There doesn't need to be any resistance to these developments, guys.

Some of the absolute best characters in the superhero universe are women. There is nothing wrong with inclusion, so long as the writing remains strong.

I'll counter some of the incorrect intuition we've seen in this thread with some of my own: I'm guessing the dudes disputing this are often just old. If you're old, comics were run by men, written for boys, and largely monolithic.

If you're under the age of 40, however, you'll see that the growing female boon in comic and comics films sales have been growing like gangbusters over the last 20 years.

And, honestly, if any part of you like comic books and comic book culture, you will have women to thank going forward. Because women are the ones who will save the industry.

Interesting. That's a pretty solid study (though I'm sure some will disagree). I actually worked for NPD briefly when they bought out a market research firm I was at, and their methodology is sound.

Essentially, they have panels of consumers who have been recruited to help with the research (not completely unlike Nielsen does with TV), and they balance their panels against Census demographics. They then use the panel to conduct custom studies.

In this case, it looks like they went out to people who were known to be book purchasers, then kicked anyone out who wasn't a "graphic novel" purchaser, then created a profile of those who were.

All that said, it looks like buyers of SUPERHERO comics are heavily male (only 22% female), so the 37% female number is being driven somewhat by MANGA purchasers (44% female). That would help to explain a bit of the perception differences in this thread.

Who ever thought super heroes had to be male? What does being a super hero have to do with human gender?

Larson deserves a lot of credit. She's drummed up a lot of attention for herself and the movie now. It may not need it, but it can't hurt. She may not be a troll. She may not even know that she trolled. But she did, and quite well

Are you familiar with the term “audience surrogate”?

I may be missing something, but she’s advocating for diversity, right?

That’s trolling... how? We all want more diversity.

Or so I thought, anyway.

What made you think that?

A delusion, perhaps.

Inclusivity and diversity are generally American values.

How has nobody tied this guy to a fence and left him there yet?

No. She's whoring for attention. I can see how you confused the two

Exclusion and inclusion are both American values. Exclude as many for as long as you can do so, and then let everyone in so they'll think that it's something great even though it's been watered down, or wasn't that great to begin with

In your opinion, what’s the difference between that and drawing attention to a lack of diversity in her career field?

Alrighty.

How did your link come by their numbers? Care to answer that?

You can find some information at least how Nielsen(yeah, that really good marketing firm) actually did theirs. This is just from doing a quick search and I am guessing if anyone cared to dig in a little more that could find all the information.
https://icv2.com/articles/comics/vie...lapsed-readers

You don't just get to throw out numbers and say they are right. We have already been over this. I don't know how DeFace keeps falling for that bullshit.

Also it is grouping shit in together. You mentioned only comic books.

If she wants to work in a field with diversity she should do porn then

It's really hit and miss. I'm pretty hungover. Not still drunk, but I'll come to here in a few

Tapout accepted.

I'm sorry. I'm a dance, monkey, dance person. I don't want to hear the political or religious opinions of any actor, musician, or athlete that I agree with. So I probably don't want to hear some spoiled girl cry because she's paid millions of dollars to play make believe for a living either that I disagree with

That’s... not what she was doing.

She’s bemoaning the lack of diversity in her industry. That’s perfectly reasonable.

Why have you now twice misstated the point she was raising? This is getting weird.

Nothing.

In comix Marvel has female dominated stories for decades. Saying comics were sexist is just political garbage done for attention.

Now, have the movies been as open to female heroes as the comix? I'd say no. I think women have a point there. For whatever reason that equality you saw in the comix didn't translate to the big screen. That's a Hollywood problem - not a comix problem.

When actors start talking about diversity in good roles I'm with you. When they take that dumb ass step of blaming fans (who don't make films) for why you lose me...

That's a civil reply to BRC's ham handed attempt at virtue signaling.

He is at least predictable.

I apologize that you don't like my oversimplification. Lack of diversity. What does she mean by that? Not enough homosexuals? Not enough minorities? not enough women?

