of the racial ‘digital
divide’, a perception stemming from the 1990s suggesting that young
people of colour had less access to computers and broadband internet than
did white young people. While important discussions, Womack highlights
that ‘the technology and race debate prioritized the divide at the expense
of the ongoing technological innovation in African American communi-
ties’ (Womack 2013: 47), further cementing ideologies of African primi-
tiveness. Reynaldo Anderson and Charles Jones likewise argue that there
were ‘inequities inherent in what was then referred to as the digital divide,
with regard to the conventional narrative that race was a liability in the
new century’ (Anderson and Jones 2016: vii). The digital divide thus
became ‘a code word for the tech inequities that exist between blacks and
whites’ (Nelson 2002: 1), part of an enduring Western image of ‘Third
World’ countries that Afrofuturists addressed. Alondra Nelson suggests
that this resulted in a dualistic set of hypothesised outcomes: ‘a utopian
(to some) race-free future and pronouncements of the dystopian digital
divide’ (Nelson 2002: 1). Digital technology and cyberculture apparently
offered both a race-free utopia and a dystopian replica of existing societal
divides, although Nelson highlights that the result for either position
was a postracial implication that race ‘is either negligible or evidence of

negligence’ (Nelson 2002: 1). Nelson concludes that ‘racial identity, and
blackness in particular, is the anti-avatar of digital life. Blackness gets
constructed as always oppositional to technologically driven chronicles of
progress’ (Nelson 2002: 1). Representations of black geeks therefore have
the potential to disrupt these limiting discourses (Flowers 2018: 187).
Shuri’s black nerd status is signified through her interactions with
technology and what was characterised as her Q-like relationship with
T’Challa. Indeed, the first interaction she has with her brother in the
film portrays her desire to improve his Kimoyo beads, a bracelet that
allows them to, among other features, communicate via hologram. To
T’Challa’s resistance to improvements Shuri answers, ‘Just because some-
thing works does not mean that it cannot be improved.’ This encounter
takes place immediately after T’Challa arrives in Wakanda with Nakia
and Okoye via aircraft, the Royal Talon Fighter, whose futuristic aes-
thetics and functions were showcased as it flew above the Golden City’s
skyscrapers merging ultra-modern metal surfaces with traditional African
thatched roofs. The conversation ends with T’Challa joking ‘I can’t wait
to see what kind of updates you make to your ceremonial outfit’, referring
to the Black Panther’s crowning ceremony that will take place shortly.
Walking away in medium close-up from behind, Shuri extends her middle
finger towards T’Challa and his expression, visible through deep focus
in the reverse shot, is of mild astonishment. Importantly, Shuri’s gesture
indicates her rejection of feminine interests such as fashion. It also posi-
tions her outside the norms of (Western) hegemonic femininity. This is
noteworthy because thus far the film encouraged the idea that Wakandans
exist outside the confines of colonial ideals in any case, and yet patriarchal
limitations extend to this scene, whose effect is humorous, given Shuri’s
outright defiance of T’Challa’s assumptions of femininity.
Shuri’s underground laboratory is revealed through fluid cinematogra-
phy, a single tracking shot that enters from the aircraft landing pad area
featured in previous scenes. The camera floats down through a tunnel
lined with glowing blue threads of light, narrowly missing a flying object
that passes, and finishes on a long shot of a white winding platform that
spirals up around a pillar decorated with colourful artwork. The walls sur-
rounding the structure appear rough and cave-like, another blending of
new and old. Within the laboratory, T’Challa and the Dora Milaje are sur-
rounded by blue holographic screens covered in Wakandan symbols. This
area is part of the intricate spiral platform, with the artwork on the pillar
more clearly visible in the next shot, showcasing the merging of fantastical
technology and architecture with African-inspired artistic tradition.
Figure 10.3 Inventor-scientist Shuri alongside T’Challa in Black Panther.
Shuri ironically bows and greets T’Challa; her dress resembles a white
laboratory coat, an enduring signifier of the cinematic scientist (Figure
10.3). Indeed, the black scientist is a feature of Afrofuturist literature,
what Lisa Yaszek defines as the Bannekerade, which has the potential
to offer ‘new images of black genius’ in Afrodiasporic literature (Yaszek
2014: 15). The term is a play on the similarly named Edisonade, a science
fiction narrative form centring on ‘the adventures of the technoscientific
genius’, named after American inventor Thomas Edison (Yaszek 2014:
16). Following the spirit of Afrofuturism, Yaszek’s Bannekerade is named
after the revolutionary-era inventor Benjamin Banneker, a former slave
who promoted the elimination of slavery (Yaszek 2014: 16). Yaszek defines
the Afrodiasporic Bannekerade as focusing on the ‘young black male sci-
entistinventor who uses the products of his genius to save himself, his
friends, and his community from domestic oppressors’ (Yaszek 2014: 17).
While Shuri is not the victim of white oppression due to her privileged
status as Wakandan, nor is she male, she does use her power as Wakandan
royalty and scientific knowledge to improve other’s lives. The technology
she invents is also used by the Dora Milaje and, importantly, as part of the
Black Panther suit.
After Shuri leads T’Challa through her laboratory, demonstrating her
upgraded Kimoyo beads, which now feature remote access options, and
then jokes over T’Challa’s ‘royal sandals’ while introducing him to the,
in Shuri’s terms, Back-to-the-Future shoes she designed (which initially
appear to be only shoe soles). T’Challa’s feet are shown in an accom-
panying shot as he places the soles on them, and a pair of crisp, black
sneaker-like boots materialise in sections around his feet. The final gadget
on T’Challa’s tour of Shuri’s laboratory is the Black Panther suit itself,
which, in its compact form, appears as a necklace of claws. The laboratory
scene in which Shuri shows T’Challa his gadgets was, as mentioned,

problematically likened to instances in James Bond films when Q, Bond’s
quartermaster, provides him with gadgets (often weapons), frequently
concealed within ordinary household objects. T’Challa’s gadgets mark an
attempt to reign back the fantastical elements of the superhero within a
more realism-oriented set of spy genre discourses. Nonetheless, thinking
of Shuri as a ‘female Q’ is limiting, not only because it recentres the over-
whelming white Britishness of James Bond (and the paternalism of Q) but
also because it overshadows how Shuri’s representation as a world-leading
scientist and inventor ties into the Afrofuturist Bannekerade tradition.
There is a sense of playful fun that is signified through Shuri, for
instance her squeals of excitement when demonstrating a gadget or using
a new invention, that marks a unique, unabashed relish of the character’s
relation to science. However, it is also significant that a black female scien-
tist is portrayed crafting gadgets whose functions extend but also restrict
the Black Panther’s black, male body – the suit, boots and helmet form a
tight protective cocoon over T’Challa, enclosing his body’s interactions
with his surroundings, while the Kimoyo beads allow Shuri to remotely
control T’Challa’s vehicles, through which T’Challa effectively hands
over his agency to Shuri or, at the very least, shares it with her. Thus,
Shuri’s gadgets allow her to participate in the action, albeit by proxy –
a considerable feat for a Marvel woman without superpowers– while
also locking her virtually, in terms verging on bodily transcendence, into
T’Challa’s reality and experiences.
Regarding the wider portrayal of black nerds in the media, Charles
Flowers argues that
[n]ot only is the nerd constructed as strictly white, or at least opposed to black-
ness, but he is also exclusively male . . . women who identify as nerds are required
to append a gendered pronoun to their nerd identity in the mode of ‘nerd girls’ or
‘female nerds,’ or even ‘black girl nerds’. (Flowers 2018: 170)
Shuri’s portrayal as a scientist who carries responsibility for her hero

