The Diversity Test: Thor

Thor (2011)

The extra scene at the end of Iron Man 2 hinted at it and May of 2011 brought it as the MCU expanded beyond Tony Stark and Earth and took us to Asgard, one of the Nine Realms.  I liked it and its small scale.  A lot didn't, but hey, it was another step toward the sprawling movie franchise we have today, set to become even more sprawling in the years ahead.

Thor also demonstrates one of the major modifications to Mike Cooper's method of calculating the Diversity Score.  When he began tallying things up, much of what he was looking at centered around the Star Wars Expanded Universe, now Star Wars Legends, material that is primarily literature.  If you've ever read much of that material, you'll once in a while come across books with the Dramatis Personae listed at the beginning and Mike noted that in many cases, a good fraction of the characters are described as "Human male".  Add to the fact that many authors in every genre of fiction have a tendency to make a note in character description when they're meant to be pictured as a person of color (e.g. "dark skinned, tan, olive skinned, etc.).  This could lead to a situation with some readers defaulting to imagining a character as white without such a description (As an aside: I myself as a reader have a strange quirk that I'll consciously imagine book characters as racially diverse if not described otherwise.  This gets awkward when 100 pages in, I learn of my black protagonist's ginger locks and pale skin.)

In the Star Wars universe, it's strange to see such a human-dominated cast when the movie made such pains to illustrate so many kinds of aliens in settings like the Mos Eisley Cantina and Jabba's Palace.  Even stranger that such a majority of the human characters are men.  It was a problem that certainly existed in the original trilogy, though they are a product of their time.  The prequel trilogy, while still demonstrating a problem with women in speaking roles, at least populated its vast crowds of extras, both real and computer generated, with a wealth of women and aliens.  In Mike's case, it makes sense to chronicle the percentage of Star Wars characters who are and aren't white male humans.

Which brings us to Thor.  As the character sheet below will demonstrate, a majority of Thor's major characters are Asgardians, beings who look identical to humans but are in fact a powerful alien race with abilities that made primitive humans see them as gods.  If you're using "human" as a requirement for totaling up the diversity, then Thor has very few humans, let alone white human males.  Thor, Loki, Odin... they're not human.  The frost giant Laufey is clearly not human.  The actors obviously are, though, and this study is about a number of things, but one is the idea of everyone seeing themselves represented in one of the largest media projects in the world.  Thor may be Asgardian, but he looks like a white guy because he's played by a white guy and that matters. That being the case, this will be the first movie where I make separate tallies, one for actors, one for characters. In one tally, if it's a character being portrayed by a white guy, that won't count toward cast diversity. However, if the character is not a white human male, even if they appear to be identical to one, that will count toward that diversity tally, let's call it the Dramatis Personae tally. So, for example, Thor, in spite of looking exactly like a white male human is in fact Asgardian, a more powerful alien being. I'm not really doing this for him, though. It's more about for characters like Laufey and Thanos, roles portrayed by white men (at least voiced in Thanos' case) but at least getting points for throwing a little visual diversity into the characters. This will be a new statistic used with every Marvel movie from here on out with non-human characters, even if it does feel like cheating.

I went on longer than I meant to there on making that distinction, but I thought I would at least attempt to clarify.  So, on to Thor...


Main Characters

Thor (Chris Hemsworth)

Son of Odin and the heir apparent.  Kind of a tool early on, which complicates things.

Tallies
White human male? No
Portrayed by a white guy? Yes

Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman)

An astrophysicist studying wormholes in the New Mexico desert.  A major reason Thor becomes fond of planet Earth.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? No

Loki (Tom Hiddleston)

Thor's trickster brother with whom he has a rather complicated relationship and ultimately the only truly memorable villain the MCU has had.  The Avengers even brought him back as did the second Thor movie, so you have to wonder how often they can go back to that well, no matter how delightful.  In spite of it all, he loves his family.  Kind of.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? Yes

Supporting Characters

Odin (Anthony Hopkins)

Father of Thor and Loki and ruler of Asgard.  A tad disappointed with how his heir apparent Thor has turned out.  And a tad more after a visit to the Frost Giants.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? Yes

Frigga (Rene Russo)

Mother of Thor and Loki, wife of Odin.  She'll get more to do in the second movie.  Kind of.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? Yes

Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander)

A renowned warrior and one of Thor's closest friends.  Seems to have deeper feelings for him, too.  Deadly with a spear.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? No

Volstagg (Ray Stevenson)

