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Tag: female characters

  • A ‘Loki’ Viewer Has Compiled Some Depressing Data on Its Female Characters

    A ‘Loki’ Viewer Has Compiled Some Depressing Data on Its Female Characters

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    You don’t have to be a diehard Sylki shipper to notice that something felt off in Loki season 2, especially when it came to the series’ female characters. Now, one viewer has compiled data indicating that it wasn’t just our imaginations.

    Loki season 1 introduced four powerful new female characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), a variant of Loki who’s determined to destroy the Time Variance Authority, ends the season by singlehandedly unleashing the multiverse. Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) are fierce TVA loyalists trying to protect the Sacred Timeline. Miss Minutes (Tara Strong) is a cheerful A.I. with a sinister side. The season also had great minor female characters, like Hunter C-20 (Sasha Lane).

    In season 2, though, the gender balance didn’t feel as healthy. Although the season introduced one new female character, Judge Gamble (Liz Carr), the women in the series seemed to be overshadowed by male newcomers O.B. (Ke Huy Quan), Brad Wolf (Rafael Casal), and Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), along with Casey (Eugene Cordero), who was promoted to a series regular.

    Sylvie’s character felt particularly sidelined. Although I held out hope until the very end that the season was leading up to something really interesting for her, when the season concluded, Sylvie felt more like a foil for Loki than a character in her own right. The romance that begins in season 1 never goes anywhere, and the season finale’s battle in the Citadel even contains a problematic trope: Loki and He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) both make Sylvie freeze and disappear so they don’t have to deal with her while they talk about the fate of the timeline.

    All in all, the series just didn’t seem to care about its female characters. And now there are numbers to prove it.

    On X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, a user named Elyse (@shoalsandsuch) read through episode transcripts and totaled up the number of words spoken by each character. Elyse then visualized that data into charts and graphs. Here’s one of Elyse’s starkest findings:

    “On the whole,” Elyse writes, “from Season 1 to Season 2 female dialogue decreased by 25% (1509 words) while male dialogue rose 22% (2038 words).” The character who loses the most dialogue is, unsurprisingly, Sylvie, with her word count falling by 1103 words. In terms of screen time, Elyse explains in the intro to the Reddit thread that Sylvie’s season 2 screen time is half of what it is in season 1.

    Of course, the data has complicating factors, too. For instance, Elyse found that Loki’s own screen time dropped by about 45 minutes in season 2. And it’s important to remember that despite Loki’s genderfluidity in the comics and his TVA file, the series has no actual genderfluid or nonbinary characters that we know of.

    “I was inspired to do this work largely by my background in research on comic books and gender representation,” Elyse told The Mary Sue. “I’ve found that having quantifiable numbers can help in appreciating abstract issues like gender representation.

    “My hope in sharing the data was that people who felt like female characters were underserved by the season got a sense of affirmation being able to see that there was definitive data supporting those feelings,” Elyse explained, “and that people who may have been dismissive towards concerns about gender representation in season 2 or just hadn’t thought about it could see that there is actual evidence demonstrating the issue.”

    I should note that I haven’t verified Elyse’s data. However, Elyse explains her methodology in the Reddit thread, so anyone with the time and inclination can repeat the experiment.

    The larger point here is that film and TV, especially comic book and superhero media, have always had a problem when it comes to gender representation. You can head over to Reddit or X to take a look at some of the other statistics Elyse compiled, but here’s hoping that someday, threads like these won’t be necessary.

    (featured image: Disney+)

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    Julia Glassman

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  • Beth and Summer Have Become Their Own Main Characters in Rick and Morty

    Beth and Summer Have Become Their Own Main Characters in Rick and Morty

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    The show may be called Rick and Morty, but we’re also here for Beth and Summer.

    In the first few seasons of Rick and Morty, the focus tended to be on the two titular characters. Through the seasons, the story has expanded and we’ve seen more of the other family members. Beth (Sarah Chalke) and Summer (Spencer Grammer) in particular have become major parts of the show. Summer is so much more than the basic teen sister/granddaughter. Beth is a complicated woman and mother. With Beth, we also have the bonus character known as Space Beth, a possible clone who kicks butt all over the universe. We sat down with the cast of Rick and Morty season 7 and discussed how great Chalke and Grammer’s characters are.

    Beth and Space Beth’s interesting relationship

    First and foremost, we had to discuss a certain episode from season 6 with Chalke. In episode 3, season 6, “Bethic Twinstinct,” Beth and Space Beth have an affair. But is it even possible to have an affair with yourself, or is it self-care? Chalke voiced both roles and made it sound so convincing. “I loved recording that episode. It was really fun. You really record them as two separate characters so we record all of Beth and then all of Space Beth,” Chalke said. “It was a really fun challenge in general, but in that episode in particular you know, just finding a way to ground the character both in Beth. They’re both Beth but they’re so unique and they’re so different.”

    Chalke explained the logistics of the Beth/Space Beth kissing scene. “The scene where they are seducing each other, I’m in the booth and I’m like you know having to kiss myself and make out with myself.” Voicing two versions of the same character may be a challenge, but Chalke is up for it. “I feel like it’s one of the coolest parts of this show, right? As an actor, you can never predict what’s going to be thrown your way and it’s what keeps the job so fun. I loved every episode of getting to play Space Beth because she’s so much cooler than I am and cooler than Home Beth is.”

    Spencer Grammar in pink sunglasses and a black blazer and sarah chalke in a white shirt and black blazer laugh.
    (Spencer Grammer and Sarah Chalke speak onstage at San Diego Comic-Con 2019. Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for IMDb)

    Summer’s story is just beginning

    Grammer agreed that Summer has changed a lot over the seasons. “I’ve loved the journey from that first season to now has been organic but also been reflective of the time that we’re living in.” She reflected that the world has gone through the #MeToo movement and a global pandemic since the show first began. But Grammer still sees the fun in Summer. “I do it to make people laugh,” Grammer said. “I think Summer’s journey has been great. I love that I get to do great one-liners. I get to be a badass. Things that are a lot harder to do on camera I get to do with my voice.”

    Summer has many more adventures ahead of her. “Well, it would be cool if Summer has a ‘Summer Prime’? Or like what about a Citadel of Summers? Or like an Evil Summer?” Grammer said. “What happens to Summer when she meets the Summer who’s more Summer-y than Summer, you know? Does she get to have a clone? Does she get to have a Space Summer where she’s living her best life? I would love to see her become even more like Rick. I think Summer could go darker and then find her heart again at some point. She hasn’t been married. Not really. She’s just a teenage girl experiencing love and doesn’t believe in it. There’s something apathetic to her character. She doesn’t have that kind of depth that Rick is going through at the moment nor would she in any circumstances because she’s a 17-year-old girl whose brain isn’t fully developed until she’s closer to thirty.”

    We can’t wait to see more of Beth and Summer in seasons to come! Season 7 of Rick and Morty is currently airing on Adult Swim.

    (featured image: Adult Swim)

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    D.R. Medlen

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