New York Comic Con signals progress for women in sci-fi

New York Comic Con is one of the world’s largest events for fans of superhero/sci-fi films and TV. Any major entertainment in these genres must usually test the audience waters with fans who flock to NYCC and its largest rival, Comic-Con International, which is held every July in San Diego. NYCC is one of the important events to spot industry trends in superhero/sci-fi entertainment.

High-profile showcases at the 14th annual New York Comic Con, which was held Oct. 3-6, indicate that the future is getting brighter for more on-camera female representation in superhero/sci-fi films and TV. Behind the camera, progress has been much slower.

Despite men’s traditional dominance both in front of and behind the camera in sci-fi/superhero films and TV, females are close to half of the fans who love this type of entertainment. According to the marketing research firm Dstillery, there are an estimated 11.6 million males and 10.5 million females in the U.S. who are “sci-fi movie and TV enthusiasts.” 

This gender balance is reflected in the attendees who go to comic-book conventions, also known as Comic Cons. A 2015 study by Eventbrite (an event-management/ticketing company) found that people who attend Comic Con fan events are 48.9% female, 48.7% male, and 2.4% nonbinary/other. A gender breakdown for the more than 210,000 attendees of NYCC 2019 wasn’t available at press time, but ReedPOP, the events/marketing company that produces NYCC, reported that NYCC attendees in 2018 were 51% male, 48% female, and 1% nonbinary/other. Although comic books are the foundation for Comic Cons, the biggest and most-attended panels and showcases at these events are usually for TV shows and movies.

ReedPOP event director Kristina Rogers said that at NYCC this year, “we saw significant focuses from our studio partners in promoting female-centric shows and movies,” and that the majority of panels had equal representation of women.

The 2019 Women’s Media Center/BBC America report Superpowering Women in Science Fiction and Superhero Film shows that female representation in this genre is starting to better reflect its audience with the characters portrayed on screen. Behind the scenes is another story, because writers, producers, and especially directors of superhero/sci-fi entertainment are still overwhelmingly male. The report found that from 2009 to 2018, women directed only 3 percent of superhero/sci-fi films with wide releases in theaters. However, that percentage should increase by the end of 2020, the year that five major superhero/sci-fi movies with wide release have women directors: Birds of Prey, directed by Cathy Yan; Mulan, directed by Niki Caro; Black Widow, directed by Cate Shortland; Wonder Woman 1984, directed by Patty Jenkins; and The Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao. It’s the highest number of female-directed superhero/sci-fi movies from major movie studios in any single year so far, and all of these movies have actresses in leading roles. 

Here is what’s happening for female representation in the superhero/sci-fi genre — trends that could also be seen at NYCC this year:

There Are More Female Characters in Leading Roles
The #MeToo movement is part of the drive for more female empowerment in the entertainment industry. The New York Times’ watershed article about entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct was published on Oct. 5, 2017, the same day that NYCC began that year. In January 2018, several prominent members of the entertainment industry formed Time’s Up, an activist/resource group aimed at workplace gender equality and helping survivors of sexual misconduct from all walks of life.

Have the #MeToo movement and Time’s Up helped make a difference in more female characters having leading roles in superhero/sci-fi movies and TV? The 2017 NYCC panels were booked long before the Times article was published. That year, 46 percent (24 out of 52) of the movies and TV shows showcased on NYCC panels had a female character in the lead or co-lead. One year later, that number rose significantly to 65 percent (37 out of 57). In 2019, the percentage increased to 69 percent (41 out of 59). The numbers suggest that the entertainment industry is placing more importance on empowering women and having more females as leading (instead of supporting) characters since the #MeToo movement took hold. 

TV Networks and Streaming Services Are Giving Women the Most Opportunities
The surge of female characters with leading roles in superhero/sci-fi entertainment can be seen mostly on series from TV networks and streaming services. The majority of the TV/streaming series that were showcased at NYCC 2019 have a female character as a lead or co-lead. They include HBO’s Watchmen; The CW’s Batwoman, Charmed, Nancy Drew, and Riverdale; Starz's Outlander; FX’s Devs; TNT's Snowpiercer; Hulu’s Reprisal, Castle Rock, and Marvel’s Runaways; Apple TV+'s Servant and For All Mankind; Syfy's Wynonna Earp; DC Universe’s Harley Quinn; Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark? reboot; CBS’s Evil; CBS All Access's Star Trek: Discovery and Tell Me a Story; ABC’s Emergence; NBC's Manifest and Lincoln; Rooster Teeth's RWBY; AMC's The Walking Dead and untitled third Walking Dead show premiering in 2020; and Netflix's Lost in Space, Daybreak, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Some of these shows have a female-majority cast of stars, such as Nancy Drew, Charmed, Batwoman, Snowpiercer, and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

Behind the camera, almost all of these shows have at least one woman as a writer, executive producer, or director. However, the showrunner title (the show’s top creative executive) and the creative teams overall are dominated by men for most of these programs. The director job is especially rare for women on a TV series. Watchmen’s Nicole Kassell and Wynonna Earp’s April Mullen are among the few who get to direct these shows on a regular basis. 

