Let’s Talk About Captain Marvel, Feminism and Fanboy Angst

Efforts by some fragile fanboys to sabotage “Captain Marvel” utterly failed — however they did reach sparking just a few fights that aren’t price having. We speak about it on the most recent “Low Key” podcast, which you’ll be able to hearken to on Apple or proper right here:

Every week on the “Low Key” podcast, co-hosts Aaron Lanton, Keith Dennie and I speak about popular culture moments we expect others have missed. We’re comic-book nerds, and never impressed by the assaults on “Captain Marvel” by a small variety of our fellow male followers.

Before “Captain Marvel” even opened, trolls focused it on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and YouTube, spurring all three to make modifications designed to display screen out assaults from individuals who hadn’t truly seen the movie.

“Captain Marvel” beat the trolls handily, opening to $153 million domestically and $455 million worldwide. It is more likely to be one of many quickest movies to hit $1 billion on the field workplace.

But why had been some males so threatened by a superhero film?

In half it was as a result of Brie Larson, who performs Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, opined in 2016: “I do not need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work for him about ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’ … It wasn’t made for him.” She additionally instructed “Entertainment Tonight” that she had talked to Marvel about “Captain Marvel” being “a big feminist movie.”

Trolls trigger plenty of issues. But one of many less-obvious ones is the way in which they drive individuals to take excessive positions that divide us all.

In the case of “Captain Marvel,” they handled a female-fronted superhero film as an existential menace to males. That led different followers to have a good time “Captain Marvel” extra vigorously than they in any other case may need. And that, in flip, made the movie a extra engaging goal.

Was it actually a game-changer? Was it an ideal embodiment of feminism? Was it flawless in each regard?

Were we actually going to have this argument?

No film ought to bear the obligations some viewers tried to connect to “Captain Marvel.”

It shouldn’t should show itself to anybody.

Like dozens of flicks that come out yearly, “Captain Marvel” is a wonderfully entertaining film that didn’t blow our minds. We favored it. We didn’t like it. Lots of people paid cash to see it, and it’s an enormous success.

But the trolling has turned Carol Danvers’ story right into a battle within the tradition wars. And we should always select our battles rigorously.

Trolls shouldn’t flip a enjoyable superhero film right into a battle. But we don’t should be baited into vigorously defending films we aren’t that obsessed with.

Let the box-office success do the speaking.

We need extra female-centered superhero films, so “Wonder Woman” and “Captain Marvel” received’t be burdened with being the one representatives of tremendous womankind, held as much as a ridiculous commonplace of perfection that nobody calls for of “Aquaman” or and even the “Man of Steel.”

No film ought to bear the accountability for representing each lady’s expertise, or each black individual’s expertise, or something past the story it units out to inform.

We additionally discuss, after all, about what the flerken actually did to Nick Fury, and just a few different comics we are able to’t wait to see on the display screen. Helloooooo, “Lady Killer.”