Saturday, February 23, 2019

To Brie Larson & Company: Please Stop

I love me some butch female characters.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with more traditionally feminine characters. As a matter of fact, I think our popular culture nowadays needs to get over its fear of girly-girls and wrench its representation of womanhood into more of a My Little Pony-style balance. But since I've always been a bit more masculine in outlook, I've always felt greater affinity for the tomboyish sorts. Thus, when I took up a passion for Star Trek in junior high, for example, I basically ignored Counselor Troi but fell insanely in love with Major Kira.

What I'm trying to say here is that I'm the audience for a female superhero like Captain Marvel. And yet - and yet! - I have no interest in seeing her new movie because her marketing campaign has been a trash fire of epic proportions.

First of all, there's the deeply stupid year-zero mentality. Captain Marvel, you see, is a Very Important MovieTM because it sends the message that Girls Can Be Heroes TooTM! Okay: I was born in 1979 - the deep, dark Stone Ages, I know - and I've been hearing this message my entire life. Ripley appeared in theaters for the first time in my natal year, and Sarah Connor was a bad-ass before I hit my teens. Then there are my best girls on the small screen - the aforementioned Kira, of course, but also Susan Ivanova and Delenn on Babylon 5, Aeryn Sun on Farscape, and etc. - who accompanied me through high school and beyond. The upshot? Female heroes have been around for forty-freakin'-years (at least); they are not ImportantTM, nor are they GroundbreakingTM. Do you want to see more of them? Fair enough, but don't pretend that your generation is the first to come up with this genius idea -- or that, if not for Captain Marvel, rough-and-tumble girls would be bereft of cultural role models.

Second, there are the numerous attempts to insult people until they fall in line on the praising. Some were skeptical of Benjamin Sisko at first, but I don't remember the showrunners of DS9 berating fans for their supposed racism and "white privilege". They simply asked the audience to trust them and then focused on building the very best leading man they could -- and as a consequence, Sisko is now universally beloved by Trekkies of all races. Why can't Ms. Larson and her compatriots follow the same playbook? Captain Marvel is a popcorn flick, but Schoolmarm Larson is making it sound like homework. (Yuck!) Instead of the sourpuss complaining about "white male misogynists" on the internet, why not show some genuine excitement for the movie itself? Tell us - while avoiding spoilers of course - why this movie will be a joy to watch, and try to do so without referencing Captain Marvel's naughty bits. As it stands now, the constant retreat to "you just hate wahmen" makes me suspect that you put scant effort into making Captain Marvel a quality superhero film -- that, like many SJW's before you, you are using identity politics to cover up your deep mediocrity.

Less than two years ago, Wonder Woman hit the theaters. Between the ticket sales - more than $800,000,000 worldwide - and the audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes, I think we can safely say that it was a smash hit with moviegoers and comic book fans. So no: nobody has a problem with "wahmen." The nitpicking vis-à-vis Captain Marvel is all because of Larson's scolding, non-critical hard-left politics. If she stopped tearing down "white men" and stopped marginalizing all criticism of her activism, the backlash would instantly evaporate.

25 comments:

  1. I Could not agree more!!!
    Now if only I could figure out how to not go see this and remain married at the same time because my wife's been waiting for this movie for about a year.

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    1. Practice civil disobedience by going during the matinee when seating isn't an issue. Buy a ticket to a different movie, something like a Dinesh D'Souza documentary, but watch the Captain Marvel movie instead.

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  2. Dagny Taggart comes to mind. I don't expect to see the left embracing her as a heroic woman any time soon.

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  3. At this point it looks like the movie has been projected to flop and they are attempting to do what they did with a previous flop, Ghostbusters 2016. That movie was clearly bad from the get go so they went the victim route, complaining that misogynist men had smeared the movie on the web and had attempted thusely to sabotage it in an attempt to attract feminists of all stripes to buy tickets for the movie. It didn't work then but apparently they decided to go for a second shot.

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    1. You haven't been paying attention then. Projections are back up to $120 million+ for the opening weekend.

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  4. I'm a comic book geek. I've been reading and collecting for over 40 years now. I've been a fan of the Carol Danvers character in almost all of her incarnations during that time. Captain Marvel is the first Marvel film I'm not excited about, solely because of Ms. Larson and her statements. I'll probably still go, just because of the need to keep up with plot points for Avengers:Endgame. But Marvel may need to rethink future use of Ms Larson in the post Endgame universe.

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    1. While some of Ms. Larson's comments have been irritating, the trailers I've seen look good. Maybe we should oh, I dunno, actually watch the movie before judging it?

      Radical notion, I know.

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    2. A big part of the problem is how the movie was presented. I'm upset enough with the Larson's preachiness that going to see the movie isn't an option for me. I might wait till it's on Netflix and judge it later. It might be wonderful, but it is important to send the message that we will not accept Larson's divisiveness.

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  5. They should have sent Jude Law out on the publicity tour.

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  6. I don't understand the whole 1990s thing or how a character who was always Iron Man level strength is now rumored to be the most powerful character in the MCU. The trailers don't make it seem like that much fun either. Plus I still remember her as Ms Marvel.

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    1. Word. Ms Marvel was no light weight, but she was never presented as the most powerful hero in the comics. Hulk, Sentry, Namor, Dr. Strange, and Professor X would have no trouble with her.

      And really, how does making her the most powerful add to anything. Heroes are heroes because they can overcome challenges. That's why writers have toned down Superman's abilities from back in the old days when he was moving planets around.

      It is far better to have an interesting hero than a powerful one.

