this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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One Woman in the Justice League

Just one woman, maybe two, in a team or group of men.

Also watch Jimmy Kimmel's "Muscle Man' superhero skit - "I'm the girly one"

The Avengers:

In Marvel Comics:

"Labeled "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," the original Avengers consisted of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor and the Wasp. Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in The Avengers issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him."

5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.

Modern films (MCU):

The original 6 Avengers were Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow.

Again, 5 / 6 original members are male. Only one is female.

Justice League

In DC comics:

"The Justice League originally consisted of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman"

6 / 7 original members are male. Only one is female.

In modern films (DCEU):

The members were/are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (+ introducing Martian Manhunter (in Zack Snyder's Justice League director's cut))

5 / 6 main members in both versions of the Justice League film are male, with appearances by a 7th member in the director's cut who is also male. Only one member is female.

The Umbrella Academy (comics and show)

7 members:

  1. Luther (Number One / Spaceboy)
  2. Diego (Number Two / The Kraken)
  3. Allison (Number Three / The Rumor)
  4. Klaus (Number Four / The Séance)
  5. Five (Number Five / The Boy)
  6. Ben (Number Six / The Horror)
  7. Vanya (Number Seven / The White Violin) Later becomes known as Viktor and nonbinary in the television adaptation after Elliot Page's transition but that's not really relevant to this.

Here, 5 / 7 original members are male. Only two are female. Only slightly better than the other more famous superhero teams, and they had to add another member (compared to Avengers' 6 members) to improve the ratio (maybe executives still demanded to have 5 males).

Now let's look at some sitcoms and other stories.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:

4 males, and 1 female slightly less prominent character who is abused constantly. The show claims to be politically aware and satirical but gets away with a lot of misogynistic comedy, tbh, that I'm willing to bet a lot of people are finding funny for the wrong reasons.

Community:

Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Pierce, Shirley. This one is a little better, 3/7 are female. Notice it's always more males though, they never let it become more than 50% female, or else then it's a "chick flick" or a "female team up" or "gender flipped" story. And of course the main character, and the leading few characters, are almost always male or mostly male.

Stranger Things:

Main original group of kids consisted of: Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and El (Eleven). 1 original female member, who is comparable to an alien and even plays the role of E.T. in direct homage. When they added Max, I saw people complaining that although they liked her, there should be only one female member. 🤦

Why is it 'iconic' to have only one female in a group of males? Does that just mean it's the tradition, the way it's always been? Can't we change that? Is it so that all the men can have a chance with the one girl, or so the males can always dominate the discussion with their use of force and manliness? Or so that whenever the team saves the day, it's mostly a bunch of men doing it, but with 'a little help' from a female/a few females (at most), too!

It's so fucked up and disgusting to me I've realised. And men don't seem to care. I'm a male and this is really disturbing to me now that I've woken up to it. How do women feel about this? Am I overreacting?

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[–] Hyphlosion@lemm.ee -1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

First, you’re generalizing males. It comes off as you asking this question rhetorically and in bad faith.

Second, you do realize that movies are for entertainment purposes, right? How many non-activists do you know who watch movies with the mindset of caring which gender is dominating in lead roles or whatever?

I’m a male and I prefer to keep politics out of my escapism, thank you very much.

I could say there are plenty of movies I enjoy that have female lead roles. I could say that there are also movies with female lead roles that I didn’t enjoy. But in the end, would you even care? It’s clear with your post that you’re not really asking anything and just wanted to make a political rant.

Edit: It was fun watching the doots on my comment go up and down throughout the day before finally settling in the negatives. Internet whiplash let’s go. Didn’t realize it would be so controversial. lol

[–] Digitalbird@lemm.ee 1 points 5 days ago

I have seen this kind of behavior only on the internet. Maybe I just know people who aren't stupid misogynist or then people are hiding their opinions in real life because they know that what they are thinking is wrong. There should absolutely be more females on major roles in movies, series and videogames.

