Caffeinated Clint
Okay, so a bunch of people who previously loved the strong female characters in Joss Whedon’s past works have taken to any platform that’ll give their lamby, basement-living mutant asses free reign to speak their mind about Whedon’s apparently new-obtained disdain for strong female characters. It’s all come about due to the male-heavy world of Whedon’s “Avengers” movie which, although they feature ass-kicking heroines like Black Widow and Scarlett Witch, apparently don’t feature enough leading women for these snivelers taste. It doesn’t matter that Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Kaylee the mechanic weren’t original constituents of the ‘Avengers’ comic books, they still wanted them in there – and, if possible, covered up so none of their cleavage could reveal the pasty-treats beneath.
‘So, why do you write these strong female characters? Because you’re still asking me that question.[Joss Whedon, Equality Now speech, May 15, 2006]’
If there’s anyone that’s ever flown the flag for the classy, take-no-prisoners woman on screen (small and big) it’s Whedon. From a strong-willed highschool girl with slaying abilities to a cute and charismatic spaceship mechanic (yep, a female mechanic!) and half of the IMF, Whedon’s always made sure to inject his works with as much power pussy as possible. If “Avengers : Age of Ultron” only had the one, lone female superhero (it actually had two – if you count Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlett Witch) in Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, it’s because she was pretty much the only character available for the film. That, or Whedon didn’t see any reason to kill-off those forgettable male characters like Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America just so She-Hulk, Spider-Woman , and Misty Knight could get their big movie moment. The Avengers, as we all know, are mostly a group of blokey heroes – and it makes sense that they would be, they were created by Stan Lee back when he was like 6 years old or something, and considering he’s now 297, that’s going back quite some time – – back to when males were the main heroes in comic books. The fact that Whedon has given Scarlett Witch, Maria Hill, Black Widow, and Mark Ruffalo such prominent parts in “Avengers : Age of Ultron” is actually Whedon acknowledging that times have changed. And if the addition of a couple of new female characters at the end of the film (granted, right at the end of the film) suggests anything it’s that the next installment of “Avengers” will include even more strong, kick-butt women.
What gets me about this is that these plump and pimply advocates for Centrelink remained silent throughout the last four “Transformers” movies – which featured the young, scantily-dressed young woman – and also had nothing to say when those two “300” movies – which had essentially one chick to 300 guys in them! – hit. And where were they when Steven Soderbergh made “Magic Mike”? That’s right, they were too busy playing hockey with a flesh puck to complain. Fact of the matter is, Whedon’s film is much more PC, and more a love letter to the woman than most of these testosterone-fueled blockbusters. Okay, sure, if Paul Feig had been directing “Avengers”, it likely would’ve been a flat-out tampon commercial (“The Captain NEEDS a Tennille!”)… but nobody wants to see an angry Melissa McCarthy butt swipe a helicopter. But careful what you wish for, because that’s exactly what could happen if you keep up this nonsense, Petals. It’s enough that one studio believes the world now wants to see “Ghostbrasseries” instead of “Ghostbusters”. Don’t force these superhero movies to make up plucky female superheroes just so you’ll get off their backs. There’s enough camel toe in your local shopping mall.
Whedon didn’t help himself by going to town on a film himself – in this case, “Jurassic World”, which he criticized for being sexist. He might be correct, there seems to be only the one hot prop/female character in it (but I haven’t seen the flick so I’ll reserve judgement until then – but I do suspect at least a few of those dinosaurs are chicks), but he probably should’ve stayed zip about that. There’s nothing those on the internet love more than to get into heated arguments – hiding behind their computer screens, of course, makes it much easier – so Whedon’s comments was probably going to boomerang himself. But those that know Whedon also know he’s got a very dry, blunt sense of humour and him having a ‘crack’ at “Jurassic World” might simply have been a joke – and considering fellow Marvel buddy Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) is in “Jurassic”, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover it was.
After a barrage of hate tweets were thrown at him on Twitter, Joss Whedon seemed to have left the blue bird and went into hiding. But I don’t see him doing that – Joss is stronger than that, he’s likely to laugh at these clowns than anything else, and couldn’t much care less if someone wanted a romantic triangle between Nick Fury’s two ex-wives thrown into his latest movie. No, I think the only reason Whedon’s left Twitter is he caught a screening of “Avengers : Age of Ultron” over the weekend and realized, just as we did, that the third act really needs a lot of work – and he’s likely set off to get to work on that so it can rectified for the impending Blu-ray release.
