Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science and Technology

home / WWEST Blog / Depictions of Women in STEM: Dr. Darcy Lewis
Print

Depictions of Women in STEM: Dr. Darcy Lewis

April 21, 2021

Written by: Alicen Ricard

This post contains spoilers for Thor, Wandavision, and the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 
Source: Marvel Wiki

The longer this pandemic goes on, the more times I rewatch the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). My latest rewatch was inspired by the hit show Wandavision which was recently released. The character of Darcy Lewis isn’t new to the MCU, but "Wandavision" definitely made me appreciate her more. 

Darcy started as a political science student at Culver University. After that Darcy worked with astrophysicist,  Dr. Jane Foster (who we have already written a post about), in the first two Thor movies as her assistant. Between the second Thor movie and "Wandavision," she completed her doctorate in astrophysics. 

When she was an intern for Dr. Foster she helped her build a device that was supposed to open a wormhole to get Thor back, but it didn’t work. A government agency called SHIELD finally contacted them and sent them to an astrophysics lab to get Thor back. 

Source: Marvel Wiki

Later on, when weird things were happening in a town called Westview, she was recruited by another government agency called SWORD to investigate a magical town and the mysterious supernatural things happening around it caused by Wanda Maximoff. Darcy was the one who figured out that it was an alternate reality that Wanda had created to deal with her grief. Darcy was able to figure out that Wanda had pulled this town into a series of sitcoms where Wanda herself was the star along with her love, Vision, who had died recently. Darcy was able to find a way that they could get into the town and try to communicate with Wanda to get her to stop. She herself got sucked up into one of Wanda’s sitcoms but when she regained her own will again thanks to Vision, she and Vision worked together to try to figure out what was going on. Her superiors fought her every step of the way and didn't really take her seriously. She would have been able to help Wanda sooner if the head of SWORD hadn't been working against her. 

DOES MARVEL MEET THE GOALS SET OUT BY THE WHITE HOUSE FOR BETTER REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN STEM FIELDS?

The former Obama Administration's White House fact sheet lists 3 goals for fictional representation of women in STEM. We are noticing a trend in the movies and television shows we have reviewed - they meet some of the following goals better than others.

1.  Include diverse STEM role models (past and present): In the Thor movies there are only two women in STEM and in "Wandavision" there is only one, so they do not meet this goal. 

2. Highlight the breadth of STEM careers and social impacts: Both women in STEM mentioned are astrophysicists, which is pretty cool, but it still doesn't meet the goal. 

3.  Debunk STEM stigmas and misconceptions: Jane wasn't really taken seriously in the Thor movies and seemed to only be there to be a love interest to Thor, and Darcy isn't really taken seriously either.  They don't meet this goal.

 

YOU CAN CHECK OUT OUR BLOG POST ABOUT SHURI, WHO IS ALSO FROM THE MCU, HERE.