brother’s use of gadgets is therefore attuned to Flowers’s argument that
‘the image of the black girl nerd would offer the possibility for resisting
. . . controlling images of black women, the demand for black women to
conform to white femininity, and the construction of essentialist images
of black womanhood through media’ (Flowers 2018: 187). Since Shuri
exists diegetically outside the confines of traditional Western expectations
of women, she is nonetheless implicitly portrayed as a product of the
privileges afforded to her by Wakanda. Echoing Marco’s ideas, an aspect
of why Shuri’s character appears radical is because she is Other to the
colonised Africans outside Wakanda. Still, in the context of postfeminist

images of scientific women having become luminous within a neoliberal
capitalist framework, the figure of Shuri does provide unconventional
venues for the expression of black girl nerds, albeit within the regulated
otherworld of Wakanda.
Nakia, a War Dog and T’Challa’s love interest for the film, also pro-
vides opportunities to resist mainstream articulations of black feminini-
ties. Nakia is portrayed as a humanitarian at the beginning of the film, in
which she uses the commonplace image of the veiled, oppressed African
woman as a disguise to infiltrate and free a group of women and girls who
had been kidnapped by Boko Haram. Her humanitarian ethics are later
presented as a point of contention between herself and T’Challa’s isola-
tionism. In a sense, Nakia represents a feminised world view characterised
as mutual nurture and support between African nations. A later scene also
represents Nakia as being dissatisfied that Wakanda has so many resources
and wealth, but does nothing to help its colonised neighbouring countries.
Prior to this, the Wakandan state was ostensibly signified as masculinist,
maintaining its isolationist policies and asserting control over its subjects
while relying on the rule of a patriarchal monarch whose worthiness is
determined by the physical act of a duel. Indeed, Wakanda’s progressive
politics are signified through the film’s use of women in key action scenes
(the Dora Milaje) as well as in intellectual terms (Shuri’s science and
Nakia’s ethics), but crucial issues not answered by Black Panther are what
relation Wakandan women have to the state, how involved they are in its
practices and policies, and, essentially, how the state exercises power over
its citizens. It is not clear whether Wakanda even has a constitution, given
its reliance on monarchical rule, although, again, there is the danger here
of using Western feminisms and democracies as a measuring stick of the
film’s ‘progressiveness’.
In any case, it is noteworthy that Nakia is key in T’Challa’s eventual
loosening of Wakanda’s international policies, becoming a representa-
tive of Wakanda on Earth. As a result of these events, T’Challa exposes
Wakanda and decides that it can help those less fortunate. One of the film’s
final scenes returns to Oakland, where Killmonger’s childhood home, a
rundown block of flats, has been condemned as unsafe. Even so, the make-
shift basketball basket has been replaced with a real one, indicating that
a shift in wealth distribution has taken place. The concluding moments
present T’Challa telling Nakia and Shuri that he has bought and aims to
redevelop the complex to make space for ‘the first Wakandan International
Outreach Centre’, although the specifics are not elaborated on. T’Challa
does mention that Nakia’s role will be to carry out ‘social outreach’, while
Shuri will act as ‘the science and information exchange’. As the conversa-
tion takes place, children who had been playing basketball witness the
Wakandan plane arriving and approach it in awe. This marks T’Challa’s
and Wakanda’s integration into the world (of America) and therefore indi-
cates that his isolationist perspective has been replaced. At the same time,
however, the enactment of this form of social charity was enabled by the
substantial wealth Wakanda possesses and therefore bears passing resem-
blance to problematic urban planning practices.
Black Panther adopts a chronopolitical (Eshun 2003) approach to devel-
oping its narrative and characters, with scenes revisited and assigned dif-
ferent meanings depending on context throughout the film, as well as
strategically placed flashbacks and accounts of alternative histories as well
as factual reference points. However, the foundations of Wakandan society
are represented through a patriarchal framework of monarchy and royal
lineage. While the Afrofuturistic elements of the film do, in accordance
with the movement as a whole, ‘present new and innovative perspectives’
(Gipson 2016: 92), the film’s central premise, and the crisis on which the
hero’s narrative rests, is not much different to that of later Marvel films
Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2. Like those ques-
tions of diaspora posed by the Asgardian ethnicity and its dependence on
patriarchal royal lineage, the Wakanda presented in Black Panther wrestles
with the concept of Wakandan identity when access to a geographical
Wakanda is not available to certain people. These discourses also reach
back to the anticolonialism present in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.,
particularly in the implications around Peter Quill having a ‘very special
heritage’ related to the villainous living planet Ego. In the vast melee of
Marvel’s otherworlds– many of which are defined through imperial terms
– it is quite possible for Wakanda to lose its specificity as a venue offer-
ing the potential for the expression of radical politics. Indeed, the sheer
vastness of the universes and realms in the MCU (which upon Disney’s
purchase of Fox looks to become even greater, should the X-Men and the
Fantastic Four appear in future Marvel films)– a ll of them ‘perpetually
in crisis’ (Curtis 2013: 210)– are at risk of becoming overwhelming. It is
apparent, though, as the decade drew to a close, that enduring discourses
of identity in these superhero films remained both gendered and racialised
in increasingly complex ways.
Notes
1. Asian-American director Albert Pyun directed the lesser-known 1990 adapta-
tion of Captain America, while 2003’s Hulk was directed by Taiwanese Ang Lee.
Both Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer were directed
by African American Tim Story and Lexi Alexander, who is of Palestinian
descent, directed Punisher: War Zone. None of these films is canonical within
the MCU. Thus, much of the prevailing discourse around Ragnarok and Black
Panther referred to their significance for people of colour within the MCU (as
part of the Hollywood film industry).
2. As confirmed by queer actress Thompson as well as the existence of a deleted
scene from the film in which a woman appears to leave Valkyrie’s bedroom
(Duffy 2018).
3. Wokeness can be defined broadly as an awareness of social justice issues con-
cerning identity, such as race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, age. Adoption
of the term ‘woke’ within mainstream and popular media discourses has been
discussed in similar terms to popular feminism as symptomatic of a depo-
liticisation and commodification of social causes that exists alongside political
activisms (see Kanai 2019; Kay 2019). Akin to ‘politically correct’, ‘woke’ is
increasingly utilised as a disparaging term in right-wing media discourses.
4. Collected in Priest and Texeira (2015); Priest and Velluto (2015); Priest and
Velluto (2016); Priest and Lucas (2016).
5. Collected in Hudlin and Romita Jr (2017); Hudlin and Portela (2018) and
Hudlin and Portela (2019).
6. Rotten Tomatoes creates a numerical aggregate score as a percentage made up
of film critics’ reviews. According to set criteria, films are either marked ‘fresh’
or ‘rotten’ depending on the percentage. Alongside the critical score, films are
accompanied by an audience score, made up of site user ratings. The system
was revamped following abuse of the audience score function by users in rela-
tion to both Black Panther and Captain Marvel, among other franchise movies.
7. The relation between technology and blackness is considered paradoxical
due to the deeming of Africans and those of African descent as primitive,
uncivilised and intellectually inferior, discourses that have been maintained
and applied to black subjectivities within white patriarchal societies such as
those of the US. Indeed, this calls forth wider arguments around cyborgs,
humanisms and posthumanisms regarding race. While there is insufficient
scope within this particular assessment of superheroes to further explore these
discussions, crucial work has been carried out by Wilkerson (1997), Weheliye
(2014), Lavender (2014: 54–88), Jones and Jones (2017) and Lillvis (2017).
8. The intertextual web of meaning comes full circle, here, as Dery’s initial essay
in which he defined Afrofuturism was titled ‘Black to the Future’ (Dery 1994).
Afterword:
Some Concluding Remarks on
Marvel Women . . . Thus Far!
Postfeminist culture shapes understandings of women’s empowerment

