Joss Whedon 'Pissed' at Lack of Female Superheroes, Cites Mother and Childhood as Reasons for Strong Female Characters
Joss Whedon has, unsurpisingly, grown to lament the lack of female superhero movies.
In the 1990s, Whedon brought the strong female character to sci-fi in a new way with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a dynamic he has played on throughout his work in film and television, but something he wishes permeated the industry far more than it currently does.
What Whedon claims drives him to create such characters was a combination of a feminist mother, intolerance for the feeling of helplessness, and a genre that was lacking an integral piece.
"My mother was a very strong feminest," the write/director admitted to the Independent. "I had always sort of had this longing to see in particular a strong woman and particularly in the horror genre where they were just getting diced and sliced all over the place. I just thought, wouldn't it be wonderful if one of them just walks into an ally and kicks some monster's ass?"
One place female characters fail to breakthrough is in the superhero film sphere. Although he previously wrote a script for a Wonder Woman feature, it never made it's way to the big screen. However, it is something that Whedon believes should exist, partially for the sake of young girls looking for a character to look up to.
"My daughter watched The Avengers and was like, 'My favorite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill,' and I thought, Yeah, of course they were," Whedon told The Daily Beast. "I read a beautiful thing Junot Diaz wrote: 'If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.'"
Unfortunately, it appears to be a type of film that the industry believes will fail.
"Toymakers will tell you they won't sell enough, and movie people will point to the two terrible superheroine movies that were made and say, 'You see? It can't be done.'" Whedon said, according to The Daily Beast. "It's stupid, and I'm hoping The Hunger Games will lead to a paradigm shift. It's frustrating to me that I don't see anybody developing one of these movies."
Luckily for viewers, Whedon will get to formulate another strong, capable female in the form of the Scarlet Witch for The Avengers 2. Meanwhile, Hollywood will continue to stuggle to create the type of charcter that has come to define the sci-fi writer.