The loudest of the Warriors Three and one of Thor's closest friends.  Good with an ax.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? Yes

Hogun (Tadanobu Asano)

The most contemplative of the Warriors Three and one of Thor's closest friends.  Prefers a mace.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? No

Fandral (Josh Dallas)

The most swashbuckling of the Warriors Three and one of Thor's closest friends.  Likes swords.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? Yes

Heimdall (Idris Elba)

The gatekeeper of the Bifröst.  There was some controversy from Elba's casting as a Scandinavian god.  All you can really say to that is 1) Clearly they'd never seen The Wire and didn't realize how awesome Elba could be 2) It's a comic book character for god's sake, use your imagination.  They're based on the Norse gods in that universe, not the actual mythical beings in real world Norse mythology 3) Hogun is Asian.  Asgard is clearly multiethnic 4) Y'all are idiots.  Get over yourselves.  Also, Heimdall is a badass.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? No

Laufey (Colm Feore)

The king of the Frost Giants and ancient enemy of Odin.  He lost a war to Asgard millennia ago, and remembers the devastation it can bring.  He still wants to kill Odin, though.  Like Raza and Justin Hammer before him, he's your secondary villain this time around.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? Yes

Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård)

An astrophysicist and Jane's colleague and teacher.  Not only an expert on Jane's research but also on Norse mythology, helping him realize who Thor is when he comes to Earth.

Tallies

WHM? Yes

WG? Yes

Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings)

Irreverent undergraduate and intern working for Jane and Erik.  Also comic relief.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? No

Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg)

Coulson's roles just keep getting bigger and bigger.  His story picks up where the credits scene at the end of Iron Man 2 left off, setting up a SHIELD facility around Thor's fallen hammer and having to react to every crazy thing that follows it into the New Mexico desert.

Tallies

WHM? Yes

WG?Yes

Minor Character

Agent Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernández)

A SHIELD agent working closely with Coulson and the star of a number of its DVD One-Shots.

Tallies

WHM? No

WG? No

Miscellaneous

• Jeremy Renner makes his first appearance in a cameo as Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye.  Samuel L. Jackson cameos in a post-credits scene again when Fury shows Selvig (and unknowingly Loki) the Tessaract, setting up the MacGuffin for Captain America: The First Avenger. 
• Adriana Barraza had a minor role as the owner/worker of the diner where Thor, Jane, Erik, and Darcy eat.  Her role mostly ended up on the cutting room floor, which is a shame as the MCU hasn't exactly been great to non-white women to this point.  It's also notable that New Mexico's Hispanic population is just under 50%, the highest percentage of any state in the country.  As it is, only Sitwell is played by a Hispanic actor and his character traveled in with SHIELD.  Even the extras don't show all that much diversity, though perhaps that's truer in the real world for a small rural town like the one depicted in the film.
• SHIELD shows a decent amount of (mostly male) diversity, with a number of agents and soldiers of various races, perhaps most notably the large guy that brawls with Thor when he's trying to reach his hammer.  As noted in Heimdall's entry above, Asgard is somewhat diverse as well.

Scores

I went with three main characters this time around, which might be unfair.  But in any case, Jane gives us a Diversity Score of 33 there for cast. Since Loki and Thor are technically aliens, you get a Diversity Score of 100! Like I said, feels like cheating, but this is more for Guardians of the Galaxy-type settings than for Thor.  Taking into account everyone...

White men (cast): 8 (2 main, 6 supporting)

White women: 4 (1 main, 3 supporting)
White men (characters): 2 (2 supporting) 
Non-WHMs portrayed by white guys: 6 (Thor, Loki, Odin, Volstagg, Fandral, Laufey)

POC

Men: 3 (3 supporting)

Women: 0

Women DS: 27

Diversity Score (cast): 47
Diversity Score (characters): 87

It's a lower score than one might expect thanks to the largest cast we've had so far, but should get some credit for having the most women to this point, three of whom I'd argue play significant, varying roles (Frigga gets the short shrift, which prompted director Kenneth Branagh to apologize to Rene Russo).  It's notable that the film passes the Bechdel Test, possibly the first MCU film to do so.  Its three non-white men puts it short of only Iron Man, which had the advantage of being partly set in Afghanistan.  

Tabulation

Iron Man: Main, 50; Women, 19; Total, 55

The Incredible Hulk: Main, 25; Women, 33; Total, 56

Iron Man 2: Main, 60; Women, 21; Total, 36

Thor: Main, 33 (100); Women, 27; Total, 47 (87)