I say way too many elitists. Is she counting? Why does it matter? She's the one making it about identity. It's her problem, and not everyone else's. Give her what she wants so that she'll be quite, or put a dick in her mouth or a snatch if she's that way

Hey been a while since I had to put some dipshit on ignore.

Your sexist trolling aside, she clearly means not enough minorities or women. Clearly. She specifically mentioned race and gender.

That's a problem that affects more than Brie Larson; it affects more than half the people looking to get into her industry: people who are not white males.

You're simply upset that she's pointing it out, for whatever reason, but probably sexism.

Hate. Just general hate. Who cares? It's an elitist industry. It needs to have proper ratios now? She needs to take herself to her safe space and stay in there.

And the sexual references are due to her being hot. Like you wouldn't wanna see her filled out like an application. And with her bitching her appearance seems to be all that she has to offer

http://www.slashfilm.com/marvel-wome...ge-mcu-roster/

As long as they do it without making an issue of it and try and force it down our throats they will be fine. Of course the movies actually have to be good too. If they haven't learned from other movies mistakes they will **** themselves.

Every niche is mostly white dudes.

We live in a 66% white country. Comics have traditionally been more popular with men.

So any time you dislike something about anything, you can blame white men. How convenient for bigots.

Some white men recognize this pattern and speak out against the blatant demagoguery.

What monsters. How dare they defend themselves against unsubstantiated accusations and racial demagoguing!

Social justice activism, purity testing, and the non stop pushing of school marm lectures inside comics is killing the industry.

They'd have gone out of business already if the films weren't propping them up. Japanese comics sell more in america than our own comics because they don't have these political issues and gate keeping communities ****ing it up and trolling fans on twitter. The market is there, but social justice reeruns in the industry are handing their sales over to Japan while telling their own fans they don't want their bigoted business anyway.

It's ****ing amazing. It's just another thing the radical left infiltrated, destroyed, and then accused the customers of being bigots for not buying their trash.

So those bigots just buy things made by the japanese. Because bigotry and hatred of minorities and women and whatever excuse failures make to point the finger at others. Manga is KILLING Marvel and DC because their product sucks, not because 'white males r so biggited!" Oddly enough not many of those Manga feature white straight male protagonists. It's almost like the narrative is a lie.

Great post.

Rageaholic has a fantastic rant about the comic industry (I may have posted it in here at some point). Look it up and get a good chuckle out of it if you have the time.

Once again I'd like to point out it's a valid point in Hollywood. Hell, the biggest film producer in the world is just now being brought up on charges for every type of sexual misdeed in the book. I don't it's a stretch to say the ladies didn't get a fair shake in the film business.

The comix industry however is a different beast. It was taken over by radical wing-nuts who thought equal wasn't equal enough...

NSFW

Perfect example...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WjnI7W85kyU" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Marvel doesn't get the MCU money. Marvel comics are losing their ass. For years now. They don't sell 1/5th of what they did 10 years ago.

Marvel comics hasn't gone out of business because Disney owns them and they're pushing what Disney wants them to.

Women dont really have the obligation in society to entertain men unless its via selling sex.

I dont think Ive ever thought to myself..."man i need to see movie xyz because (enter actress name here) was starring in it." ROFL

Theres no such thing as a "funny" female comedian.

Some females are great singers in the music biz, but sex sells first in todays music industry before anything else, at least in mainstream radio pop culture.

I certainly give a flick more of a look when it's starring Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, or Natalie Portman. I'm not saying I'd go to every film they're in or anything, but that's not true of my favorite actors like Benedict Cumberbatch, Gary Oldman, or Tom Hanks either.

What?

Some seem to be under the impression that this can all be changed. Maybe, but not anytime if the near future

What?

Can you not ****ing read?

In light of all this information, I am just glad that Marvel comics weren't given the license to publish Mickey Mouse and other Disney comic lines. IDW isn't perfect but they are not pushing SJW storylines.

You seem nice.

It's like I said in another thread, the left pushes and pushes, but then they're surprised and bothered by the pushing back. The lessons, training, and schools can be very expensive. That's why it's an elitist industry. A nepotistic industry too. The change needs to be systematic. Posting concern on social media can help a little, but it'll never nearly be enough

This is so far from accurate I can only assume it's completely pulled out of your ass.

