Why #WeWantWidow is the Wrong Direction

Alright y'all. Strap in. I'm gonna get REAL pop culture on you for a moment.

First of all, I need to disclaim myself- I'm probably the nerdiest girl you've ever met. No. I'm serious.
Please see my

Harry Potter shelves

 and

Living room wall - approximately 12 feet end to end

and

6 cubbies worth of spots on our bookshelf

Not to mention the shelves and shelves of Star Wars, Star Trek, fantasy and sci-fi movies and tv shoes, and the scores of fantasy, sci-fi, and comic books we have.

But I digress.

Anyway, here's the deal. I don't want a Black Widow movie. And before you freak out and call me a traitor to my own gender and my "people," hear me out. 

Black Widow is an awesome character. But she was never intended to be a standalone "focus" character. She's a support character, and a damn good one if I do say so myself. Natasha is a sneaky kick-a spy whose moral compass doesn't exactly point north- not that it's a bad thing, but sometimes you think she's Hydra, when (SPOILERS!) she's actually secretly infiltrated Hydra as per Nick Fury's instructions. (This is according to the Earth's Mightiest Heroes arc, which I'm personally most familiar with.) Regardless, when you read the comics and watch the incredibly fabulous tv series of this arc, you love her, and then you hate her, and then you love her again. This... kind of doesn't work in mainstream cinema. (Sorry Game of Thrones. You're not mainstream cinema, regardless of how much we love you.) And while I love her and love seeing the multi-faceted layers of her character, we just don't get that much about her even in the comics, because they've chosen not to focus on her. That's fine.

Because the comics don't have much about her, IF there WAS a movie made about her, it would be... a lot of made up stuff. Not that making up stuff is a bad thing, but why spend a bunch of time making up a story for a character we sort of already know, rather than using a bunch of pre-existing source material, to, I dunno, INTRODUCE A NEW FEMALE CHARACTER?

Like really. I just don't get it. Why have the feminist nerd masses chosen to focus on the only female character we have and demand a movie for her? Why not just add to it? [And yes. I know they're making a Captain Marvel movie. I'm getting there.] Personally I'm sitting here thinking, 'I want as many kick-a female role models as possible.' 

Don't get me wrong, Widow is a great character. But honestly I feel like her getting her own movie would just be Marvel Studios catering to the feminerds and making a "hush movie." Is that really what we want? To be so annoying that we get a movie made (likely half-ass) just to shut us up? Um. Let me go ahead and tell you. No. Just, no. If we get a female superhero (which, we are) I want her film to be amazing, well cast, well written, well acted, well directed, and just all around a solid movie, given the proper time to develop (which... is happening).

Irritations about "Captain" Marvel aside (she's ACTUALLY a Colonel, and calling her "Captain" reeeeeeeally gets on my nerves- but we don't need to talk about that), I'm really stoked for her movie. Carol Danvers is one of my favorite characters in all of Marvel, and I'm happy that she's going to bring us into a new era of Marvel hero movies. I'm pretty anxiously awaiting the announcement of her casting, though this is who I'm gunning for, personally.

She's just too cool. And too perfect for the role.

In addition to Carol, there are SEVERAL female characters I'd love to see have standalone movies.

To name a few off the top of my head, Wasp (who we might get if Evangeline Lily's Ant-Man character pans out the way we hope... pretty please Marvel???), a Scarlet Witch/Vision duo movie (because let's face it, The Vision is my favorite character in the whole of the universe, even though they kind of botched his origin story in Age of Ultron; and that pairing is probably my favorite [SPOILERS!] romance ever), Mockingbird, or White Tiger (ohhhh I want the next Spider-Man with a new cast to have all of my dear favorite Ultimate Characters as teenagers).

So, while I probably wouldn't say no to a Widow movie, this might be the wrong place to focus your energies, ladies. Widow probably honestly has a LOT of the screen time for the current (and past) Avengers, considering how many of the movies she's been in (Iron Man 2, The Avengers, Captain American 2, Age of Ultron). Yes, I know, "everyone" else got standalone movies, but guess who else hasn't? (And isn't, as far as they've announced). Hawkeye. Falcon. Vision. War Machine. Scarlet Witch. [Oh, but all of them except Scarlet Witch are dudes. So they don't matter, right??] And let's see... Age of Ultron is Hawkeye's second movie, and he left the team, so he's done. This is Falcon's second movie. This is Vision's first. This is War Machine's second movie. (I'm sorry. Freaking Terence Howard doesn't count, and we never saw him as War Machine anyway.) If we're going off of Col Rhodes, third. And Scarlet Witch's first. So um... Widow being in four movies is unfair? She plays a HUGE part in Cap 2. Over those 4 movies we learn a LOT about her. So, quite frankly, her getting her own movie would be a lot of... stuff we've already seen.

I'm not saying what we've seen is bad, but if we want the MCU to be truly sustainable, we need new characters, with new stories, to draw in new fans, and keep the 'mildly interested' people (like my parents) coming to see MCU films. Because, unfortunately, the 'mildly interested' people make up a huge chunk of ticket sales, and if they lose interest, no more tickets, and no more films. If you want more bad-a ladies, look no further than the Lady Sif in Thor/Thor 2/Agents of SHIELD, the upcoming Ant-Man movie, and the Black Panther movie.

These ladies are the King's Guard of Wakanda. And they KICK ASS. I'm really looking forward to seeing them in live action!!

We need to play the long game here folks. And a Black Widow movie is not long game.