Entertainment Weekly continued their tradition of spotlighting badass women in Hollywood with their annual “EW: Woman Who Kick Ass” panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Chloe Bennet (Agents of SHIELD), Regina King (Watchmen), Camila Mendes (Riverdale), Amandla Stenberg (The Darkest Minds) and Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who) took the stage to discuss their experiences with playing fierce women who not only refuse to conform to the rules, but make their own.
When discussing ass-kicking characters that inspire them, Jodie Whittaker said, “the thing that’s exciting for us is that we now look like what we’re potentially inspiring to be… in the 80s, I didn’t want to stand there and wave, I wanted to be taking everyone down.”
Chloe Bennet in answering the same question said, “I really loved Mulan, and now I get to work with her every day!”
“The fan reaction is the most emotional part of this… we want to inspire, but we want to be like ‘look guys, you can look up to women’… the fan reaction can also be guys,” Jodie Whittaker said about her experience with being the first female Doctor.
“We as women and people of color have to learn to cross-identify with people we don’t look like … so I think about the power of when white men are forced to cross over their conceptions of themselves… it creates empathy,” added Amandla Stenberg about her our experience.
“I realized with growing social media… it shows you how many people look up to you, and you see how many people are inspired by you… I feel like that’s something you have to take responsibility for because you have the power to inspire others” said Camila Mendes about her own influence.
In talking about the power of social media and being misquoted, Regina King said, “You’re under a spotlight that’s not always honest… for some, [they] stop walking in their truth and stop being a beacon to others… It’s not easy being out there in the public eye.”
“I recognize how important a culture of accountability is… but I do think the call-out culture has gotten to a place where it makes me sad that people are afraid to have conversations,” said Amandla about call-out culture and how people are naturally drawn to criticism.
Chloe Bennet in talking about how she changed her last name (Wang) to get casted in roles described how difficult it was in her early additions because she was not Asian enough nor white enough. She publicly has talked about her last name change because, as she said, “I’ll make sure that other girls don’t have to do that anymore.”
“I was Latina, and that’s enough… a lot of times now people are trying to force diversity to make a point, and we should just embrace diversity,” said Camila about how she was cast to be Veronica, who was a Latina role without being tokenized.
Updating…
Agents of SHIELD will return to ABC in summer 2019; Riverdale is back in school on the CW in fall 2018; The Darkest Minds releases in theaters August 3rd. BBC America’s Doctor Who Season 11 and HBO’s Watchmen do not yet have a release date.
