{"id":610,"date":"2021-02-06T04:57:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T04:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/?p=610"},"modified":"2021-02-06T04:57:01","modified_gmt":"2021-02-06T04:57:01","slug":"will-the-upcoming-disney-shows-fill-in-mcu-gaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/2021\/02\/06\/will-the-upcoming-disney-shows-fill-in-mcu-gaps\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Upcoming Disney+ Shows Fill in MCU Gaps?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">The release of the Disney+ show <em>WandaVision<\/em> marks the beginning of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) after <em>Spider-Man: Far from Home<\/em> concluded Phase Three of the MCU in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This release makes <em>WandaVision<\/em> the first time in the MCU history that a film or TV show with a female titular character has lead the opening of an MCU phase, with previous openers being Iron Man, Iron Man 3, and Captain America: Civil War. According to Pop Matters, the first installment has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popmatters.com\/captain-america-civil-war-russo-2640920981.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3\">often set the tone for each of the phases<\/a> in the MCU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">this new WandaVision raised my expectations for Phase Four of the MCU<\/p>&mdash; Pau (@luvaddictpau) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/luvaddictpau\/status\/1355880171681828869?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 31, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Persistent in the MCU is the issue of representation of women. The first MCU movie to have a woman as the titular character was Captain Marvel in 2019 \u2013 over ten years after Iron Man first came out in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5205696\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>A breakdown of the number of MCU movies by gender, from 2008 to 2019. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marvel.com\/movies\">Data from Marvel Studios<\/a>. (Emma Moore\/RSJ).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">For over ten years, Marvel Studios has been releasing films into <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/mcu-most-impressive-box-office-records-broken\/\">their box-office record breaking cinematic universe<\/a>, and in December at Disney\u2019s 2020 Investor Day <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/12\/10\/22167976\/disney-investor-day-2020-biggest-announcements-plus-marvel-star-wars-pixar-animation\">multiple announcements were released regarding the line up of Marvel Disney+ shows<\/a>. Prior to the announcement of the Disney+ series, an assortment of shows starring Marvel characters have aired across a variety of platforms and platforms, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/tv\/2017\/01\/14\/the-defenders-jeph-loeb-netflix-marvel-origin\/\">Netflix\u2019s series following the Marvel street-level heroes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whereas Marvel has struggled with featuring female titular characters in their movies, their TV shows tend to follow ensemble casts with both male and female leads, such as ABC\u2019s <em>Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. <\/em>Notably, some of Marvel\u2019s first forays in TV shows were <em>Agent Carter <\/em>and <em>Jessica Jones<\/em> \u2013 both of which are female-lead shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/5206189\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>A breakdown of the number of Marvel live-action TV shows by gender that were on air from 2013 to 2020.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.marvel.com\/tv-shows\">Data from Marvel Studios<\/a>. (Emma Moore\/RSJ).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the MCU\u2019s Phase Four was originally supposed to open with the <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/black-widow-movie-release-after-age-ultron-better\/\">\u201clong overdue\u201d<\/a> <em>Black Widow<\/em> film, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/9\/23\/21437889\/black-widow-delayed-release-date-marvel-cinematic-universe-disney-streaming-mulan\">release was postponed to May 7, 2021 due to the pandemic<\/a>. Four of the seven upcoming Disney+ announced at Disney\u2019s 2020 Investor Day have female leads as the titular characters, including <em>WandaVision, Ms Marvel, Hawkeye, and She Hulk.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Listen Black Widow solo movie is so long overdue! This should\u2019ve been happened. We got a movie for almost all the Avengers and how they got to where they were except for Natasha. Better late then never I guess but FINALLY! It\u2019s what she deserves. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BlackWidow?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#BlackWidow<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3qJ0YYMLiK\">pic.twitter.com\/3qJ0YYMLiK<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Living with Mami (@KUWSJ_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KUWSJ_\/status\/1201780479738945537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 3, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The release of the Disney+ show WandaVision marks the beginning of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) after Spider-Man: Far from Home concluded Phase Three of the MCU in 2019. This release makes WandaVision the first time in the MCU history that a film or TV show with a female titular character has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/project.journalism.torontomu.ca\/jrn-305-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}