Joss Whedon, director of The Avengers and this summer's Avengers: Age of Ultron, is one of the most vocal and visible members of Hollywood's superhero-industrial complex. And in a recent interview, he openly attacked the industry for one of its most criticized aspects: the failure to produce a movie about a female superhero.
"It's a phenomenon in the industry that we call 'stupid people'," said Whedon in an interview with Digital Spy. "There is genuine, recalcitrant, intractable sexism, and old-fashioned quiet misogyny that goes on. You hear 'Oh, [female superheroes] don't work because of these two bad ones that were made eight years ago', there's always an excuse."
Whedon also suggested that Marvel should "make a statement" by producing a movie about a female superhero, though he acknowledged one barrier: 20th Century Fox, which currently holds the rights to X-Men, owns "most of the best characters."
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