On Thursday I went and saw Captain Marvel. While watching it, I kept in mind the backlash against @fandomsandfeminism‘s video comparing the movie with Wonder Woman’s movie. I did not watch the video because I wanted to go into the movie without too much analysis prior to viewing, but one thing did stick out to me from the discourse; that Carol emotes less than Diana. Below the line you will find my analysis on that issue, if you chose to read.
Alright so someone else on one of the various rebloggings of the post talked about how Carol emotes plenty (I’ll see if I can find said post) (here is said post) and then another person got screen shots from the trailer to further the point. I would like to discuss the why’s of Carol’s levels of emotion.
Diana is portrayed as childlike, her naivete of the world is why she finds everything so exciting, things like ice cream. When you live on an isolated island ice cream is a big deal. Her naivete is even why she reacts to men the way she does; she doesn’t understand why they would be so stupid and ignorant when they had all this knowledge to go on. This child-like nature of hers is precious and funny but it’s also what gets her in trouble. Which we all know so I won’t go into that.
The first thing that stuck me as I was watching the movie Captain Marvel is that Carol is snarky, she is sarcastic, and her affect is a little flatter than most. Personally I loved it, but that is not for everyone admittedly. About half-way through the movie I spotted a pattern; Carol emotes when she trusts the people she is around or when she feels comfortable.
When we first meet her and see her emoting, she is waking up Yon-Rogg who we learn is someone that has helped her regain her identity. It’s clear in their fight scene that they are close. Carol snarks and allows herself to be open.
This is different to how she is when she first meets Fury. Now obviously, to the audience, her let’s-get-down-to-business tone is hilarious, we have knowledge she doesn’t have and so we laugh. But Carol is acting from a place of ignorance of the planet, but knowledge of what she’s doing and what she is chasing (albeit we learn later how wrong some of that knowledge is). She isn’t open, she isn’t snarky, she doesn’t know this man so she isn’t going to open herself up to him.
Fury is not one to be stopped though and he shows up at the bar. Carol reacts with surprise and dare I say, approval, of his ability to not be shook off. Before she viewed him as an obstacle but he has proven himself a worthy opponent or ally--this is why she begins to open up to him. She smiles, she jokes, she snarks. The whole time she is with Fury she trusts him, even though she doesn’t know his whole backstory.
Basically what I’m saying here is that Carol is a victim of trauma and she responds how victims of trauma do. And one could argue what that trauma was--losing her memories, her dad being possibly abusive, being a women in a man’s world--but that doesn’t change the point. She doesn’t trust until she is shown reason too, she holds back until she is sure she is safe. Carol is not a person bursting with emotions outwardly even though she has them inwardly. Like many victims of abuse, she is subtle with her thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and if you watch her, if you cherish her, she will show you who she is.
I would say the clearest evidence of this is how she is with (her wife) Maria and (her daughter) Monica. Yes at first she is reserved but Monica is not put off by that, she knows her other momma and Monica quickly begins to unfold a story that Carol can’t ignore. When Maria and Carol get that moment to themselves in the kitchen, Carol let’s her walls down a little bit but still struggles to fully believe.
And OF COURSE she does. That’s a whole lot to take up and believe in the span of one day. Once Talos convinces Carol and Co to listen to the recording and all the evidence starts to really clash in Carol’s head she emotes with Maria but not with Talos. Not at first, eventually though.
All this to say the reason that those dingle MRA people can’t get Captain Marvel is because they are so used to the “born sexy yesterday” trope in sci-fi instead of a real woman who has thoughts, feelings, and a history. No offense to Wonder Woman of course, I still enjoyed that movie.
Just remember ladies (and if I may all you enby’s and trans men out there), we’ve got nothing to prove to them.
I'd like to see Rhodey in the Captain Marvel movie, but Don Cheadle will be 53 by then. They'll probably cast someone in their 20's-30's for Carol, and the Hollywood mentality will probably be that the age difference is too significant for their relationship to be romantic. Which is disappointing.