You can see here Marvel's total number of comics sold has generally fallen between 2 and 4 million since the industry recovered from the speculator crash in the late 90s. That's a fairly large variance, but nothing you could characterize as an 80% drop. Plus this isn't taking into account trades and digital, which are bigger pieces of the pie than they were 10 years ago.

One conclusion you can draw from this data is that comics are at point near inelastic demand. So when faced with that the ways you can make more money are to either A) raise prices (which they have) or B) make an attempt to appeal to people outside the sphere you are operating in. So you get the push for diversity, not as some kind of SJW plot, but as an attempt to tap into a trend to sell comics. I think it didn't work because there weren't genuinely diverse points of view, it was mostly the same white male creators pandering. And before someone gets their dick in a knot, that's not a criticism of white male creators, it's a criticism of pandering.

Brie Larson is a person, arguing for greater female representation in the film industry.

The fact that you think that justifies any sexism whatsoever is wrong. But you do you, cupcake.

so can we go back to talking about infinity war now, please?

it rocked!! can't wait until next spring!!

Good post.

My issue with the comics was their decision to take established characters and flip their genders, just because. I have no issue with however many superpowered female heroes or villains they want to throw out there, as long as they are well written and are their own characters. I don't need a woman to become Thor just to prove women are "worthy" - have Thor fight alongside his female counterpart. How hard is that? And the problem is that Marvel did it to nearly all their frontline "name" heroes. Complete shit. Just come up with a new stable of female badasses, the Marvel Universe is certainly big enough to hold them.

I am very much looking forward to Captain Marvel vs. Thanos, not going to lie.

I wonder if Nebula will steal the gauntlet from Thanos as she did in the comics, as well....

Part of the problem is that you tend to take the extreme hyperbole actions of a few and assign it to "The left" in an ignorant generalization. Like your current DC thread equating some loony website called "verysmartbrothas" as representing "The left." Pretty dumb.

They're certainly setting that up, I think.

Also: the sexism.

What's the answer? You people are so great at pointing out problems, some real and some not. How to fix this one?

They are both examples of the true left. Not moderate liberals, or moderate conservatives, or centrists. Not the Obama or Hillary wing of the American Left, but the Bernie or PETA wing of the American Left

Sorry to get in the way of the DC pissing match, but thought this was a good place to drop this.

https://www.thewrap.com/disney-wins-...llion-fox-bid/

While giving Disney even more power is a bit unsettling, I am curious to see if they ever try to bring the X-Men or Deadpool into the MCU somehow. I can't really picture how it would work well, but those guys get paid a lot more than I do.

your going to have a handful of companies controlling all entertainment and internet access. I’m sure this is going to work out well for consumers.

...What would I do about a lack of female directors, producers, film critics and the like?

Hire more women directors, producers, film critics and the like. I think that's probably a fair solution.

Monopolies are evil.

ohhhhhhhhh shit!

Diversity is a modern day soft term for affirmative action.

You don't get the best person for the job, but rather hire someone solely on their skin color.

But now it's morphed into gender and even sexual orientation, because the women and gays on the progressive left have lost their god damn minds.

Or maybe it's because there's a market for films starring characters who aren't straight, white men (see Black Panther). Movie studios are in the business of making money - not doing things just to make a political statement.

:shrug:

Black Panther had a much larger platform and was a giant puzzle piece to a larger overall picture of the MCU. Not only that but black people were already a big part of the entertainment industry.

And people need to realize that blacks make up about 13% of the US population and gays make up about only 2%. So when people say "we need more blacks in this field, or more gays in that field"...why? Consumers aren't asking for it. Look at the demographics of what is represented in this country. If they're good enough at what they do and are the best person for the job great, but that's not what's happening.

I dont think customers are sitting at home saying "Man I wish more gay people were in movies." Hollywood may be trying to force that down people's throats (and they are, you can't watch a TV sitcom now without having the alpha male/father in just about every show is a bumbling idiot while they promote homosexuality in front of your kids), but I certainly do not believe people are asking for it.

