Despite introduction of Red Guardian and Fat Thor, 'Deadpool 2' criticism about plus-size heroes is still valid
'Deadpool 2' may have been a hilarious romp but it did raise some interesting criticisms of the superhero genre in general. Specifically, the movie pointed out the lack of plus-size superheroes in films and it seems Marvel Studios may have taken this criticism to heart.
Just this year, Marvel decided to give Thor Odinson (Chris Hemsworth) a makeover in 'Avengers: Endgame' by showing him as a depressed, overweight man. Though Thor's weight did make him the butt of a number of jokes in the movie, that doesn't take away from the fact that he looked completely badass, heading into battle like the stereotypical image of a Viking.
All jokes aside, choosing to show a Norse god like Thor as a fat man is something nobody saw coming and it was more than a little comforting to plus-size individuals around the world who finally had a hero to show that being overweight, depressed or defeated does not make you any less worthy. A nice thought really, though perhaps it could have used a little more work in its execution.
Now in the upcoming movie 'Black Widow', we're going to be introduced to yet another thick superhero, Red Guardian / Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour). The teaser for the movie already revealed how so very cool Red Guardian is and made a joke about his weight, though the latter was mostly excusable since it was clearly meant in a good-natured way.
However, the fact remains that neither Chris Hemsworth nor David Harbour is actually that thick in real life. As much as their on-screen fatness might help the cause of body positivity, we still don't have an actual plus-size actor in a superhero role. For that matter, you can probably count on one hand the number of plus-size heroes in comics too and while we may have come a long way, there's still a long, long distance to go before we actually achieve complete inclusivity in the superhero genre.
'Black Widow' will arrive in theaters on May 1, 2020.
