Mike86

Dan

Indeed.

edit: I was writing my post when you updated yours. I'm leaving it as is, but just know I'm not attacking you or anything. This isn't some "uber-woke" thing or anything, and I hope you can see that it's just friendly conversation.

I mean... what kind of outrage culture are we talking about, really?
The type where a bunch of dudes get upset that Brie Larson just wants her press junkets for her new movie to be more inclusive?
The type where a bunch of dudes get upset that women can actually wear proton packs and do some ghost-busting?
The type where a bunch of dudes get upset that a movie chain dared to have a "ladies night" for a big film, after opening weekend, on a single night for a single showing at each location?

All of these things genuinely happened (you can see a handful of real people saying these things, not just internet trolls), and I will agree wholeheartedly that those folks represent a tiny portion of the overall fanbase, but they're the self-proclaimed "true fans" that are loud and annoying about it.

There's all this talk about "outrage culture" and I agree some of what you're talking about may be legitimate, but it sure seems like most of the outrage is coming from the type of guys (it's almost always men or boys) who are outraged about their perception of other peoples' outrage, and a good chunk of that comes from lurking on reddit and YouTube comments and other such places where you genuinely don't know who is really upset about what.

tl;dr - sometimes it's better to just take a step back and listen to what real human beings are saying - not internet weirdos - and try to suss out where they're getting this idea that people are "outraged" and how much of that is genuine.
As WSB hinted at, a whole lot of these YouTube vloggers feed off of whatever gets them the most clicks and engagement, but that stuff isn't exactly organic either.

dex14

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...

Mike86

dex14

You didn't. But yay DVDTALK!

Obi-Wanma

Quit backpedaling

Dr. DVD

Wow. I'm surprised to actually see people discussing the "controversy" of this movie in such a mature manner. Most discussion of this I have seen is either from articles or YouTube videos where it is (surprise...) angry white dudes making derogatory comments about Brie Larson for saying something she apparently never said .

fujishig

Yay, hug it out!

Also I appreciate Mike86 being introspective about outrage culture instead of just doubling down for the sake of it.

Now if we ever get to a Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) movie, man I can just imagine the youtube clickbait then.

Dan

You didn't.

Big Boy Laroux

Oh my god. While i would want to see that movie, the internet might explode.

fujishig

I can see it now:
"What the heck did they do to Shazam's sister?"

All joking aside, with as toxic as a section of the comics reading community already is, the general comic moviegoing audience's ugly side would come out with a teenaged Pakistani heroine, a female Thor, a black Captain America, an Asian hulk and a black teenaged Iron Man. So I'm really curious if they'll eventually recast the same roles or replace the characters.

dex14

There has been talking about her being in a sequel.

Mike86

Dan

*rubs hands together* now for that sexual harassment thread... hooboy!

brayzie

It's probably more Disney's marketing strategy than just something coming solely from Brie Larson.
1) This is a big budget superhero movie featuring a character the general public doesn't know about.
2) Social politics and activism is really popular among the general public these days so they're seizing on that.

The marketing in the lead up to Wonder Woman was that the film that this was a monumental achievement for female superheroes.
The 1st time this iconic character, gets her own movie.
The 1st female superhero to get her own movie from Marvel OR DC's shared film universes.
The 1st time a woman directed a superhero film.
Wonder Woman herself is a feminist icon, publicity was tied to the history of feminism and woman's rights/equality.

Captain Marvel doesn't have any of that. It's a big budget superhero movie featuring a character that the general public doesn't know about. There's not near as many 1sts with this movie that there was with Wonder Woman or Black Panther.

Instead Disney connects this movie about a white superhero to "women of color" and that seeing this movie is about fighting for inclusivity, particularly for women of color. It's smart marketing.

That's what I've been noticing too. I came across to young female YouTubers who were criticizing Disney Star Wars and Captain Marvel, separately. It was weird because they used words, terminology and criticisms that sound more common from middle aged fan boys, and/or alt-right conservatives. The exaggerations were also pretty telling.
They're hopping on the bandwagon to make $$$ with views.

Brie Larson said it, probably with the intention to draw publicity.
There's a better way to get your point across about inclusivity. It was meant to stir things up.
I mean, aren't movies for everyone? It's a dumb thing to say.
But if it hadn't been said that way, it would have made headlines, and we wouldn't be talking about it right now.

Big Boy Laroux

White males being upset about what she said is in the same vein as the "All Lives Matter" movement. Missing the point.

“When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

brayzie

And what if you're not white and you still took issue with part of what she said? You can still get the point while offering criticism of the delivery of the message.

On a side note, I think it's interesting to note how Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are being championed as being positive films for little girls, considering that both characters solve their problems with violence. I'd argue that superheroes and action films have helped contribute to or reinforce toxic masculinity, as well as making violence look acceptable.
So now, it seems like there's a segment of society that want to encourage problematic role models to little girls so that they can be equal "bad-asses" to little boys.

dhmac

I think there's a perception that "social politics and activism" are popular with the general public, but I think if you dig deeper, you'll see that's not the case. Yes, there is a very vocal small group of people who are very active online, but the major of the public does not agree with them. The fact that these activists are getting laid off at online media companies now and that their own videos online get about 1/10th the number of views of their critics shows that they have much less support than they think, or want people to think, they do.

The first time Wonder Woman got a Wonder Woman movie... uhmm, how is that an achievement? Wonder Woman is a popular character and popular characters get adapted all the time. Wonder Woman had her own TV show back in the '70s too - so is that an achievement too as the first time Wonder Woman got a Wonder Woman TV show?

