Brie Larson Doesn't Hate White Men

Hi, friends!

Captain Marvel, the latest Marvel movie, has just come out! Jared and I went to the early showing at our local theater last night and had a great time. It isn't the best Marvel movie ever, but I really enjoyed it and loved a lot of things about the movie overall and Carol herself. I'm excited to see what part she plays in Avengers: Endgame next month (whoa!) and how she interacts with our other beloved heroes. This enthusiasm is not shared by all Marvel fans, though.

Brie Larson, who portrays Captain Marvel, has angered a small - but very vocal - group of people. Those "fans" are making negative comments on every promotional post they can find on Marvel's various social media pages. They're shouting from the rooftops that they refuse to see this movie in theaters or support it in any way. These people are part of the reason why Rotten Tomatoes stopped allowing users to rate a movie that hadn't been released yet; the "audience score" for Captain Marvel was getting bombed by negativity before the movie had even hit theaters. (Honestly, I don't see why it was ever an option to do that anyway. If you want to give your opinion on the movie based on the trailer, that's why being able to comment on the trailer itself is a thing.)

So what did Brie do? There are a few main complaints I've seen, ranging from odd to stupid. Let's go through them, shall we?

Issue #1: She's trying to promote diversity
This is where the whole "she hates white men and doesn't want their money" thing comes from. Essentially, she wants journalists and critics who aren't white men to be given the opportunities they deserve. She wants people to be able to read the thoughts of reviewers who they can relate to and will give different perspectives. There was a recent study showing that almost 80% of top film critics are men and only 2.5% are women of color, and that's why Brie has been trying to get more people of different backgrounds to do her interviews. She realized that it was generally harder for certain groups of people to get those jobs and decided to bring attention to that.
There's an infamous quote from a speech she gave where she said, "I don't need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn't work about A Wrinkle In Time." That's where the review bombers like to stop reading. However, she continued, "I want to know what it meant to women of color, biracial women, to teen women of color. Am I saying I hate white dudes? No, I am not. What I'm saying is if you make a movie that is a love letter to women of color, there is an insanely low chance a woman of color will have a chance to see your movie and review your movie." (Obviously, women of color can go see movies that come to regular theaters, but Brie was talking specifically about smaller movies shown at film festivals in this case. If those movies don't get good reviews, that can be where their journey stops.)
What she's saying makes sense to me. I liked Black Panther, but I'm sure it was more meaningful to black viewers. My review wouldn't be as interesting to read as one written by someone who could truly understand where Killmonger was coming from or who had never seen so many people with a skin tone similar to their own in one movie before. If you ask an adult what they thought about an episode of Dora The Explorer, they'll probably say they weren't impressed. Asking a little kid about that same episode would most likely give you a different result. Personally, I don't particularly care what critics think about things, but I understand why it's important to get the opinions of a variety of people in order to get a better idea of what something is like.
Would you want to read my review of a movie about moving to a new school halfway through the year, the hardships of being in the military, having your parents divorce, or how difficult it is to raise kids? Maybe, but a review written by someone who has actually experienced those things for themselves would be much more meaningful and insightful. How would I know if the movie did those things justice? You might as well ask me to write about a sports movie. (This kind of thing is why those YouTube videos like "Real Doctor Watches Grey's Anatomy" are so popular.)
Anyway, Brie never said she wants white guys to stop watching or even reviewing things. She simply wants qualified people of all backgrounds to be given a voice. Unfortunately, the internet is always looking for reasons to be offended and ways to twist intentions, so there are some people who never heard the full story and are clinging to the part that makes them think Brie is prejudiced against them.

Issue #2: She's emotionless / doesn't smile enough
Perhaps trying to save the earth from aliens and recover details about your forgotten past isn't a very joyful experience. This complaint is absurd for several reasons. Do you remember Doctor Strange smiling very much in his movie? I don't. How many smiles were there in Infinity War? (About two minutes of them, apparently.)

These edited posters (made by @heymermaid on Twitter) show us why there aren't usually big grins on promotional images for superhero movies. Only Gilderoy Lockhart would be concerned about how photogenic he is while he's fighting.

