Marvel Merchandising Purposefully Ignoring Females

[Arach Knight]

While working at Marvel post-acquisition, I saw a deck circulated by Disney’s Brand Marketing team. I’m prohibited from sharing the slides, but the takeaway is that, unlike the actual demos, the desired demographics had no females in it whatsoever. I asked my supervisor why that was. Ever the pragmatist, he said, “That’s not why Disney bought us. They already have the girls’ market on lockdown.”

http://www.themarysue.com/invisible-women/

That quote is taken from an article written by a former Marvel employee in which it is explained that Marvel has no real plans or interest in developing merchandising for its female audience. It is no secret that Disney sought out Lucasfilm and Marvel Entertainment in order to bolster its own demographic range with lines that already appeal to boys and young men. Disney certainly has tried in the past, but their efforts never quite paid off, and so it made complete sense for Disney to acquire the two aforementioned companies.

What is disappointing however is that in a true show of pandering to male privilege, Marvel is now shying away from merchandising to the girls and women that may be fans of characters such as Black Widow and Gamora. This would not be the first time that a major comics company has gone out of its way to avoid the female demographic. Warner Bros./DC infamously cancelled Young Justice once they discovered that nearly half of the show's viewers were female. The belief was that girls did not buy action figures and therfore the show needed to be abandoned in favor of a program that primarily appeared to boys.

The difference though is that DC has constantly shown the capacity for discriminating against women and pandering to men, so it is rarely a surprise when DC pulls such a stunt. Marvel on the other hand has had the better track record when it comes to taking care of fans. It is a shame that this track record is now marred by the revelations of this article. Tell me, what do you all think about this discovery? Does it disgust you that Marvel is ignoring women, or do you believe in the reasoning given by the supervisor?

 

[BarryAllen]

Well he is a former employee.

I think we're starting to see that change. Now that Marvel is so mainstream, they have to change the way they operate, and that means in its treatment of female characters. Black Widow is slowly losing her boobs-n-butts pose on posters, and Marvel movies are being filled with strong roles for women. But there is room for improvement, and as this continues, the demand will be there. We're already seeing the beginning with Jessica Jones and Agent Carter, and when Captain Marvel hits, expect Marvel to celebrate its female lineup.

 

[Arach Knight]

Well he is a former employee.

I think we're starting to see that change. Now that Marvel is so mainstream, they have to change the way they operate, and that means in its treatment of female characters. Black Widow is slowly losing her boobs-n-butts pose on posters, and Marvel movies are being filled with strong roles for women. But there is room for improvement, and as this continues, the demand will be there. We're already seeing the beginning with Jessica Jones and Agent Carter, and when Captain Marvel hits, expect Marvel to celebrate its female lineup.

Given that Disney acquired Marvel some six years ago, it was a rather slow process before Marvel debuted Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel in addition to unveiling a female character with the mantle of Thor. Both of those developments came last year, which is five years after the acquisition. So perhaps Marvel is just really (reeeeeally) slow to get their plans underway for female characters. Now that a Wonder Woman film is officially announced, perhaps we will see Marvel put forth an effort to do something more with Ms. Marvel or Black Widow.

 

[SuperFerret]

I'm not sure you can call this "male privilege". It's really just a sort of backwards business thinking. "We've already got the girls with the Princesses, we need the superheroes to get the boys." Male privilege is something different.

 

[Arach Knight]

I'm not sure you can call this "male privilege". It's really just a sort of backwards business thinking. "We've already got the girls with the Princesses, we need the superheroes to get the boys." Male privilege is something different.

I concede that "male privilege" may not be the best term, but there is certainly some form of privileging going on, and I feel that your example does an excellent job of highlighting the issue. Consider that Marvel and Disney are relegating females to the princess market rather than attempting to appeal to the girls that also enjoy superheroes. Such a distinction winds up putting girls into a box in which only the boys get the heroes. I suppose at best, we could consider this an act of negligent thinking.

On an unrelated note, didn't you use to be a mod, or am I going fruit loops?

 

[def28]

Look at the Disney Store. It's in sections. They have Frozen, Cinderella and Princess Sofia for the girls. While the boys have Star Wars, Planes and Avengers.

I'd have to see the numbers, with age demo and sex to really get a better idea. But the lack of Black Widow and Gamora stuff has been pretty awful. Marvel should be putting out a decent amount of those 2, Scarlet Witch, Ms Marvel and Spider Gwen right now imo.

With DC they push Harley Quinn merch pretty heavily in stores for teens and younger adult Women. Harley is just a huge sell for them right now. At Hot Topic she has more merch then the Avengers. I will not be surprised if the same happens to Batgirl soon in stores like that. So maybe age demo studies comes into play here and the really young female demo just hasn't had strong numbers for whatever reason, obviously they want to make money with these characters. With Wonder Woman and Ms Marvel coming up I expect things to change quite a bit.

 

[SuperFerret]

I concede that "male privilege" may not be the best term, but there is certainly some form of privileging going on, and I feel that your example does an excellent job of highlighting the issue. Consider that Marvel and Disney are relegating females to the princess market rather than attempting to appeal to the girls that also enjoy superheroes. Such a distinction winds up putting girls into a box in which only the boys get the heroes. I suppose at best, we could consider this an act of negligent thinking.

I don't think there's any sort of "privileging" going on. The way the term has been used seems to just mean that someone is in an objectively better scenario due to some sort of uncontrollable social circumstance they were more or less born into. This is, as you said, just negligent sexism. Nothing more.

On an unrelated note, didn't you use to be a mod, or am I going fruit loops?

If I was a mod, my reign of terror would be the stuff of legend.

 

[KevanG]

If you get to be a mod then Sawyer gets to be a mod.

 

[CaptainWagner]

I think this is just a business decision, a poor one in my opinion, but not any sort of "sexist marketing tactic". But if they don't try to capitalize on the girl demographic with Captain Marvel, I'll be shocked.

 

[Arach Knight]

Look at the Disney Store. It's in sections. They have Frozen, Cinderella and Princess Sofia for the girls. While the boys have Star Wars, Planes and Avengers.

I'd have to see the numbers, with age demo and sex to really get a better idea. But the lack of Black Widow and Gamora stuff has been pretty awful. Marvel should be putting out a decent amount of those 2, Scarlet Witch, Ms Marvel and Spider Gwen right now imo.

With DC they push Harley Quinn merch pretty heavily in stores for teens and younger adult Women. Harley is just a huge sell for them right now. At Hot Topic she has more merch then the Avengers. I will not be surprised if the same happens to Batgirl soon in stores like that. So maybe age demo studies comes into play here and the really young female demo just hasn't had strong numbers for whatever reason, obviously they want to make money with these characters. With Wonder Woman and Ms Marvel coming up I expect things to change quite a bit.

That is a plausible insight. Perhaps they have yet to receive sufficient feedback that suggests that they should be making a move on these properties. And I agree about DC and Harley. At Wondercon, I'd say that about 45-55% of the female cosplayers I saw, were dressed as some version of Harley Quinn. There were a few Supergirl and Wonder Woman cosplayers. Even a few Sailor Moon. The only single character that came close to Harley, was Spider-Gwen. Good lord, there were a lot of people cosplaying Spider-Gwen. You would think Marvel would react more quickly with that sort of exposure.