Despite the best efforts of a bad-faith and sexist smear campaign, Captain Marvel — Marvel Studios’ first solo superhero movie about a female superhero–is earning positive critical reviews, and made over $455 million worldwide opening weekend, making it the second-biggest solo superhero non-sequel launch behind Black Panther. Replete with humorous 90s references, a killer soundtrack, well-rounded characters, and emotionally poignant scenes, Captain Marvel is a marvelous introduction to one of the most iconic superheroes in the MCU lore. Aside from being a bright symbol of feminism empowerment, Captain Marvel most notably calls upon women to use their privilege to stand up for those in need. Note: major spoilers ahead!
I Have Nothing To Prove To You
One of the main lessons in Captain Marvel is learning to not just accept but embrace yourself. For all her life Carol Danvers’ has been told she isn’t good enough and to quit while she’s ahead. Her father tells her that she can’t play rough with her brothers. Her fellow male airforce pilots tell her that she can’t be a fighter pilot because it’s a boys’ club. Her mentor, Von-Rogg (played by Jude Law) tells Carol to rule with her head not her emotions because he’s “trying to make her the best version of herself.” When Von-Rogg is revealed to be the villain he tells Carol in the final battle that, “I made you and what is given can be taken away.”
During the final battle, Von-Rogg insists that Carol fight without her powers. This is not a new or rare thing in the real world. Men constantly want women to lessen themselves for male consumption, to play down their strength or intelligence, especially in arguments–sentences like, “I bet you can’t make your argument without XYZ.” Carol’s powers are part of her. She shouldn’t have to fight without them. Your intelligence, your beauty, your strength, whatever makes you who you are–that’s a part of you. You shouldn’t have to fight–shouldn’t have to exist–without them.
In response to Yon-Rogg’s goading, Carol blasts Yon-Rogg across the battlefield mid-sentence, barely using her full powers. When she returns to him she simply replies, “I have nothing to prove to you.” She then proceeds to drag him across the ground and sends him to space with a message to the Kree that she’s coming to end the pointless Kree-Skrull war. At this moment Carol sets her own standards and is no longer allowing him, or anyone else, to define for her what she can or can’t do.
Carol saying, “I have nothing to prove to you,” and cutting off his overly dramatic speech isn’t just comic relief or to show how badass she is. It is Carol saying to hell with male expectations and screw what everybody thinks. It is her not giving a damn about proving herself anymore because she’s now the one in charge. She’s the one with the power and she can do whatever she wants. Let’s all be like Carol Danvers and screw what others think of you or want or think they know. We know. We are stronger than they think, we are stronger than we think, and we need to stop proving ourselves to others who only want to see us fail. Be like Carol. Or better yet, be like you.
What Happens When I’m Finally Set Free?
Every superhero origin film has a scene where the hero becomes a superhero–for Wonder Woman, it was crossing no man’s land; for Spider-Man, it was taking a leap of faith. Carol’s moment comes when she is captured by her former Kree platoon mates who attempt to brainwash her again to rejoin their side. They plug her into the Supreme Intelligence, the AI leader of the Kree who takes the form of whoever the person admires. The Supreme Intelligence taunts Danvers about her rediscovered humanity and claims that being human sucks.
As we see memories of Carol’s past, we see others telling her what she must do or can’t do. She needs to slow down her go-cart. She needs to quit basic training. She needs to accept that flying is for men, not women. Finally, during her last confrontation with the Supreme Intelligence, she needs to accept that without the Kree, she’s only human and that’s not enough to succeed. Carol tells the Supreme Intelligence that they are wrong. Being a woman never stopped her from being a kick-ass pilot. The memories shift from Carol at different ages picking herself up after falling or being knocked down to standing up again. She asks the Supreme Intelligence, “For all my life I was fighting with one hand tied behind my back. What happens now that I’m free?” She removes her Kree chip in her neck that reduces her powers and crushes the chip under her foot.
By finally letting loose and embracing her humanity, emotions and all, Carol breaks free of the Kree’s suppression of her superpowers and goes into Binary mode, one of the most powerful abilities in the MCU. She then proceeds to single handedly defeat all of the Kree with No Doubt’s “Just A Girl” playing in the background. Empowerment has two definitions: (1) to be given power by someone or something, and (2) to realize one’s own potential, to empower oneself. Many heroes rely on the former. Captain Marvel embodies the latter.
