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In 2023, Marvel Studios released the sequel to its wildly popular 2019 superhero film, Captain Marvel. The Marvels starred Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, and Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, AKA Ms. Marvel.
The three women find themselves switching bodies when powerful quantum bands create new jump points across space. When the jump points are touched, the bands are activated, and the women switch bodies.
Credit: Marvel Studios, Disney
Related: Bob Iger Defends Marvel, But Admits to Multiple Project Cancellations
The two young women and one teenager must work together to save the world, but switching bodies at random moments is not helpful. But they combine their strengths and come together to conquer evil.
Although The Marvels starred three incredible women and showed how strong they can be, the movie suffered from one of the oldest tropes in almost every industry: women not being paid as much as men. This was despite the fact that the film was Marvel’s first to be directed by a black woman and featured a ton of on-screen diversity.
Credit: Disney/Marvel
According to a recent filing by Disney, less than 35% of the film’s crew was women, and on average, they made more than 23% less than the male crew members.
The information about The Marvels was collected on April 5, 2021 shortly before filming began. Not only does the data show that the average hourly pay of women on the crew was 23.8% less than men received but it was even lower when taking the middle number if hourly pay is ranked from highest to lowest. Using that measurement, women’s hourly pay was 25.2% lower than men’s. What’s more, just 17% of the jobs in the highest hourly pay category were held by women and they only occupied 26.1% of the positions in the second-highest hourly pay category.
Credit: Disney/Marvel
Related: Disney Abandons Another Fan-Favored Marvel Plan
Sadly, this is not the only black mark against the Marvel movie.
The Brie Larson-led superhero movie only grossed about $200 million at the box office, and the film reportedly cost around $275 million to make. It was one of Marvel’s worst-performing movies and one of the few ones to not make its budget back. To this day, it is one of the studio’s biggest flops.
Credit: Disney/Marvel
Earlier this year, it was also reported that the failure of The Marvels had caused Disney and Marvel to cancel a sequel film that was set to revolve around Monica Rambeau. However, they did say that her story within the Marvel Cinematic Universe would continue in another project.
Disney’s Failure to Pay Women
This is not the first time that Disney has been called out for not paying women as much as it pays the men who work on their productions. In fact, the company is facing a major gender pay gap lawsuit by Asta Jonasson, who worked as the Director of Development on the ABC show American Crime. Jonasson claimed that white men with less experience than her were being offered roles they didn’t have the experience for and pay they did not deserve.
Jonasson claimed that when she brought up gender and pay discrimination, she was promptly fired.
Credit: ABC
That is not the only time recently that a Disney production has been accused of systematically underpaying the women who work on it.
Disney is currently completing production on its highly controversial live-action remake, Snow White. The film has been receiving a ton of backlash for statements made by star Rachel Zegler.
Zegler has said that the movie would be a more modern version, and Snow White would have more authority over herself and make more of her own decisions. She even went so far as to refer to the Prince as a “stalker” and claimed that he wasn’t even needed in the story.
Credit: Disney
Related: Did You Know Disney Has a ‘Snow White’ Prequel?!
Even though Disney is trying to make the classic princess film a more progressive story, those progressive ideas did not extend behind the camera. Once again, women only occupied about 30% of the top-paying positions, and they had 48% of the lowest-paid positions. A film that Disney lauded for its diversity and inclusion didn’t appear to focus a lot on making sure that women were adequately represented.
And then there is Disney and Lucasfilm’s newest Disney+ series, The Acolyte.
Credit: Lucasfilm
The series has been getting absolutely blasted by Star Wars fans, who are calling it the worst series in the entire universe. The show is being attacked by more conservative watchers who think that it is too “woke”. Unfortunately, it is also being called out by progressives for, yet again, not giving women access to the top positions and the top pay.
Filings revealed that, much like Snow White and The Marvels, only about 30% of the people who worked on The Acolyte were women. On top of that, their pay was nearly 20% lower than that of the men who worked on the production.
Credit: Disney
For the past couple of years, Disney has been called out for being too “woke” and progressive, with conservative fans wanting the company to go back to what they consider “traditional” storytelling. But it seems that when it comes to men making more than women, Disney is not as progressive as it wants some people to believe.
Do you think Disney needs to work harder to make sure that women are paid the same as men, and given the same opportunities? Let us know in the comments.