Carol does smile. She tells jokes. She sings karaoke at a bar with her friend. However, given that the focus of the movie is about danger, fighting, figuring out who she used to be, not knowing who to trust, and other not-super-cheerful things, it's understandable that she doesn't just walk around smiling all the time. I definitely don't walk around smiling all the time and my life is significantly less dangerous and complicated than hers is. But hey, I've also been told I need to smile more, that my neutral face looks hostile, etc., so what do I know?
This kind of thinking makes a brief appearance in the movie. Shortly after she arrives on earth, Carol is told by a random guy on a motorcycle that she should smile. (Spoiler alert: Motorcycle Bro does not receive a smile in response. It's almost like telling a woman that she should smile isn't likely to make her happy.)
Actual semi-spoilery-but-not-really stuff here: Carol was trained to restrain her emotions and got in trouble for showing them. Her commander says something like "humor is a distraction" when she tries to have some fun while they're sparring. In another scene, she's joking with her fellow soldiers but everyone quickly shifts back into serious mode when the commander approaches. The Kree warriors are told to do things "for the good of all Kree" and do so without showing feelings.
On top of that, she was in the Air Force prior to becoming a Kree soldier. She was mocked by other airmen who saw her as weak or less than because of her gender. Some people think showing emotion is a sign of weakness, and since women are stereotypically more emotional, she probably started repressing her emotions even before her Kree commander started drilling that into her head for several years. She must have been constantly trying to prove herself to be just as good as her male counterparts, doing things like the side project with Lawson for that reason.

Issue #3: Brie doesn't have a nice chest or butt
Yes, this is actually something that people have whined about. Lovely, right? I prefer to focus on the fact that she could push a Jeep after all the physical training she did for this role. I wonder how many of the human turds grumbling that she isn't attractive enough for them are able to do that.

Issue #4: She's "ruining Marvel by making it political"
Because giving a female hero her own movie and an actress trying to fight discrimination are both political, apparently. The kinds of people who say this must not be very familiar with things like, oh, I don't know, Captain America punching Hitler in 1940, the fact that Black Panther was created in the 1960s, or the "mutants are bad" mentality in the X-Men stories. Stan Lee was always trying to make the world a better place through his work.

This message from Stan was published in 1968.

Here's one from 1963. Stan Lee was a treasure.

This movie was planned for years. It wasn't a sudden, "Oh, lots of movies are getting all-female remakes, so I guess we should do a girl hero now!" afterthought. Prior to seeing it for myself, I was a little worried that the pendulum would swing too far and they'd convey the message that her being a woman makes her better than other heroes; true feminism is about balance and equality, not women being superior to men. Fortunately, the movie portrayed her as a fantastic hero, not only as a fantastic female hero, just as Fury is a great SHIELD agent, not only a great black SHIELD agent. Marvel wasn't patting themselves on the back for including a woman or a black man. He is black, she is female, and that's simply what it is. (And Goose is a great kitty who happens to have ginger fur. I can't get through this entire post without mentioning Goose!)

There's also the fact that several of the other Marvel stars are openly political. Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, and Chris Pratt share their views on social media and nobody seems to mind. (Well, some people hate Chris Pratt for being religious/conservative, but that's a different subject.) Humans are allowed to have opinions about things. Other humans are allowed to disagree.

It's completely fine to have genuine complaints about the movie or Brie herself. She probably could have been more tactful when she said this or that. Some people say the pacing of the story is off. Jared thinks Carol's personality is a bit flat (and had two other gripes with the movie that would spoil plot things, so I won't mention them here). Those are valid things to think; this movie isn't immune to criticism simply because it's about a female superhero. It's good to still have thoughts about the good and bad of Captain Marvel. Giving it a 10/10 review for the sole reason that Carol is a woman is about as helpful as the people who give 5-star reviews to products they've purchased but haven't received yet.

Hopefully this clears up some of the nonsense that's been floating around the internet recently. I did get a bit snarkier than usual; I think that was some of the built-up frustration from seeing all sorts of idiotic complaints about this movie. (Some people were even moaning about how much Marvel has been advertising for it. You know, because the other Marvel movies never get advertised. Give me a break!) Instead of engaging the buffoons who choose to spend their time posting about how little they care about this movie, I decided to yell type into the void and post this here.

Go see this movie if it's something you're interested in or skip it if you're as sick of superhero movies as James Cameron believes the general population is. Just don't boycott it because of misunderstandings or ignorance.

Love,

Lizzie