Ever since Brie Larson stated her intention to make her Captain Marvel press conferences more ‘diverse,” she–and the movie–have been the target of criticism, review sabotage, malicious wishes, and boycott calls.
Now certainly, Jewdar is no great fan of the world of Social Justice Warring, and did have a moment in which we thought that if Brie Larson really wanted to make a statement about diversity, she could have insisted that the role should have gone to a black actress (which would have been perfectly keeping with the second female Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau). To be sure, if every big-name actor offered a role that could conceivably go to an actor of color were to give it up, that would have a pretty big impact. But Jewdar is not one to quibble, and we’ll even give Larson credit for not just making uninformed assertions but actually commissioning an academic study on the demographics of entertainment journalists. And certainly, Marvel Comics has made some pretty awful choices in the pursuit of “diversity,” most of which ended up being no more original or creative than putting a new hat on Malibu Stacy.
All that said we are happy to announce that not only has the movie had a solid opening weekend, but it has deserved one. When it began, Jewdar thought “Okay, it’s fine, but more “Ant-Man” than “Captain America.” That is, a standard issue Marvel movie–a little action, little humor, gets the job done, but forgettable. But by the middle, it was all coming together. Jewdar doesn’t want to talk too much about it, but it was fun, funny, good characters, plenty of surprises and is well worth watching.
And as for the SJW aspect of it, you have to have one hell of a small penis to be threatened by the empowerment in this movie. Indeed, Jewdar would say that there was very little here that would stand out as being in any way unusual or “in-your-face” if it were done by a male protagonist–indeed, given all the hoopla, the feminism was no more than implicit; she’s a woman, and she’s a hero, but at no point was there the suggestion that because of the former she was any more of the latter.
All in all, Jewdar is happy to wish the MCU a mazl tov on its new edition–you should know nothing but nachus from Captain Marvel.
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