You had to qualify that claim with "shared film universes" to make it special. Otherwise, the 1st female superhero to get her own movie would be "Supergirl" who got her own movie way, way back in 1984. There's also "Catwoman" in 2004 and "Electra" in 2005. Despite the quality of the resulting movies - afterall, they were trying to make good movies but failed - those movies were made and theatrically release and were more groundbreaking than the "Wonder Woman" and "Captain Marvel" movies combined. The only real difference was there weren't people pretending that these movies were as empowering and groundbreaking as activists, who seem to be historically clueless, claim today.

Now that finally would be an actual first for a superhero movie... if you ignore history.

Because Lexi Alexander, a woman, directed "Punisher: War Zone" in 2008. No one made much of a deal about that being groundbreaking or enpowering back then, but it shows how facts don't matter to current-day activist narratives. On a side note, "Punisher: War Zone" seems to have been a strong visual influence on the NetFlix Marvel series, which were all filmed using the same color style, so it's had an impact despite failing at the box office.

Maybe, she is, I just remember everyone I knew liked the show back in 1970s but feminism had nothing to do with her popularity

"Black Panther" is the key to this marketing campaign angle because it was a phenomenal box office hit. "Black Panther" wasn't really as groundbreaking as claimed, though, as "Blade" had a black superhero 20 years earlier and in an R-rated movie to boot, making even "Deadpool" lagging by 18 years (And "Blade" didn't tout any of this at all, which says a lot about things back then compared to now).

Now of these movie are actually groundbreaking or remarkable in any important way, but I think Marvel wants "Captain Marvel" to have the same effect as "Black Panther" had which lead to box office returns far in excess of what was predicted (it is the highest grossing MCU film after the 3 Avengers movies, an impressive achievement for a film based on a previously little known character within such an extremely successful film franchise).

However, Marvel needs to be careful in pushing the activists angle because making what should be a fun popcorn movie seem more like a polticized exercise in activism can turn people off and have a detrimental effect on the box office, so Marvel needs to walk a fine line so that they don't turn a large portion of their fan base against the movie. Brie Larson herself having an activist mindset isn't really much of issue because most Hollywood actors and actresses are like that, hypocritically preaching things publicly that aren't really reflected in their own lifestyles. (Usually the most "diversity" in their own lives is hiring Hispanic and Latino housekeepers and lawnworkers as cheaply as possible to take care of their Beverly Hills mansions and pretending that's important.) The fact is Marvel doesn't care about activist causes and just about box office returns, regardless of what the performers they hire think, and the studio will adjust based on what they think works and what they think fails with their movies.

Dr. DVD

I think Marvel/Disney knows that in all honesty, the only thing this movie has going for it with the non-geek crowd is that it's the lead in to Endgame featuring a character who is allegedly going to play some major role in that movie. I am curious if this movie does well enough that we may eventually see some Endgame spots with Captain Marvel, but I personally want them to keep it all as close the vest as possible.

GoldenJCJ

brayzie

Wouldn't that be an issue with changing media? Journalists have been getting laid off for a while, regardless of their politics, since print media started dying.
And it's a popular topic to discuss, regardless of your politics.

I worded that poorly, but my point was that there was some anticipation for this character to appear in a live action film.
Captain Marvel...no one was clamoring for Carol Danvers movie.

Wonder Man is as old as Superman and Batman. Yet the Superman Movie came out in 1979, Batman in 1989. So it took quite a while for her to get her own movie.

Not an achievement, but the TV show is what helped add to the publics awareness of the character. Captain Marvel never even had that.

LOL. I noticed that too. That's exactly how it was worded in this article from the Hollywood Reporter. My point is that it's marketing. The way Wonder Woman was publicized, it gave the impression that this was the first female superhero movie ever. But in most of these articles and headlines there were qualifiers like the above mentioned.

I completely agree.

Interesting.

Some headlines from around the time of the Wonder Woman film:

The Washington Post - How Patty Jenkins Broke the Superhero Glass Ceiling

Los Angeles Daily News - How Wonder Woman Lassoed the first female director for a studio superhero movie

For a superhero movie, and a big budget film it was still ground breaking, but yeah, it wasn't the first black superhero film. And I'm pretty sure Spawn came out before Blade, but only a year earlier.
ETonline - Marvel's first black superhero movie

I'm googling the headlines now, but it doesn't seem to be as many headlines that Black Panther is the first black superhero film, like there are for Wonder Woman being the first female superhero film.

I think Warner Bros had the right marketing and publicity approach for Wonder Woman. Even Gal Gadot didn't take the bait when her JL Flash co-star was trying to get her to say some crazy activist stuff.


Agree. It gives them impression that supporting Disney/Marvel is some progressive act, when the media conglomerate is one of six companies that own the vast majority of media in the United States.

brayzie

Jason

Instead of introducing the savior of the universe for Endgame, Captain Marvel could well be setting up the future big conflict for the next couple of "phases" of the MCU. The Kree-Skrull war would be an excellent storyline for the Fantastic Four to take over as the anchor films for the MCU. I think Feige has said he wants to bring them in first, and Disney/Marvel do need to let some time pass to distance their new X films from the Fox series. This would be a logical progression/expansion of the current cosmic storyline and would pave the way for a big Galactus movie to mark 20 years of the MCU.

Dr. DVD

My hope is that once they bring the FF and the X-Men that the 20 year event is Secret Wars. That could have Galactus, Doctor Doom, everyone.

Why So Blu?

I heard that they would be bringing back and expanding on Dormammu being the big baddie.