#dearmarvel

[dearmarvel-aboutyourcomics-blog]

Ahem, @PartyCity look, other companies put their money where their mouths are.  For companies looking to do what #Savers is doing right, it's pretty simple:  -Look at products so sexist it's pretty impossible to argue it's anything but sexist (we can discuss arguably not-sexist ones another day.  -Recognize they're a problem, apologize, and quit selling those products.  -Sell products that aren't sexist instead.  -Rejoicing occurs in the streets and there is one less battle of sexism that our sons and daughters (and grown ups) have to fight. (and if the non-sexist ones don't exist, perhaps it's high time that someone pressures the companies that produce the sexist products (*cough cough marvel-comics-headquarters cough*) to knock it the heck off too.)

(and, a small jab that probably should be below me, companies that don't respond to customer feedback and open their corporate mouths on anything, because they're busily ignoring their customers and circular-filing their letters probably find it hard to open their corporate mouths) http://www.theprovince.com/touch/story.html?id=10308944

[dearmarvel-aboutyourcomics-blog]

Dear whomever signs for letters at marvel-comics-headquarters (again) (probably some poorly paid intern?),

I hope the rest of the day at work isn't as soul-sucking-ly depressing as tossing heartfelt fan mail into the circular file.

marvelentertainment's office....where letters from fans go to die, where representation is for particular comics at particular times (never for the full roster of stuff and never for the things produced for the masses/casual-geek), and where they forget that the 50% female portion of the population is capable of being a hero, not just needing one.

http://dearmarvel.weebly.com/blog/dear-whomever-signs-for-letters-at-marvel-again

[dearmarvel-aboutyourcomics-blog]

A response.

So, I was contacted by an employee at @Marvel who sent me an email he believes was sent to me (and eaten by MailerDaemeons, as is wont to happen on occasion--I'll accept that as a possibility and not speak about the gremlins on the wings.) at the end of April. He assured me that they were looking into the black void that ate my first 2 letters (and, to clarify, I mean 3 copies of the 2 letters and several emails--so closer to 8 letters).

He also said that Marvel is looking at including more female superheroes, and that I should be patient. I will say that I'm not holding my breath (because when companies have been demonstrating oblivious sexism for 50 years, lipservice to claims they will do better without telling me a concrete plan to do better doesn't fill me with hope for the future. But it gives me more hope than the initial response I got--"we'll work on this" isn't the holy grail, but it IS infinitely better than *shrug*).

I would really REALLY like to see a plan to implement diversity. That doesn't mean someone re-writing every story, but it does mean "oh, lets substitute Spider Man for Ms. Marvel in this product we made" should be given the resounding "WTF, are you TRYING to marginalize women?" response that it deserves. I think a panel of people who give a critical eye to some of what happens would help immensely. I"m sure a company the size of Marvel has something like that--but they're not especially effective and should be overhauled into something with an ability to undo the cropping out of women that is so entrenched in Marvel's stuff.

[dearmarvel-aboutyourcomics-blog]

And decided to include @Disney on this email.  #DearMarvel, Hi! Good afternoon. I just wanted the good people at #Marvel , marvelentertainment, (and #Disney) to know that I"m still waiting for a response.

#DearMarvel, I know that the corp. email carpet bomb to a parent company isn't especially nice.  I was much nicer in January, when you first acted like asshats.