through the women portrayed in Marvel superhero films and their sur-
rounding popular discourses. Women in Marvel films are ultimately sites
of discursive struggle dealing with the postfeminist enterprise of ‘women’s
empowerment’ in varying ways. From the renewed traditionalism of the
victimised superhero girlfriend to the homogenously thin, white, hetero-
sexual images of beautiful superheroines who fight evil, to the women of
colour symptomatic of postracial media culture that rests on racial ambi-
guity, postfeminism adapts and sticks to the myriad feminine subjectivities
portrayed.
Above all, I have noted that representations of women in these texts are
heterogeneous while all being in some way linked to a culture that strives
for a unifying approach to ‘womanhood’, erasing individual experiences
that are influenced by factors such as sexuality, class, age and race. I have
kept a close eye on the comics on which these representations are based,
tracing an historical trajectory between these media, and drawing atten-
tion to how feminine subjectivities have developed as a result of both
superhero revisionism in varying media and postfeminist culture.
Since superhero films have been such a fruitful topic of analytic inter-
rogation, I have specifically attempted to address these issues through
targeted case studies. I have offered analysis of the overwhelmingly under-
appreciated figure of the superhero girlfriend and also considered the
roles of heterosexuality and racial discourses in these films from angles
that have not yet been considered in academia. Likewise, my discussion
of Marvel superheroines assesses such characters specifically through the
lens of postfeminist culture. All the while, I want to stress that this work
remains interlinked with existing academic inquiries regarding women in
both superhero and action cinema.
While I have paid considerable attention to Marvel films as intertexts
that bear relation to the comics on which they are based, there is still much
af t e r wo rd 261
work to be done. Marvel’s recent success with television series such as

Agent Carter and Jessica Jones are sure to stimulate discussions regarding
the configurations of feminine strength presented therein. Agent Carter
is particularly interesting in the light of my discussions of postfeminist
rhetoric in period settings, as well as further engaging with the superhe-
roic postfeminist masquerade. Agent Carter takes place in the 1940s after
the events of Captain America: The First Avenger. Having been given a job
with the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), a covert enterprise of crime-
fighting, and then employed as a secretary, Carter must solve crimes on the
sly. Indeed, much of the first season of the season is a meditation on the
theme of Carter’s work being underappreciated by her male colleagues. A
scene that stands out occurs in the final episode of the season, moments
after Carter saves the day. In this scene, Carter’s boss Jack Thompson
(Chad Michael Murray) is informed that he may be offered a Medal of
Honor for the work that Carter ultimately carried out. Carter’s colleague
Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj), who, as someone who has had his leg ampu-
tated due to injuries sustained in the war is a notable example of a disabled
Marvel character, expresses his disappointment with the situation, telling
Carter he must go and inform his superiors of her hard work. To this,
Carter responds, ‘I don’t need a congressional honour. I don’t need Agent
Thompson’s approval, or the President’s. I know my value, anyone else’s
opinion doesn’t really matter.’ This scene speaks to the individualism
of neoliberal, postfeminist culture due to its emphasis on Carter’s ‘I’.
Here, every woman knows her own value, as an individual, even in the
face of blatant institutional inequality, which continues to this day. It also
abandons the need for collective action against inequality, for if every
woman knows her own value, individually, then instances of sexism are the
responsibility of select individuals and not institutions.
While Agent Carter was a mainstream network product, both Jessica
Jones and its predecessor Daredevil (a reinvigorated retelling of the char-
acter who appears in the identically titled film) were produced by online
streaming service Netflix. One might ask, then, what opportunities are
offered by digital platforms with regards to women’s representation and
how this particular form coincides with ideological and narrative elements.
Recent scholarly interventions in discussions of Netflix streaming series as
‘quality TV’ are notable here, as Netflix’s partnership with Marvel inter-
sected with ‘the wider cultural traction of “feminist” rhetoric [and] . . .
Netflix’s reliance on it as brand identifier’ (Havas 2016: 15; see also Baker
2017, Sweet 2018, Jenner 2018).
The significance of these Marvel media texts notwithstanding, Netflix
abruptly cancelled all of its Marvel series in 2018, presumably in advance
of Disney launching its own streaming platform in 2019 with the inten-
tion of producing its own Marvel superhero series that join onto the
MCU. Series that have been announced address gaps noted throughout
this book, for example the adaptation of Kamala Khan (Kit and Goldberg
2019). Indeed, the launch of Disney+, alongside Disney’s acquisition of
20th Century Fox– which previously owned the film rights to the X-Men
characters– h as reinvigorated discussions around vertical integration
and the Hollywood entertainment industry alongside debates centring
on transmedia storytelling and franchising. What I propose, here, is that
these discussions regarding industrial practices and economics should
involve an incorporation of related political and social dimensions of pro-
duction, representation and reception contexts. Much like the discussion
about so-called quality TV invariably reached to gender representation,
Disney’s future Marvel offerings, which can be seen as part of Marvel’s
overarching project of superhero revisionism, will doubtless have political
implications.
In the light of the election of Trump, Brexit and the global turn to
right-wing politics, it is noteworthy that popular discussions of Marvel
texts’ feminism(s) are ongoing. This can be attributed to the increased
intertwining of both popular feminism and popular misogyny that has
emerged over the last decade, part of what Banet-Weiser has called the
‘funhouse mirror’ (Banet-Weiser 2018) of popular culture, in which post-
feminism and popular feminisms are ‘mutually sustaining’ (Banet-Weiser
2018: 20) while recentring the notion of white male wounding. Indeed, as
Marvel adaptations become more ostentatiously aimed at women through
the invocation of feminist discourses, it is likely that these representations,
like those of Captain Marvel, invariably hinge on imbuing their heroines
with an empowerment guided by ‘entrepreneurial spirit, resilience [and]
gumption’ (Banet-Weiser 2018: 20) in accordance with the spirit of a
neoliberal individualism that nonetheless accounts for critiques of itself
as such.
That said, it has not been my intention throughout this book to tell
viewers whether or not they are allowed to find Marvel women empower-
ing. This project was not intended to determine how audiences negoti-
ate the issues of gender and power, but rather how gender and power
(combined with postfeminist sentiments related to sexuality and race)
are discursively constructed in these globally consumed texts. Regarding
audiences, there is much work to be carried out, although Scott’s exami-
nation of fan activity within the Hawkeye Initiative illuminates the ways
in which superhero fans address gender issues in often resourceful ways
(Scott 2015). Meanwhile, Burke’s audience reception study mentioned
af t e r wo rd 263
in the Introduction makes a strong attempt to address comic book fans’

engagement with superhero films but is largely interested in issues of
adaptation.
In the Introduction, I stressed the need to consider both postfeminism
and Hollywood cinema as sites of development. Given that I have very
cautiously suggested that change might be on the horizon for women’s
visibility in Hollywood cinema, I must also note that there is still room for
more. As mentioned in previous chapters, there is ample opportunity for
media texts based on existing Marvel women who fall outside the white,
heterosexual, middle-class bracket, such as America Chavez of the Young
Avengers. In terms of Marvel’s comic book output, the company has had
considerable success with new women-centric titles, as I mentioned in the
Introduction and throughout. I further hope that a dialogue between both
media can be maintained in terms of both representation and scholarly
interrogation.
Logan and Deadpool marked a generic break from what has come to be
widely recognised as traditional Marvel superhero fare. Both became the
subject of popular discourses on the social and commercial benefits of
R-rated films superhero films. Indeed, Deadpool makes use of the super-
hero genre for comic effect (the hero’s healing factor is utilised for this
on numerous occasions, such as when he receives a gunshot wound to his
backside or when he severs his own hand to release himself from hand-
cuffs, leaving behind his hand with a raised middle finger), while Logan, as
I discussed in Chapter 5, used the character’s potential for revisionism to
more radical ends focusing on the liberation of marginalised mutants. The
generic relevance of these films notwithstanding, the debates circulating
these films again boil down to notions of quality and taste, which them-
selves are gendered. It would, for instance, be interesting to observe how
an R-rated Marvel film based on a female superhero would manifest and
how she might be received.
Since its inception, the superhero figure has been a site of struggle tying
into definitions of gender, sexuality, race and nationality. The endurance
of Marvel women coincides with shifting definitions of what it means to
be heroic and a woman in contemporary Western culture. More generally,
there remains a cultural fascination with these fantastical figures and their
articulation of often contradictory politics. In looking forward, we should
not lose track of the representations that have existed throughout Marvel’s
history, which will doubtless shape forthcoming portrayals in one way or
another, and continue to discuss the very complexities that make superhe-
roes so compelling as part of the multifaceted intertextual web of culture.
Filmography
12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, USA/UK, 2013)

