Do you remember that moment in Avengers: Endgame when all of the female heroes united and kicked some alien ass? Sure, everyone does. It was a moment that stands out in cinema as one of female empowerment. So is it sexist to dislike this moment?
No, after analyzing this moment for maybe too long, I feel I can explain all the reasons it feels just lackluster.
The obvious number one reason is that the characters are just not as fun to watch as the Avengers. The audience has deep bonds with the characters they saw whole movies about: Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, etc. When these heroes unite, it’s great because we’ve grown to love them each individually. But most of the characters in the “female avengers” moment are not nearly as important to us. Captain Marvel was the only one with a full movie, and honestly, the only other one that I really connected with was Wanda. Obviously, if the audience doesn’t care about the characters they won’t care about this moment.
Perhaps even more detrimental was the poor writing surrounding the moment. To start off, these characters fall into place naturally, but they don’t even know each other. After somehow taking a ten second break in the middle of battle, they proceed to kill like thirty aliens out of an entire army. Their impact is entirely insignificant. The purpose for uniting was supposed to be to help Captain Marvel deliver the Infinity Gauntlet, but she just doesn’t need their help. Captain Marvel is very powerful and could have blasted past any of those enemies on her own. This poor writing makes the scene feel like a stunt–a gimmick.
Now, let’s discuss the underlying message: women can be superheroes too. Yeah, it’s a great message since powerful fantasy characters have tended to be male until recent history. The message itself is not what I want to talk about. Rather, the delivery of the message is what irks me. By calling special attention to female empowerment in the middle of a movie, they take you out of your immersion in the fantasy world and remind you exist in the real one. Immersion is really important. The audience needs to feel like the fantasy world is the real world. As viewers we put ourselves in their universe and thus are sad when characters die and overjoyed when the world is saved. Anything that brings you out of your immersion will make you less interested in the movie. If this moment caused you to stretch your legs or reminded you that you needed to use the restroom, it is because it ruined your immersion.
That’s pretty much it. The female avengers moment is not bad, but it’s not a hype moment and mostly just comes off to me as a cheap trick to get critics to praise the movie. To really send a message of female empowerment, I point to Wonder Woman. It was a great movie with a strong female lead. That’s all it was and all it needed to be.
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