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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Yeah, I'm sure Captain Marvel was bound to catch some flak just for having a woman in it, but it was Brie Larson's past comments and request for a more diverse pool of journalists that upset the usual misogynist crowd and caused the film to be The Worst Thing Ever(tm). This is in spite of the fact that the film itself is very unlikely to be "political" in the sense that many of them are implying.
I mean, I'm not particularly interested in the film myself, but it's whatever you know? It's not like there aren't numerous other films coming out every year I can watch instead. The world doesn't exclusively revolve around me or what I care about. It's cool to finally get a female-led film, even if it took forever.
Another thing that's kind of annoying is that any media that attempts to be more diverse is automatically held to a much higher standard. Films don't need to be high art or perfect to justify their existence, especially if they're providing something like representation for minority people. Even if Captain Marvel ends up being one of the weaker MCU films, it doesn't mean that it doesn't deserve to exist.
Unfortunately, it does.
Movies starring minorities and women, or anything without a white male straight lead, will be held as a validation that such movies don't make movey/can make money, but not on their own merits.
Which sucks, true, but until enough of these films are successful that the greater audience is willing to judge them on their own merits, rather than as the representative of whatever minority they happen to cast, it's just not going away.
A bit more as to what the trolls are trying to accomplish:
I was watching the 10 Years Later companion piece to City of God, and it featured a bit of a Brazilian protest song with the (translated) lyrics: "Peace without a voice is not peace, it is fear."
Basically, people currently in positions of power, or who want to believe that they are entitled to relative power over minorities, want to silence the voice of those minorities. If you ignore the concerns of discrimination, or attempt to quiet them when they are raised, it's easier to pretend it isn't a problem for some, or that others don't benefit from it. When inequality is not confronted, or when that confrontation is silenced, the inequality perpetuates.
Oh hey, we have an entire trope that pretty well sums up my reaction to this:
I think they would have attacked Captain Marvel anyway, though Brie Larson was naturally a particularly draw too, since she is heavily involved in the Me too movement and openly feminist. And that she actually said something they could misconstrue into "she hates white men" was kind of a gift.
All this said, I think the main reason why it blow up so much is a mixture of timing and a lack of, well, cover. What I mean with timing: Due to the close connection with Endgame, Captain Marvel is the pretty much the next highly prolific property after Star Wars to attack. Speaking of Star Wars, there is a little bit of an outrage lull for now...not a lot, but there isn't even a first trailer to be outraged about yet.
On top of this, they are kind of forced to double down now, aren't they? As I said, they had nothing to hide behind this time around. If the movie is successful, well reviewed and the same is true for Avengers Endgame, they will look like absolute idiots. So they now have to build conspiracy theories. Otherwise they would be forced to admit that they are wrong.
They did this same thing with Black Panther.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Which is, in turn, the same kind of outrageous double-think that somehow allows them to be pissed off at the new Star Wars films for "introducing" an anti-authoritarianist bias into Star Wars.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It has to be admitted that the movie offers a pretty broken aesop in this regard. Wakanda's borders remain closed to all outsiders except the personal guests of T'Challa, and they even have a "wall" in the form of cloaking and an energy shield.
I'm surprised that none of the analysis of the Captain Marvel "backlash" is taking into the probability that some of the trolls may lash out in violent or destructive ways.
We literally saw that with how the trolls harassed and violated Lesile Jones after the female Ghostbusters movie. There's reason to believe that they'll do it to Larson or anyone associated with the movie.
And that's not even getting into the possibility that some of these trolls may have guns.
"The devil's got all the good gear. What's God got? The Inspiral Carpets and nuns. Fuck that." - Liam GallagherWhile those idiots took the argument with bad faith, wakanda does minds have issue because is present as utópic idea of a true or itself unapologetic black nation free of colonization, it also attach itself to other ideas like monarchy, isolation as good thing from most part and the bad guy being the one who actually suffer all the injustice and is the privileged guy work to stop it.
Like, I like wakanda but is hard not to see as the nation that nearly to imperialistic because one dude beat the other almost to death.
Now with cap....my issue is this movie turn to be another safe and marvel made origin story they got so used to, would that be consider a failure?
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"Come to think of it, wasn't there similar backlash from bigots when Thor came out because Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall? I recall there were a few people crying foul, but it died out once the film actually came out. Then again, this was before organized hate campaigns were a thing, Heimdall was only a supporting character, and 2011 was a much different place than where we are today.
Probably because they didn't flip his gender. Usually that's when the trolls get nastier.
Yes, there were organized hate campaigns against Idris Elba's casting.
I vividly remember those, because the conversation always centered around some reference to Heimdall being "the Whitest God" or some shit in the mythology.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The reaction on Twitter that summed it up to me was someone saying that everything about CM makes it look like a standard action movie and even one with a pro-military message like Top Gun, and yet somehow in spite of that people are acting like it's extreme leftist propaganda.
They all went bat shit crazy over the one scene in which Carol's friend says to her "got to show those boys how we do it" in the superbowl trailer. Because this is apparently putting down men to make females look good.
I mean...really? That is such a typical top gun line. Aren't woman allowed to be confident in their abilities?
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In a word: no. No, women are not allowed to be confidant in their abilities; there is no 'confidant', women with the slightest amount of pride in anything they do are 'arrogant', 'stuck-up', 'bitches', and any other slur you can come up with. At least, according to the Internet trolls causing all the trouble.
Let's not
compare which is worse between sexism or white supremacy.
As for the people lashing out violently, they already do. Not being able to leave bad film reviews isn't going to change that.
And as was stated above, there was a vocal backlash to Idris Elba's casting, specifically because he was black.
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Does that all exist as one gif? Because that's definitely saveable.
Also, wooooow, proving itself right. -8 votes, and one commenter labeled it "propaganda intended to silence men." Fucking lol.
Edited by wanderlustwarrior on Mar 3rd 2019 at 10:18:53 AM
I couldn't find the entire thing in one gif, but here's the complete video.
Edited by alliterator on Mar 3rd 2019 at 8:21:54 AM

Marvel is like Pixar in its heyday: it'll take several failures before their movies ever get into the red.
And as someone brought it up: while I'm not the biggest Fury Road fan (I think it's fun, but not much in the way of depth), I do greatly respect that movie for proving once and for all that Rated M for Manly movies need not be sausage fests with a whiff of misogyny to them, so hats off.