The Mary Sue is an entertainment news site for geek women, by geek women.
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It’s not malicious, but does leave something to be desired.
It’s tough to not wonder: is anyone saying that Daredevil makes The Flash irrelevant? Does Matt Murdock arriving on the scene mean that Barry Allen’s story is somehow rendered less important? It’s interesting that comparisons only seem to be getting drawn between a show about a female superhero and, oh, another show that also happens to be about a female superhero.
True, but there are various privileges at play here. Yes, Jessica would (to my knowledge) be the first female superhero to get her own show. But at the same time, the superheroscape in live action media (animation does far better) is also EXTREEEEEMEEEELY white...
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TBH it sounds like both of these things are true? We shouldn’t ignore Luke/put all the attention on Jessica, because that’s privileging gender over race, but nor should we do the opposite, because that’s doing, well, the opposite, and neither are OK.
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I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone who has read the comic that Luke Cage is in the show, though. He’s her main love interest and they eventually have a child together and get married. Maybe I’m being naive, but I was more excited to hear that Carol Danvers is going to be in it (back when they first announced it), because her character is far more superfluous to the plot than Luke Cage is. To me, having Luke Cage on a show about Jessica Jones is like having Lois Lane in a movie about Superman. They just go together.
Yet, on three major websites (MTV Splash Page, The Mary Sue, and The Beat), the headlines of their coverage of the Rosenberg interview all mention Luke Cage. Comic Book Movie is the only website I could find whose headline accurately reflected what the interview was actually about— a general progress report about what’s going on with the show, which happens to include Luke Cage.
It is definitely awesome that Luke Cage will be on the show, and that we’re getting another black superhero in mainstream live-action media. IDK, maybe I’m just being sensitive.
This was definitely something that was in the forefront of my mind to me while drafting the post. I put Luke Cage in the title because that was the “new” part of the news, and then tried to get that out of the way in order spend as more of the post talking about the rest of the interview. Melissa Rosenberg said a lot of great stuff about what would make Jessica Jones a unique superhero even if she wasn’t a minority gender in her setting, and also said a number of things that made it sound like she was really enthusiastic about the source material. As as a (prospective) writer and consumer of these characters, that general progress stuff was the part of it I really wanted to get my teeth into.
The Gotham Central and She-Hulk: Single Green Female fan in me is very interested in this show, and is annoyed that I wasn’t aware of Alias when it was being released. Sounds like exactly the thing I would have devoured every month.
tl;dr: I agree, and tried not to let Luke overshadow her in the body of the post. Also I’m flattered that you called us a “major” site. :)
- Susana
