I find it hard to remember having access to a powerful, fictional, female role model in my life when I was little.
Maybe I had limited access to content my peers regularly saw. But while I’m writing this, the only powerful women I can remember watching as a kid are Princess Leia, Starfire and Raven. Otherwise, I was limited to what Disney princesses could offer me.
I could write for ages on how I internalized a hatred for femininity, how I rejected anything stereotypically girly yet felt unwelcome in stereotypically male spaces. I still won’t touch multiplayer online games with a ten-foot pole unless I ban myself from speaking to anyone — which kind of defeats the purpose.
But that’s not my point.
“Wonder Woman” came out the summer before my senior year in high school. I remember sitting in the theater next to my best friends, decked out in DC cosplay, crying during the No Man’s Land scene. I felt so incredibly happy and empowered to see a woman standing up for her beliefs and walking through a battlefield, undeterred by the lack of respect or trust others may have had for her.
I saw myself on a screen for the first time.
When I discussed how wonderful the scene was to my boyfriend later, I was met with slight indifference.
He agreed it was a good scene, but he didn’t understand its immense power. It broke my heart a bit.
A similar scene enraptured me in “Avengers: Endgame.” I was sitting in the theater next to my boyfriend as the final battle raged.
As the male avengers fought scattered across the battlefield, the women banded together to escort the infinity gauntlet across enemy lines.
My boyfriend tried to interrupt the scene by whispering to me how Captain Marvel technically could have done this all on her own and the scene was pointless.
I slapped his arm until he shut up, tears rolling down my cheeks as I hissed at him, “Let me enjoy the scene, damn it!”
How could he have perceived this scene as pointless? This gathering of immensely powerful, talented, respected women working together and acknowledging each other’s strengths — how was that pointless?
Sure, I concede that Captain Marvel probably could have done it without help, but should she have? The scene emphasized the power of working as a team and valuing the capabilities of those around you. It emphasized women can be powerful.
Recently, as I was tearfully arguing with him over the trailer for “Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn,” I came to a sudden realization.
The scenes that felt so powerful to me didn’t hold any weight for him because he didn’t see himself reflected on the screen.
He could understand on a surface level the quality of the screenwriting and the importance it could hypothetically hold for someone who wasn’t him, but he didn’t understand at any level more.
He couldn’t. The scene wasn’t meant for people like him. It was meant for people like me.
It’s unfair of me to demand he see the importance and power of strong women doing strong things because he has never seen — and will likely never have to see — a lack of himself on the silver screen. Powerful male role models are hardly few and far between.
On one hand, he doesn’t have to watch nearly as many reflections of himself boiled down to nothing more than an object for others to maneuver as they please, a sub-human sort of character without its own thoughts and feelings.
On the other hand, he will likely never walk out of the theater with the same sort of emotional exhilaration seeing a scene like the “Wonder Woman” or “Endgame” scenes provided me.
And that’s a shame.
Lex Miller can be reached at [email protected]
John Smith
Alright, Alexis, I'm going to help you out a bit since you popped up on my article roulette program: It's fine to play the victim, but you really need to dial back how hard you lean into it. You can create an emotional link with the reader without going into heavy detail on your personal reasoning. As soon as you type out something to the effect of "I could go on and on about X", you've already thrown out at least a third of your viewership. People don't care about journalists. They care about commentary. If you want to be successful: Focus on controversy. If you want to maintain your integrity: Focus on facts. In my personal opinion; Wonder Woman was an amazing movie. The whole "Lets get a shot of all the heroines together" scene in endgame was a bit clunky and falls way below the mark. Not that I'd ever put that in one of my articles(I'd get fired on the spot, most likely), but then again - I'm more interested about keeping my job than I am about providing meaningful commentary. Take from this what you will - you can't fight the machine, but you can at least tweak your pattern and dialogue in a way that doesn't ostracize potential readers. :) Best of luck in your journalistic endeavors. It only gets more irritating and restrictive as you move up.