In Defense of Brie Larson and Captain Marvel

I've defended characters before, but never an actual person. And I never thought that I would be defending Brie Larson of all people. However, after I saw Captain Marvel and ended up enjoying the movie, I began to become a little more open minded to Brie Larson. When Captain Marvel began its promotion tour in 2019, for some unknown reason, I really jumped onto the anti-Brie Larson train. Now, I'm rather ashamed of it. I was running with the crowd and only looking at a one sided, biased view of a woman I didn't even know. Sure Brie made some stupid comments, but did she really deserve all the hate she got? She most certainly did not. 

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I am still trying to figure out what possessed me to despise Brie Larson so much that I wasted a good amount of phone data watching anti-Brie Larson videos on YouTube. If there was Brie Larson hate going on, I was sure to click it. It almost became like a feel good drug for me. Just watching video after video of people tearing this woman down for everything she said, what she did, how she looked and most especially, analyzing every little word that others said about her. And I just fell for it.

Of course a great deal of this criticism came from Brie Larson's vocal support of liberal feminism. Although I've always been a proud conservative, Christian feminist, being a feminist-of any kind-in the comic book fandom is quietly tolerated, but the fandom is still predominately male, with many of the stories having male centric characters. And of course, there's nothing wrong with that at all. My favorite superheroes are all men. However, I think there are wonderful female superheroes; the problem is most men don't know how to properly write female characters. So, they usually end up being boring, sexed up fan service for the male contingency. 

With the advent of Black Widow, Peggy Carter, Wonder Woman and Wanda Maximoff in the comic film franchises, women characters are becoming more dimensional, more modest looking and much more relatable. And Brie Larson's Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers is most certainly a part of that growing female demographic. Much of what Brie said was taken out of context or people, who were so infused with hate for her, just refused to see the basic meaning of her words.

When Brie said she has the first female superhero film, of course she means in the MCU! Not the first ever female superhero film. 

So, Brie Larson is crucified by the comic book fandom, but she's really done nothing wrong except speak her mind. She had never really said anything hurtful or derogatory or even sexist for that matter. Of all the videos that I watched, I never actually saw her say anything rude or cruel that would have merited criticism from the Marvel fans. Unfortunately, while Brie was under attacked, so was Captain Marvel herself. Fans were determined to destroy this movie and with it, Brie's short legacy in the Avengers.

It's not Brie's fault that Captain Marvel just showed up at the tail end of a film franchise, with no introduction whatsoever and somehow make this story successful. Yet, fans considered Brie to be the brain child of Captain Marvel, because she simply loved the character, what Carol Danvers stood for and of course, the honor of fighting alongside the Avengers. And to be honest, I really enjoyed Carol! And it's a shame that they couldn't have introduced her earlier and given her more time to grow and develop as a character and an eventual Avenger. 

Then a deleted scene from Captain Marvel was released and of course, fans were in an uproar. Citing rabid feminism and misandry. However, it was this film clip that actually made me stop and think, really think for myself and how I was losing myself in this unnecessary hate. 

So Anna's video pretty sums up what every Brie Larson hater was thinking and/or saying. And to be honest, I really didn't agree with a lot that Anna was claiming. Anna is the ultimate Brie Larson hater and 2019 was her heyday for the anti-Brie Larson movement. However, Anna's hatred for Brie really took a lot of things out of context too. She was making blanket statements just purely based on her vitriol and believing that everyone was just going to follow along.

Well for once I didn't.

So here are my thoughts: 

• To start off this guy was creepy as hell (no Anna not all girls go for the bad boys...thankyouverymuch).

• Carol (or Vers) didn't ask for his help, yet he's asking for a smile as if she owed him something.

• Sorry guys, but women don't own you a fucking thing at all. 

• This guy was a stranger and he was annoying her. 

• Vers has no idea who she is or even what she is. She's on an alien planet and has no understanding of normal human behavior.

•  Vers is a soldier and she's use to being physical as a means to getting the job done. 

• I don't think the scene was meant to promote any feminist agenda. It's illustrating Vers confusion to being on Earth. This cocky, arrogant biker boy shows up like he's God's gift and gets his ass handed to him by an alien (who is actually a human who has been told she's an alien for the last 3 years). 

• Nobody complains about Loki's destruction of New York when he came to Earth, but Carol Danvers is labeled dangerous and cruel, because she almost broke a guy's wrist to stop aliens from taking over Earth. And she did not steal his bike, she told him to give it to her. 

It was by that point that I realized that my Brie Larson hate was just following the crowd because it was the cool thing to do. As someone who always tries to be different, not follow the crowd and be my own person, I was really quite ashamed at what I had been throwing myself into. I went onto other things, watched Infinity War and Endgame and loved them both. Then earlier this year, I finally got around to watching Captain Marvel. When I finished it, I had two thoughts:

This movie is fantastic!

Brie Larson, I'm sorry I that I wasted so much time hating you just because everyone else was. 

Now that I had come to this understanding of my outright stupidity, I went back and re-watched those videos, but this time clear of any negativity and hate. I noticed the way Brie would talk, nervously and very fast at times. The way she tended to get loud one moment and then quiet the next. The way she tended to dart her eyes around as if she had a hard time looking directly at people. I tend to do all of this when I'm around people too. Then it hit me, clear as day. Brie Larson has social anxiety.

Homegirl is just like me. 

The thankyouverymuch won me over. 

She took something negative and just owned it.

Now, a lot about Brie Larson's public personality makes sense. She was scared around people, nervous about being in the MCU and certainly not wanting to let anyone down. People oftentimes accuse me of being insensitive, judgmental and even hostile. I tend to be like that because I'm not someone who enjoys being in public and I never really know if people really like me or not. If they're joking or if they really do despise me. It's a constant struggle with introverts. I tend to be hostile because quiet, shy people tend to be taken advantage of. And in my job, you have to learn how to stand your ground or you will get run over. 

Have you noticed that now that the Avengers is over, Brie Larson is no longer the most hated person in Hollywood? She's gone on to do other movies and work on her craft including writing, directing and producing. A lot of people have now come around and realized that the Brie Larson/Captain Marvel hate fest of 2019 was an absolute waste of time. I think Brie is a good actress. I really enjoyed her character in Kong: Skull Island and she and Tom Hiddleston were a great adventure couple (not too different from Rick and Evie from The Mummy). 

And while I don't agree with Brie's feminist statements that she has made in the past, I do admire her for the fact that for all the fire and hate she came under for what she said, not once did she offer an apology for her comments. Maybe an explanation, but she never full on apologized to the fans getting in an outrage for her opinions, which she's free to have and speak on. 

I respect her so much more for that alone, because she doesn't need people to validate who she is as a person or an actress or a feminist. I despise when celebrities are made to apologize to people they don't even know for what they say. It shows spinelessness and an inability to think for yourself. Brie Larson standing by what she says and never faltering to rabid and toxic fans shows a rare strength of free thinking in Hollywood.