I really don't think you can put these 2 in the same boat.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">RUMOR: The title of the fourth &#39;Avengers&#39; film may just have been revealed as AVENGERS: END GAME on cinematographer Trent Opaloch&#39;s personal website. <a href="https://t.co/twWi1RoNKE">https://t.co/twWi1RoNKE</a> <a href="https://t.co/jGZqI1cxnu">pic.twitter.com/jGZqI1cxnu</a></p>&mdash; MCU News &amp; Tweets (@MCU_Tweets) <a href="https://twitter.com/MCU_Tweets/status/1013064956177272832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

well, doctor strange did say "this is the endgame" to tony stark.

Looking through tonight’s channel listings, I saw “Iron Man” is on. And I noted that it came out in 2008. Let that sink in. 10 short years. Think of the Marvel universe since then. So many films, so many characters, so much money. Now think of Star Wars. Even if you didn’t mind the Ewoks and consider the third film, “Return of the Jedi”, to be the last high point, that film came out in... 1983. 35 ****ing years ago. Yes, “Rogue One” was a nice little story. Yes, “The Force Awakens” did make a boatload of money (even though IMO it sucked). But they’ve had 35 years to get it right, and look where they’re at. Compared to what Marvel has done in 10 short years. It’s sick.

Almost 17 Billion (with a B) worldwide in a decade.

Sounds like the title of a free mobile game.

How the hell did Iron Man3 make 1.2 billion?

I think this is where there's a disconnect. You can't turn somebody gay or straight or bi or any of the other multitude of sexual identities by 'promoting' sexuality in any way on screen. People are what they are. It's that simple, and the agenda, if it has to be said there is one, is to get society to the point where people are okay with that, and can accept each other for who we are. And I think it's less about having more gay people depicted, but making a few of the bigger characters something other than straight. And then not quickly killing them off, which is something that's happened with lesbian characters in particular over and over. And It's about having having characters who don't fit the traditional race/gender/sex binary who can eventualky grow to be more than just identified as 'that gay one'. You know, a competent hero who just happens to like different things than me (straight white dude). Where being different becomes less important than being the hero. That doesn't really happen much now in media and it's NOT in any way representative of the real world, where, 2% of the pop gay or not, a lot of important people are not straight.

I could talk more but I want bbq.

Oh and as a middle aged white guy, I agree with how we're often depicted, but hey, we have almost a century of visual media (ie tv and film) depicting us as the center of the universe and we've basically spent that entire time holding every other race and gender under our bootheel in Hollywood, so I can understand the pushback now. Like it or not, our cultural progenitors were the bad guy. It's come to Jesus time for the powerful racist, misogynistic white Hollywood overlords. Hopefully the scales balance relatively quickly and I don't spend the rest of my life being identified with the bad guys. But at this point, white dudes got zero business playing any victim cards. At all.

As for how men in general and/or bumbling dads are depicted, well...duh. Women are the target market. Of course we're portrayed as morons...

Highly anticipated, and maybe China likes it

My take is this, if you are going to make a character LGBT, just come out and admit it in the movie. Don't require fans to read additional material. Right now, they hide it in articles and stories. They want to appear progressive without sacrificing the box office. Beauty and the Beast did it, so did Thor: Ragnorak etc.

I see what you did there...

3 China focused movies have made $500 million this year so far. $1.5 billion+. Maybe $7 million total for all 3 in the USA.

Who was gay in beauty and the beast

Apparently Gaston's sidekick dude. LaFeu or something..?

I'm trying to figure out who was supposed to be gay in Ragnarok..

Agreed.

And, IMO, anyone who says they don't have a problem with gay people but complains about gay people being in a TV shows is a ****ing liar.

the Valkyrie.

Some of the diversity pushing is as reeruned as making Wonderwoman, Black Panther, and Apache Chief old white guys.

LeFou. They leaked the news early. There was a huge uproar about it. Then the movie is released and, at most, you had him dancing with a guy for a split second.