42 (Brian Helgeland, USA, 2013),
A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, USA, 1996)
Agent Carter (ABC, 2015–16)
Alien (Ridley Scott, USA/UK, 1979)
Aliens (James Cameron, USA, 1986)
The Amazing Spider-Man (Marc Webb, USA, 2012)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Marc Webb, USA, 2014)
American Psycho (Mary Harron, USA, 2000),
Amistad (Steven Spielberg, USA, 1997)
Ant-Man (Peyton Reed, USA, 2015)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed, USA, 2018)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon, USA, 2015)
Avengers: Endgame (Anthony and Joe Russo, USA, 2019)
Back to the Future Part II (Robert Zemeckis, USA, 1989)
Barb Wire (David Hogan, USA, 1996)
Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, USA/Fr, 1992)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder, USA, 2016)
The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, USA, 1915)
Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, USA, 2018)
Blade (Stephen Norrington, USA, 1998)
Blade: Trinity (David S. Goyer, USA, 2004)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, USA/HK, 1982)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB, 1997–2001; UPN, 2001–3)
Captain America (Albert Pyun, USA, 1990)
Captain America: Civil War (Anthony and Joe Russo, USA, 2016)
Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston, USA, 2011)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Anthony and Joe Russo, USA, 2014)
Captain Marvel (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, USA, 2019)
Catwoman (Pitof, USA, 2005)
Charlie’s Angels (ABC, 1976–81)
Creed (Ryan Coogler, USA, 2015)
Daredevil (Mark Steven Johnson, USA, 2003)
Dark Phoenix (Simon Kinberg, USA, 2019)
Deadpool (Tim Miller, USA, 2016)
f il mo gr a p hy 265
Deadpool 2 (David Leitch, USA, 2018)

Death Wish (Michael Winner, USA, 1974)
Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, USA, 1971)
The Divergent Series (film series, USA, 2014–17)
Elektra (Rob Bowman, USA/Can, 2005)
Family Matters (ABC, 1989–97; CBS, 1997–8)
FANT4STIC (Josh Trank, USA, 2015)
Fantastic Four (Tim Story, USA, 2005)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (Tim Story, USA/UK/Ger, 2007)
Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, USA, 1987)
Firefly (Fox, 2002)
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (NBC, 1990–6)
Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, USA, 2013)
Gaslight (Geroge Cukor, USA, 1944)
Get on Up (Tate Taylor, USA, 2014)
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, USA, 2012)
Gladiator (Ridley Scott, UK/USA, 2000)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, USA, 1972)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 (James Gunn, USA, 2014)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn, USA, 2017)
The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (Curtis Hanson, USA, 1992)
Hanna (Joe Wright, Ger/UK/USA, 2011)
Hard Candy (David Slade, USA, 2005)
Hulk (Ang Lee, USA, 2003)
The Hunger Games (film series, USA, 2012–15)
The Incredible Hulk (Louis Leterrier, USA, 2008)
Iron Man (Jon Favreau, USA, 2008)
Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau, USA, 2010)
Iron Man 3 (Shane Black, USA, 2013)
Justice League (Zack Snyder, USA, 2017)
Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughn, UK/USA, 2010)
Kick-Ass 2 (Jeff Wadlow, UK/USA, 2013)
La Femme Nikita (Luc Besson, Fr/Ita, 1990)
Léon: The Professional (Luc Besson, Fr, 1995)
Lethal Weapon (Richard Donner, USA, 1987)
Logan (James Mangold, USA, 2017)
Mad Max (George Miller, Aus, 1979)
Malcolm X (Spike Lee, USA, 1992)
Marshall (Reginald Hudlin, USA, 2017)
Marvel’s Daredevil (Netflix, 2016–18)
Marvel’s Iron Fist (Netflix, 2017–18)
Marvel’s Jessica Jones (Netflix, 2015–19)
Marvel’s Luke Cage (Netflix, 2016–18)
Marvel’s The Avengers (Joss Whedon, USA, 2012)
Marvel’s The Punisher (Netflix, 2017–19)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, Ita/USA, 1968)

