asocialjusticeleague:

For the record, I think that Man of Steel is the most feminist superhero movie SO FAR. I think that sets the bar a little lower, which is something we need to do in the first place because when I’m looking for a feminist movie I’m not really going to reach first for a movie starring a man that is really more of an alien-othered sci-if thriller. For this particular genre though, Man of Steel is startlingly and refreshingly feminist, in the way that the female characters are handled, in the way that masculinity is portrayed and performed, and in the thematic bones themselves of the film. It’s a little frustrating to have to defend why a Superman movie is feminist in the first place because a Superman movie SHOULD be. The source material itself demands a feminist lense, it demands the presence of multiple kinds of social justice, and given my view of the canon I would argue that any adaptation lacking those particular elements is not a success.

Man of steel is about a man, but the women in this movie are equally complex and interesting, and fill multiple roles. Martha rises to extraordinary challenges in terms of motherhood, and in my opinion is one of the bravest characters in the whole film, Lara (the scientist) conspires with her husband in defiance of the law and custom of their planet to have the first organic conception and live birth in what might have been centuries, and then is finally the person who launches him toward his new home. Since the movie is so thematically focused on fatherhood when it comes to legacy, it’s easy to overlook these intentional moves to show both of Clark’s mothers as vibrant spirits of their own. And it’s not just mothers, it’s warriors, professionals, subordinates, and natural leaders like Lois Lane filling out the character list.

Lois, in this movie, by the way, is all Lois. Adam’s performance is a different flavor from actresses of the past in this role, she brings something softer that naturally complements a rather introverted and troubled Superman, but she’s still right there in the middle of things, Clark or not. What is the first half of this movie without Lois Lane? She’s involved in his business practically before he gets involved in his business, and she continues to roll the plot along until we get to Zod, the ultimate agent of action in this film. Lois is the character who jumps out of planes without parachutes, and that is extra extraordinary in this film because she has no expectation that Superman is going to swoop out of the sky to catch her. Maybe the implication in this movie is that she really never does.

The diversity among the actresses in Man of Steel could certainly stand to improve but given where the bar is set in the genre, we are forced to call two women of color in speaking roles progress, and casting Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer as Kal El’s mother was a breath of fresh air compared to what is typically cast a ridiculously and inexplicably European planet of Krypton. In fact, we finally have a probable explanation for Krypton’s historically awkward homogeny: enforced genetic engineering. The crowd shots on the planet earth, in contrast, meet a diversity bar that few major Hollywood productions do, edging toward an actual realistic level of diversity that we are unaccustomed to seeing on screen. This movie also manages to cast four speaking roles for characters of color without once maiming or killing a single one of them, which, if you’ve been watching TV at all lately, seems like an impossible feat for white people.

I’ve talked a little about the way masculinity is handled in Man of Steel but I just want to highlight how incredibly incredibly important post modern masculinities are in our superheroes. Superheroes are to masculinity what Disney princesses are to femininity, they model the gender tools and they hand out the roles. Which means that superheroes who either reject or even undermine toxic masculinity or embrace parts of the traditionally feminine are just as powerful to the culture as ambitious or ass kicking princesses are. This often gets overlooked because, surprise surprise, we are much more focused on how we can change women’s behavior in the name of feminism than how we change men. A canon superman in live action is so powerful because Clark embodies a new masculine ideal focused on protection, true justice, patience, and kindness.

His expressions of sorrow in Cavill’s performance swing from explosive to helpless. We get tears from Clark, we get fear, we get to watch his heart break not once but twice. We get a hero for whom the safety and protection of others comes before ego. This particular Jonathan Kent doesn’t get enough credit for modeling those behaviors, either. This Jonathan is not withholding, he doesn’t deal with his fears for his son by keeping him on a short leash or teaching him obedience the way that Kents of the past have when written by obviously conservative “spare the rod spoil the child” writers. Instead, he shows Clark who he could be through patient explanation and consistent love and affection. He models doubt, he models devotion, and he models faith in ways that have profound effects on who Clark becomes as a person.

Much has been said about the themes of fatherhood and religion in this film, but for all the trumped up horror about the destruction in the third act, very little actual analysis has been done on those scenes to try and figure out what they mean. I think the relationship between feminism and violence is a really complicated one because we have so many feminists out there arguing that feminism and violence are antithetical to one another. I just don’t think that’s true, and I think it’s so flawed because as an oppressed group women are held more responsible for their violent reactions to oppression than the violence against them, culturally and institutionally. So when we have a fictional portrayal of violence, we can’t just write that off as unfeminist unless we examine why the violence is happening and what the cause is.

What Zod and the rest of the Kryptonians are doing to the planet Earth in this movie is nearly the literal application of colonization. In order to inhabit the planet, they could do as Kal has done and assimilate to the dominant culture and live among the human beings there, but instead they want to literally change the land and destroy its people in order to meet their specific needs. They’re not just taking what they need, either, because Kryptonians have a ridiculously unsustainable culture of mass rapid consumption that led to their demise in the first place, they are taking the entire planet in order to repopulate it with Kryptonians who haven’t even been born yet. In order to protect these unborn Kryptonians, this idea of Krypton in his head, Zod is more than willing to commit genocide against the entire planet. There is SO much there that is political, and once you start dissecting the metaphors and pulling apart the themes, putting these particular villains up against Superman can’t help but become a very feminist move.