I'm Tired and Angry But Somebody Should Be

Captain Marvel: So then he was all ‘I told you- you’re never going to be able to control yourself until you can put me on the floor without using your powers’-

Captain America: So you turned them off and kicked his ass anyway?

Captain Marvel: No lol what the fuck I’m not a dumbass, I just shot him. Who the fuck would listen to a villain trying to do his best to win a fight?

Captain America, sweating, remembering the fight with Batroc in which he stowed away his shield and dropped his helmet bc Batroc Asked Him To: Hah lol ikr….. who’d do that…idiots…

Sam Wilson, hearing the same story: So you blasted him with your sparklefists, right?

Captain Marvel: I blasted the shit out of him.

Sam: I know the feeling. So there’s this dumbass named Rumlow…

This got better.

Just One Question: ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Edition

The biggest problem with every single bad review of Captain Marvel coming from a man is that none of them seem to comprehend a narrative that isn’t meant for them.

They see Carol finally breaking free from being gaslighted by the Kree as “emotionally underwhelming,” never realizing that a climactic, emotional showdown with her abuser would be giving him exactly what he wants. Being in control of her emotions? Choosing not to react to a provocation? That’s strength most male comic fans don’t understand. They see masculine-coded strength as the only valid kind. Carol not being angry and putting Yon-Rogg down in a shonen-esque battle doesn’t make sense to them because it’s not what they would have done.

They see a woman struggling to work through lies she’d been told as “bad narrative structure,” when in reality the movie was never about building Carol up from nothing, but about her realizing her true potential through seeing past those lies. Carol’s character arc parallels many women attaining social consciousness, throwing off patriarchal lies they’d been conditioned to accept about who they are and what they can do. Her story isn’t about attaining power, but about embracing her true potential that had been deliberately hidden from her.

They see Carol’s emotions not lining up with the lies her abusers told her about being too emotional as “bad writing” or “bad acting,” never realizing that that was exactly the point. They only understand defiance as impassioned, outward battles of will and pride, not understanding that quiet, steadfast refusal to bend to others’ designs of who you should be is strength too.

Brie Larson was absolutely right. Carol’s story is not for men. And nothing proves that more than all the fanboys who didn’t understand it throwing fits on the internet.

You know what, it wasn’t until I started reading posts like this one that I realized how very much Captain Marvel was a story made for me (i.e. women in general). I mean, I loved it, but I’ve also loved many, many of the MCU movies starring men and become more than a little emotionally invested in those characters. 

I can’t remember if it was a quote or just like, an idea that I’ve seen floating around, but I saw it somewhere, the idea that women can relate to men’s stories because we’ve been socialized to empathize with and understand men on a very deep level, essentially as a survival mechanism. And we’ve been fed media featuring men’s stories, and largely only men’s stories for so long, that it’s just second nature to understand and relate to those stories, even if they aren’t “our” stories exactly. 

Men, on the other hand, have never had to learn to relate to and empathize with women’s experiences as a necessity of everyday living. And media on the whole has reflected that throughout their lives. And so when they come across a story centered on a woman, and it doesn’t immediately resonate with them, they just assume the fault is with the story, rather than a lack of understanding on their part. 

So I guess it just kind of surprised me to see this disconnect, because I came out of the theater feeling pretty pumped and happy, more or less the same way I feel about any of my fave Marvel movies. And I assumed that other people who liked those same movies would probably feel the same way, regardless of gender. 

And then I stepped back and realized that the nuances of Carol’s story are so deeply about the experience of being a woman. But not like the version of that experience we so often see portrayed in the media. But the real experience that is so central to our lives that we don’t even really think about it most of the time. I didn’t realize why Carol’s story resonated with me so much at first, because it’s just the water that I swim in every day. It’s how the world is to me. And I forget that for roughly half the people out there, the world is actually very different. 

some points were made

Okay, I was trying to put this in the tags and not clutter up a perfectly good post, but it got too long, 

It has taken Marvel TWENTY-ONE (21) films to have a female lead. My god is that a lot of films. More than any other film franchise that I know of. SO MANY FILMS. And for quite some time now, they have been a pretty unshakeable success at the box office. There was no reason for them to wait this long. But they did. You know what’s worse than that? 

In all of those TWENTY-ONE (21) films, there has not been a single canonically queer character. Not even in the background, not mentioned in passing, not as a villain, NOTHING. IN FACT, the very concept of queerness has never even been mentioned in the MCU. EVER. As though non-straight people simply don’t exist in this universe. Which is... actually kind of chilling when you stop to think about it. 

Normally I just spend all my time in fandom where everything is queer and nothing hurts, but now and again, I’ll surface and realize that, no, Marvel has not yet acknowledged that I exist. And that... sucks. 

So given all of that, I had utterly no expectations that they would make their VERY FIRST female lead also a queer female lead. Do I think they should have? HELL YES. All of the points in the post above are 100000% correct. But I wouldn’t expect it. The fact that Carol didn’t have a male love interest was at least something. Like, they didn’t make her straight. (Not that someone having a partner of the opposite sex makes them straight! Obviously! I say as a bisexual!!) But you know, in movie coding, that’s what they’re saying. As far as strictly canon representation goes, Carol had no love interest, and that’s better than the alternative. 

Not that I’m giving them ally cookies or anything, hell no. But at least they didn’t straight out say, “No, your interpretation of these women’s relationship is wrong because here is a DUDE.” At least they didn’t do that. 

carol coming back to earth for the first time since 1995 and meeting steve rogers, who has been a military urban legend since WW2 and whom she had no idea was alive:

dude I never even thought of this holy shit

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

I am very much into the idea of Carol and Thor being bros and doing cool shit together. 

“Low Tech” @brielarson @teamcevans @prattprattpratt @robertdowneyjr @avengers #captainmarvel #avengers #brielarson #chrisevans #chrispratt #robertdowneyjr #lordmesaart #clipstudiopaintex @clipstudioofficial https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn7LsAvAW2l/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1eiiwheu5etey

I know everyone seems to want Natalie Dormer for Carol Danvers, but I’d like to offer up the obvious choice: Gwendoline Christie.

Note: She’d be taller than the entire rest of the cast of the Avengers. Hemsworth is also 6’3”, but she seems to have a few extra centimeters. Just picture her.