According to Marvel Cinematic Universe actor Randall Park, Hollywood is “taking the wrong lessons” from their various box office victories, as rather than seeing a given film’s success as an indicator that audiences want to see more of a particular story or character, he believes they should indicate a demand for more projects from diverse creators.
The man behind the MCU’s version of Jimmy Woo offered his take on Hollywood’s current green-lighting process during an August interview with Rolling Stone.
Amidst a larger discussion on the topic of Asian representation in the industry, the outlet’s Marlow Stern posited, “Asians folks have some of the worst representation in Hollywood by the numbers, and it’s never made sense to me because studios are courting the Asian box office, which is almost as big as the North American box office. But it feels like Asians aren’t really allowed to complain about that because of the whole ‘model minority’ thing.”
In turn, the WandaVision and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania actor opined, “Totally.”
“I feel like, just in general, this industry is taking the wrong lessons. For example, Barbie is this massive blockbuster, and the idea is: Make more movies about toys! No. Make more movies by and about women!”
“Right,” replied Sterne. “The lesson here should be that you gave this brilliant independent woman filmmaker in Greta Gerwig the reins to a big blockbuster movie and had Margot Robbie star in and produce it.”
“Exactly!” exclaimed Park in conclusion to this thoughts. “Think like that. It’s Greta Gerwig!”
Despite Park’s assertion, it should be noted that history has proven how disastrous basing production of a given entertainment product entirely on identity politics can be.
For example, films like Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) and Charlie’s Angels (2019) delivered exactly what Park is asking for: stories about women directed by a woman. As a bonus, both films also based their entire scripts and marketing campaign on their respective female representation.
The results? A pair of films so eye-rollingly ‘pop feminist’ that they each failed to break even at the worldwide box-office.
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Likewise, Marvel’s own upcoming The Marvels both fulfills all of Park’s criteria and also has promoted itself as a feminist project.
Yet, there’s almost no buzz surrounding the sequel, with many audiences finding the film’s promise of being more “wacky and silly” than previous MCU entries having already turned off audience members who are tired of Marvel’s ‘ironic humor’.
And this doesn’t just apply to films by women.
Take a look at DC’s upcoming Blue Beetle. Featuring a story centered around a Latin American family and helmed by a Latino director, the bug-themed hero’s solo outing has regularly been touted as a win for such representation.
Unfortunately, the Kamen Rider-influenced film is currently forecasted to pull in $55 million at max against an estimated budget of $120 million.
The reason for this trend? Simply put, among most audiences, representation in and of itself is not a selling point.
Rather, as put forth by such creatives as DC Studios co-head James Gunn, Arrowverse co-creator Marc Guggenheim, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse creators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, audiences want to watch films that feature good writing and production values.
To this end, in those instances when identity is put forth as a project’s main appeal, it usually indicates that its creators focused more on lecturing and virtue signaling than making sure their ideas landed with anyone outside of a university-level English class.
And that’s why films such as Black Panther or the aforementioned Barbie, despite falling into such traps, have succeeded.
Regardless of their film’s messages, directors Ryan Coogler and Greta Gerwig are already established practitioners of their craft. As such, they know how to explore such themes while also being entertaining – though how successful they were at accomplishing this goal is up to each individual viewer.
A success for Coogler or Gerwig shouldn’t be minimized by being viewed in terms of victories for everyone who shares their immutable traits. Rather, they should be celebrated as victories for the individual filmmakers themselves, as it was their own efforts that brought the idea to the silver screen.
To immediately reduce their own individal accomplishments to their gender or skin color is, at the very least, insulting.