If prior to the release and hype surrounding the Marvel Studios Captain Marvel movie, if you were to ask a random person "do you know the comic book character Captain Marvel?" the vast majority of people wouldn't have had any idea. Most people, even those who have almost never read a comic book in their lives, know Superman, Batman, Spiderman, The Hulk and a couple of the other most famous comic book characters. Nowadays most of them also know of other prominent characters that have always been very big in the comic book world, but perhaps not in the public conscience, namely Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and some others that have starred in recent block-buster movies.
However, you can bet that almost nobody had ever heard of "Captain Marvel", unless they are more hard-core Marvel Comics aficionados. Some may have heard of that character in another context: "You mean that Superman-like guy, who says something like 'Shazam'?" Nope, that's a completely different Captain Marvel, from DC comics (and by far the more famous one).
The Captain Marvel from Marvel Comics is completely unrelated, and prior to this recent movie almost completely unknown outside of the more hardcore comic book aficionado circles. In fact, like with so many other similar characters, it isn't even one single person. Over the years the title has been held by several different fictional characters in-universe, both male and female. None of which has been especially famous or known.
One problem that Marvel Studios has been facing over the last decade or so is that they have wanted to make these huge-budget block-buster superhero movies from the Marvel Comics universe, but the problem is that Marvel Comics has sold the rights for film depiction of most of their famous characters to other film studios (which is the reason why you won't see any reference to those characters in these Marvel Studios movies, such as The Fantastic Four, or any of the X-Men, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Deadpool, and a big bunch of others). The reason why their movies are mostly about The Avengers is that they noticed that they still held the rights for film depictions of the majority of the members of that group.
So Marvel Studios has this severe lack of big-name famous fictional characters, and thus they have to sometimes scratch the bottom of the barrel to get something for a new movie. I get the strong feeling that (the Marvel Comics version of) Captain Marvel is one of these "what characters do we still have the rights to, that's even remotely believable as a super-powerful superhero?" picks.
Of course the problem is that, as noted, almost nobody knows this character and has never heard of it. So, how to fix this problem, and make the movie more famous and popular, give it tons of visibility and incentivize people to go see it?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some people at Marvel thought that the way to do that is to pick one of the female portrayals of the character from the comics, and sell the movie as a "feminist" and "women-empowering" movie.
DC Comics has one of the most famous feminist icons in the history of comic books, namely Wonder Woman (and, as a side note, in this case it's not actually all that bad of such an icon, given the long history of the character and the lack of ham-fisted real-life politics crammed into it). I wouldn't be surprised if these people at Marvel wanted to make Captain Marvel to be the Marvel version of Wonder Woman, not only in terms of being a super-powerful heroine, but a feminist icon. Surely this will make the character and the movie famous, and sell tons of tickets?
I also wouldn't be surprised if they were fully aware of the backlash they would get if they started advertising the movie with such overtly political undertones, and they deliberately didn't care, but actually counted on it. What better way in the modern world to get the press on your side than to create a symbol of feminism, and have tons of backlash against it? Surely the film critics will praise it to the heavens and give it stellar reviews and scores, just because of the politics surrounding it, just like what happened with the Black Panther movie? What better way to make professional film critics your puppets and your mouthpiece than to insert identity politics into the advertising of the movie?
Too bad it didn't work. While some professional film critics did praise the movie and gave it high scores, the vast majority of the critics, in this case, saw the movie as what it was: Completely mediocre trash.
Considering how politically biased journalists, including film critics, are, you can only imagine how mediocre the movie has to be so that even they gave it mediocre scores and reviews. Some of them even abysmally bad ones.
However, you can bet that almost nobody had ever heard of "Captain Marvel", unless they are more hard-core Marvel Comics aficionados. Some may have heard of that character in another context: "You mean that Superman-like guy, who says something like 'Shazam'?" Nope, that's a completely different Captain Marvel, from DC comics (and by far the more famous one).
The Captain Marvel from Marvel Comics is completely unrelated, and prior to this recent movie almost completely unknown outside of the more hardcore comic book aficionado circles. In fact, like with so many other similar characters, it isn't even one single person. Over the years the title has been held by several different fictional characters in-universe, both male and female. None of which has been especially famous or known.
One problem that Marvel Studios has been facing over the last decade or so is that they have wanted to make these huge-budget block-buster superhero movies from the Marvel Comics universe, but the problem is that Marvel Comics has sold the rights for film depiction of most of their famous characters to other film studios (which is the reason why you won't see any reference to those characters in these Marvel Studios movies, such as The Fantastic Four, or any of the X-Men, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Deadpool, and a big bunch of others). The reason why their movies are mostly about The Avengers is that they noticed that they still held the rights for film depictions of the majority of the members of that group.
So Marvel Studios has this severe lack of big-name famous fictional characters, and thus they have to sometimes scratch the bottom of the barrel to get something for a new movie. I get the strong feeling that (the Marvel Comics version of) Captain Marvel is one of these "what characters do we still have the rights to, that's even remotely believable as a super-powerful superhero?" picks.
Of course the problem is that, as noted, almost nobody knows this character and has never heard of it. So, how to fix this problem, and make the movie more famous and popular, give it tons of visibility and incentivize people to go see it?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if some people at Marvel thought that the way to do that is to pick one of the female portrayals of the character from the comics, and sell the movie as a "feminist" and "women-empowering" movie.
DC Comics has one of the most famous feminist icons in the history of comic books, namely Wonder Woman (and, as a side note, in this case it's not actually all that bad of such an icon, given the long history of the character and the lack of ham-fisted real-life politics crammed into it). I wouldn't be surprised if these people at Marvel wanted to make Captain Marvel to be the Marvel version of Wonder Woman, not only in terms of being a super-powerful heroine, but a feminist icon. Surely this will make the character and the movie famous, and sell tons of tickets?
I also wouldn't be surprised if they were fully aware of the backlash they would get if they started advertising the movie with such overtly political undertones, and they deliberately didn't care, but actually counted on it. What better way in the modern world to get the press on your side than to create a symbol of feminism, and have tons of backlash against it? Surely the film critics will praise it to the heavens and give it stellar reviews and scores, just because of the politics surrounding it, just like what happened with the Black Panther movie? What better way to make professional film critics your puppets and your mouthpiece than to insert identity politics into the advertising of the movie?
Too bad it didn't work. While some professional film critics did praise the movie and gave it high scores, the vast majority of the critics, in this case, saw the movie as what it was: Completely mediocre trash.
Considering how politically biased journalists, including film critics, are, you can only imagine how mediocre the movie has to be so that even they gave it mediocre scores and reviews. Some of them even abysmally bad ones.
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