Point of No Return (John Badham, USA, 1993)
The Punisher (Mark Goldblatt, Aus/USA, 1989)
The Punisher (Jonathan Hensleigh, USA, 2004)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1954)
Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1940)
The Right Stuff (Philip Kaufman, USA, 1983)
Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, USA, 1977)
Selma (Ava DuVernay, UK/USA, 2014)
Shane (George Stevens, USA, 1953)
Shazam! (David F. Sandberg, USA, 2019)
Single White Female (Barbet Shroeder, USA, 1992)
Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, USA, 2002)
Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi, USA, 2004)
Spider-Man 3 (Sam Raimi, USA, 2007)
Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts, USA, 2019)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts, USA, 2017)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney
Rothman, USA, 2018)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (CBS, 1987–94)
Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder, USA/Can, 2011)
Supergirl (Jeannot Szwarc, UK, 1984)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, USA, 1976)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, USA, 1991)
Thor (Kenneth Branagh, USA, 2011)
Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi, USA, 2017)
Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor, USA, 2013)
Titanic (James Cameron, USA, 1997)
Top Gun (Tony Scott, USA, 1986)
The Twilight Saga (film series, USA, 2008–12)
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, USA, 1992)
Veronica Mars (UPN, 2004–6; The CW, 2006–7)
Violet and Daisy (Geoffrey S. Fletcher, USA, 2013)
Wall Street (Oliver Stone, USA, 1987)
What’s Love Got to Do with It (Brian Gibson, USA, 1993)
The Wolverine (James Mangold, USA, 2013)
Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, USA, 2017)
X2 (Bryan Singer, USA, 2003)
X-Men (Bryan Singer, USA, 2000)
X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer, USA, 2016)
X-Men: Days of Future Past (Bryan Singer, USA, 2014)
X-Men: Evolution (Kids’ WB,2000–3)
X-Men: First Class (Matthew Vaughn, USA/UK, 2011).
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Gavin Hood, USA, 2009)
X-Men: The Last Stand (Brett Ratner, UK/USA, 2006)
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Index
abject, 150–1, 159–60, 162, 169 Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff), 85,
action 89–90, 93, 97–101, 207
cinema, 17, 33, 46, 127, 130, 133, 246, Blade films, 75–6, 85, 86, 93, 217–22
252 Blade (character), 75–6, 217–21; see also
heroes, 32–3, 34, 76, 130 Jenson, Karen
heroines, 16, 19, 26, 28, 33, 39, 68, Blaxploitation cinema; 218–19, 221, 244
71–92, 93, 97, 99–100, 179–81, body horror, 150, 160
222–5 body without organs, 171, 172, 177
active/ passive dichotomy, 18, 33, 37, 43, Bond, James, 252, 256
59, 69, 74; see also Mulvey, Laura Boseman, Chadwick, 242
adaptation, 10–13, 32, 47, 91, 104, 111, box office revenue, 2, 4, 16, 19–20, 242; see
161 also reception
aesthetics, 11, 17, 117, 130, 218, 223, 237, brand identity, 3, 11, 67, 86–7, 124, 164,
242, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 254 213, 251, 261, see also consumerism
African American, 211, 225, 241, 243–6, Brexit, 233–4, 262
248–9, 253, 259 Brown, Jeffrey, 2, 19, 70, 84, 100–1, 119,
Afrofuturism, 242, 244–7, 252–8 125, 126, 133, 135–6, 179–80, 181,
agency, 47, 61, 66, 96, 119, 128, 148, 151, 215, 216, 217, 225
156, 183, 256; see also postfeminist: Burke, Tarana, 3; see also Me Too
choice Butler, Judith, 94, 171, 173–4, 177,
Amazing Spider-Man films, 58–67 179, 181, 183, 197–8; see also
animality, 134–8, 140, 221 performativity
antihero, 77–80, 121
Ant-Man (Scott Lang), 91 Cage, Luke, 80, 218, 233, 245
Asgardian identity, 161, 164, 165–6, Campbell, Joseph, 32–3
236–41, 248, 258 Captain America (Steve Rogers), 2, 8, 93,
Avengers films, 7, 11, 26, 55, 93, 98–101, 101, 104, 201–4, 207, 258, 261
168, 186, 187–91, 217 Captain America films, 7, 93, 101, 104,
201–4, 207, 248, 258, 261
Back to the Future, 251, 255, 259 Captain Marvel (film), 4, 80, 91, 93, 96,
Bad Girl art, 70 101–18, 121, 192, 203, 259, 262
BDSM, 149 Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers), 4, 80,
Beyoncé, 247 91, 92, 93, 96, 101–18, 121, 192, 203,
biocapitalism, 125 259, 262
biological sex, 53, 134, 173, 180, 187, 193, Carter, Peggy, 14, 93, 202–4, 261
208; see also essentialism cinematography, 5, 84, 85, 131, 138, 140,
bisexuality, 174–5, 183–4, 209 246, 254
black girl nerds, 256–8 civil rights, 3, 126, 175, 184–5, 198, 214,
Black Panther (film), 7, 211, 218, 232, 218, 223, 231, 243, 244
233–4, 237, 241–59 clones, 78, 123, 125–6, 127, 128, 140, 143
Black Panther (T’Challa), 211, 218, 233–6, colonialism, 129, 140, 162, 166–8, 170,
237, 241–58 188, 211, 237–8, 241, 244, 252–4
colourblind racism, 212–13, 215, 216, 239, dystopia, 120, 124, 127, 129, 131, 143, 179,
240 230, 236, 237, 253
colourism, 224
comic books, 1–3, 4, 5, 7–13, 15, 16, 17, Eastwood, Clint, 124, 127
19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30–2, 34, 35, economies of visibility, 2
36–7, 38, 44, 46, 47, 48–9, 63, 69–71, editing, 5, 84, 140, 165, 190
75, 78–9, 81, 82, 84, 85, 88, 90, 104, Elba, Idris, 240
111, 124, 135, 145, 149, 157, 161, 172, Elektra, 76–80, 84–5, 86, 93, 102, 105, 110,
175, 188, 198, 204, 205, 207, 214–16, 119–23, 125–6, 129, 132–3, 135, 152,
237, 242, 244, 263 157–8
comics studies, 7–10, 27, 211 emotions, 16, 35, 36, 41, 52–3, 60, 63, 81,
commodification, 22, 24, 86, 87, 91, 129, 83, 86, 88, 99, 105, 136, 206
169, 213, 214, 216, 223, 229–30, 231, empire, 161, 165, 166–8, 234–5, 236, 238,
232, 259 239, 244
consumerism, 22, 73, 87, 96, 97, 108, 115, empowerment, 4, 15, 22–3, 25–6, 30, 52,
230, 232 68, 73–5, 91, 94, 104, 114, 116–7,
costuming, 38, 63, 69–71, 81, 84, 85, 90, 118, 120, 123, 129, 136, 149, 223, 224,
95, 97, 114–6, 143, 149, 151, 153, 228, 229, 231, 260, 262
163, 169, 187, 216, 242, 248, 250–1; Enlightenment era, 172, 185, 188
see also postfeminist: masquerade essentialism, 53, 72, 94, 101, 120, 134, 135,
Creed, Barbara, 150; see also femininity: 141, 155, 174, 197, 206, 253, 256; see
monstrous also biological sex
cross-dressing, 71–3 exertion, 39, 178
Cyborg Manifesto, 184–5, 192; see also exoticism, 211, 216, 223–4, 226, 227,
Haraway, Donna J. 228–9, 231, 235, 244; see also
cyborgs, 171–3, 184–92 Orientalism
damsel in distress, 26, 30, 41, 42, 44, family, 35–6, 45, 54, 113, 115, 118, 120–1,
50, 51, 54, 208 ; see also women: in 129, 132, 134, 143, 165, 166, 171,
refrigerators 187–92, 198, 206, 209, 235, 243; see
Daredevil (Matt Murdock), 35, 76, 77, 80, also queer: family
86, 90, 157, 261 Fantastic Four, 7, 48, 82–3, 85–6, 88–9,
Dark Knight Returns, The, 31 198, 206, 217, 243, 258, 259
Dark Phoenix, 151–6; see also Grey, Jean far-right politics, 25, 130, 143, 163–4,
DC properties, 2, 8, 9, 30, 69, 95, 102, 103, 165–6, 167, 170, 241, 245, 259, 262
115, 214, 215, 234 fatherhood, 36, 45, 77, 126–7, 129, 135,
Deadpool, 5, 44, 126, 208–9, 263 136, 174, 187–8, 201
DeConnick, Kelly Sue, 103–4 female audiences, 15–16, 19, 63, 117, 119,
Deleuze and Guattari, 171, 172, 184 228, 262
diaspora, 165, 168, 240, 243, 247, 248, 253, femininity, 4, 14, 22, 24, 25, 27, 42, 46,
258 47, 66, 73–6, 86–88, 91, 94–101, 102,
disability, 23, 71, 90, 130, 159, 259, 261 104, 108, 109, 112, 117, 118, 120, 121,
disguise, see postfeminist: masquerade 132, 135, 145, 147, 149, 150, 151, 159,
Disney+, 14, 27, 262 160, 162, 163, 166, 167, 167, 174, 177,
Disney, 7, 14, 27, 258, 262 179, 180, 181, 184, 186, 193, 195, 198,
Ditko, Steve, 9 208, 212, 219, 221–2, 224, 226, 230,
diversity, 3, 164, 213, 214–16, 218, 230, 231, 235, 243, 250, 254, 256
231–2 black, 213, 219, 221–5, 250, 254–6
domesticity, 14, 22, 51–2, 72, 107, 113, heroic, 14, 33, 68–92, 93–118, 102, 104,
174, 192 241
Dora Milaje, 250–1, 254, 255, 257 heterosexual, 41, 46, 47, 53, 67, 88, 91,
double consciousness, 249 181, 195–9, 198, 206–7, 208, 260, 263
Dyer, Richard, 69, 212 monstrous, 145–70
inde x 309
queer, 81, 173–84, 208, 238, 250 Gillen, Karen, 187

