Which film/show are you writing about? Describe the character, and why you believe it’s an example of a problematic positive stereotype.

 


I am writing about Carol Danvers, aka. Captain Marvel. She is a fighter jet pilot turned superhero due to a plane accident in which she collided with an Alien device, giving her celestial powers. Despite the writer's intentions for her  to be a strong, independent woman, she is viewed by many as a emotionless, almost-perfect character due to her being written with no flaws.  This is a problematic positive stereotype because it communicates that women need to be antisocial cat ladies who do not need a man in order to be viewed as strong. I understand the writers portray Captain Marvel as flawless in order to make her a strong feminist model, However, she is unrelatable and forgettable, and her movie was one of lowest rated out of the many Marvel films produced. Writers forget to characters need weaknesses and struggles to overcome throughout a movie in order for audiences to relate to them.  Female leads showing or having weaknesses does that make them a weak female lead in their movie, as long as they overcome these weaknesses at the end of the movie.


Comments

  1. I'll admit that I haven't yet seen Captain Marvel, but I do see this complaint often online. I think Captain Marvel is more of a "Mary Sue", a strong female character with no weaknesses, then a positive stereotype. Rey from the Star Wars sequel trilogy also got this complaint a lot. There are plenty of other female Marvel heroes that are strong yet flawed characters and I'm not sure how well Captain Marvel fits into that role. I know in the comics she's extremely powerful, so perhaps it's simply a comic accurate version of her? Either way, I'd be curious to know how you propose adjusting her character to become more relatable. I'm not sure how many of us can relate to her life situation.

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  2. Like the other commentor, I have not seen this movie. However, I do believe I understand the concerns you are expressing. It almost seems that Marvel was scared to make her face any struggle, so she did not seem weak at all. You may be already considering it; however, I would compare her emotionless to the emotion shown my male superhero who's movie got a ton of views.

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  3. Captain Marvel could be seen as a Mary Sue as mentioned by Will and I would think it would be interesting to examine her outside of her standalone movie.

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