Captain Marvel
Mar. 11th, 2019 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beehammerI went to see it last night, and I think probably the thing I most appreciated is that they never took the idea of Carol being "too powerful" seriously. Because this shows up so frequently in comic properties, and it's coming back again with the Dark Phoenix bullshit, and I really, really fucking hate it.
The thing about male heroes is that they get to basically be gods, and nobody looks at that character and thinks "But what if--hear me out, here--what if he couldn't handle being so powerful? What if being so powerful and being able to do anything broke his brain? What if being so powerful is secretly terrible and all he wants, deep down, is to not have that power anymore?" is a super-interesting, subversive, clever storytelling move that anyone wants to see. If you have a male character whose awesome, godlike power comes at a terrible price, or is something that gets dumped on them before they're ready to handle it, or is really a pretty big burden, the story that gets told almost always revolves around finding solutions to those problems that let the character keep wielding those godlike, awesome powers.
Pretty much every time we get a female hero that's basically a god and her title gets any sort of readership, or she gets any sort of fanbase, some dickhole inevitably comes along and proposes this shocking storyline to end all storylines where all that power is just too much for her. And then enough people that this keeps happening sit back and applaud like this is a great artistic contribution instead of a loud fart during a lull in conversation on a conference call.
Thor's just Thor, but when Jane Foster takes up the mantle, using her awesome godlike powers makes her breast cancer (because of fucking course it was) worse. She-Hulk suffers emotional trauma and now she's too afraid to use her own amazing powers. Emma Frost gets too powerful for a hot second, and when that gets taken away it turns out her hubris in thinking she could use all that power has cost her pretty much all the power she started out with.
Jean Grey gets so powerful that she just sort of... goes crazy and dies.
Scarlet Witch gets so powerful that she just sort of... goes crazy and dies.
We keep seeing these things presented as deep, moving storylines when they're the same old tired bullshit. Male characters get to work through their problems without anyone seriously suggesting that there's something inherently and fundamentally wrong with them having them in the first place, that the character's mental disintegration or struggles with their powers are the inevitable result of having too much power or being too awesome. Female characters are perpetually in need of being knocked down a rung or two, because apparently that struggle with the incompatibility between their humanity and their powers is "interesting." It's sexist, and it's fucking lazy.
So Captain Marvel not indulging in it is a huge relief. All the lines about how she needs to learn to control her powers, how when she can control her temper and not use the full range of her powers at the drop of a hat she'll be ready, how she needs a hierarchy and external controls on her powers--it's all self-serving shit being shoveled by the bad guys.
When she finally breaks free of the limits that have been placed on her, accesses her full strength, and attains godlike, awesome powers--that's when she's at her best self. That's when she saves the day. That's her natural state. And at no point in time does the film act like Carol coming into her own and figuring out the full breadth and depth of what she's really capable of is anything other than fucking awesome.
The thing about male heroes is that they get to basically be gods, and nobody looks at that character and thinks "But what if--hear me out, here--what if he couldn't handle being so powerful? What if being so powerful and being able to do anything broke his brain? What if being so powerful is secretly terrible and all he wants, deep down, is to not have that power anymore?" is a super-interesting, subversive, clever storytelling move that anyone wants to see. If you have a male character whose awesome, godlike power comes at a terrible price, or is something that gets dumped on them before they're ready to handle it, or is really a pretty big burden, the story that gets told almost always revolves around finding solutions to those problems that let the character keep wielding those godlike, awesome powers.
Pretty much every time we get a female hero that's basically a god and her title gets any sort of readership, or she gets any sort of fanbase, some dickhole inevitably comes along and proposes this shocking storyline to end all storylines where all that power is just too much for her. And then enough people that this keeps happening sit back and applaud like this is a great artistic contribution instead of a loud fart during a lull in conversation on a conference call.
Thor's just Thor, but when Jane Foster takes up the mantle, using her awesome godlike powers makes her breast cancer (because of fucking course it was) worse. She-Hulk suffers emotional trauma and now she's too afraid to use her own amazing powers. Emma Frost gets too powerful for a hot second, and when that gets taken away it turns out her hubris in thinking she could use all that power has cost her pretty much all the power she started out with.
Jean Grey gets so powerful that she just sort of... goes crazy and dies.
Scarlet Witch gets so powerful that she just sort of... goes crazy and dies.
We keep seeing these things presented as deep, moving storylines when they're the same old tired bullshit. Male characters get to work through their problems without anyone seriously suggesting that there's something inherently and fundamentally wrong with them having them in the first place, that the character's mental disintegration or struggles with their powers are the inevitable result of having too much power or being too awesome. Female characters are perpetually in need of being knocked down a rung or two, because apparently that struggle with the incompatibility between their humanity and their powers is "interesting." It's sexist, and it's fucking lazy.
So Captain Marvel not indulging in it is a huge relief. All the lines about how she needs to learn to control her powers, how when she can control her temper and not use the full range of her powers at the drop of a hat she'll be ready, how she needs a hierarchy and external controls on her powers--it's all self-serving shit being shoveled by the bad guys.
When she finally breaks free of the limits that have been placed on her, accesses her full strength, and attains godlike, awesome powers--that's when she's at her best self. That's when she saves the day. That's her natural state. And at no point in time does the film act like Carol coming into her own and figuring out the full breadth and depth of what she's really capable of is anything other than fucking awesome.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-13 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-14 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-14 10:47 pm (UTC)Really good point! I have not read the Dark Phoenix comics but from what I've seen from the trailer, I am going to be annoyed a lot during the film (still going to see it, though). I am so glad they did not use this annoying storyline with Carol. Can't wait to see more of her.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-17 02:54 am (UTC)