Captain Marvel: Showcasing Female Empowerment

For International Women’s month, many women celebrated by watching Marvel’s latest movie, Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel is Marvel’s first woman-led superhero movie, and many can agree that Marvel did an explicit job of focusing on woman power. This production celebrates female empowerment, confidence, intelligence and independence. 

The film stars Brie Larson as the phenomenal Captain Marvel. According to Larson, she believes the most important takeaway from the movie is the importance of female empowerment. Larson told the Press Association that, “There is a through line highlighting the incredible women that we have in the air force, but the other thing for me that I love about that, is that she is incredible in breaking barriers and doing amazing things even before she had superpowers.”

Captain Marvel’s powers did not make her remarkable, in fact, it just made what was already in her stand out.

Captain Marvel demonstrates that it is okay to be different. It is not all about the tiaras and heels (even though there is nothing wrong with that). Sometimes females just get tired of having to only do girl things, being forced to “act like a girl,” “run like a girl,” etc. It’s time for a change, and this film definitely encourages it. The film shows that it is okay for females to be strong: females can stand up to males, not just follow behind them. They are fierce and have the potential to lead.

There is a special character that helps shape the mentality of girls when it comes to academics. Little miss Monica, played by Akira Akbar, introduced that girls can be interested in STEM education and that’s okay! Monica is the eleven-year-old daughter of Maria Rambeau, best friend of Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel. Monica is so intelligent when it comes to technology. With the help of Monica’s intelligence, the creation of Captain Marvel’s iconic costume happened after she selected the colors for the suit using advanced technology. Akbar’s character was intelligent, confident, wise and bold. These characteristics are often lacked by female characters due to outside forces (males and societal views on women) that make them feel worthless. It’s okay to be an engineer and to be a boss at it. There’s no such thing as “that’s not a women’s field,” because women are increasingly entering STEM fields.

One of the most empowering scenes throughout the whole film is when Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel’s not-superhero name) is getting pushed down all throughout her life. As a little girl, she fell while playing baseball. She then falls rapidly from a high rope during basic training. There’s a clip of her getting yelled at by what appears to be her father after a go-cart incident. All those falls did not stop Carol from getting back up. Every time she fell, she picked herself right back up and kept going, each time making a fist. The clenching of her fist was a way of saying she’s ready for what’s to come next. This scene was very inspiring to many fans.

Captain Marvel’s message was about putting females in a position to succeed. Captain Marvel is a woman empowerment film that demonstrates strong women of different backgrounds. It will leave you with the feeling of being a boss! 

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• girl power
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