A Few Thoughts on Diversity in the MCU: TV Edition

Last Marvelous Wednesday, I talked about how the MCU films stack up in terms of representation for women and people of color.  Long story short, Marvel has notable, well-drawn female and PoC characters (though none who are both,) but everyone with their own solo property is a white male.  Movies starring a Black male and white female hero are in the works, but they’re still two to three years out.  Marvel’s TV shows, however, are a different story.

The MCU’s first show, Agents of SHIELD, is an ensemble series, but Daisy (née Skye) is one of its most prominent characters, and she’s a woman, a PoC, and an Inhuman (plus we’ve had Bobbi, May, Simmons, and Mac being awesome all over the place.)  Agent Carter came next, and while Peggy isn’t a superhero, she’s the first woman in the Marvelverse to have her name in the title.  Jessica Jones is the first solo vehicle for a female superhero (and gives us the fabulous Trish and wonderful Malcolm to boot!), beating out Captain Marvel by more than three years, and Luke Cage, the first series starring a superhero of color, is coming out a year-and-a-half before Black Panther.  Not to mention, Daredevil technically stars the MCU’s first disabled superhero (even though Matt’s powers more than negate his blindness) and features also Karen, Claire, and Elektra.

Plus, Marvel’s TV has given us the MCU’s first openly LGBTQ characters, with minor recurring character Joey in this season of Agents of SHIELD (also an Inhuman, so he has powers,) quickly followed by Jeri, Wendy, and Pam in Jessica Jones.  The four Marvel shows to date have also featured a variety of villains, including women and PoC (some of whom are WoC.)  Not that “Where’s my villain representation?!” is a typical rallying cry, but the MCU is letting their non-white and/or non-male characters run the full gamut as well – heroes, villains, and everything in between.  Who doesn’t love Dottie, right?

Not that inclusion on these shows is perfect.  I like Daisy, but I get where people are coming from when they complain about her being a Mary Sue, and Coulson’s blatant favoritism of her definitely feels Special Snowflake-ish.  The Hand on Daredevil is problematic, what with its legion of interchangeable Asian ninjas with no personalities.  And while Agent Carter does a splendid job of exploring gender discrimination in the 1940s, any consideration of race is conspicuously absent in its first season.  There’s certainly still room for improvement.

Since both the film and TV works are part of the same universe, I find it an interesting comparison of where the two industries at at in terms of diversity.  Yes, it’s a fair point that, even though Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are only the fourth and fifth Marvel TV shows (as opposed to the 18^th and 22^nd Marvel films for Black Panther and Captain Marvel,) they’re still benefiting from the same groundwork the white male superhero movies have been laying since 2008.  But that doesn’t change the fact that both of these milestone solo properties are coming out on TV years before they come out on film.  I think that’s because, as far as TV still has to go where diversity is concerned (just ask Sleepy Hollow,) the television industry has come farther than the film industry, where a movie starring a woman and/or a PoC is still considered a much bigger inherent “risk” and producers still fall over themselves in shock when a female- or PoC-led film is successful.  Much like comparing this year’s so-white Oscars with the more diverse Emmys, it serves as a handy microcosm for the differences between the film and TV landscape.