The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most successful franchises of all time. With over a decade of storytelling and over two dozen movies, these films have been successful at the box office as well as with dedicated fans. While there are many compelling characters and positive things about the franchises, it also has its downsides and flaws. From poor storytelling choices in some cases to lack of diversity, there are some things about the MCU that already haven’t aged well even as the universe continues to expand.
Here are the ten main things from the MCU that haven’t aged well.
Over-Sexualization Of Female Characters
In Phase One of the MCU, the treatment of women was not the best. It felt like women were used more as props, especially for Iron Man, and to look attractive. This is quite clear in Black Widow’s early character design which was very unnatural looking and seemed more to make her look overly sexy. Tony Stark was also quite the womanizer in his early films and this behavior was seen more as hilarious, or even admirable, rather than as poor behavior that disrespected women. There were also many close-up scenes of Black Widow’s body parts, a joke about sexual assault in Age of Ultron, and that awkward moment when Hulk fell on top of Black Widow’s chest.
Few Women In Main Roles
One thing that many people have critiqued when it comes to the MCU is that there were a lot of issues with gender representation in earlier movies. For many movies, Black Widow was the only main female superhero, and she wasn’t treated that well. The other main female character at first was Pepper Potts who started off as an assistant to Tony Stark in a more stereotypical feminine role. Thankfully, the MCU did start to add more diverse and well-rounded female roles with time, but some of the early movies feel a bit outdated.
Poor Character Development
Many of the best MCU movies are solo films that focus on individual characters or a small group. Some of the best movies in the franchise are those like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Black Panther.
The ensemble movies are a lot of fun, but they have so many characters that it’s hard to really do them all justice. The Avengers films struggle to focus on character development that connects to the solo films and sometimes the character choices were at odds with choices made in other films.
Terrible Villains
One thing that many people have pointed out about the MCU from the beginning is how there weren’t a lot of interesting villains - so maybe this is something that was never done well, rather than something that aged badly! Many of the villains are quite forgettable, and the main conflict in a lot of these movies was actually between the heroes themselves. Even Thanos, who was supposed to be the biggest bad guy of them all, has motivations that don’t ever make all that much sense. Plus, his character design isn’t really that scary and is kind of laughable.
Forced Romances
Another one of the main critiques that has been made against the franchise is that the romances aren’t compelling. While there are some pairings that are developed well, there are many others that felt forced. Relationships such as the ones between Bruce and Natasha and Steve and Sharon didn’t make sense on most levels. While romance might not be the main focus in these movies, they could have been handled with a more skilled hand.
Lack Of LGBT Relationships
While many of the relationships in the MCU might feel forced, there is another glaring omission related to romance. As of early 2020, there are still no canon LGBT couples in the franchise.
Even with pairings that many fans rooted for because of a strong foundation that could have been made romantic such as Steve and Bucky, things were never made canon and there is almost no representation at all. Even characters like Valkyrie that were queer in the comics haven’t been made that way in MCU canon yet. This definitely hasn’t aged well and isn’t a good look.
Years Without Diverse Leads
While over time the MCU has included more diversity in its movies, it took them away longer than it should have. Almost all of the movies had white men as the leads until 2018, when Black Panther was released, and then later on with Captain Marvel. The fact that it took nearly ten years to have a movie with a lead that wasn’t a white male is rather disappointing, but hopefully, there continues to be more diversity in the franchise.
Inconsistent Characterizations
The way the MCU is set up means that different directors and screenwriters are in charge of writing the same characters at different points. This means that the characterizations of different characters can be rather inconsistent from film to film. For example, the way Thor was written in Thor: Ragnarok is very different than how he was written in Avengers: Endgame. This makes it easy to critique characters as their actions don’t always match up.
#MarvelSoWhite
With the exception of Black Widow who was introduced in Iron Man 2, the early MCU films were very heavily led by white male characters. There were a couple of Black side characters introduced such as War Machine and Falcon, but sadly they were often relegated to more of a side-kick role. There were some women and people of color, but they were usually minor or side characters and this went on for decades before anything was really done about it.
Avengers: Endgame’s Message That Returning To The 50s Was Admirable
Given that Endgame was the culmination of so many years and so many films, there were a lot of stories and characters to wrap up. Sticking the landing of such a large franchise is a difficult thing to do, and Endgame didn’t quite pull it off. But plot issues and continuity aside, one of the most disturbing messages of that film was the handling of Steve Roger’s character. Steve went back in time in a way that made it seem like Peggy was some prize he won and that didn’t take into account that she had already been shown in canon to have lived a full life of her own.
On top of that, this move sent a character who was supposed to stand for ideals of equality and fighting tyranny back to a time where bigotry, racism, and sexism were rampant and tried to make this choice seem like a positive one.
