Sample this. “Don't ask me how I know before release, but Captain Marvel is Marvel's biggest mistake—female superhero and female director for a big budget film,” wrote one troll, days ahead of the film's release on International Women's Day. Sadly, he was just one of many sexist keyboard warriors who went all out to sabotage the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first female lead film, 11 years and 20 movies after it all began with Iron Man.
Why? For starters, Brie Larson, a successful woman, played the most powerful hero in the MCU. That in itself was reason enough. The DC Extended Universe's Wonder Woman (2017), the first major female-led superhero movie, had endured trolling, too. The star, Gal Gadot, defended herself against body shaming, but refrained from saying much more. Larson had, however, "crossed a line". The Oscar-winner used her role as Captain Marvel to campaign for increased gender and racial diversity in the movie business. In other words, “she asked for it”.
Captain Marvel was carpet-bombed with negative opinions on popular movie rating websites, before it was even screened. An agenda was apparent. The views ranged from “How can a woman lead a big movie?” to the fact that Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell) was originally a man in the comics. But the strongest Avenger blasted her way through the blockade, earning $455 million worldwide in the opening weekend, the sixth highest global debut of all time (not adjusted for inflation).
Captain Marvel was by no means outstanding cinema. However, it did its job of introducing a new, and crucial, character into the MCU ahead of Avengers: Endgame, slated for release on April 26. Larson did justice to her role and the supporting cast were phenomenal. But, by and large, it felt like tokenism from Marvel Studios. As if a big shot suddenly heard of something called feminism and realised that the MCU did not have a film with a solo female lead, despite having many strong female characters in its movies, to counter rival DCEU's Wonder Woman. The latter had been praised widely, with the only criticism being the title character's sexualised costume. (Though Wonder Woman's costume does not define her, one must concede that her armour is too small to be of much use in battle).
Coming back to the MCU, while main male heros such as Iron Man, Captain America and Thor got at least three films to connect with the audience, Captain Marvel was tasked with doing it in two hours. But despite the odds, Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel came very close to pulling it off. Think the montage of Danvers falling and failing, from childhood to womanhood, being told she cannot succeed, only to get back up again and again (as the music rises to a crescendo).
It may indeed be shallow feminism, as female critics have noted. It is obviously an attempt by Marvel Studios to cash in on the emotions of its viewers (its massive opening has pushed the MCU's box office gross to close to $18 billion from 21 films). But there is nothing wrong in feeling empowered by Captain Marvel, because it still touched a chord. And, not to mention, girls finally have a non-sexualised female superhero costume to wear.