girls just wanna be superheroes

And sometimes villains.

In light of some of the stuff we’ve been talking about recently — like all the men I’m tired of being asked to sympathize with in movies when there is no comparable list of complicated women the movies want us to spend time with — I figured it was time to share some photos my friend Bonnie-Ann Black took at New York Comic-Con last fall. Like this one, which I love:

Look how happy she is to be playing superhero! And her, too:

As Bonnie says about these women in general:

i loved that they didn’t try to look like men. they just wanted to be superheroes.

Though sometimes a touch of the masculine works, too:

A whole team of Avengers:

Join the 501st and see the galaxy!

Just avoid the Jedi if you can:

What do women dream about? Having adventures:

Being bad:

Saving the day:

Solving mysteries (she’s Sherlock Holmes):

Bonnie describes these women as “amazing, refuse to be put-down, stay-at-home, arm-candy, prizes.” You know, what Teh Movies usually classify us as. We don’t like it. It’s not what we fantasize about. No one daydreams about standing on the sidelines watching someone else have all the fun. We want to do things ourselves! And we don’t go to the movies to see women as secondary characters. If the movies don’t give us women as heroes, we will appropriate the male heroes for ourselves. But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t rather have women heroes. And it certainly doesn’t mean we’re willing to forgive how you keep ignoring us.

These are the sorts of unrealistic depictions of women we need more of.