The Amazing Invisible Woman!

Imagine what the world would look like if demographics were the same in reality as their representations are on TV.

How many black lawyers would there be if we hired based on the demographics of Law and Order? How many Asians would live in Toronto if our immigration laws followed the casting decisions of Rookie Blue? And how many women would be born tomorrow if we lived in the world of The Flash?

Don’t get me wrong – I like The Flash. I might even go so far as to say that I love The Flash. I am a superhero geek, and I devour content faster than TV writers can give it to me. I watched every episode of every superhero cartoon ever made when I was growing up in the Golden Age of (TV) Comics, ie the 90s. Now I watch S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil, Arrow, and The Flash, and those are just the ones currently airing. Most days I feel like these shows are made for me – but then, there are days like today.

I don’t know why it occurred to me. More importantly, I don’t know why it never occurred to me before. I guess we’re so inured to being invisible (women in superhero fandoms, that is) that we’ve stopped seeing it. How can we be offended, when offence takes aim at the things we love? The answer is simple: because we have to be. Because if we don’t speak out, point out, and call out, nothing will ever change.

Arrow is set in the same world as The Flash. As far as I’m aware it has the same creators. It also has a healthy, rounded out cast of strong (and more importantly) and interesting female characters. Sarah, Thea, Mrs. Queen (sniff), and okay even Laurel who is not my favourite character but granted is around a lot. And here comes The Flash onto the scene at the beginning of the year, and it did a LOT of things right. It has a strong multi-racial cast, with African-American principal characters (s! with an s!), a Latino principle, and a strong smart female scientist. Good start.

Here’s where it starts to fall apart.

It falls apart so, so, so hard.

The Flash has eight characters who I would consider to be “principle” – ie, people who appear in every episode. On the men’s side we have Barry Allen, the scientists Cisco and Dr. Wells, and the detectives Joe West and Eddie Thawne. On the women’s side we have the waitress/reporter Iris West, and the scientist Caitlin Snow. Okay. Six to two. These aren’t great percentages, but (I’m sad to say) I’m happy with those numbers. It’s true that women make up half of the world’s population, but we’re mostly at the point where having some interesting women who are more than just “the girl” is as close to winning as we get. Iris and Caitlin are both people in their own rights, with plot lines that are engaging and individuated. So why bother writing a blog post?

Let’s widen that lens, shall we, and look at characters who are in at least three episodes – not principals to be sure, but definitely recurring. On the men’s side we have Captain Singh, Ronnie Raymond, Henry Allen, Mason Bridge,  Dr. Stein, General Eiling, Captain Cold, Officer Vukuvich, Mick Rory, and Mark Mardon. There’s also Young Barry, though I’m willing to grant that he’s kind of the same character as Barry as far as counting gender goes. So let’s call it 10, to be fair. For women, we have Linda Park. Yup, one. Okay, there’s also Nora Allen, who we keep seeing screaming and dying in flashbacks, which I guess sort of counts. And there’s Felicity Smoak, who pops in from the wider world of Arrow three times over the course of the season. So if we’re being really, really generous, we’ve got a 10 to 3 ratio. …

Think that’s bad? Oh, my friends, you have seen absolutely nothing yet. For those of you who are for some reason reading this even though you know absolutely nothing about The Flash, it centres on the idea that a particle accelerator explosion gave a bunch of people super powers. Most of them like to rob banks for some reason, so Barry stops them. So almost every episode focuses on a new “meta-human” and the challenges in taking them down.

Guess how many of those meta-humans are women?

Don’t guess, you’ll just cry.

I had a hard time remembering how many meta-humans we’ve seen so far. Accounts on the Internet differed between 16 and 20, not including the Flash and the Reverse Flash (worst name ever, guys.) But all sources agree that of that number, a grand total of two of them are women. That’s it. Two. Only one of those two was a villain – the other one was just misunderstood. (Guess how many of the men have been misunderstood?) I don’t know why writers and producers think that women can’t be villains. I don’t know why they think women don’t have the same motivations that drive men (money, power, revenge.) I don’t know why they think we won’t want to see Barry Allen get into a fist fight with a women (what, are men still seriously not allowed to ‘hit a girl’? Come on, people!)

It can be hard to accept that the things we love are so imbalanced – but calling something out doesn’t mean giving it up. The problematic elements of The Flash don’t mean I won’t be sitting on my couch next Tuesday night with a bowl of popcorn and a frosty beverage, eyes eagerly glued to the screen. But it does mean I’ll shout it out; and maybe, if you all shout with me, eventually… people will start to listen.