Martha Thomases: Whedon and Women

Martha Thomases

Martha Thomases brought more comics to the attention of more people than anyone else in the industry. Her work promoting The Death of Superman made an entire nation share in the tragedy of one of our most iconic American heroes. As a freelance journalist, she has been published in the Village Voice, High Times, Spy, the National Lampoon, Metropolitan Home, and more. For Marvel comics she created the series Dakota North. Martha worked as a researcher and assistant for the author Norman Mailer on several of his books, including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Executioner's Song, On Women and Their Elegance, Ancient Evenings, and Harlot's Ghost.

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8 Responses

  1. The Other Frank Miller says:

    Bravo! And it’s obvious the American Theatre Wing thinks Scarlet Johansson can act, as they gave her a Tony for her Broadway debut. I loved her in The Avengers, not to mention Lost in Translation, The Horse Whisperer and Manny and Lo. The only time I didn’t fall for her “magic” was in that strangely misogynistic role in Match Point.

  2. George Haberberger says:

    My wife, daughter and sister-in-law loved The Avengers and The Black Widow’s role.

    Last week on Real Time, Bill Maher likened the Black Widow’s contribution to the Avengers as, (paraphrasing now since I no longer have the show recorded), “two guns and big tits”.

    I have to assume he hadn’t seen the movie. But, as with so many of his opinions about other women, he is consistently sexist.

  3. Bill Mulligan says:

    Is there a bigger jerk who continually gets a pass than Maher? Hopefully some are waking up to his shtick. Here’s a tip folks–when someone is being a raging douchewheel it doesn’t matter if the target is someone you don’t like–don;t encourage it. You’ll just get more of the same, toward targets you like, and your moral outrage at it will seem kind of hypocritical and self serving.

    Johansson had one of the best scenes in the movie, the intellectual beatdown to Loki that probably hurt as much as the more physical one delivered by the Hulk later on. It was also a good payoff to her very first scene and showed how she uses her enemies’ perception of her “womanly weakness” to work against them.

    The lesson is–underestimate women and you may well end up looking very very stupid. If Maher is smart he’ll learn that. So, in other words, he won’t.

    • Jonathan (the other one) says:

      I don’t know if Loki felt as hurt by Black Widow as he did by the Hulk – but what she did was at least as disruptive to his plans.

      And as I pointed out to someone who claimed (elsewhere) that she didn’t belong there because “she doesn’t have superpowers” – she ran mind games on the god of trickery. Not all superpowers have to have flashy special effects, you know…

    • Martha Thomases says:

      I often dont like what Maher says about women, and haven’t for the past 20 years. Nor do I agree with all his political opinions (I am not as much of an animal rights advocate as he is). That said, I think he is more often funny than not.

      To me, if I notice a comedian’s politics enough to pick them apart, then that comic isn’t funny enough.

  4. C says:

    Actually, the majority of the critics think she was good to great in the role and the negative criticism is pretty limited.

  5. Melanie Fletcher says:

    I love the fact that Black Widow was central in bringing in Banner, even though the Hulk is the living personification of her deepest nightmare. She punched Hawkeye back into sanity, pulled a beautiful fast one on Loki and got his plan out of him, and was a team player, not eye candy or a damsel in distress. Johansson can act, and act well. And if people can’t deal with that, maybe they need to be punched back into sanity, too.

  6. Mindy Newell says:

    Wheedon gets women. Period. End of statement.

    Btw, Martha, everybody always seems to forget ANGEL when mentioning Wheedon’s credits. A spin-off from the Buffster, it was a brilliantly dark series (starring that guy who currently stars in BONES *smile*) im-not-so-ho.