Avengers: Endgame had to live up to some extremely high expectations. With Infinity War providing a ludicrous amount of superhero action, it felt impossible to truly top it. But, the finale of the movie, where every MCU hero to date teams up to battle Thanos’ army, caused jaws to drop in theaters around the world. One of the most memorable moments of this sequence came when practically every female hero in the MCU appeared in the same shot together, before wreaking havoc on Thanos’ army.
While some loved the scene (there were whoops of joy in the first night screening I attended), it also achieved a bit of pushback, with some fans considering it pandering. Now, writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have defended it, explaining in an interview with /Film that:
“We’ve learned this a lot – emotional logic versus intellectual logic. Emotional logic wins every time. So I recognize that there are some people who are like, ‘It’s pretty convenient that all of the ladies are all in one spot,’ but the eight-year-old girl next to me loses her mind and wears a T-shirt, and I’m good with it.”
It’s a damn good point. It’s also probably notable that if there were a shot in which you have solely multiple male heroes teaming up to fight, nobody would bat an eyelid. So, why is it “pandering” when it’s all women? Plus, the film had done so much right by that point that I think they can bend the rules a little and throw in some fan service.
Earlier this year, McFeely even said they felt it was an important moment on set while shooting, explaining:
“I remember on the day we shot that, every woman on the crew and in the offices came down and were sort of milling about behind the cameras. That was, perhaps, the most moving part of it for me, how important it was for everybody to see it.”
I still hope that we’ll one day get that all-female Avengers movie the women of the MCU have been pushing for. After a shaky start over the first two phases, they’ve built up a great selection of female MCU heroes, one that’s only going to grow when The Eternals hits cinemas next year.
