[Updated] Tumblr Fans Launch Campaign for Black Widow Movie, but Will Social Media Be Enough?

[Update] Hilariously (but in a good way), Marvel has begun to alleviate some of our diversity concerns by finally announcing both a Black Panther and Captain Marvel standalone film—with Chadwick Boseman as the lead in the former, no less. But it looks like we probably won’t get that Black Widow movie any time soon, sadly. Check out more as we update our Marvel Event post today.

It’s been a interesting few weeks for Marvel Entertainment and Warner Bros., one well known for producing the most surprisingly effective, enjoyable, and profitable superhero franchise in decades, and the other well known for, well, almost studiously not doing that. While Warner Bros. announced its first massive slate of future DC Universe films featuring an openly queer actor as the Flash, multiple solo films for characters of color, and a solo film for the world’s most famous superheroine, Wonder Woman, for which the studio seeks a female director. Marvel has slowly rolled out information about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that looks, well, a whole lot like the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. A series of movies entirely featuring white guys in the lead role, directed entirely by men, written nearly entirely by men.

Any way you turn it, we’re looking at an established franchise’s willingness to make a movie about completely unknown characters so long as they are male (or male raccoons, trees, or scientists who talk to ants) while ignoring repeated questions and requests to finally reward a female character with four films under her belt with a solo franchise of her own; while a new and untested franchise sees no problem with kicking that sort of thing off in their first go. And perhaps that’s why the Black Widow fandom on Tumblr feels that now is the best time to get proactive.

Many users are rallying around a post by thebeckyford calling for Sunday, November 2nd to be a day of letting Marvel and Disney’s social media accounts know that there’s a fanbase ready and waiting to support a solo film for Black Widow.

It’s a small gesture to be sure, but who knows. Encouragement doesn’t hurt. And mentioning that DC have female and people of colour led movies in the works can’t hurt either.

The post was endorsed and reblogged by WhereisMyBlackWidowMovie.tumblr.com, which added a helpful list of accounts to petition, along with a very important point about the relative power of the folks who run the social media accounts of large media companies.

Probably more than half the people on the list above have had to field “where is my Black Widow movie?” questions. They aren’t the enemy, either. They don’t need to be told “hey, people are interested”; they need ammunition to go to the people higher than them on the food chain to be like “Hey, these fans are passionate and invested and loud and the only way we’re going to get them to stop talking about this is to give Black Widow a movie.”

However, according to The Daily Dot, outside of Tumblr the initiative was met with skepticism and pessimism. So lets address some of the most common objections to calling for a Black Widow movie.

Does anyone really want a Black Widow movie? What this question really boils down to is the suggestion that Black Widow isn’t popular or well known enough to rate a solo film, a supposed criteria for making a superhero film that you’d think would have been debunked when Iron Man became the flagship franchise of Marvel Entertainment, and dead and buried by the time Jonah Hex, Constantine, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Cyborg, were all announced as projects.

There are many other female characters and characters of color who are more likely to get a movie, why don’t you support them? If this were a matter of choosing one non-white, non-male character to get a superhero movie outside of any other context, then we could probably have a fun comic book discussion about this. But in the current context of movies with female lead characters who originated in comic books, where a Painkiller Jane adaptation stands to be the first movie about a female comic book character from a superhero universe since Elektra, Black Widow remains the most prominent female character in cinematic superheroes. Her number of modern movie appearances are equalled or exceeded only by some female X-Men and she’s played by an Oscar nominated actress.

In conclusion, in case there was any doubt, The Mary Sue wants our #BlackWidowMovie.

(via The Daily Dot)

Previously in Black Widow

• The Mary Sue’s Favorite Moments From The Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer
• Marvel Executive Calls For Female Superheroes In Front Of And Behind The Cameras
• Today We Learned: Black Widow Almost Got a Movie Before Iron Man

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