Sexism is a very difficult and prominent topic in today’s world, and the movie industry is probably the number one reason people start the battle. Deadpool 2 is being targeted for a certain female’s death, and the reasoning is – why should females die for male stories?
We saw the main love interest of the Merc with a mouth pass away due to a target of Deadpool’s that got away. It really sparked the character’s revenge/vengeance mission for the film. People are attacking the filmmakers because it shouldn’t take a female role to be removed for a male story to take place. However, even though she did continue to have a prominent role in the film, that doesn’t seem to matter to them.
The director David Leitch seemed to understand why the issue is being pressed, but he stands behind his choice and feels it was extremely necessary.
“I understand where they’re coming from. As a filmmaker, I believe I have a record of strong female characters and proactive female characters. But with Deadpool it’s different. It’s Deadpool’s movie, and you need to take everything away from him to humanize him. He can be grating and he can be sort of offensive and he can be all these things, but you need an emotional hook that grounds the movie that we can go on this journey with this character and experience Deadpool.”
He continues with explaining that she is still in the film and has a very important role. Her death didn’t remove her from the film or her place in the story line.
“And quite frankly, she doesn’t leave the movie. She is a huge point of contact for him and learning his lesson in the world and learning that one of act of kindness can change history. And I think without her being the vehicle that he learns that from, I don’t know, it wouldn’t have been the same film and so we wouldn’t have had that emotional context. Even the scene at the end where they visit each other in the afterlife, hugely emotional, great performances by both of them. So, again, I don’t think she left the movie.”
The writers of the film, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, also responded:
“I would say no, we didn’t even think about it. And that was maybe our mistake, not to think about it. But it didn’t really even occur to us,” Reese said. “We didn’t know what fridging was.”
Reese continued:
“We always had in our back pocket that we could always bring [Vanessa] back if necessary. So, we ran with that. And maybe that’s a sexist thing. I don’t know. And maybe some women will have an issue with that. I don’t know. I don’t think that that’ll be a large concern, but it didn’t even really occur to us.”
Wernick added:
“I would say, in our defense, the only thing that really is important, the only thing that Deadpool cares about, is Vanessa. So if you’re doing a movie where you are trying to get Deadpool at his lowest, to take away everything from Deadpool at the very beginning, the only thing to really take away from him is Vanessa.”
He continued:
“I know it wasn’t consciously sexist. It may appear that way as the film progresses and Cable loses his family as well, but again, the desire was to give a motivation to both Cable and to Deadpool, and have it be a parallel motivation that they both lost their family, and they’re both trying to kind of find their way in the world without them.”
Reese finished by saying:
“I also think we definitely paid attention to trying to fill the movie with a diverse group of strong female characters, interesting, different female characters,. Whether it’s Domino, or Negasonic Teenage Warhead — and Vanessa, herself, obviously, is certainly that. So we’ve definitely made a point of not having this just be a testosterone-fueled thing.”
Ryan Reynolds has also said it was a tough decision to kill the character off.
We also know that the sequel has a prominent female role, Domino, played by Zazie Beetz, who also helps Deadpool’s story push forward, and doesn’t get killed. Where is the line drawn between sexism and fans who just liked Vanessa alive and well? We’ll let you decide.
Do you believe that they should have kept Vanessa alive? Be sure to tell us what you think in the comments below!