white, 46, 67, 88, 91, 113, 181 212, 260, Girl Power, 120, 133, 203
263 girlfriends, 10, 29–45, 48–67, 78, 82,
see also postfeminist: masquerade 203–4, 209, 216, 260
feminist politics, 2–3, 4, 6, 21, 23, 25–6, globalisation, 213, 214, 227, 230, 231, 232
87, 94, 103, 108, 109, 113, 114, 115, gothic melodrama, 107, 117
167, 172, 184–6; see also postfeminist Grey, Jean, 69, 73, 80, 81–2, 131, 150–6,
feminist film theory, 4, 15–20, 107, 210 158, 159, 162, 168; see also Dark
femmes fatales, 147–8, 160 Phoenix
fidelity, 11–13 Guardians of the Galaxy films, 118, 171,
fight sequence, 38–9, 40–1, 42–3, 57–8, 184, 186–92, 217, 235, 258
64–5, 76, 84, 85–7, 89–90, 105, 122, gun culture, 252
140, 160, 165, 180, 182, 187, 189–90,
207, 227, 246, 251 Haraway, Donna J., 184, 185, 186, 189,
film narrative, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 191, 192
19, 20, 29–34, 35–41, 43–6, 47–8, Hawkeye Initiative, 262
50, 53, 55, 56, 57, 61, 63–6, 71, 73–4, Hela, 161–8, 236, 238, 239
75–6, 78, 80–4, 93, 96, 97, 98, 102, heteronormativity, 29, 152, 194–9, 204
112, 122–3, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, heterosexuality, 24, 29, 30, 41, 53, 155,
129, 131, 133, 141, 142, 148–9, 151, 170, 175, 184, 193–209
164, 178, 183, 186, 190, 191, 195, Hollywood
199–204, 207, 223, 227, 229, 238, 241, mainstream, 32, 164, 173, 195, 210, 225
243, 246, 258 Millennial, 16–17, 32
flashbacks, 35, 77–8, 111, 112–4, 116, 122, New, 32
151, 189 hooks, bell, 213, 215, 231
franchising, 7, 17, 20, 27, 47, 102, 119, Hulk (Bruce Banner), 7, 100, 201–2, 236,
130, 262 240
Friedan, Betty, 174 humour, 44, 89–90, 179, 208–9, 237, 238
frontier myth, 130, 141, 143
frustration tactics, 68–92, 148, 149, 156, identification, 37, 112, 113, 117, 121, 189,
178 193
ideology, 4, 12, 14, 18, 133, 134, 165, 238,
Gamora, 187, 189–90, 217, 235 239, 249
gaslighting, 106–8 patriarchal, 4, 18
gay, 87, 185, 213, 232 indigenous peoples, 130, 216–17, 230, 236,
gaystreaming, 24 247
gender individualism, 22–4, 65, 108, 109, 114,
binary, 18, 73, 88, 100, 183, 184, 193, 117, 123, 135, 143, 121, 231, 234,
195, 197 261, 262
fluidity, 55, 172, 173–84, 185 intertextuality, 9, 12–13, 111, 124, 143,
identity, 173, 177, 183–6 242, 246, 251, 259, 260, 263
parody, 177–9 Invisible Woman (Susan Storm), 2, 48,
performativity 97, 172, 173–4, 177, 82–4, 89, 149, 151, 198, 217
180–3; see also Butler, Judith Iron Man films, 7, 26, 29, 30, 47–58, 59,
roles, 10, 44, 45, 55, 58, 74, 86, 88, 94, 66, 85, 89–90, 93, 101, 206
96 101, 121, 131, 134, 174, 179, 180, Iron Man (Tony Stark), 48–58, 67, 89, 93,
198, 206, 207, 229 101, 207
genre, 8, 9, 14, 17–18, 19, 27, 44, 63, 68, ironic sexism, 89, 182 ; see also
72, 119, 126, 130, 150, 168, 171, 217, postfeminist: irony
225, 245–6, 256, 263; see also action: Islamophobia, 1, 170
cinema; science fiction
Gill, Rosalind, 6, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 47, 70, Jackman, Hugh, 130
108, 118 Japanese culture, 226–30; see also shōjo
Jenson, Karen, 217–21 memory, 102, 110–11, 115, 117, 205; see
Jones, Jessica, 14, 80, 261 also flashback
Jungle Action, 244; see also Black Panther metrosexual, 76
(T’Challa) militarism, 104, 109, 110–18, 125, 134,
189, 203, 234, 235
Keen, Dafne, 128–9 Millett, Kate, 45
Kirby, Jack, 9, 243, 244, 245 mise en scène, 5, 39, 84
kissing, 38, 40, 41, 53, 80, 148, 152, 154, misogyny, 30, 76, 87, 100, 106, 169, 234,
158, 159, 179, 181, 202 245, 262
monarchy, 167–8, 234, 239, 245, 248, 249,
Lawrence, Jennifer, 177, 182, 235 257, 258
Led Zeppelin, 240 motherhood, 23, 101, 120–1, 123, 125,
Lee, Stan, 9, 16, 243 126, 129, 150
legacy characters, 114, 120, 123–4, 132, Ms. magazine, 25
133, 140, 142–3 Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), 1–2, 10, 103,
lesbian, 27, 174–5, 158 231, 262
LGBTQ Rights, 24, 198, 208, 214 multiculturalism, see postracialism
liberal politics, 24, 164, 168 Mulvey, Laura, 17–18, 33, 37, 43, 69, 73
Logan, 120–1, 123–44, 263 muscles, 69, 155, 180
luminosity, 48, 108, 113, 115, 116, 117; musculinity, 72, 80; see also Tasker,
see also McRobbie, Angela Yvonne
Muslim, 1, 2
McRobbie, Angela, 5, 21–2, 24, 48, 96–7, mutant metaphor, 87, 125, 127, 175, 177,
109–10, 181, 212, 227 214, 222, 231, 243, 244
MacTaggert, Moira, 87 Mystique, 2, 101, 171–84, 185, 192, 208,
‘mammy’, see racial stereotypes 224, 230, 235
Madrid, Mike, 10, 68, 71, 88, 149, 151,
216 nakedness, 35, 57, 89, 95, 136, 178–9, 182,
male gaze, 18, 59, 88; see also Mulvey, 204
Laura Nakia, 242, 251–2, 254, 257
marginalisation, 24, 76, 86, 104, 127, 164, Natchios, Elektra, 2, 76–80, 84–5, 86, 90,
233, 243, 244 92, 105, 120–3, 126, 129, 132–3, 143,
Mariko, 226–7 157–8
marketing, 17, 63, 102, 111, 118 Nazis, 165, 170, 202
marriage, 32, 83, 195, 198–9, 205–6, 227; Nebula, 171–3, 184–92, 235
see also heteronormativity Negra, Diane, 22, 24, 25, 26, 52, 53, 74–5,
martial arts, 77, 89, 218, 228 86, 198
Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), 7, 14, neoconservatism, 24
17, 27, 91, 103, 105, 107, 161, 173, neoliberalism, 22–3, 24, 25, 52, 96, 105,
184, 191, 235, 236, 237, 258, 262 108, 118, 126, 128, 129, 167, 175,
Mar-Vell, 103, 105, 107, 110, 111, 115, 213–14, 233–4, 247, 257, 261,
116 262
masculinity 10, 16, 24, 27, 42, 52, 69, 73, Netflix, 14, 27, 35, 80, 218, 261
74, 81, 94, 95, 96, 104, 111, 112, 118, Nine Inch Nails, 110
129, 130, 131, 155, 179, 180, 186, 193, Nirvana, 110
208, 216, 222, 226, 242, 245, 252 Noddings, Nel, 146–7, 149–50, 160
ageing, 124, 127, 130–1 Norse mythology, 161, 163–4, 166, 236,
black, 242, 245 240, 248
in crisis, 186 nostalgia, 21, 45, 110, 207
white, 10, 129, 130, 188, 216, 222, 226
and women, 74, 94–6, 111, 112, 179–80 O’Day, Marc, 73–4, 76
Me Too, 3, 6, 23, objectification, 22, 24, 69–71
‘melting pot’ myth, 225, 252 Okoye, 250–2, 254
inde x 311
Orientalism, 211–2, 216, 218, 223, 226, quality discourses, 11–12, 14, 31, 77, 80,
227, 228, 235, 248 261–2, 263
origin story, 35, 37, 49, 117, 204 queer, 4, 20, 23, 27, 71, 81, 118, 167, 171,
otherness, 146, 166, 185, 211, 214, 217, 174, 177, 179, 181, 183, 184, 191,
225, 231, 235, 253 192, 193–6, 206, 207, 208, 238, 250,
259
paedophilia, 136–7 family, 118, 191
Paltrow, Gwyneth, 26, 66–7 readings, 27, 81, 118, 171, 179, 206,
pansexuality, 208, 209; see also bisexuality 208–9
patriarchal, 4, 18, 20, 26, 45, 52, 68, 69, 71, theory, 4, 193–6, 207
