Mike Ridyard
Dr. Jackson
Intro to Comp
26 September 2026

Deadpool is the most successful R rated movie in history earning 746 million dollars at the box office. The movie is wildly popular partly because of the edgy main character played by Ryan Reynolds. The character, Deadpool, makes numerous sexually charged and controversial jokes throughout the film and seems to be almost always cursing. There

are also very many violent scenes as you would expect from an R rated superhero movie. Due to its rating, Deadpool could get away with much more graphic violence then an Iron Man or Captain America could. Even though a character like Deadpool may be hard to like, many people enjoyed the movie and thought they were forewarned appropriately through the advertisements and movie posters that Deadpool earned its R rating and was not a movie to bring children to.
While I only gave Deadpool 3 points and a D on the representation test, there are prominent strong female roles in the movie. Two of them are Vanessa Carlyle and Blind Al. Vanessa is Deadpool's girlfriend and does play a fairly stereotypical role as the hot girlfriend, and Al is Deadpool's roommate. While Blind Al is a woman of color she does not have a very big role in the movie at all. The other two prominent female roles are Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Angel Dust. Both of these characters are very important to the climax of the film and are female superheroes that are not just there to be seen as sex objects. Negasonic Teenage Warhead does not have many lines and plays into the moody teenage girl stereotype but she is a key character in very important parts of the movie and is portrayed very strongly. Angel Dust is a very interesting character to me because of her role in the movie. There is not much depth to her character and we don't get much information about her but for a female character to play a role as the muscle and strength of the group is a big statement to me. Rarely do you see a female  play such a role and to me the way Deadpool portrayed her character is a big improvement for what kinds of roles women can play in movies. Angel Dust also gets into a fight with a male character and was winning which is not common in movies. Usually a fighting scene between a male and female character in a super hero movie would have to do with the female being sneakier or outsmarting the male, but in this case Angel Dust is all about strength. Another thing I liked about the women in Deadpool was it didn't feel like they were trying to make a statement with the female characters. The movie had strong female roles that felt very genuine and real and not like they were just giving women these roles to make women happy.
Even though Deadpool did not pass the Bechtel test, to me these four characters give the movie a very fresh and unique look on what a female can be in a superhero movie. It shoes that a female superhero character can be portrayed as stronger than a male and can be portrayed very successfully.