Marvel Promotes Executive Who Promised More Trans Characters in Disney Superhero Films

Marvel Studios promoted Victoria Alonso as the new President of Physical, Post Production, VFX and Animation this week, a woman who studio Kevin Feige described as “an incredible partner and part of our team since the very first Iron Man.”

“She is one of the most dynamic, candid and accessible executives in the industry and we’re thrilled that she’ll continue to be by our side in this elevated role as we lead Marvel Studios into the future,” said Feige.

If Alonso’s past statements provide any indication, she will certainly aid in Marvel’s Phase IV plan, which has aimed to be more inclusive and diverse in its programming.

Last November she apologized to transgender actor Rain Valdez, saying “I perhaps have not 100 percent done right by you.” Alonso then told the audience at the Outfest Legacy Awards that “as long as I am at Marvel Studios” she will lobby for more transgender characters in Marvel superhero films.

Disney owns Marvel Studios.

Speaking to Nuke the Fridge in 2019, Alonso described the X-Men name as being dated due to its exclusion of female superheroes.

“I don’t know where the future is going. It’s funny that people call it the X-Men, there’s a lot of female superheroes in that X-Men group, so I think it’s outdated,” she said, as reported by Bounding Into Comics.

“I don’t know where it’s going to go. We’ll see. They just now have joined. They have a movie [Dark Phoenix] coming out soon, which under that banner is their last film. So, we’ll see what time will tell,” she added.

In a June 2019 Reddit AMA, Alonso also expressed her desire to make the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as “diverse and inclusive” as possible.

“I can tell you we are actively working on making our universe as diverse and inclusive as we can. Be patient with us. We have a lot coming in the future,” she said.

Speaking at a Women in Animation panel at the Annecy International Film Festival in 2021, Alonso claimed that diversity, inclusion, and gender parity “all go hand-in-hand with showing the world as it is,” according to Deadline.

“There are about 6,000 characters in the Marvel library that we have access to, so if this goes right, we will be telling these stories for many, many, many, many, many generations to come,” she said. “And the importance of laying the ground for what’s to come is that in those stories, there are many different characters that you can actually voice.”

Alonso credited the MCU’s overall success with the fact that the studio caters to a global audience.

“You cannot have a global audience and not somehow start to represent it… For us, it was really, really, really important to have that,” she said.

“For the longest of time, we heard a woman-led film will never open. I say, ‘Please check, Captain Marvel made a lot of money.’ Then they always told us that Black Panther was never going to open and that nobody wanted a completely Black cast, and that made $1.3B,” she continued.

Charging that 51 percent of the audience is female and 21 percent Hispanic, Alonso said that the MCU has a financial incentive to better represent people.

“If we don’t represent the people that watch what we make, eventually they’ll go elsewhere because somebody else will figure it out,” she said.