opinion
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has taken 21 years to finally release its first female led film which happened to be Captain Marvel. Considering the success of Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers in the comics, fans were excited to see how she would be portrayed. Since most of the films up till this point in 2019 only had emphasis on the four main team members of the Avengers, excluding two classified as unimportant who are Black Widow and Hawkeye, then later on Guardians of the Galaxy in order to build up to the final battle at the end of the Infinity Saga to conclude the story.
Unfortunately, Captain Marvel did not meet the expectations fans had given it, with a 6.8 per cent rating on IMB and 79 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes despite the supposed strong female representation, as this hero guides us through her journey to becoming who she is. In order to understand why this film had failed, we need to understand what it really means to have a strong female character and why Captain Marvel fails to meet that mark. I will also compare the character’s failure to Black Widow’s success. Ironic, right? Black Widow does not get her own movie, side lined completely. When she did get her movie, it was released after the end of the Infinity Saga in 2021. Although it was not the best movie, people still appreciated it and representation was not the problem.
Okay, so back to my point, a strong female character’s definition is to have an independent woman/girl who can figure out her own situation. They can do it in multiple ways, for example whether it be emotional, physical, superior intelligence or even just making her mark in a male dominated environment all classify under strength.
Since, we are dealing with an overpowered female character, we can instantly assume she carries on all of them. That is true, however, from the scenes we have had of Black Widow in the number of movies beside her own, all indicating her difficult life and finding redemption after having to work as a Russian spy which also explains where her combat abilities come from. The fact that her movie was released, viewers were able to see her life beyond her flashbacks and conversations with the characters who she is close to. The fact, that Captain Marvel was a new hero introduced in her own movie, had already felt out of place, but her character appeared as flawless. Although, like every superhero had their own enemy to deal with, Captain Marvel just has a lot of cosmic energy which she uses to beat up her enemy. And unfortunately, she has no hurdles that cause her to struggle greatly. ‘Star Wars’, a franchise also taken over by Disney got similar criticism for their portrayal of their new Jedi, Rey (Daisy Ridley). She was overpowered, strong, and automatically skilled with her light saber, however she had no inner conflict or struggle to deal with.
Neither Captain Marvel or Rey are strong female characters, they are just physically strong which is a stereotype usually planted in male characters…almost making these women with stereotypically male character traits. Although there is nothing wrong with that, it just makes a cliché theme and dismisses stereotypically female traits that we should be proud off, for example the gift to openly express themselves. Black Widow aka Natasha Romanoff had done that on numerous occasions, with her quiet vulnerable moments in order to understand herself and question her decisions. Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers on the other hand, just succeeded with the mentality that her emotions were a weakness, which is part of the whole idea of toxic masculinity. The MCU writers however, did create plenty of vulnerable moments for their mains, Steve’s (Chris Evans) vulnerability portrayed through his desperation to connect with his old friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan), Tony (Robert Downey Jr) crying as he sends Pepper a voice message before approaching Thanos - again only humanising these characters making them stronger people.
Captain Marvel unfortunately misses out on the concept of allowing Carol Danvers to explore her inner self, to think and struggle - making this movie a poor representation of not just supposedly strong females to be honest…but people. At the end of the day everyone struggles to get through different obstacles of life, and allowing yourself to express and accept your emotions are crucial through getting passed these steps.