If you’ve been living under a rock for the past while, you might not realize that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is in a bit of a tight spot.
Thanks to alt-right trolls (including Mike Cernovich, who was previously charged with rape), director and cosmic MCU space leader James Gunn was fired from his role at Disney. Cernovich and his ilk found old tweets Gunn made joking about inappropriate topics, Disney moved swiftly to protect their brand and now fans and members of the series’ cast and crew are uncertain over how things will move forward.
In a recent article on MovieWeb, writer Kevin Burwick argued there’s one surefire remedy to save the third chapter – in his view, Disney could hire a female director to take over and execute the production of the third film. He argued more representation is needed behind the camera (to be fair, this is certainly not wrong) and female creatives such as Patty Jenkins have contributed wonderfully to the genre.
Here though, Burwick’s playing a game of tokenism advocacy.
When it comes to representation, yes, by all means there should be more of it. Differing perspectives outside the traditional white, straight and male purview make for more interesting content and when launching a story or brand focused around any minority you should of course make sure those groups depicted are represented in production, but saying a woman should be hired to save a brand’s face is nonsense.
No woman in this scenario should be hired just because of their gender. They deserve to be judged alongside their peers on the merits of their talent and ideas for a project and not some preferential vision of what a filmmaker should be. To do the opposite with a general production is something that would make the worst Marvel villain proud.
What do you think, though? Does Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 need a female director? And does representation behind the camera matter to you? Let us know in the comments section down below.
