An anonymous member of the Writer’s Guild of America recently confirmed various theories about why superhero films and TV shows have gone to hell.
(L-R): Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Falcon/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in Marvel Studios’ THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
In an email sent to Film Threat, the anonymous WGA member shared five points that confirm nearly all theories about why the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Arrowverse, and other superhero films and TV shows have been utter trash over the last half decade or so.
First the member shared that “writers hired on comic book shows are told it’s a POSITIVE that they are unfamiliar with the original comic book and not a fan of the existing IP because they want to do a ‘modern new take on the material relevant to today.'”
Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer “Jen” Walters/She-Hulk in Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.
This first point is not surprising given Jac Schaeffer, who wrote WandaVision and Black Widow, admitted to Deadline back in 2021, “I’m not a very good comic reader. I have a hard time digesting the storylines and I never know which cell to look at, and I don’t know, I’m a disappointment, perhaps, to the fandom in that way, but the imagery is always, of course, very startling and moving and inspiring, and it was Kevin Feige’s idea to marry Wanda and Vision to the sitcom world.”
She would also reveal to Mashable she had no idea who Mephisto was, “There was never any conscious intention on my part to create any Mephisto red herrings, because I didn’t know who Mephisto was until I started doing press.”
“Why did we talk about the devil so much? That’s a real coincidence,” she added.
(L-R): Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), Tommy (Jett Klyne), Vision (Paul Bettany), Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) in Marvel Studios’ WANDAVISION exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
It’s not just writers. Actor John Cena also shared that he was told not to do any research for Peacemaker at the behest of James Gunn.
Cena said during an appearance on the Podly podcast, “I think he didn’t want me to read those comics because he didn’t want me to develop biases to come on set and go like, ‘The comics say this.’ So I know what you’re telling me but Peacemaker is more like this because of what I read. And it actually worked out great because, you know, the Peacemaker’s material is archival, it’s old, it’s not of today. So to take a character and retrofit all the stuff and make it appropriate for what James Gunn wanted for the series. He actually gave me the advice not to read those comics and I’m glad he did.”
The WGA member’s second point states, “Writers are asked (a) Why this story today? How is it relevant politically today to the existing narrative they’re pushing on our culture? and (b) Why are you the person to tell it? ‘Because I have talent and wrote it’ is NOT a valid answer. What is a valid answer is, ‘Because I’m a member of this aggrieved group or class and only we can tell our own story.'”
The upcoming X-Men ’97 animated series appears to be an example of this. The series’ Executive Producer Beau DeMayo shared during Marvel’s X-Men: 60 Uncanny Years Live Virtual Event, “Came up with a pitch, pitched it to Kevin Feige and, you know, him and Brad [Winderbaum] could not have been more supportive and also just encouraging to make sure we got it right.”
“I think one of my favorite parts was like they were truly interested in like what my experience as a black gay man was and how it was going to inform the story we were telling. And that to them was like that is how we’re going to make this authentic,” he relayed.
X-Men ’97 logo
For the third point, the WGA member wrote, “This leads to a “heads we win; tails you lose game” where if you don’t include diverse characters, you’re dinged for having an all-white/non-diverse cast — regardless of the time or place of the story or historical accuracy — and if you do have a diverse case (race / gender) then you are guilty of ‘cultural appropriation.’ This means that unless you are, for example, African-American, you are not allowed to tell a story about an African-American character. Or disabled or LGBTQI2+. Unless you ARE that specific subgroup, you can’t write it.”
Comic book writer Christopher Priest discussed this back in 2018 in an interview with ComicBook.com. He revealed, “So I got a call from DC, and they wanted to talk to me about Cyborg. I gave them the standard stump speech. I don’t want to be a ‘black writer.’ When did I become a black writer? I used to be a guy who would write Spider-Man, Deadpool, and Batman. Why am I no longer qualified to write those characters? How did I get typecast from writing Black Panther of all things, when that series was never really about Black Panther. It was about the white guy, about Ross. It was narrated through his voice, and I thought I wrote a very well-constructed white character. Why are you now pigeonholing me as a guy who can only write black characters?”
Blue Beetle (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures
For the fourth point, the WGA member stated, “There’s a bias toward the ‘two-fer’ or ‘three-fer’ hire — being gay, for example, ‘isn’t enough’ now. You have to be gay / African-American / Latinx / undocumented / unhoused / differently-abled. Then, on the DEI scorecard, they have a 2x or 3x positive score for the hire.”
Interestingly, the lead actor in the upcoming The Acolyte series is Amandla Steinberg who is black and claims to be a lesbian, non-binary, and an intersectional feminist.
(L-R): Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae and Director Leslye Headland on the set of Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, exclusively on Disney+. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Finally, the fifth point is, “To give you an idea of how competitive things are, for Only Murders in the Building there was word a staff position was available. This is the lowest-rung writing position. They received 450 scripts as writing samples for this ONE job. A manager told me these jobs would ‘typically go to a BIPOC writer,’ but the show decided not to hire anyone or to go in another direction.”
Anya Chalotra as Yennefer in The Witcher (2023), Netflix
What do you make of this WGA member confirming speculation and numerous theories about why superhero movies and TV shows have gone to hell?
NEXT: Hollywood Screenwriter Asserts Studios Sidelined “White, Straight, Male Writers And Directors”
The two-fer bit confirms the whole non-binary fad being exactly that. They can say they are and “use either pronoun” without question to make them more eligible.