73, 77, 80, 91, 96–7, 102, 105, 109, women, 20, 23, 71, 167, 174, 207, 238,
110, 117, 118, 135, 145, 146, 155, 164, 250, 259
167, 168, 169, 181, 185, 186, 192, 196, see also Mystique
205, 209, 214, 235, 241, 245, 250, 252,
254, 257, 258, 259 racial difference, 211, 213, 215, 216, 230,
penetration, 84 238, 239; see also postracialism
phallic, 72, 84 racial stereotypes, 222, 224
point of view, 37, 40, 41, 51, 59, 111, 121, racism, 1, 71, 106, 163, 212, 214, 215, 233,
140, 175, 197, 237 234, 237, 243
political incorrectness, 21, 75, 233–4 Rambeau, Maria, 111–6, 118
popular rape, 24, 30, 31, 33–4, 105, 219–22
culture, 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 14, 21, 30, 33, 47, reception, 1, 5, 12, 80, 102, 262
114, 118, 119, 123, 186, 187, 228, 229, refugees, 105, 230–1, 240–1
241, 253, 262 revenge, 14, 32–4, 35, 44, 151, 189, 199;
feminisms, 25, 91, 94, 102, 104, 106, see also women in refrigerators
108, 245, 259, 262 revisionism, 8–9, 103–4, 114, 123, 142–3,
psychology, 197 260, 262, 263
post-9/11, 36, 127, 228 Ripley, Ellen, 71–2, 74, 88, 121
postfeminist Riviere, Joan, 94–6, 100, 110; see also
authenticity, 23, 108, 112, 117, 120, postfeminist: masquerade
123, 218 Rogue (Marie), 80–2, 136, 152
choice, 22–4, 41, 47, 54, 65–6, 81, 90, Romijn, Rebecca, 176, 181, 235
96, 117, 151 romance, 16, 17, 63, 193, 195, 199–200,
culture, 6, 19, 21–6, 29, 45, 48, 54, 202, 206, 217, 229
66–7, 68, 70–1, 73–5, 85–8, 94, 96,
108, 119–120, 123, 145, 149, 181, 184, sacrifice, 43, 82, 101, 127, 131, 151, 221
186, 192, 203, 207, 210, 211–13, 224, Said, Edward, 211; see also Orientalism
231, 252, 260, 261 Saldaña, Zoë, 217, 225, 235
irony, 68, 89–90, 93, 98, 181–2 Schatz, Thomas, 16–17, 32, 145
masquerade, 93–118, 177, 180, 181, science fiction, 17, 48, 120, 171, 186, 192,
261 236, 237, 242, 245–247, 249, 255;
posthumanism, 171–3, 177, 179, 182, see also Afrofuturism
184–92, 259 scopophilia, 18, 73; see also Mulvey,
postmodernism, 96, 237, 238, 246 Laura
postracialism, 129, 143, 212–17, 224, self-confidence, 23, 106, 108, 118, 223
227–8, 231–2, 233–5, 237–8, 241, self-reflexivity, 61, 115, 127, 130, 131
254, 260 sex workers, 133, 156, 159, 218
Potts, Pepper, 2, 47–59, 67, 89, 206 sexual difference, 22, 73, 96, 134, 148,
Psylocke (Betsy Braddock), 215–16, 232 215
Punisher films, 6, 35–6, 40, 45, 113, 210, sexualisation, 6, 32, 24, 68–71, 74, 80,
225, 259 86, 88, 133–4, 136, 148–9, 156,
Punisher (Frank Castle), 6, 34–6, 40, 43, 169, 177, 179, 211, 223–4; see also
45, 77, 113, 225, 259 objectification
sexuality, 2, 3, 4, 14, 17, 18, 24, 26, 27, 46, Trump, Donald, 1, 7, 25, 103, 106, 108,
74, 75, 88, 106, 107, 136, 147, 148, 120, 127–8, 145, 161, 163, 164, 165,
149, 151, 154, 156, 159, 168, 169, 166, 167, 168, 211, 233–4, 238, 239,
173–6, 179, 183–4, 193–209, 213, 241, 245, 262
214, 219, 221, 223, 224, 225, 226, 259, Twilight, 20, 63, 119
260, 262, 263 Typhoid, 152, 157–9, 162, 168
shōjo, 228–9
Shuri, 247, 251–7, 258 US Air Force, 103, 105, 110–13, 116,
Silverfox, Kayla, 44, 78, 216–17 117–18
Simone, Gail, 30, 32; see also women in
refrigerators Valkyrie, 164, 168, 208, 236–41, 259
slavery, 125, 235, 236, 237, 238, 242, 243, vampires, 75–6, 85–6, 93, 217–21; see also
248, 255 Blade
soap opera, 8, 17, 205–6 victimisation, 29, 32, 33, 36, 39, 43, 44, 45,
Spider-Man films (Sam Raimi), 27, 29–30, 51, 62–3, 66, 98–100, 106, 118, 126,
31, 36–43, 51, 55, 56, 59, 60, 63, 65 135, 169, 195, 219, 220, 221, 255, 260
Spider-Man (Miles Morales), 231–2 villainesses, see femininity: monstrous
Spider-Man (Peter Parker), 2, 11, 27, 29, violence, 6, 15–16, 23, 30, 70, 79, 84, 98,
30, 31–2, 35, 36–43, 47, 51, 52, 55, 118, 125–7, 133–42, 162, 209, 219,
56, 58–67, 82, 91, 92, 199, 204–6, 221, 238
231–2 Viper, 158–61, 162, 168, 227
Stacy, Gwen, 2, 31–2, 34, 36, 38, 41–2, 43, virgin/whore dichotomy, 147
47–8, 58–67, 91; see also women in visual effects, 108, 115, 187
refrigerators vulnerability, 35, 38, 43, 50, 57, 93, 133,
Stam, Robert, 11–12 150, 182, 227, 239
Stone, Emma, 67
Storm (Ororo Munroe), 222–223, 224, Wakanda, 234, 235, 241, 243, 244, 247,
230, 231, 234, 245 248, 249–53, 254, 255, 256, 257–8
superhero genre conventions, 3, 17, 30, 44, Watchmen, 31, 69
68, 90, 80, 81, 93, 104, 108, 171, 185, Watson, Mary Jane, 36–43, 51, 52, 56, 59,
209, 263 60, 65, 199, 205
superpowers, 2, 10, 31, 37, 39, 40, 44, 58, westerns, 124, 130, 138, 139
60, 61, 65, 68–9, 73, 77, 78, 80–4, white supremacy, 145, 161, 163–8, 221,
87–9, 97, 105, 106, 108, 116, 121–2, 227, 233, 236, 238, 241, 248, 252
123, 131, 137, 139, 140, 148–9, whiteness, 23, 24, 25, 46, 66, 68, 73, 76,
151–3, 155–6, 157–9, 160, 161, 162, 88, 91, 109, 113, 121, 124, 129, 130,
163, 168, 174, 175, 176, 178, 182–3, 155, 172, 175, 181, 185, 188, 203,
189, 190, 192, 204–5, 208, 222, 223, 210–12, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218,
230, 235, 256 220, 222–7, 228, 230, 232, 234, 235,
240, 244, 245, 252–3, 256, 259, 262,
Tasker, Yvonne, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26, 33, 263
72, 74, 111, 112, 180, 222 witches, see femininity: monstrous
teenage girl subjectivity, 1, 70, 78, 93, 119, wokeness, 241, 259
120–6, 133–6, 229 Wolverine, The (film), 158–61, 210,
television, 9, 11, 14–15, 77, 261–2 226–30, 231
temporality, 8, 48, 104, 191, 203 Wolverine (Logan), 44, 78, 80, 81, 82, 114,
Thanos, 184, 187, 189–90, 191, 235 120, 121, 123–43, 154, 155, 159, 160,
Wasp (Hope van Dyne), 91 178, 179, 216, 217, 226–7, 228, 230,
Thor, 161–8, 199–200, 236–41, 248 263
Thor: Ragnarok, 115, 145, 161–8, 208, 211, women
233, 236–41, 245–6, 248, 258, 259 of colour, 20, 23, 24, 71, 125, 167,
transmedia, 10–11, 14, 17, 19, 32, 130, 262 210–32, 260
trauma, 31, 38, 55, 122, 124, 243, 245 and evil, see femininity: monstrous
inde x 313
filmmakers, 3, 16, 103 131, 132, 133, 134, 137–8, 140, 141,
in refrigerators, 29–46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 143, 151, 152, 153, 154–6, 177–8,
56, 63–6, 81, 98, 125, 195, 203–4 222, 223
working, 22–3, 51–4, 91, 103, 131, 261 X-Men films, 5, 27, 44, 73, 78, 80–2, 87,
Wonder Woman, 25, 27, 102, 215, 234, 123, 125, 127, 132, 150–6, 171, 173,
241 175–84, 192, 210, 216–7, 222–4,
230–1, 262; see also mutant metaphor
X-23 (Laura), 78, 119–20, 121, 123–43
Xavier, Charles, 81, 82, 126, 127, 128, 129, Yukio, 159–60, 226–30

