THOR: RAGNAROK's Tessa Thompson Takes Male Superhero Screenwriters To Task
If Thor: Ragnarok's Tessa Thompson reads one more superhero movie script that describes the female lead as "badass" somebody's going to get hurt! " That word has just crept into every script..."
Tessa Thompson wants the heroines in superhero films to have better characterization and it's the non-formulaic approach to Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok that ultimately attracted the rising Hollywood starlet to the role. However, it seems she saw her fair share of mediocre screenplays before the Eric Pearson-written MCU entry came her way.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Thompson stated:
"There’s an unfair position that women are sometimes put in, in the context of superhero movies and action movies where at once they have to be very strong and fierce, but also sexy. Obviously, it’s still a superhero movie and so you’ve got to figure out when you need to stand with your hands on your hips and what makes sense. But we wanted to create a character that occupied her own iconography."
And it seems there's one word in particular that she hates seeing in the screenplays she evaluating:
"There’s one word I hate in all scripts in Hollywood at the moment in describing women, and that is the word ‘badass.’ That word has just crept into every script that is pushed around this town now. It’s terrible, because it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a dumb male writer’s way of saying, ‘Ah, uh, she’s like, she, uh, she’s tough.’ Then straight after that it’s like, ‘She’s badass, but she’s got a beauty about her. And she’s sexy. Unconsciously sexy.'"
Thor: Ragnarok certainly appears to be poised to break any preexisting stereotypes regarding female roles in superhero movies as Cate Blanchett will also be debuting as the first, primary female antagonist in the MCU- and one that's strong enough to crush Mjolnir with one hand.
The Taika Waititi-directed pic hits theaters on November 3, 2017.
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