I’m Not Gonna Fight Your War I’m Gonna End It
The difference between Carol and the other female superheroes we’ve seen so far is that Carol started life as a girl growing up in an inherently misogynistic society. Most of the other badass women we’ve seen so far did not. They did not get told they couldn’t do something because they were girls. Wonder Woman, who grew up on an all-female Amazonian warrior island, certainly wasn’t told that. The warrior women of Wakanda are raised in a matriarchal society where the head of the technology department is a 16-year-old girl and the Black Panther’s fiercest guards are warrior women. Wonder Woman, Okoye, Shuri, and Nakia grew up in a community that supported strong females. Whatever obstacles they overcame to become the heroes they are, their gender wasn’t a major obstacle for them.
Women in our world are more like Carol Danvers. Even though Diana Prince and Carol are different from each other (as they should be), the uniting factor for both of these amazing women is that they use their power they have to protect the powerless (or less powerful) against injustice. It’s to use power and strength to end war and conflict. It’s not about exerting power over others but sharing your power with others. Both Carol and Diana can and will fight, but they’re not looking for a fight. They fight with compassion and with the end goal of peace. Along the same lines, Captain Marvel gives audiences the epitome of how to use your privilege for good.
Using Your Privilege for Good
Ever since the shape-shifting alien Skrulls were confirmed as the antagonists of Captain Marvel, Marvel fans were sure that the Skrulls were going to be the big bad for the future MCU phases as Thanos had been for the first three MCU phases. Skrulls in the comics are a recurring threat in Marvel comics for nearly six decades and have come into conflict with everyone from the Fantastic Four and Avengers to the Kree. In the comics, Skrulls disguise themselves among us using their shape-shifting abilities allowing them to replicate a person down to their DNA. They have been attempting to infiltrate and conquer Earth for generations. In the famous Secret Invasion comic series, the Skrulls nearly succeeded by replacing many of the world’s superheroes with imposters.
However, despite their menacing presence in Captain Marvel‘s marketing, which pointed to the Secret Invasion comic storyline adaptation, the actual role of the Skrulls in the story came as a genuine surprise, especially to longtime comic book readers. In Captain Marvel, the Skrulls we meet are refugees of the Kree-Skrull war just searching for a home. While this twist definitely does not close the door on having the Skrulls as the big bad for the future MCU (because no one is 100% good or bad), fans welcomed the change. In Captain Marvel, the Kree soldiers invade their homeland, separate families, and are hunted across galaxies to prevent them from finding a new home elsewhere. The Skrulls are literal and symbolic aliens. The refugee theme is further driven home because the Skrulls are literal shapeshifters who try to disguise themselves as the locals to blend in. The Skrulls’ shapeshifting power is a metaphor for how modern-day immigrants and refugees are forced to assimilate and give up their own culture to be accepted. Every time the Kree soldiers go on a mission to kill Skrulls, the army says, “For the good of all Kree.” This creates an “us versus them” mindset that further dehumanizes the Skrulls. A similar mindset that white colonizers were superior to other races helped “justify” imperialism and colonialism.
The two main villains are the Supreme Intelligence and Yon-Rogg, an older white woman and a man. These two keep telling Carol they gave her special powers which can be taken away, but in reality, Carol got her powers from the Tesseract, not the Kree. Realizing her power, the Kree kidnap her, place a control chip on her to reduce her power, erase her memories, and continue to use her as a tool to help them in their war against the Skrulls. When Carol finds out the lies, she doesn’t blame it on the Kree. She instead immediately accepts responsibility for her actions. She helps the Skrulls find their family. She is told that there are thousands of Skrulls spread across the galaxy wanting to be reunited with each other. At the end of the movie, instead of returning to life on Earth, Carol uses her newfound powers to help the Skrull find a new home and vows to end the Kree-Skrull war. Captain Marvel successfully makes the argument that even though the main character was a white woman who saved everybody, the whole power thing was that white women, while underprivileged in many ways, actually do have a lot of power and need to use that power to help those who cannot fight for themselves.
As entertainment editor Emily Tannenbaum said, “the joy of Captain Marvel is deeply rooted in humanity.” No alien race is made purely good or evil. Danvers is actually running with the bad guys for a good chunk of the film, completely unaware that, for that time, she was the villain. The second half of the film is her reconciling that mistake. It’s her humanity and, more importantly, her womanhood that gives her the power to save the world. Her superpower is the human woman side of her that tells her to get back up every time she’s pushed down. It is the woman side of her who knows what it means to be gaslit by men who are afraid of what she’s truly capable of.
Captain Marvel suggests that Carol Danvers’ real power is her embracing her identity as a woman and using the powers she has to help the underprivileged. We all have powers in some way or another. Some people are athletic, others are great artists, and some have wisdom beyond their years. If we embrace our identity and use our powers for good, perhaps we can all be Captain Marvel.