I was on the phone with my mom the other night, and we got to talking about some of the criticism surrounding Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. I’ll be honest – “Superhero Movies” aren’t really my thing, but they are my mom’s thing and have been for a long time. A huge part of why I might not be as interested in them is that the current movie franchises are not all that fair to women or people of color. And even when Marvel does the bare minimum of inclusivity, certain fans and critics will do their best to take it down. A new Screen Rant article is actually going against the assertions made by Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios, and saying that Captain Marvel is Not the Most Powerful Avenger in the MCU. Another example is the SyFy article entitled Captain Marvel Makes the Argument for Arrogance when Tony Stark is RIGHT THERE. Or how China thinks Captain Marvel isn’t attractive enough, or how male critics, verified or not, have been rating it. Looking only at the negative reviews, you can still see the difference between the male reviews, and the female reviews.
Captain Marvel is not boring (as Forbes already covered), and Brie Larson is a talented and award-winning actress. What those comments from male critics are failing to realize is that Gen X women HANDLE THEIR BUSINESS. I’m lucky enough to see it first hand from my mom, but I realized a lot of my lady heroes are Gen-Xers: Karen Kilgarrif & Georgia Hardstark, Michelle Obama, Princess Diana, and Tarana Burke. Even fictional ones like Penelope Alvarez (One Day At A Time) or Leslie Knope are worth looking up to. They’re no-nonsense women who know their worth, don’t have to be “nice” to be sympathetic, and don’t smile while they save your ass.
This issue of men refusing to portray/accept realistic women is bigger than Captain Marvel, or even Marvel itself. According to the New York Film Academy, only 12% of movies featured a gender-balanced cast. And according to Variety, “the percentage of films featuring female protagonists rose to 31%… Women played only 36% of major characters in the top-grossing movies”. Even within these dismally low numbers, there are huge racial disparities showing that realistic portrayals of women are still few and far between. The entertainment industry uses tokenism and identity politics (as if having one female hero makes up for decades of mistreatment) to distract from the rampant sexism happening on and off screen, there’s even a disparity in critics, revealed by the Critic’s Choice Study, with a ratio of 3.4 male Top critics to 1 female Top critic.
This was not meant to be as depressing as it turned out because really all I wanted to say was, I admire my mom’s ability to not let men ruin something she enjoys, and I hope that we see more tough women, of all ages, races, and temperament, on screen.