Grey area and women empowerment in Captain Marvel
In the film, Captain Marvel, Vers participates in a war against her people, the Skrulls, and who she truly is. Vers is an elite squad member for the Kree Empire. She and her squad are tasked with rescuing a Kree spy from the shapeshifting race, the Skrulls. Vers is tricked by the a Skrull's morphing abilities and is taken hostage to one of their spaceships. She is awoken to the Skrulls searching through her mind for critical information. The memories they are shifting through appear to not be recognizable to Vers. But, Vers escapes the clutches of the Skrulls to Earth, where she learns that her memories are from her past life on Earth.
In the past on Earth, Vers absorbed a lightspeed engine's energy and that is how she gained her superpowers. Understanding the power that is at Vers' disposal, the Kree kidnap Vers from Earth, wiped her human memories, and convinced her she is from Kree. After learning about her past, Vers is at a crossroads of who she is and who to truly trust. But, she ends up siding with the Skrulls to save their people and stop a Kree attack on Earth.
For a rather generic superhero movie, the film is interesting in the plot twists for who is the enemy. The Skrulls appear goblin-like and evil with abilities that are parallel to the Devil's shapeshifting nature and torture. But, the Kree are the race that are geocoding the Skrull and manipulating Vers for her use as a weapon. Both sides are in a grey area of who is in the wrong, which is rather realistic on wars between humans.
Other topics are explored and hinted at in the movie, like women empowerment. The movie has a majority of female leads and easily passes the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test is if the film has a scene where women characters interact and talk about more than just another male character, which the movie performs a multitude of times. A film should always pass the Bechdel test to allow women to be more complex within movies.
But, Captain Marvel also drops the ball on executing women empowerment through plot driven actions, and instead relies on cheesy music cues and one-liners. Once Vers has tapped into her powers to use agains the Kree, Gwen Stefani's "I'm Just a Girl" starts to play as Vers starts pummeling her past squad members. This moment is unauthentic and is just reinforcing the premiss that Vers is a female superhero, which is actually separating her from her superhero peers rather than having her be seen as just another member of the Marvel team.
Towards the end of the film, Vers is facing off with her previous male Kree commander. He says that now is the time to prove yourself against him, which is hinting at the beginning of the film when they were training and she fell short. Instead of dueling him, Kree blasts him back and states, "I have nothing to prove." Even if Vers was a male character, a great ending fight could have been created, which would have looped the movie to the training foreshadow scene, but is instead dropped for the one-liner.
Ironically, the film, Silence of the Lambs is referenced in Captain Marvel to create another hilarious one-liner. Silence of the Lambs explores women empowerment through Clarice actually proving herself by going to greater lengths than her male equivalents to find the right killer. Clarice isn't taken seriously as a women and is treated differently in the majority male FBI department. But, she ends up finding the correct murderer, where the all male group catches the wrong person. The audience can then think for themselves on how Clarice proved she is equivalent to her male peers, instead of being told what to think.
In the past on Earth, Vers absorbed a lightspeed engine's energy and that is how she gained her superpowers. Understanding the power that is at Vers' disposal, the Kree kidnap Vers from Earth, wiped her human memories, and convinced her she is from Kree. After learning about her past, Vers is at a crossroads of who she is and who to truly trust. But, she ends up siding with the Skrulls to save their people and stop a Kree attack on Earth.
For a rather generic superhero movie, the film is interesting in the plot twists for who is the enemy. The Skrulls appear goblin-like and evil with abilities that are parallel to the Devil's shapeshifting nature and torture. But, the Kree are the race that are geocoding the Skrull and manipulating Vers for her use as a weapon. Both sides are in a grey area of who is in the wrong, which is rather realistic on wars between humans.
Other topics are explored and hinted at in the movie, like women empowerment. The movie has a majority of female leads and easily passes the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test is if the film has a scene where women characters interact and talk about more than just another male character, which the movie performs a multitude of times. A film should always pass the Bechdel test to allow women to be more complex within movies.
But, Captain Marvel also drops the ball on executing women empowerment through plot driven actions, and instead relies on cheesy music cues and one-liners. Once Vers has tapped into her powers to use agains the Kree, Gwen Stefani's "I'm Just a Girl" starts to play as Vers starts pummeling her past squad members. This moment is unauthentic and is just reinforcing the premiss that Vers is a female superhero, which is actually separating her from her superhero peers rather than having her be seen as just another member of the Marvel team.
Towards the end of the film, Vers is facing off with her previous male Kree commander. He says that now is the time to prove yourself against him, which is hinting at the beginning of the film when they were training and she fell short. Instead of dueling him, Kree blasts him back and states, "I have nothing to prove." Even if Vers was a male character, a great ending fight could have been created, which would have looped the movie to the training foreshadow scene, but is instead dropped for the one-liner.
Ironically, the film, Silence of the Lambs is referenced in Captain Marvel to create another hilarious one-liner. Silence of the Lambs explores women empowerment through Clarice actually proving herself by going to greater lengths than her male equivalents to find the right killer. Clarice isn't taken seriously as a women and is treated differently in the majority male FBI department. But, she ends up finding the correct murderer, where the all male group catches the wrong person. The audience can then think for themselves on how Clarice proved she is equivalent to her male peers, instead of being told what to think.
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