John Marcotte

Secret identity of a father raising two super-heroic young girls

“Girls Can Sell Toys,” According to ‘Jessica Jones’ Krysten Ritter

Jessica Jones’ Krysten Ritter stopped by Late Night with Stephen Colbert this week. While he praised Jessica Jones as a trailblazer for being the first female superhero in  the Marvel Cinematic Universe, talk quickly turned to the general lack of female representation in the MCU — which Colbert labelled “a sausagefest.”

Colbert brought up the recent Iron Man 3 controversy as an example of this, which shocked Ritter who had not heard that Marvel Studios executives were making decisions based on the idea that female action figures would not sell.

“Girls can sell toys!” she exclaimed indignantly. Colbert followed up by asking if there was an action figures for the decidedly adult Jessica Jones.

“I don’t know if there is yet, but there should be; and I bet it would sell huge; and I’m going to make some phone calls after this,” said a laughing Ritter.

Children Demonstrate the Deep-Rooted Nature of Gender Bias

When I was a child, there was a riddle:

A father and a son are in a horrible accident. The father dies, and the son is rushed to the hospital. The surgeon rushes in, but suddenly stops, saying, “I can’t operate on this boy, he’s my son.” How is this possible?

30 years ago, this routinely stumped children, because they could not imagine a world where a woman was an accomplished surgeon. It served as both a parlour trick and a cultural marker the showed how far we still had to go in the quest for gender equality.

The premise of that riddle has been brilliantly updated by the MullenLowe Group, in the above video, an ad for Inspiring the Future, a nonprofit that connects people from the business world with public schools and universities. I was hoping that by now, gender barriers had fallen in the  minds of children.

Sadly, the new riddle seems to be, “Will we ever be able to protect our children from these damaging stereotypes?”

Cosplay We Love: Emma Rubini’s Tank Girl

Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett
Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett

Every now and then you find a great example of “next-level” cosplay. When we saw Emma Rubini’s rendition of Tank Girl, we were simply awestruck. From the spot-on costume and weapons to the superb job of cel shade animation, Emma looks like she stepped right of the page of one of Jamie Hewlett’s comics.

You can follow Emma on Instagram or Tumblr — and you should. Right now.

Have you ever done cosplay so good, people demanded proof you are an actual person and not a drawing?

Before and after.

Work in progress…

Weapons of choice

 

New Margot Robbie Harley Quinn Movie Enters Pre-Production

Batgirl #29 variant - Cliff Chiang
Batgirl #39 variant – Cliff Chiang

Months before Suicide Squad has even opened, Warner Bros. is so confident than Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn will be a breakout star, that they’ve given the actress a chance to reprise the role in an untitled project that she will also produce, according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter.

What is even more interesting is that the project will not be a Harley Quinn solo movie. Rather, it will focus on a number of DC’s female heroes and villains. Names being thrown around include Batgirl and the Birds of Prey.

Birds of Prey
Birds of Prey

Robbie is the driving force behind the movie, according to sources. She dove deep into DC comics lore to prepare for her role as Harley and fell in love with the female heroes and villains. She pitched the idea of a female-driven superhero film to Warner Bros. brass and got the go-ahead based on the strength of her performance in Suicide Squad.

Robbie has brought in an unnamed mystery writer who is currently penning the script, and she is reportedly very excited to bring more of DC’s deeps stable of female characters to the big screen.

CBS Passes on ‘Nancy Drew’ Pilot Because Show Was ‘Too Female’

Sarah Shahi
Sarah Shahi

CBS decided to pass on proposed cop drama Drew this week. That alone is not news. Only a fraction of the shows ordered to pilot make it to series. What is making headlines is the reason CBS executives gave for passing on the series. According to Deadline‘s Nellie Andreeva, the network actually passed on the show because they thought too many women would watch it.

Per the article:

I hear the pilot tested well but skewed too female for CBS’ schedule.

(our emphasis)

Wow.

Drew stars Person of Interest star Sarah Shahi as former famed teenage sleuth Nancy Drew — now in her 30s and working as a detective for the NYPD. She uses her uncanny skills of observation to solve crimes that baffle other detectives and navigates the complexities of modern life.

#toofemale t-shirt - courtesy of Women You Should Know
#toofemale t-shirt – courtesy of Women You Should Know

The series also stars Anthony Edwards, Felix Solis and Rob McClure. Producers are currently shopping the pilot to other networks who may not have such an aversion to girl cooties.

