Did the Women of Avengers: Endgame's Deserve More?
Women deserved more in Avengers: Endgame https://t.co/DiuNd5Vn4w pic.twitter.com/tnHpD7xhq5
- io9 (@io9) May 3, 2019
Source brings up some points about how many powerful heroines of the film weren’t quite on par with the male heroes. They also discuss the treatment of the women in the film.
Some description of scenes after the cut, spoilers obviously.
Again...spoilers for the film below.
-References Captain Marvel returning from her hiatus to join the battle in the climax of the film to collect the Infinity Gauntlet from Peter Parker. Peter of course asks how she’ll get through the entire army to deliver the gauntlet to where it needs to be. Then there is a big hero shot of most of the women in the film which was praised by some. Source claims this felt more like a "diversity cookie than lifting up a group of characters who almost always take a back seat in both the film’s narrative and its marketing" and the women have very little to do in the battle and Thor, Cap and Tony get most of the hero shine. Also calls out that the only original female Avenger isnt even in the battle cause you know she died earlier in the film. This leads to the next point.
-Black Widow's death. Source calls out the death and the reasons. After being sidelined for most of Infinity War, she has a bit more to do in the sequel only to prop up the team. Source references an interview with the New York Times with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely who make it abundantly clear that Natasha really wanted to die because she wanted to see all her Avenger guys happy and alive.
“Her journey, in our minds, had come to an end if she could get the Avengers back,” McFeely said.
“It was melodramatic to have him [Hawkeye] die and not get his family back. And it is only right and proper that she’s done,” Markus added when the NYT broached the subject of the Vormir death race.
Hawkeye essentially deserves to live because he has a family. Natasha, a single sterile woman, deserved to die. Natasha existed in the film to prop up the men. This entire issue gets more messy because Clint returns to the present alone and the only two characters who don’t make it out of the past are also the only two female members of the team.
-Source also tackles the Captain Marvel issue some had. While acknowledging she isn't a founding Avenger and has more story to tell, the film doesn't play well for Carol. Instead of becoming a powerful member of the group through the events of the film, she is gone for most of the film and then she is placed in the role similar to Black Widow’s in Age of Ultron: Ferrying shit.
She ferries Tony from space to Earth, ferries Thanos across a cabin so Thor can decapitate him, and then disappears for two-plus hours only to show up and ferry a glove across a battlefield. “[T]hat’s not the story we’re trying to tell-it’s the original Avengers dealing with loss and coming to a conclusion, and she’s the new, fresh blood,” McFeely said.
-Makes the point that most of the women in the film felt like cameo's and fan service. Okoye, Valkyrie and Pepper were mostly glorified cameo's throughout the film.
Thoughts?
Source