WARNING THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD!
I have always been a Marvel fan. For as long as I can remember I have found extreme excitement when another Marvel movie is announced. To paint the picture, when I saw Avengers Infinity War in theaters I wore my spider-man onesie on the first night that it was out. When I heard about Captain Marvel, I knew that I was going to be excited to see it.
When I recently saw Captain Marvel, it definitely did not disappoint. I was blown away by the story-line and of course, I was so excited to see how the storyline fit into the other Marvel movies like the nerd that I am. The audience got to see how Captain Marvel interacts with Nick Fury, how Nick Fury loses his eye, and a secret scene was even revealed at the end of the credits where Captain Marvel encounters Captain America, Black Widow along with a few other superheroes, leaving the audience with a sense of what is to come within the Marvel Universe. Similarly to all Marvel movies, Captain Marvel was anticipated for many reasons. It was anticipated because of its advancement of the Marvel storyline. It was anticipated for its extreme action. It was anticipated for its throwback to 90's culture and history. It was anticipated for so many reasons but there was only one reason that stuck out to me.
Captain Marvel was more than just your typical Superhero movie.
Captain Marvel blew me away with the type of message that it sent. Captain Marvel was a movie that emphasized femininity and the empowerment of women, something you don't really see in popular movies today. In the beginning, Captain Marvel is told to hide from her emotions due to the fact that they make her "weak". While she has amazing powers that allow her to shoot fire through her fists, the "higher intelligence" on her planet controls it through a little chip that sits at the back of her neck and they continuously threaten "what is given to you can be taken away". Throughout the movie, they show throwbacks to Captain Marvel's time on earth before she obtained her powers. Continuously they show times where she has failed in situations where men have told her that she can not do what she has put her mind to. Eventually, Captain Marvel realizes that she had been taken from earth by those who claim to be the higher intelligence and they are manipulating her to obtain the goal of the evil plan that they have created. They have told her to contain her emotions and to contain her powers in order to make sure that she never rebels against them. Once she realizes this, she decides to use all of her power to do what is right. At this point they show a montage of all the times she had been knocked down (the montage I mentioned before where they showed all of her failures) and they show her getting up and trying again. After this, they show Captain Marvel ripping off the little chip that they had placed at that back of her neck and then utilizing her power to the fullest to eventually beat the enemy.
But what does this have to say about womanhood?
If you are a woman, I can bet you've heard at some point in your life that you can't do things. Sometimes these things are things that men are known to be capable of doing. We're told that our emotions are a weakness and they hold us back from doing the things that we want to do. Sometimes being a woman can feel like a burden due to the fact that society defines a perfect woman can be so constraining. We can't be too emotional. We can't be too determined. We can't be too serious. We can't be too thin. We can't be too heavy. We can't be too tall. We can't be too short. Those are only some of the things that we are told as women. Throughout the movie, we can see that Captain Marvel struggles to fit into the same constraints that society sets for women just like the typical woman does. At the end of the movie, when she rips the little chip off of her neck, it symbolizes the fact that she is no longer going to be constrained by what society tells a woman that she should be. Instead, she finds power in herself and embraces herself.
This is a great message for women everywhere. To be strong women we must abandon what society tells us to be and instead we must be who we were created to be. If you are tall? Embrace it. If you are short? Embrace it. Work hard to reach the goals that you have set for yourself no matter who tells you that you can not. Embrace your femininity and who you are despite what society tells you.
You are just as strong and capable as Captain Marvel and that's the message that no other superhero movie seems to send.
