Opinion Post from Lyesmith : My Hopes for Gamora

I hope she isn't the Guardians version of Black Widow.

That being said. I loved Black Widow. I thought she was a great character; a classic, strong-willed and independent Joss female character. She has tones of Buffy, Echo, Zoe, and River. And while I'm not asking to make Gamora, nor Black Widow, lead characters, I do want to see Marvel handle Gamora differently outside of the movie.

Read the rest after the jump!

This is what I mean. Look at the toys associated with the first Avengers movies. The t-shirts, the lunchboxes, the extra accessories; it's almost as if Black Widow is an after-thought. Sure, Avengers is going to be pushed more towards boys. I get that. But that doesn't mean girls aren't watching it. It doesn't mean that they don't need to have that character and role-model present and available. I have two daughters. My older daughter, the eldest of my children, often pretends she's Black Widow, because she's old enough to recognize the female characters and pick them out of the team. My youngest daughter, the youngest of my children, is The Hulk as often as she is Thor, and plays them twice as often as she even considers being Black Widow.

My oldest is old enough to seek out the female; the youngest identifies with the characters most prominent.

I want Gamora to be someone young girls look at and go “Wow!” just as much as they see Rocket Raccoon. Maybe that's a lot of pressure to put on a character like Gamora in and movie like Guardians of the Galaxy, but until we start seeing comic book movies with female leads, the weight rests on the shoulders of characters like Black Widow and Gamora. I don't want to see “female lead comic book movies”, I want a comic book movie whom the lead character happens to be female. If we keep thinking of these movies as “female lead” or “female centered”, then that's what they're going to be, and they're going to be comic book movies second. I think that's where a lot of these conversations end up breaking down behind studio doors. Stop worrying about gender roles and stereotypes and just write a good comic book movie! Just keep in mind that girls and women are reading comic books, watching comic book movies, and are more interested in the genre than ever before.

(Picture source: ComicBookMovie.com )

There's a lot of pressure on DC to make a Wonder Woman movie. I've often seen the joke, “DC says a Wonder Woman movie is too complex for the mainstream audience. Marvel's reply? Here's a talking space-raccoon with a machine gun!” With the massive success Marvel's had with their movies in the last 10 years I think DC is finally going “Hey, I think we're dropping the ball here”. I think a Wonder Woman movie in the near future is a distinct possibility and I pray it's done well.

(Alan Tudyk as the Black Widow character. Tell me you wouldn't watch that!) 

So, my fellow Galaxians, here's my question to you – if you were going to have a Marvel comics movie with a female lead character, what movie would it be? Would she lead a team or star in her own solo movie?

Do you think Black Widow and Gamora, and to a lesser extent, Sif, Pepper Potts, Jane Foster and Maria Hill, (and soon to be Scarlet Witch) have a responsibility as role-models, or do you think we need to wait for someone who isn't part of a team before we start hoping our girls begin running around in capes and masks?

Do you have comic book characters currently in movies you'd rather young girls look up to besides a double-agent assassin and the deadliest woman in the galaxy?