[–] bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net 1 points 5 days ago

I think most people's issue is with the Steven Seagal, but a lady, protagonists like Rey from Star Wars, where they are just expressions of what is basically a male power fantasy, but female, which virtually nobody actually wants. There's a fairly limited audience for even the original Seagal male version. While there DO exist better, Die Hard-style the protagonist gets their ass kicked female properties from this century, like Jessica Jones season 1, nobody wants to see a lady getting her ass kicked to the same degree as a man, so I can't think of another example after that, despite innumerable ill-conceived girlboss-powered action movies like G20. Nobody would try to do Hallmark movies for dudes, doing male power fantasy action for ladies is equally ill-conceived, as shown by box office numbers, and a still 70% or more male audience.

[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

To add to this, the "default" for a three-character ensemble in circa 90s kids media was: one (white) boy, one (white) girl, one (non-white) boy, for a 1:2 gender/race and 2:1 "diversity" ratio, which made the media feel diverse (back then this was generally considered a good thing) while still making male and white the default. In other words, a win-win that still was a setback to true diversity. Examples: Wishbone TV show and Harry Potter (if you count ginger as non-white).

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[–] kugel7c@feddit.org 1 points 5 days ago

Idk I'd guess for a lot of people it's just pinning their dislike which might come from anywhere to a superficialy unfamiliar part of whatever media they are watching. The other reason is like, conservative patriarchal propaganda, trolling, bait whatever and just sorta falling into the crowd on any of these.

Also there is media written for women that likely doesn't have this problem, or at least not as much. But then again the normative position to sell to is a male one.

Now being male I never really see an issue with my media representation(because there is none at least from numbers), but also I generally complain about media not for it's cast of characters. If I complain it's usually, either because I just feel uncomfortable/bored with it for whatever reason, or because it comes of as disingenuous or lazy, both of which will get me to drop it.

Art by committee/ marketing aim doesn't feel right to me usually and casting female/progressive can sometimes happen for that reason. As in a part of the cast makeup is decided in order to bait a particular reaction to generate publicity, and conservatives being angry is still publicity.

In this case then the real issue of bad art is doubly masked by one one hand people complaining about woke cast, while on the other hand people consume slop they would've never known if not for baited conservatives complaining. While the production behind it laughs it's way to the bank.

I'm just one guy tho who hasn't really even seen all that much what do I know about art, content and the world.

[–] Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

I didn't complain about females whatsoever.

I complain about complainers.

[–] Floon@lemmy.ml -1 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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Why do men complain?

[–] ShareMySims@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

Patriarchy.

Privilege and with it an overinflated sense of entitlement, which result in the most fragile of egos (E: see downvote ration lmao).

That's at best.

At worst, and on top of the above, is conscious and deliberate misogyny and the unwillingness to give the privileges up.

This is the teeny-tiniest tip of the iceberg, but it sounds like you are willing to challenge your views and perceptions, so jump in, it (E: patriarchy, misogyny, feminism, intersectionality, and on and on..) is a terrifying, but also extremely well documented rabbit hole, just start looking..

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[–] caesaravgvstvs@feddit.org 0 points 5 days ago

Scene:

There's a huge monster attacking the city, it blasts a building and it's about to crash on a group of people. A female superhero flies in and starts rescuing people and placing them out of harms way. Quickly she gets to the incel who stops her with a hand gesture and says "I'm okay I'll wait for the male superhero"

[–] folaht@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 days ago

The core complaint is for femwashed stories, where the male lead has been replaced by a woman.

It's very similar to Hollywood movies taking movies from Japan or China and then turning the Asian lead to a Euro-American.

The level of hatred for this type of content is very strong as it feels like a farce or fraudelent, like someone is trying to sell you a fake designer brand item. Everything that made the item great is absent in the fake one.

On top of that, there's a clear fascist takeover in the US from the rainbow liberal, evangelical and social capitalists. Fascists have weird superiority and inferiority complexes including towards women. But don't worry, Chinese movies will become popular soon, so both sides of the US political aisle will have to adjust.

[–] AidsKitty@lemmy.world -2 points 5 days ago

Yes let's pretend men do this and then hurl insults at them all.

[–] rainrain@sh.itjust.works -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Because we want the story, not the gender stuff.

Sometimes gender makes no difference. But sometimes the author wants to make a point about gender. I have zero interest in points about gender.

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[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone -1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Men are not the only ones that watch movies...There are plenty of movies either female led or majority female but they are typically not very popular amongst women either and consequently don't make very much money

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