CBS also dropped the female-led Supergirl from its schedule last week, but that quickly found a home at sister network the CW.

As the news spread across the Internet, feminist website Women You Should Know quickly made a hilarious “#toofemale” t-shirt that you can order from Society 6.

If CBS doesn’t want women to watch their network, they should be very careful. It looks like they may get their wish.

 

Marvel Removed Female Villain from ‘Iron Man 3’ over Toy Sales

In a recent interview with Uproxx, The Nice Guys writer-director Shane Black dropped a quiet bombshell about his work on Iron Man 3.

All I’ll say is this, on the record: There was an early draft of Iron Man 3 where we had an inkling of a problem. Which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft. We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female.

What?

So, we had to change the entire script because of toy making. Now, that’s not Feige. That’s Marvel corporate, but now you don’t have that problem anymore.

Ike Perlmutter is gone.

Yeah, Ike’s gone. But New York called and said, “That’s money out of our bank.” In the earlier draft, the woman was essentially Killian – and they didn’t want a female Killian, they wanted a male Killian. I liked the idea, like Remington Steele, you think it’s the man but at the end, the woman has been running the whole show. They just said, “no way.”

Killian was Guy Pierce’s villain from the film. So the original plan was that he wasn’t the true villain. There was a woman actually pulling the strings behind the scenes. Looking back over the characters, it isn’t too hard to guess who that would have been. Rebecca Hall’s Maya Hansen was one of the developers of the Extremis technology but she made a strange and abrupt exit from the movie. Perhaps she was the original mastermind? Black seems to confirm this.

Stéphanie Szostak’s character was bigger at one point and we reduced it. Rebecca Hall’s character was bigger at one point and we reduced it.

Szostak played super-powered henchwoman Elle Brandt who made a fair impression with limited screen time. Evidently we were supposed to have more of her — a lot more.. So not only did we lose a female criminal mastermind, we also lost a kick ass female henchwoman.

Like Paul Dini’s experiences with Young Justice, this is yet another director confirming that major studios are interfering in the creative process and squashing female characters — not for legitimate story reasons — but because they believe girls will not buy toys. When you combine that with the toy industry’s reluctance to make superhero toys for girls, and you have a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Hopefully, Marvel Studios will do better now that Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter has been removed from the creative process. His views that “female heroes are a disaster” were well known in the industry.

The Ghostbusters Are Girls Now — But No One Told the Toys

Despite howls of protest from man-children across the Internet, the new Ghostbusters will hit screens this summer, and the first batch of toys are creeping on to  toy shelves. And while here are some great action figures and LEGO playsets, not all of the toys have caught on that the new Ghostbusters are for girls.

The new Ghostbusters Electronic Proton Pack released for the movie features a boy on the front of the box and the same boy on the back of the box.

Just to make sure we weren’t imagining things, we went back to the Ghostbusters trailer and checked out who was wielding the proton packs in the movie.

Ghostbusters - Yep, They're Women
The Ghostbusters – Yep, They’re Women

Another toy that has hit shelves is the Ghostbusters Sidearm Proton Blaster. Again, the photos on the front and the back show a boy playing with the blaster — not a girl.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with boys playing with these toys, but when they are toys based on a movie starring women, and the marketing completely excludes women and girls — it’s jarring.

The assumption seems to be that action-oriented toys are for boys and that boys will not buy them if they see a girl on the box. I wonder how those boys would feel about buying the “proton blaster” if they knew a woman licked it first?

Dr. Jillian Holtzmann boy-proofs her blaster.
Dr. Jillian Holtzmann boy-proofs her blaster.

Toy companies still have no faith that girls would want to engage in heroic role playing; and retail stores still have no idea where to put a toy for girls that is not coded purple or pink, or — heaven forbid — a toy that is supposed to appeal to both genders equally.

There is still work to do.

Oscar-Winner Lupita Nyong’o Is in Talks to Join “Black Panther”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years A Slave)  is in talks to join the upcoming Black Panther helmed and written by Creed director Ryan Coogler. Nyong’o would join Chadwick Boseman, who premiered the titular character in this summer’s Captain America: Civil War.

Nyong’o would reportedly play the love interest in the film. It’s unknown whether the love interest will be an established character from the comics or a new character developed for the film. While T’Challa has had different love interests, his most prominent partner is Storm from the X-Men, who was his wife for a significant period of time. That can’t happen in the MCU because 20th Century Fox still owns the film rights to the character. So N’yong’o’s possible role is a mystery.

Black Panther hits theaters on Feb. 2, 2018.