Superhero stories gained their popularity through comic books. However, they later get a movie adaptation of themselves, such as Captain America (1944). Black Panther was the first ever superhero to have the representation of being black – he was originally known as the “coal tiger” however it later changed to “black panther” due to the inspiration from the fantastic four.
Due to the success of its first movie, Iron-Man (2008), the MCU had expanded rapidly and eventually became one of the most successful contemporary cinema properties. Because of the success, the MCU decided to put there lesser-known cosmetic adventurers like the guardians of the galaxy side-by-side with top tier superheroes like Iron-Man.
Marvel is best known for their CGI action scenes, but as well as their teamwork and personal stories. The MCU has flawed characters meaning that they teach lessons throughout the whole franchise. The MCU franchise started back in 2008 with the first Iron-Man movie, to Avengers Endgame in 2019 with still more movies to come.
The MCU is the worlds biggest cinematic franchise, grossing over $25 billion worldwide! However, it has only recently started to become more diverse: women, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and people who identify as 2SLGBTQ+. Most communities tend to have a lack of representation unlike MCU who is starting to show more representation. However despite these groups being in the MCU, they are often tokenized.
Due to the Marvel franchise growing rapidly, fans on TikTok have been demanding for more diversity – for example like Shang-Chi from there 2021 release.
However, the MCU isn’t the only one that suffers this problem, most other franchises suffer with this as well due to the lack of media representation of other races and less diversity. After Black Panther was released however, there was a sudden impact and the franchise decided that after this movie, there would be more diversity and representation.
The first Asian superhero to be represented on a Cinematic screen was Shang-Chi. However, because of the old comic book representation of Shang-Chi, many people were not looking forward to this movie. For example, a man called Chou stated:
"I read the first comic book, Shang-Chi, digitally and it straight up starts with a white man called Shaun, a Chinaman and then critiquing his father with cat eyes, yellow skin, and long nails. So, from that alone, I was not looking forward to it.
After he had watched the movie, his whole perception changed:
"Shaun's dads reaction felt very relatable for me - because growing up, my dad was relatively an angry person. During Shaun's final confrontation with his father in the film - Shaun was screaming back at his father of what he had become as a by-product of his fathers actions and choices - this resonated with me because I've in some way adopted my dads
aggression."
"To see an Asian person - to see a part of me be on screen was enough for me to feel like this is game-changing for me."
However, the audience may notice a difference between the hero and their sidekick. The hero is normally a white person, and the sidekick is normally someone of colour.
Marvels sidekicks are meant to be silly, however this may also be carried out by stereotypes.
Some people dislike the fact people of colour are normally sidekicks, for example Castillo:
"Im Filipino, and Ned's Filipino. And it sucked to see him in Spider-man, Far From Home, be like this side subplot that was not really important or significant. Was it funny? Sure. It was funny. Did it have to be Ned? I don’t know that. I don’t think so.”
Luckily, the MCU is getting better at the representation of people of colour being a lead superhero in their own movie and they are being more diverse and representing certain groups of people!
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