Let's Represent!

Recently I took the kids I nanny to a local amusement park for the day because the Avengers were going to be making an appearance. My 5 year-old boy is super hero obsessed so of course this was a mandatory stop. When 2PM finally rolled around and we’d waited in line to see them you could see tiny little pieces of all the little girls around me die. Even my 9 year-old who couldn’t possibly care less about the Avengers shrank back. Three well costumed men walked up onto the stage. Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man were all properly represented and the crowd cheered, cameras flashed. I was tugged down to Tyler’s height. 
“Sarah, where’s Black Widow?” he asked frantically.

“She couldn't make it today. She and Hawkeye had important work to do. Its not easy to protect the whole world all the time. And Hulk doesn't like crowds and roller coasters.” I lied. 
I heard my words repeated by other parents around me at a greater loss for words than I was. One little girl broke down in tears and despite having already waited a hour to see the Avengers refused to go in and meet them. She wanted to meet Black Widow.  Tyler stepped up to her and patted her back telling the girl that their beloved Nat was off being a better hero. She’s one of his favourites, and despite some judging of adults we've spent many a day with him adamantly telling everyone he meets that today he’s Black Widow.

I left the stage area annoyed that afternoon. There is no shortage of cosplayers. There is no shortage of pretty girls, and let’s be honest, they wouldn't have to look just like Scarlett to pull off the role. Every little boy and girl in line bought these men as the real deal despite the drastically different facial features from their character’s MCU actors.  When I complained to a male friend a few nights later he said; “Don’t bitch so much. At least Marvel is giving women a bone that’s better than DC does most the time.” At first I agreed. I can’t complain. There are rumours that we’ll get a solo Black Widow movie in a few years. We've got this Agent Carter TV show coming up. The comics represent so many different shades and shapes of women in decent roles. They have them all across the board. What am I complaining about?

Oh yeah! I remember! I’m complaining because little girls are crying over not seeing their hero on display. I’m bitching because if I want to represent my fandom on a t-shirt without a slogan making it sound like I’m just in it because I want in Cap’s pants I go to the Men’s Department. T-shirts are cheaper over there too. I’m complaining because there aren’t any fat women publicized as superheroes or even villains. I’m complaining because I can’t think of a single non-white female comic book character other than Storm off the top of my head. It takes a fair amount of thought.

The same friend countered this thought with “You want something realistic in your super heroes?” Like some how stating that these are works of fiction should stop me and every other girl from searching the screen and page for themselves. No such comments are made when someone compares their friends to the Golden Trio. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are wizards - your friends can be nothing like them. No such comments are made when someone says they want a love like Romeo and Juliet’s and let’s be real here, those two had some serious issues and I’m not even sure it could be called love. But the very second I say I want to see females in super suits on my t-shirts, in my toy department, on my television screen, I’m being unreasonable that stuff is just fiction.

Every September when I walk into my local comic book convention I go with a Rogue costume. My friends tease me because she has to get old to me at some point. But she never does because she reminds me of me. When I look at her, when I listen to her, I see and hear me. So if I touch you I won’t sap your life force or take your powers. But I do feel like if I get close to you I’ll damage you. If I let you close enough I’ll slowly kill you. I’ll put out your flame. I feel that way because I live in a whirlwind of dramas, because in school my friends were bullied for being my friend, because sometimes I need to cling desperately to another human being in order to survive but can’t show that weakness. Rogue has similar issues there. She has friends, she builds herself a family, she loves people. Still she can’t let them too close or they will get hurt, or worse. When I put on my wig and gloves I feel her strength. Yeah, she’s broken down. Yeah, she’s touched people and hurt those she loves. But somehow, some way, there’s this endgame for her with Gambit and two kids. So she finds a way around herself and is happy someday. Until she finds that though she’s standing up on her own two feet, she’s getting out of bed every day and she’s doing her best.

I know without question or doubt that had I wandered into Marvel and not found Rogue I’d have continued to dismiss super heroes as stupid men in capes and tights prancing around saving women who should really just pull themselves together and handle their own mess. I know that had I not found Rogue I would have trudged through my teens convinced I was damaged beyond repair, useless, broken, and undeserving of anything.

So when I think of that little girl in line to see her Black Widow I worry. What if she gives up on super heroes? What if they would have been the thing that helped her understand the world around her? What if they were how she would have related? What if Black Widow was her door into her own inner superhero? What if she gives up on Black Widow? What if she buys the bullshit that girls can’t save the day? What if she buys that a girl is only a good as her eye liner? So one day she grows up thinking she’s nothing more than a prize for some boy, a trophy without thought or feelings worth consideration? Or worse yet, what if she doesn't grow up?

Maybe I’m over reacting. Maybe I’m putting way too much on the shoulders of one simple character. But I don’t think I am. In fact I know I’m not. If I was then women all over the world wouldn’t be having a fit because Wonder Woman isn’t getting a movie. They wouldn’t be in such full support of Agent Carter or Black Widow. They wouldn’t be watching Orange is the New Black and pointing at their screens screaming “THAT’S IT!!! THAT’S HOW IT FEELS! THAT’S WHAT IT’S LIKE! THAT’S ME!”  Women wouldn’t be fighting so damn hard all the time to be seen and heard. If we didn’t need a character, another person in view of the world, a little girl wouldn’t have been so heart broken she cried over one non-appearance. Thousands of teenagers wouldn’t be saving up their every dime for a cosplay and convention to represent the person who gives them strengthen.

Don’t be fooled. I’m not saying this all fall squarely on the shoulders of Marvel or even just the super hero industry. This falls on every human being in the first world. We’re sitting here with the power to change everything. We’re sitting here with the power to build people and instead we’re destroying children. We’re telling them they don’t matter by not showing them. My media should be a mirror of reality. Maybe its a fun-house mirror that contorts or obscures certain aspects of reality but it should still reflect it. It should never erase whole portions of society. If we all get up tomorrow morning and our bathroom mirrors no longer show our left arms we’re going to be concerned. Someone is going to find the guy in charge of manufacturing mirrors and demand answers. There will be bloodshed. So why is it our media can not reflect a people and we don’t bat an eye?

This isn’t just a women thing. This occurs to other genders, sexualities, belief systems, races, careers, and lifestyles. People are discarded because to represent them a little thought might have to be done. Someone might actually have to do some homework on a brand new subject matter. Someone one might have to throw some money and power in a new direction to people with different views. Heaven forbid that happen. I mean there has to be another way to tell the story of the white guy who saves the world from that evil guy in the minority then bangs the hot chick.

Right now I can’t offer you guys a lot of options in repairing this. I’m one girl who has procrastinated too late and really needs to get a shower and get to bed. My brain is too fried to offer you much. But do you remember Pay It Forward? Not just the sad movie but the concept behind it?  You do X number of good deeds and then those affected do X number of good deeds and it ripples out until your offering kind words to this person or holding the door for the one that has changed the world. Changing the world is really that easy. I can already hear your eyes rolling. See that one girl crying irked me enough to write this. Now a dozen or so people are going to read it. You dozen, here’s your task: bend your cosplays, write new inclusive stories, look around you and encourage the next generation to represent their people. If one of the dozen of you happens to have a costume of a popular female character, wear it! Go to the appropriate events and wear it. Pose with the people inspired by that character. Rock it.  Really guys, look at yourself and find those things about you that you don’t see in pop culture and go set the groundwork so your kids see those things. Rome may not have been built in a day, but if everyone just sat around waiting on it to magically spring up it never would have been built at all, then where would we be?