The Charmed reboot, Evil, and Outlander are three of the rare superhero/sci-fi TV series with gender parity when it comes to their directors, writers, and executive producers. Emergence has a fairly even mix of men and women who are the show’s writers and executive producers, and Batwoman has a female-majority team of writers. Riverdale and Marvel’s Runaways have large, rotating groups of directors that include several women. Meanwhile, women are the vast majority of the writers, directors, and executive producers for She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

The superhero series Watchmen, inspired by the graphic novel series of the same name, debuted on HBO on Oct. 20. It was one of the most-anticipated and well-received panel showcases at this year’s NYCC, which world-premiered the show’s first episode. Regina King (an Oscar winner and Emmy winner) stars as Detective Angela Abar, also known as Sister Night, who is the lead character. During the Watchmen panel at NYCC, King said that she took on the role partly because she was inspired by female superheroes Wonder Woman and Firestar: “I knew I felt their power, and not as a way of objectification.” She added, “It’s always been inside me. I’ve always wanted to play a superhero, and it needed to be this [Watchmen team] for it to happen.”

The Snowpiercer TV series — based on the 2013 Snowpiercer movie and 1982 French graphic novel Le Transperceneige — will debut on TNT in the spring of 2020, and is about a group of post-apocalyptic survivors, divided by social class, living on a train called Snowpiercer. Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly, who stars as head of hospitality Melanie Cavill, commented to Women’s Media Center about her Snowpiercer role: “My character is quite rich and complicated. I was really attracted to her as a character because she’s really powerful, and it’s a deep and complex view of a human being.” 

Live Action Lags Behind Animation for Female Representation in Movies
As for films with theatrical releases, there weren't very many live-action movies showcased at NYCC this year, but most of them had male-dominated casts, such as Universal Pictures’ war drama 1917 and the 20th Century Fox action flicks The King’s Man and Free Guy. Sony Pictures’ 2020 re-imagining of The Grudge was the only live-action movie with a female-dominated cast that had a NYCC 2019 panel showcase, but all four movies were written and directed by men, with 1917 the only one that was co-written by a woman.

Birds of Prey co-stars Margot Robbie, Rosie Perez, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Ella Jay Basco made a surprise appearance at the DC Entertainment autograph booth. However, Warner Bros. Pictures (which releases DC Entertainment’s major films) chose not to have any Comic Con panel showcases for the female-dominated Birds of Prey ahead of the movie’s February 2020 release. 

The Grudge star Lin Shaye, a veteran of several supernatural-based horror movies, told Women’s Media Center that she tries to avoid gender clichés when choosing roles: “There’s a female mythology that you’re a weak woman and only good for childbearing. That [gender bias] is real on some level … but there are still elements of breaking out [of that stereotype] … The essence of humanity is that we all share the same qualities.”

Animated films at NYCC had a little more female representation. Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (a direct-to-video release) and Marvel Rising: Operation Shuri (available on Marvel HQ’s YouTube channel and the Marvel Unlimited subscription service) had their world premieres at NYCC. These two movies stand out for their female-majority casts, which are still rare in superhero/sci-fi films, whether animated or live action. Both movies were written by women and directed by men, which reflects the glass-ceiling pattern of men getting most of the director jobs.

Rosario Dawson, who is the voice of Wonder Woman in several animated films (including Wonder Woman: Bloodlines), said on the NYCC panel for the movie: “To be able to be a part of this history and bringing a new expression of [Wonder Woman] that fits this generation and the conversation is really powerful to be able to pass on to my daughter.” 

Marsha Griffin, Marvel Animation’s VP of current series and development, said on NYCC’s Women of Marvel panel that the Marvel Rising series and the upcoming Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur series represent “a growing trend of female-forward projects with strong females.” Griffin said that for decades, progress was slow for female heroes in animation because there was a myth that males wouldn’t watch animated projects with female-majority casts or a female as a leading character. She observed that the tide is beginning to turn — female characters aren’t necessarily being written as sidekicks or damsels in distress, but they are increasingly becoming the leading heroes. “We’re not trying to turn these [female] characters into men,” said Griffin. “We’re just presenting them as fully formed people.”