In defense of Ike Perlmutter.

Marvel CEO Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter.

A lot has been said about Marvel CEO's Ike Perlmutter's alleged leaked email where he put down the concept of female superhero movies and, of course, the politically correct crowd grabbed their torches and pitchforks and went after him. But I have a question for these keyboard warriors, have they even read his email or even know the basic functions of the film industry?

Now, I do think people are making a bigger deal out of this "scandal" than it truly deserves because it comes on the heels of online community criticizing Marvel for not showcasing their female superhero franchises as much as they could've. Fans' outrage spanned from either casual annoyance or outright accusations of sexism.

The "Holy Trinity" of box office bombs. See a pattern?

But the problem isn't with Marvel or Ike Perlmutter. I think it goes deeper. In my opinion, it goes to directors, writers, and producers of superhero films who seem to think female audiences deserve less than their male counterparts and continuously churned out lesser quality material that in the end destroyed any potential female lead superhero movies lead.

Contrary to popular belief, Perlmutter didn't really say anything sexist or anti-women in his email. The email, addressed to a Sony Executive, simply pointed out how female superhero movies made in the past couple of decades horribly bombed at the box office, and he had a point. Perlmutter listed the notorious bombs Catwoman, Elektra, and Supergirl (and there are many more, like the nearly unwatchable Tank Girl and Red Sonja) and how much money they lost. The only thing more notorious than their box office intake, however, is their awfu quality. The films suffer from horrible writing, bad direction, abysmal acting, and worst of all, incomprehensibly bad writing. None of the female lead superhero movies mentioned by Ike Perlmutter were well received either by critics or the audience, in addition to their flopping at the box office. None of these movies count as "good" movies aside from (or lack there of) their profitability.

A big issue with female superhero films is that we cannot connect with the lead character due to inherently sexist nature of the writing. Why must female superheroes only fight "girly" things? Be it a cosmetic company (Catwoman) or a beauty spa (Elektra), the idiotic pretext begins to alienate the average viewer, as is their equally insipid alter ego person, like Supergirl's sexy uniform boarding schoolgirl. I feel that Perlmutter's email was taken cruelly out of context, because he was specifying WHY those films flopped and the mistakes he would like HIS female superhero movies to avoid because he does not want them to become another pop culture/box office casualty.

Maybe, instead of crucifying Marvel, Disney, Sony, and Ike Perlmutter and dismissing them as "sexist pigs" we need to encourage these people to put in more effort into female superhero movies. If the quality improves, so will the box office intake, but this "self-fullfiling prophecy" schtick of creating subpar movies they know no one will see has to stop now.

~Evgueni Mlodik