Last week we reported on some harsh comments made by Joss Whedon about the current state of superhero movies. The Avengers director called superhero flicks “intractably sexist” and, in a surprising statement, said Fox actually had the rights to all the best female superhero characters.
Thing is, while those statements were only published last week, they were made almost six months ago, before Marvel Studios announced their first female-led superhero movie, Captain Marvel, and it seems like Whedon might be rethinking his comments a bit…
“I sounded very harsh, and then Marvel announced, ‘We’re going to make Captain Marvel. We’re going to make Black Panther. We’re going to shake it up.’ I was just like, great! Now I just sound mean and bitter. But, you know, there’s a lot to be mean and bitter about.”
Whedon then talked a bit about his hand in Captain Marvel, and the effect the success of Guardians of the Galaxy might have had on Captain Marvel finally getting the green light…
“That’s something [Captain Marvel] that Kevin Feige has been working on for a while. And I obviously was a cheerleader, but he had to get all the ducks in a row and get all the minds in agreement. I think being a part of Disney maybe makes it easier, because they’re open to it. And Marvel now is in a position to shake up its own paradigm, because it’s got such a success record.
Honestly, you know, Guardians might have helped it, just because that was outside what was considered to be their box and did so well that. Let’s put it this way: If a raccoon can carry a movie, then they believe maybe even a woman can.”
And what about those Fox comments? Well, it still sounds like Whedon would really, really rather be making X-Men movies.
“The X-Men was the next evolution of the Marvel paradigm back when I was reading it. And, you know, because of the metaphor — they were dealing with these oppressed people, so there really wasn’t a gender bias in the books. As soon as Marvel Girl became Phoenix, the most powerful person in the universe, everything was on the table. It was all multicultural and there was no real question of gender in the book. Now, you can look at it and say, ‘Well, this attitude is dated.’ I’m sure that’s the case if I went back to them. But the fact is it was kind of a utopia. I didn’t know it at the time, because I just assumed that’s how things should be done.
I do remember very specifically my best friend and I trying to find a girl in the comic books to have a crush on because we were that desperately nerdy. We were like, well, there was that one girl in that one issue of Swamp Thing who seemed cool. Literally. We were fighting over the girl from the one issue of Swamp Thing for our pretend girlfriend. And then Kitty Pryde came along.”
Ultimately though, it seems like what Whedon truly wants is to get back to creating his own universes…
“I’ll say one other thing. I don’t want to sound like I’m just dissing on my tribe. The source material is great, but ultimately, we know we can only draw on the resonance of the stuff that we knew as kids for so long. It’s about whether or not they come to life in the movies. That’s still the storytelling thing. That’s why I’m excited to go and create something that isn’t based on resonance, because then, you have to earn it more.”
I’m sure an original Whedon superhero universe would be pretty incredible. Loosen those reigns, Marvel.
via Buzzfeed
