Part 2: Erasure, Lack of Representation, and Why Both are Harmful

From source material to film, Marvel Studios has frequently washed diversity out of their characters. Maybe it's time to ask Marvel to exercise some great responsibility with their great power.

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THE MCU, AS IT STANDS

Here is a shot of fifty characters (let's call it a sample) in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe, including several of the television shows:

How many black heroes are there?

I'll save you the trouble of counting: six.

How many women?

A bit better—fourteen.

How many people of Asian descent?

Two, thanks to the liberal inclusion of Thor's pal.

Hispanic?

Uh oh—zero.

Disabled or mentally ill?

You guessed it, zero. Okay, one, if we consider Tony Stark's PTSD, explored in Iron Man 3. Which was hastily resolved for his later films.

LGBTQ+, trans, or non-binary individuals?

Oh no again: zero.

This count is a little skewed, since this doesn't show every single character, includes some majorly minor ones, and excludes bigger players. On top of that, my investigation doesn't cover a lot of minority identities, since I was focused on the ones that are erased from source material to films.

You see where I'm going with this, though. Captain Marvel, coming up in early 2019, is the twenty-first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the very first with a female lead. Eesh.

That's one thing: a lack of representation. The absence of identities in a lineup of people quite blatantly labeled "heroes."

But then there's another thing: erasure.

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What is erasure?

The gist of erasure is this: a character is edited, from source material to adaptation, to have a more typical identity. Whitewashing is a broad example of this. Other, Marvel-specific examples?

Clint Barton/Hawkeye. He's canonically deaf and therefore fluent in ASL. He also has depression. Not in any Marvel Studios films, however.

The Ancient One (played by Tilda Swinton) in Doctor Strange was a Tibetan character. Admittedly, director Scott Derrickson made this change to avoid contributing to a "bad stereotype." It can be argued how much effort they put into doing so without whitewashing the character, though.

Valkyrie, from Thor: Ragnarok. Comics show her with women, and she had a scene (actually written, actually filmed) that confirmed her bisexuality. It was cut from the final film.

Ayo and Aneka, two of the Dora Milaje from Black Panther, are in a relationship in the comics. This was present between Ayo and Okoye in a scene for Black Panther, but was also removed from the final cut.

Loki of Asgard. He has been depicted as gender fluid and pansexual in recent Marvel comics—and, for the record, in Norse mythology itself. So far, we've been led to believe that Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of Loki is straight (regardless of any hints Taika Waititi was able to drop).

As you can see, there are plenty of examples of diversity creeping up to the threshold of Marvel Studios and being locked out. Even when directors have tried, they are still censored.

There are other forms of erasure to worry about. Queer-baiting, in which LGBTQ+ audiences are led to believe (by promotional material) that a queer relationship will be on screen, when there isn't one. (Disney's a big fan of that one.) The bury-your-gays trope refers to the killing off of queer characters—and it applies to killing other minority characters as well.

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Why it hurts

Let's think about the following words and their implications.

Erasure: erasing, eliminating very specific factors of a character or situation.

Whitewashing (or for that matter, straight-washing, gender-norm-washing, et cetera): anything other than the typical is dirty, needing to be cleaned.

Queer-baiting: minority consumers are animalistically dumb and it's acceptable to trap them.

These words were designed to communicate the hurt of being told "no." No, we can't have our amazing female warrior character be bi. No, we can't have a hero who is deaf and depressed. No, we can't have a hero who goes from "he" to "she" to "they."

But why the hell not? Why are these qualities unacceptable for a hero to have? What about being a certain ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or religion affects your ability to battle evils, both metaphorical and literal?

Why are there still kids who can't find themselves in media?

"If television serves to reinforce gender and racial stereotypes, then social identity theory also predicts that the white girls, black girls, and black boys in the study used messages from the media to evaluate themselves, and that these comparisons can impact self esteem."

-Marissa Lee

If you still don't understand, reader, then think of your hero. Fictional, personal, celebrity, what have you. They probably resemble you in some way, right? Or even further, maybe you modeled part of yourself after them.

Now think about your idea of self without that hero. They never inspired you, never empowered you. What would change about your outlook on life? What would change about how you feel about yourself?

Even worse. Not a lack of representation, or erasure, but toxic representation. Think about your identity, the core of your being, and imagine seeing it painted in a negative, even villainous light in every movie you see. One-dimensional Hispanic gang members, Middle-Eastern terrorists, crude homosexuals, victimized transgender people.

Every movie you see, every piece of media you consume, tells you that you are not the good guy. That you can't be.

That's why erasure hurts. That's how kids get stuck, thinking they have no one to be but what the world already thinks they are.

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With Great Power...

...comes great responsibility. Marvel itself wrote that idea—or at least, Stan Lee did. So, wouldn't it be great if they accepted the responsibility of presenting on the screen the same heroes in their comics?

We can't ask every film or book or show to represent diversity in a truthful way. We can want it, but maybe we can't ask for it, for the sake of freedom of expression. But a film studio that shows the world superheroes? Marvel adds to the narrative of morality and strength with every new release, and ascribes those features to a specific identity. So far, non-minority identities.

We can ask them to do better. We can ask them not to cherry-pick the least diverse characters from their canon. If their main characters can protect and inspire the innocent, regardless of gender identity, sexuality, race, religion, or creed, then Marvel can do the same.

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SEE PART 3: DEFINING DIVERSITY