by Jo Papadopoulou

Written for Autostraddle

I once asked my 10-year-old sister who her favourite superhero was. “Flash!,” she answered excitedly. When I asked her why, she looked at me curiously and said “Cause he is fast, he is so fast sometimes it looks like he is flying, and he is so strong too!” Simple enough answer, right? Well, I then asked whether she knew of any female superheroes with the same abilities as Flash and she couldn’t come up with a reply. When asked about female superheroes, she only knew to list three: Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Catwoman. None of them were her favourite though. An indicator that she probably didn’t choose her favourite based on gender but based on the abilities she could identify with best (she likes running, so Flash makes sense). However, what if she chose Flash because that was the only one she knew? There are other superheroes who are not cishet white males and have the same (and even more) abilities as Flash. She chose Flash because it was who she was most familiar with. It Is who TV series and ads and video games show her.

And that is not true only for my sister. Most kids, most people, only know the white, cishet male, super fit (and usually rich) superheroes. But they are not the only kind of superhero that exists. That is certainly not the only type of people who exist. So why are they the ones mainly shown? How can this very specific, very excluding group of superheroes represent the whole of them? The answer is, it can’t.

Diversity in Superheroes

For many years, the only superheroes shown on television are ones like Superman and Batman, white fit guys who fight crime and get all the beautiful girls. Companies have been trying to appeal to teenage white boys by promoting a heteronormative, fatphobic narrative. For decades, these companies have been creating false, dangerous role models for children and adults everywhere. And while most turn a blind eye to this, some people have always known how hurtful these role models are. All black, gay, fat, Latinx, trans (and many more identities not reprented) folx know. We have always noticed the lack of representation when it comes to superheroes. They never looked like us. We could never fully identify with them.

White Dudes (it’s always them)

White male superheroes are still dominating our screens and comic book pages (e.g. Iron Man, Spider-Man, Superman, Deadpool, etc.). When non-white characters are shown, they usually follow old, hurtful stereotypes (for example, Mantis of Guardians of the Galaxy appears as a submissive Asian woman and her main power is lulling people to sleep). When the companies try to create a more diverse environment around superheroes they usually go about it by adding characters of colour (e.g. Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and most (if not all) times these characters have huge success due to the fact that there’s so little diversity. So, the question that comes up is, are the companies really being more diverse and inclusive for the fans or for the money? (Sadly, usually capitalism wins over us).

Genre as Old as Time

This struggle with diversity has its roots mainly to the fact that the superhero genre was created some 40 or more years ago and has seldom changed since. Most, if not all, of the creators back then were rich white males making art for almost exclusively white male audiences. Because of nostalgia, a general fear of change, or pure laziness, the genre is still marked by the “white guy hero” trope that was the staple when it started.

Fighting the Status Quo

Another reason superheroes are still white guys is because a big part of what these heroes do is fight the status quo (e.g. bank robberies, coup d’états, etc.). And it is always shown from the perspective of the powerful, that is rich white men. For example, Bruce Wayne (aka Batman), who is a rich white cishet man, is at the center of Justice League sidelining the female characters and (few) characters of colour.

Fatphobia

Apart from being cishet guys and white, the majority of superheroes are slim and fit. In comic books, their abs and excessive muscles are always visible through their suits and in movies and TV shows actors go through long periods of dieting and strict work outs to achieve a “superhero-worthy” body. Whenever fat characters are included they are usually viewed as something to laugh at (e.g. Thor in Avengers: Endgame) or follow hurtful fatphobic stereotypes.

New Superheroes

To create a more diverse world, instead of dismantling the pre-existing wider superhero world, new ones are created without the stereotypes of the old ones. Companies like Marvel and DC, big entertainment companies, are starting to release novels with new, more inclusive, more diverse characters. Some examples are: América Chávez (the newest Miss America) is a Latina and a lesbian, Doreen Green (the newest Squirrel Girl) doesn’t have an incredibly slim body with abs and excessive muscles, and Miles Morales (the newest Spider-Man) is half African American and half Puerto Rican. But while it is great that all these diverse characters exist, they don’t appear in the companies’ big cinematic universes, they appear in comic book series not that accessible or well-known to the wider public. While the creation and existence of these characters is a huge step forward, it is still not enough. This diversity needs to be made more widespread and not stay limited to a few comic book characters. We, the fans, need to keep asking for more representation and we can only hope that the companies will listen.

We all deserve to be able to see ourselves as heroes.