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WOMEN IN

© Miriam Kent, 2021

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

Typeset in Monotype Ehrhardt by

ISBN 978 1 4744 4882 6 (hardback)

List of Figures xxx

Introducing . . . The Mighty Women of Marvel! 1

Disease, Toxicity and Poison in Marvel’s Evil Women 156

7.2 Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in X-­Men: Days of Future

Marvel’s Kamala Khan, the teenage Pakistani-­American Muslim super-

superpowers but by the fact that she, as a Muslim, a Pakistani-­American, a

positioning of women in superhero films, which in many ways draw from

­ iscussions around gender equality in society more widely (O’Driscoll

symptomatic of broader cultural issues around gender equality. Hence,

by approaches that allow the connections between film and culture to

These limitations include the privileging of exclusive (white, respect-

years that can be situated within postfeminist modes of representation

project have been text-­based works examining the ideological constructs

2007: 5). Perhaps unexpectedly, the outcome of superhero revision is not

scholarly studies, it is worth drawing the focus specifically to Marvel,

Indeed, much of Madrid’s discussion centres on the idea of feminine

The overarching view behind these statements resonates with my own as

are emblematic of what Henry Jenkins once characterised as ‘convergence

from fidelity arguments. He notes that ­highlighting ­intertextuality is a

characterisation of both (literary) source text and film adaptation as ‘sites

Another important facet of representations of superheroines in the

When combined with the associations of television with femininity (and

the purposes of this book, a detailed examination of television is not war-

The (Super)Power of Feminist Film Studies

These rules largely involve encouraging studios to produce works that

and Narrative Cinema’, originally published in 1975 (Mulvey 2004),

and LGBTQ perspectives, so did theorists’ interests. As such, genre-­

to fruition as the box office has remained decidedly male-­dominated. As

Still, profits made by recent films and franchises centring on women

We’re In This Together Now:

Thus, postfeminist culture promotes a sentiment in which feminism is

postfeminism (and the femininities it celebrates) is positioned as a mark-

As noted, postfeminist culture is positioned as a contemporary phe-

postfeminist culture emphasizes educational and professional opportunities for

Women’s ‘choices’ then become divorced from political implications that

i­ndividual is part of a more insidious process whereby the social con-

continues to shift with regards to its projection of empowered feminini-

work to be done. Since I only consider representations of women in

‘You Have a Knack for Saving My

cally compelling and illuminate the complicated gender dynamics inform-

Damsels in Distress and Women in Refrigerators

Here, Stacy’s death propels Spider-­Man’s narrative, causing him to

women’s development of character (disguised as a compliment) prompted

This notion of significant passivity on the part of women in action films

audiences the satisfaction of witnessing payback exacted on morally rep-

Thus, he claims, there is a cultural need­– ­implied to be universal­– ­to

Women in Refrigerators in Marvel Film Adaptations

of themes of marginalised masculinity and loss of faith in a defective

Watson becomes infatuated with Spider-­Man after he rescues her from

to reveal a car smashing through the window behind him, demonstrating

Figure 1.3 Mary Jane Watson falls in Spider-Man.

Figure 1.4 Gwen Stacy falls in Spider-Man 3.

associating his bad attitude with his transgression of gender boundaries,

Some Marvel films make attempts at self-­awareness when carrying out

The superhero girlfriend often encompasses active passivity in relation

Pepper Potts and Gwen Stacy:

situation. It is not, as representations of superhero girlfriends discussed in

In Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau, 2010) Potts’s narrative is mainly local-

a working woman differs from many contemporary representations of

7.2 Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future

Marvel’s Kamala Khan, the teenage Pakistani-American Muslim super-

superpowers but by the fact that she, as a Muslim, a Pakistani-American, a

iscussions around gender equality in society more widely (O’Driscoll

project have been text-based works examining the ideological constructs

from fidelity arguments. He notes that highlighting intertextuality is a

and LGBTQ perspectives, so did theorists’ interests. As such, genre-

to fruition as the box office has remained decidedly male-dominated. As

individual is part of a more insidious process whereby the social con-

Here, Stacy’s death propels Spider-Man’s narrative, causing him to

Thus, he claims, there is a cultural need– implied to be universal– to

Watson becomes infatuated with Spider-Man after he rescues her from

Some Marvel films make attempts at self-awareness when carrying out

receiving the armour followed by a close-up of his face looking directly

is then shown speechless in close-up. Potts then forcefully removes her

He laughs in close-up, ‘You’re here as my, um ...’ It cuts to a close-up

Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield similarly claimed that it ‘would have

within texts heavily associated with masculinity – these debates indicate

(Wesley Snipes)– features a sassy female vampire hunter named Abby

of music in her fighting/fitness regime thus reaches to the commodifica-

within a consumerist-capitalist system, ultimately reinstating the patriar-

by the Kree, merging her blood with Yon-Rogg’s in a physical exchanging

of Danvers in the Kree-Skrull conflict through her proximity to Mar-

Larson as Danvers posing heroically while in uniform, meeting with real-

All-New, All-Different: The Legacy of Wolverine in Logan

mother-daughter relationships are complexly negotiated in Elektra, it

well as its depiction of violence. While drawing on visceral geri-action

What follows is a fast-paced action sequence with Laura at the heart of