An all-powerful female character, Captain Marvel, actually disempowers women when the writers were hoping to strike a blow for feminism. Bill Whittle, Scott Ott and Stephen Green, explore the importance of weakness and struggle in the hero’s journey. Having a “Mary Sue” character — like Capt. Marvel or Rey in Star Wars — provides precisely the wrong inspiration for young women.
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How All-Powerful Captain Marvel Disempowers Women for Feminism
An all-powerful female character, Captain Marvel, actually disempowers women when the writers were hoping to strike a blow for feminism. Bill Whittle, Scott Ott and Stephen Green, explore the importance of weakness and struggle in the hero’s journey. Having a “Mary Sue” character — like Capt. Marvel or Rey in Star Wars — provides precisely the wrong inspiration for young women.
23 replies on “How All-Powerful Captain Marvel Disempowers Women for Feminism”
One little quibble, Bill, this was an episode of Right Angle not Bill Whittle Now in your sign-off.
More germane to the topic, I think exactly what you were talking about was covered in a discussion in the fourth Die Hard movie. The hacker that John McClane was bringing in (Matt Farrell played by Justin Long) has a discussion with McClane about why he is doing all of this. McClane answers that there is no one else to do it and that makes you “that guy”. Matt discovers that at the very end when he saves McClane’s daughter.
In the course of the first two Alien movies (less so in the subsequent movies), Ripley learns that she is the only one there who can do what has to be done. So in essence, she becomes “that guy” and we love her for it. Even though she knows she will probably lose, she does it anyway because that is what it means to be human. She can’t just leave anyone (even the android Bishop) behind to the fate she knows the Aliens will inflict.
Loved the episode guys!
Bill, your comment about women being better than the men is on point. Look at Leia in the latest Star Wars–she can force fly though space! It makes a mockery of the canon.
If I had written the script I would have made 2 changes. First, I would have let the audience know who the baddies were from the start–let the audience know something the character has to figure out. Also, instead of everyone telling Carol that she couldn’t/shouldn’t do it, they should have told her she had to learn to control her reckless impulses. Finding the balance between passivity and recklessness could have been her journey.
I kept thinking of an old TV series called The A-Team. I enjoyed it thoroughly as a fantasy, with ridiculous scenes like somebody spraying a crowd with a machine gun and nobody is hurt. The bad guys run away, but nobody is hit. I found it humorous and excellent entertainment in spite of the fact that there was no “suspension of disbelief.” However, Star wars, Star Trek, Superman, etc., for all of those I couldn’t enjoy them without suspending disbelief. Haven’t seen the specific movies you guys were talking about, but it must have been kind of grating to be constantly faced with something that yanked you back to reality when you should have been immersed in the movie.
Sorry, Bill… Feminists have NEVER been the ones who accepted failure and then got up and worked harder. They cried foul and hired an attorney. I know because I am a woman, have been in business with men my entire adult life, and I despise these creatures! If you can’t learn failure with the “guys”, then you will never be one. You don’t get extra stars because your pants don’t fill the way they do on everyone else in the room.
All children who get stars just for showing up are doomed to failure even if you call yourself Captain Marvel.
You’d think that with such an easy to follow formula for storytelling, i.e. our hero gets knocked down, learns lessons, discovers an inner strength, and then overcomes odds when all looks lost, that script writing would be an easy task.
I’m currently trying to write a ghost story and it isn’t so easy. After three drafts my hero isn’t obvious, my backstories are too dense, I rely on magical manipulations, it’s hard to care about any of the characters, and the dialog is laughable. I wish that I was to the point that all that I had to do was make my hero suffer and learn a bit more to be viable.
Bill’s last point about the shortcut that is granted to the characters by the SJW agenda really struck me: the ‘Mary Sue’ problem in stories/movies is the same phenomena as participation trophies in kid’s soccer. “Hey, anybody can do it!”
I’m so behind the times that up until a few months ago I thought Captain Marvel was a guy. I had to have that whole backstory explained to me.
Satchel Paige is noted to have said, “Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.” I appreciate the wisdom behind this quote.
That being “said” this RA issue discussed is nothing new (Gen 3:16b) has been with us since the dawn of civilization (it seems to me); participatation trophies, no-one wins (or loses); it is part and parcel in destroying masculinity while trying to elevate women (when they really don’t have to). While Melissa Milano might think otherwise, what I don’t understand is that in this world of gender identity/virtue-signaling/trans-sectionalism, why does it matter at all if one is xy (handicapped) or yy? I know very accomplished women and I know absolute failures as men. I guess the questions is; How is this corrected? Or maybe, Can it even be corrected at this point?
Was it (Kneel before) Zod that said it? Sure it wasn’t Ursa?
Also sound’s like Steve’s clan saw Captain Marvel for the same reason I saw Revenge of the Sith.
And thinking on it, isn’t Wesley the ultimate Mary Sue since he left the show by becoming a god courtesy the Traveller from that lame first season ep?
Wesley Crusher – Worst Trek character with worst story arc ever.
Calling Wesley that is an insult to every Mary Sue who has more testosterone than that soy boy twerp
LOL
While I object to the left’s attempt to destroy the good for being good, I would rather they destroy the worlds of fantasy than the real world. At lest we have a chance to counter them and stop their malevolent destruction. After all, we created the worlds of fantasy in the first place so we can do it again and make them better.
Is there something wrong with Steve’s mic? It sounds like the gain is cranked or something?
Yes, something’s wrong, and he’s working on it. Sorry for the blown-out audio.
Hi Scott – Did something change with the commenting? I no longer see the voting icon.
See: https://billwhittlecom.wpengine.com/2019/03/21/comments-and-bugs-gizmos-changed-for-testing/
Thanks, RG.
Yeah. Thanks, RG.
Working on it, I promise!
Roger that guys! I figured you knew something was up and had it on the radar.
Thought you might be going for a Vadar-like sound.
One interesting side note that was outside of the scope of this video – I hear that the studio bought up a ton of tickets to inflate 1st weekend box office numbers