I just watched Captain Marvel lastnight. For those living under a rock, Captain Marvel is the leader of Marvel’s Avengers. She’s a famous super hero(ine) and tough as nails army (airforce) girl turned super hero.
She’s not new, created by famous comic book legend, Stan Lee, and making her comic book debut in 1967.
The movie however is more recent, releasing about 2 years ago in March of 2019.
So just a heads up – yes I am a woman, but I am definitely not a feminist. I don’t really like the movement or concept that a woman can only be strong if she dresses and acts like a man. I am very much a girly girl. I don’t wear makeup (mostly cuz I’m too lazy and also have no idea how to wear it correctly lol). But I do love me some dresses, and I’d consider my personality to be more on the sweet and timid side and softly spoken, and also sometimes passionate or bubbly when I’m chatting about my interests. My interests may sometimes overlap with tomboy interests when it comes to geeky things like anime or video games, but that’s about it. I’m not into sports or whatever else most tomboy girls are into.
I feel like all women are strong, and I don’t really like that we should have to try to act tough or macho to compete with a man or fit into society as an “equal” to a man. I think being soft and sweet has a place in society still, and honestly, I don’t see any super heroes I can really relate to – that are feminine but still strong (strong of spirit, strong of faith, strong of compassion, strong of moral, strong of justice, whatever).
But I’m not really complaining or putting Captain Marvel or any of the existing female super heroes down. I’m just making an observation.
I just watched the movie lastnight, and news flash, even though I’m not a feminist, I liked it. Possibly even “really liked it” or almost “loved it”.
But for me, I don’t think it was Captain Marvel that I loved per say. What I loved was Talos and his family, and the Flerken, now known as Goose, originally known as Chewie. I’d like to see a movie about Talos actually. Though I’m not sure what more could be done with him than was already done. But it was such a surprising character. He goes from being the villain or anti-hero, to being a big softie who only wants to protect his wife and children. Hands down favorite character in this film. I like villains who are not really villains – and I like strong character development. To witness a character go from point a to point b, to see them somehow change or mature or see what makes them tick psychologically to see how they became the way they are. That part of the movie big thumbs up.
Take away Talos and you have just another scifi over the top action flick, no different from most other super hero movies (Nothing wrong with that, I like super hero movies.).
But apparently a LOT of people have an issue with the actress Brie Larson who prior to Captain Marvel was an unknown actress. This was her first big role, or possibly acting debut. She took to social media to speak out about how Hollywood is full of white men, from directors to screenplay writers, to even people interviewing her. This is no big secret, Hollywood for decades has been dominated by white men. Even still today – how many female or other nationality film directors, screenplay writers, etc can you think of? I can’t really name any off the top of my head. There are increasingly more african american directors and screenplay writers, but what about other nationalities? Asian? Native American? Hispanic? (Quintin Tarantino maybe the most famous there) Indian (from India?) – I mean yeah there’s some, there’s been a few foreign films that struck gold in America like Slumdog Millionaire or Bend it Like Beckham or more recently, Parasyte. But overall, not much diversity behind the camera and behind the scenes in Hollywood. It’s a fact.
Brie Larson was only commenting on that fact. And you have to remember she had never had much if any experience in Hollywood at all. So to her maybe it was a big shock or surprise to see how male dominated hollywood still is even today.
But the white men typical geeky comic book nerds who follow and support Marvel, admittedly, Marvel’s largest target audience they felt alienated by her remarks.
Sometimes when promoting one group, other groups can feel left out. It is never the intention of the group who is arguing for more representation, to take away from representation of any other groups, but it is a natural psychological fear that happens in our minds. It’s why so many people still feel uncomfortable talking about things like BLM, Racism, Feminist, LGBT, and other issues. We fear things that are different. It’s a natural totally understandable reaction. Men feel threatened and uncomfortable thinking about women coming into equal or sometimes even greater power.
I don’t support BLM because I feel they’re a terrorist organization, but I also don’t support Proud Boys or any other white supremacy groups for the same reason. Terrorism plain and simple. What happened during the summer of 2020 with cities burning and what happened last month at the capitol to me are one and the same. Lawless Terrorism. No matter what color you are or what rights you are fighting for, taking away others rights, homes, properties, freedoms, etc is not the way to go about it.
But you know what is a good way to go about it? Talking about it. As uncomfortable as it may be. We have issues in our country. More now than ever before possibly. We are not all equal. That’s the sad cold hard truth.
So by Brie Larson talking about her experiences in Hollywood – even if it made others uncomfortable – that’s her truth and her experiences – and to boycott the movie – or boycott Nisan because she’s in their car commercials, that just shows how uncomfortable you are.
If something is making you feel uncomfortable it’s probably because you have formed a strong opinion and you feel the thing being done or said is in direct opposition of your already established opinion. But sometimes opinions we have are not right.
One of the negative feedbacks about Brie Larson was that she doesn’t smile enough. This is sexist. Think about how many men smile all the time. Yet being a mysterious dark brooding man, makes you attractive, but women are expected to put on a happy face just to look attractive? That’s garbage. I do agree smiling does make both men and women more attractive. But first of all, why should a woman need to be attractive just to please her male fans – why can’t she be appreciated for her acting – I thought she was “alright” not the best actress I ever seen but by far from the worst.
Also think about this, if you’re fighting shape shifting enemies in an unknown planet and find out everything you thought you knew about yourself and your life was a lie and you had no idea who to trust and felt constantly under siege – how many times would you fucking smile either?
The movie would be whack and weird as hell if she just ran around frolicking and smiling as she blasted holes through buildings and obliterated aliens lol.
I thought the movie had very interesting villains and a mind-fucky plot that keeps you guessing with twists and turns further down the rabbit hole. It’s Marvel’s most psychologicaly bizarre movie yet. Probably the most unpredictable and suspenseful. Still plenty of action. And a lot of heart.
I don’t think it was Brie Larson who really made the movie all that appealing to me. But I also don’t think she or Marvel or Nisan or anyone else who signs her for endorsements deserves boycotting or angry rabid fanboys.
Saying that, I might get the attention of some angry rabid fanboys myself. I’ll approve and post your comments if they are at least somewhat civil, but hate or bait will not be published here. You can go elsewhere for that.
Anyways if you haven’t watched Captain Marvel yet, give it a go, you might like it. I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Edit: I also forgot to mention another big reason I loved this movie is for all the 90s nostalgia – that was so awesome lol. From arcades to pinball to gameboys to payphones to pagers to shopping malls with Radio Shack and Block Buster Video to an awesome jamming 90s soundtrack. This was another favorite part of the movie for me, being an 80s-90s kid myself!