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  7. I watched the trailers for Capt. Marvel, and Brie Larson has all the gravitas of Reese Witherspoon. I feel like she should have a southern accent and be working through some personal crisis with an ex-husband. Just seems mis-cast.

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  8. I’m just happy you mentioned “Farscape.”

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  9. For strong female protagonists, also see:

    Marge Gunderson (Fargo)
    Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
    Winifred Burkle/Illyria (Angel)
    Black Widow (Iron Man 2, Avengers, etc. -- and she's basically the second lead in Captain America 2)
    Brienne of Tarth, Sansa and Arya Stark, Daenerys Targaryen (Game of Thrones)
    The Bride (Kill Bill)
    Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
    Imperator Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road)
    Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
    Leia Organa, Rey (Star Wars)
    Lisbeth Salander (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)
    Trinity (The Matrix)
    Yu Shu Lien (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
    Nakia, Okoye, Shuri (Black Panther)
    Peggy Carter (Captain America 1, and the Peggy Carter TV series)
    Skype/Daisy Johnson/Quake, Melinda May (Agents of SHIELD)
    Kara "Starbuck" Thrace (Battlestar Galactica)
    Merida (Brave)
    Mulan (Mulan)
    Jessica Jones (Jessica Jones)


    And certainly a number more of notable ones. (And, "complicated" as his legacy now is, Joss Whedon is involved in lots of these.)

    So, no, Ms. Larson, you are not the first. Maybe there aren't enough strong female protagonists out there, but you are *not* the first, even in the Marvel Universe movies (and TV shows).

    I'm hoping, nevertheless, that Captain Marvel is still a good and fun movie despite the divisive and overly SJW-oriented marketing. The MCU movies are always entertaining even if they aren’t great (see Iron Man 2, Thor, Thor: The Dark World, and The Incredible Hulk).

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    1. Heck, can we dive further back? Our culture's deepest wellsprings are the Bible and Shakespeare. Let's see ... there's Miriam who saved her family and the brother whose mission required her, Deborah the war-prophet and Jael with her handy hammer, and Esther the mistress of palace intrigue. And try to find better heroines than in Shakespearean comedy!: Rosalind and Celia; the no-BS Princess of France (Love's Labour's Lost); Viola the ultimate survivor. When will we stop kidding ourselves that the present moment constitutes some kind of cultural pinnacle?

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  10. Can anyone explain why, as a white man, I should pay people to insult me? Why should I fork over money to a wokescold with all the charisma of a potted plant? Because Orange man bad? I go to the movies for escapism. Not to be lectured on things I have no control over (age, sex, skin tone, etc).

    I spent three years in a warzone. I was wounded and am 100% VA disabled. I support my wife's Army career by being a stay at home Army dad. None of those things are easy. Now I have to eat a bowl of sewage because I am white? Over a comic book movie? What even is this?

    I am not scared of "strong women". I don't feel guilty waiting for this movie on Netflix. Note to Brie Larson: being an insufferable wokescold will not paper over a bad movie. Also, there is such a thing as "bad publicity". Gonna miss this one.

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    1. You should have thought of that before enslaving brown people, colonizer.

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  11. This isn't Sci-Fi but another strong female protagonist is Helen Mirren as Inspector Jane Tennison in "Prime Suspect" She rose above the sexism and prejudice in pursuit of the truth as an end to itself. The final episode is heartbreaking when the price she paid in pursuit of that truth finally hits home No special effects, just excellent acting by all. Ms. Larson could learn from Mirren's portrayal of the tragic hero.

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  12. Brie Larson appears to be a completely horrible person. Is it too late to roll back the Captain Marvel movie and have it feature the original Kree Captain Mar-Vell? The Captain Marvel stories written and drawn by Jim Starlin are the origin of the Avengers villain Thanos.

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  13. Larsen's every complaint is just a little bit off, as though she's heard the arguments repeatedly but just can't quite get the details right. She's not an intellectual heavy weight. She's a follower, attempting to emulate what a leader would do.

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  14. mmmmm… Aeryn Sun. I DO wish Claudia Black had gotten more work (for the US Market).

    I miss Farscape.

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  15. The badass woman warrior has been a staple of pop culture for longer than I've been alive, and I've been alive long enough to remember when computers were made with stone knives and bear skins. Batgirl, Emma Peel, and Honey West were part of my childhood (not literally of course, that would be weird), so no I don't have a problem with powerful women. What I have a problem with is performers who feel the need to make watching their work a test of morality.

    No I do not owe you my money because you will think less of me if I skip your movie. No you are not my superior in any way shape or form. If you can't give me a positive reason to buy a ticket (like it's a kickass movie in the same league as Black Panther), I'm gonna have to wait until I can borrow it from the library to see it. If you think less of me, so bw it. Your opinion of me can't possibly be any less than mine of you.

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  16. If you would like to learn about a real life "bad ass woman warrior", let me recommend you look up a lady named Virginia Hall who bedeviled the Germans in Occupied France throughout the war. When the Gestapo got too close in 1942 she hiked out over the Pyrenees, a challenge since she had lost a leg before the war. She came back into theater by parachuting in, AT NIGHT, with her prosthetic leg strapped to her back pack and set up resistance cells to support the coming invasion.

    The Gestapo termed her"the most dangerous Allied spy", but never caught her.
    With real women like that, do we really need Super SJW's to be role models?

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  17. SJWs are a cancer. They destroy society with every sector they infect and take over.

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  18. -yawn- You're reading too much into it. The movie was great.

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