Dear Disney: Why I Won’t See Captain Marvel

Dear Disney:

I will not be seeing the Captain Marvel film. I know this makes me a bad feminist. I know Brie Larson is the savoir of all women-kind. Still, I will not be seeing this film. I wanted to explain the many reasons why:

The Trailer

The trailer does not make me want to see the film.
You couldn’t just make a good solid superhero film that just happened to have a female lead. Nope, you had to make a big fanfare about a female hero. So in the 616 universe Alien, and Underworld never happened? Women who are actually strong women, do not need to talk about how strong they are.

The “her/hero” made me cringe. You would NEVER make a trailer that said “he/hero” so save your condescending BS!

This tells me that you are not confident in the film, and are relying on identity politics to get butts in seats.

Why Captain Marvel?

Why would you make your first female superhero film with Captain Marvel? Why not a spy thriller with Black Widow? A WWII period piece with Peggy Carter? Why not a Vision/ Scarlett Witch story where Wanda can really shine? Why Captain Marvel?

I’m not stupid I know the reason: you want Captain Marvel to be the face of all things Marvel, because she’s got the word “marvel” in her name. The face of Marvel has been, and always will be, Spiderman. Deal with it.

Characterization

Brie Larson has the same expression on her face in every shot of the trailer. Is this bad editing? Is Carol Danvers a Vulcan? Is Brie Larson a bad actress? I don’t know, and I don’t care.

Please note: I am not telling Brie Larson to smile. but if the main character doesn’t have any emotional range, how am I going to get invested in the story?

The Replacement Factor

If you haven’t caught on by now, I am a comics fan. I’ve seen how Captain Marvel has been pushed in recent years in the comics, and I remember when you did the same thing with the Inhumans.

Like many comics fans, I never hated the Inhumans. I hated that you were doing to them. You wanted the Inhumans to be the X-men. You wanted us to transfer our love of the X-men to the Inhumans purely because you still owned the movie rights to the Inhumans. But the fans rebelled. We held onto our love of the X-men and we waited you out. In humiliation you had to bring the X-men back and put the Inhumans on the moon where they belong.

Now you are trying to do the same with Captain Marvel. You want Carol Danvers to replace Peter Parker. You want Carol Danvers to be the face of Marvel like Superman is for DC. Carol is not Peter. and she doesn’t have to be. Stop trying. It won’t work.

The Comics

I was just really getting into comics during the Civil War II storyline. I’ve never picked up a Captain Marvel comic, and given the Civil War II storyline, why should I? I don’t want to read about this violent, fascist, b$&^%. This is not something you can fix with an art change. I don’t care if she has long flowing locks or a cute pixie cut, her HAIR is not why I don’t like her!

There were other people who had the title of Captain Marvel. Why did you have to go with Carol?

I used to feel bad for Carol, I really did. Avengers Issue 200, the whole Rouge thing. I felt bad for her. Now I think all those things were just karma for being a terrible person.

Brie Larson and the GoFundMe

I’m not going to talk about Brie Larson’s comments because she’s entitled to her opinions and I don’t care. What bother’s me is Brie Larson and the GoFundMe.

Brie Larson has been championing a GoFundMe meant to send little girls to the Captain Marvel movie. This would be fine if she were a random person on the street, but she’s not. As the star of the film, with a vested financial interest in the film doing well, it’s self-serving and discussing. You don’t care about being a role model for little girls, you care about selling tickets!

Marvel studios has earned enough trust from me that I could have ignored any of these problems in isolation. Taken together, I’ll go see Alita Battle Angel instead.