Brie Larson is no stranger to fame and walking red carpets. She is also, sadly, no stranger to sexist trolls who hate her for simply existing in a “nerdy” space. So, when she walked the press line at Disney’s D23 Expo event and was asked about how long she will play Captain Marvel, Larson gave a pretty honest response that truly hurts to watch.
“I don’t know. Does anyone want me to do it again?” Larson said, and Variety’s Marc Malkin responded with a “Don’t be so modest,” but the reality is that I don’t think Larson was being modest. With the gross sexist reaction to her portrayal of Carol Danvers from the start of her joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it does feel like the love for her take on the character is constantly drowned out by the sexist trolls, and that can make it seem like no one wants her back as Captain Marvel. And frankly, that’s incredibly sad to me because I do, and I also know I am not alone in that.
The pain on my end, at least, comes from the knowledge that you can’t really talk about Captain Marvel as a character, or her 2019 movie, without getting backlash from people who think she was just a character thrown into the MCU so a woman had a film. They erase Carol Danvers’ power, and she’s oft ignored when conversations about the strongest Avengers pop up online.
And a lot of that anger towards Carol/Brie Larson came from Larson pushing to have more women in the room for her interviews on the press tour, and making the release of the film more inclusive to female journalists than just having the same rinse-and-repeated white men doing the interviews for it. And that has since trickled down into an aggressively sexist reaction to Larson and Carol any time she shows up.
The sexism of it all
That’s what this is. Cut and dried, this is about sexism. There are people who had issues with Captain Marvel, and while not all the negative reviews were from men (there were women who didn’t love it, and their opinions are the ones I respect in this case), the men who hated it seemed to do so out of principle. And yes, I know that there are men who are not complete assholes and are just talking about Carol Danvers and the character of Captain Marvel as they would any other hero, but when she’s been the subject of sexist trolls for over 3 years now, it just feels as if we can’t trust the opinion of men on this character.
The backlash started with Larson pushing for women to do interviews for the first movie—a simple request since the film was the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie with a female lead fronting the film. She didn’t banish men from doing interviews; she just opened space for women to also have their place in the conversation.
It became a “Brie Larson hates men” narrative online and fueled the trolls who already hated the idea of a woman being at the front of anything, and their very loud voices have dominated talking about Carol Danvers ever since. That has left many of us, who love her take on the character, fighting to talk about her in a positive light because if we do, the trolls come after us.
Brie Larson is a perfect Carol Danvers
Frankly, it’s long overdue that the conversation comes back to those of us who love her take on Carol and want to see Larson as Captain Marvel as much as possible. There are so many of us who relate to Kamala Khan’s love of Carol, and I can’t wait to see The Marvels to see how Kamala reacts to meeting her idol.
You don’t have to love Captain Marvel, but showing basic decency in not making your entire personality about how you don’t like an actress or her portrayal of a character will make everyone’s life a little better. I very much love seeing Larson pop up in Marvel projects. I like when I don’t know she’s coming, and then she shows up and I get giddy thinking about The Marvels again. I loved her first outing, and I can’t wait to see what Nia DaCosta brings to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Larson, Iman Vellani, and Teyonah Parris in The Marvels.
And I hope that Brie Larson knows that there are lots of us who do want to see her Carol Danvers more and more. We love her. Higher, further, faster, baby.
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
