美国国家公共电台 NPR Female Breakout 'Captain Marvel' Screenwriter Is Disrupting The Superheroine Trope

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Geneva Robertson-Dworet is one of the rarest things in Hollywood - a female superhero screenwriter. Her resume includes "Tomb Raider" and the upcoming "Captain Marvel¹." She's a breakout success in a billion-dollar industry that has long been dominated by men. I asked her what it was like working on the Marvel Universe's first-ever female-fronted movie.

GENEVA ROBERTSON-DWORET: Marvel really went above and beyond with "Captain Marvel." Not only do they have Anna Boden, who, along with Ryan Fleck², is directing the movie. That's her directing partner. But they had many female writers working on the project. And they also had female producers in the room. And that is really rare to have that many women involved behind the scenes in a project.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But the industry still has a problem, which is, you know...

ROBERTSON-DWORET: It sure does.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, which is - you can see the numbers, right? Of the top 100 films last year, women accounted for only 11 percent of all writers. That is not a lot. That is not a lot.

ROBERTSON-DWORET: No, that's absolutely true. My female genre³ writer friends and I talk all the time about how you could count the number of women who do what we do on two hands. Like, we know each other. So when I go up for jobs that are in the superhero space or in the action space that has a female lead, I'll usually know all the other writers who are competing for the project. And I'd say that's a problem that there's so few of us.

And we want - we're already sort of talking amongst ourselves about, how can we help other women, who want to do what we're doing, do it? But, you know, it's also been amazingly collaborative with these other female genre writers. For example, my friend Lindsey Beer and I found out a while ago when we worked on "Dungeons⁴ & Dragons" that it was down to the two of us. One of us was going to get the job. And we actually called each other up.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter).

ROBERTSON-DWORET: And we were just like, what if we just wrote it together? What if we said to the studio, let us collaborate⁵. Let us team. It'll be, you know, you'll get something even better than if just one of us wrote it. And it was great. We wrote it together. The studio said yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's amazing when you talk about how few women do what you do. So I have to know how you broke into the industry. It sounds like it's tough.

ROBERTSON-DWORET: It is. I actually - it's also really interesting how women executives and women producers gave me all my first chances. So I think that also needs to be part of the discussion is, you know, women hire women - at least my personal experience. So, you know, we need to have, as part of the discussion, not just more female writers, more female directors but also more female executives.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I read an interview where you said that male executives and filmmakers are still scared to give a woman the same specificity that they give a male character. What would you like to see in a blockbuster heroine?

ROBERTSON-DWORET: It can be very project-specific. You know, one of the things I really loved about "Wonder Woman" was seeing her sensitivity and femininity were allowed within the context of an action hero. That blew us away because so often when we are writing these genre movies, we are told to cut that out because it's sort of imagined like, oh. Well, she couldn't be this sensitive if she's also going to kick ass⁶ in two seconds. So that, you know, really moved me about "Wonder Woman."

But yeah, it's definitely a problem. I've had, you know, directors - male directors tell me, like, oh. Like, I just want her to be a normal girl for their hero. And that's really depressing because what's a normal girl? Have you met a normal girl?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I certainly haven't. Are there challenges about how women are portrayed⁷ in superhero movies? - because they're frequently sex symbols. How do you think about that representation when you're writing scripts? I mean, are there still demands for women to be, you know, not only normal but sexy - sexy normal?

ROBERTSON-DWORET: Well, superheroes do represent our fantasies. Like, you don't exactly see any Homer Simpson-shaped male superheroes either. You know, me, personally - I have to say that, for example, watching "Wonder Woman," I thought I was going to be bothered by her costume. And then it actually had the opposite effect for me. I thought that, like - I was like, oh. Like, looking at the photos, I was like, oh, man. You can really see a lot of skin here. Like, is she just going to be this sex object?

But no, I actually found that to be really moving when I was watching the movie that you could see her legs and her muscles. And it reminded you that this is a woman doing this and that she is just as strong and just as tough as any male superhero you've ever seen.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Geneva Robertson-Dworet, superhero writer. Thank you so much.

ROBERTSON-DWORET: Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

1 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

2 fleck   

n.斑点，微粒 vt.使有斑点，使成斑驳

参考例句：

• The garlic moss has no the yellow fleck and other virus. 蒜苔无黄斑点及其它病毒。
• His coat is blue with a grey fleck.他的上衣是蓝色的，上面带有灰色的斑点。

3 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

4 dungeons   

n.地牢( dungeon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The captured rebels were consigned to the dungeons. 抓到的叛乱分子被送进了地牢。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He saw a boy in fetters in the dungeons. 他在地牢里看见一个戴着脚镣的男孩。 来自辞典例句

5 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

6 ass   

n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人

参考例句：

• He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
• An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。

7 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》