Thesis advisor: Celeste Wells / This paper analyzes the rights and privileges Black Widow and Captain Marvel are afforded in their respective films coupled with audience perception to understand how that might inform the future of the action heroine genre. There is a stark contrast between the reception of Black Widow and Captain Marvel that is best understood through the release timing of the films along with the character’s plotline within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Regardless, the rights and privileges each character is afforded in both films demonstrate a dimension of the female experience that had not been fully realized in the MCU prior to their release. Captain Marvel and Black Widow indicate a progression of female representation within the action heroine genre– both in frequency and quality. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Communication.

The thesis examines how users of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) negotiate feminism in their reviews of four superheroine films – Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, and Wonder Woman 1984. By combining critical discourse analysis with methods of corpus linguists, this corpus-based study of over 18,000 reviews analyses the frequency of the topic of feminism in the reviews, words and topics associated with it and the way the reviewers reflect broader mediated discourse over the four films, and the role of IMDb as a space for these reviews. The findings show that feminism is still understood as an anti-male movement where female-led films are shielded from criticism by the mainstream media by the virtue of the lead’s gender, the superheroines are criticised for being overpowered particularly where they have no equal male supporting character and that perceived feminist messaging is usually written off as a forced political agenda or as an insincere cash grab made by corporates which effectively use feminism for promotion. It also reveals IMDb as a highly polarised platform where the users leaving 1- and 10-star reviews are generalized as representatives of different sides of the political spectrum (antifeminist vs feminist, conservative vs liberal) regardless of the actual content of the review.