Update from the Editor-in-Chief (3/3/19):
Original Story:
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I’m still worried about Captain Marvel. Yup. You heard me.
“But Izzy,” you say. “All those social media reactions and reviews for Captain Marvel have been nothing but positive, and glowing, and they’re saying that this movie is gonna reinvent the MCU! And that it’ll pretty much be like Black Panther for women! YOU’RE a woman!!! Isn’t that all good for you?”
But this is what always happens. I freak out if I think a Marvel movie won’t be good, and then my expectations are still blown away by it. Even if it takes me a while, like how I watched Spider-Man: Homecoming twice to really enjoy it, I have come to adore every movie of Phase 3 thus far. At this point, these worries feel like a predictable ride, one that I’m a bit tired from and almost a bit doubtful of—is this some kind of Marvel marketing mentality that I’m trapped in, and do others feel this way?
My worries don’t stem just from this mentality, however.
Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman is probably one of the DCEU’s biggest accomplishments over Marvel Studios, having both the first female director for a superhero movie and having a female-led superhero movie in their franchise two years before their rival. And leading up to Wonder Woman, the movie had its time to shine. It had a hot spotlight on it for many reasons, and Warner Bros. made sure Wonder Woman’s hard work and achievements got the attention it deserved.
By a longshot, Captain Marvel is not receiving that same treatment from Marvel Studios. Shoehorned into a poignant release date, International Women’s Day (March 8), nearly all of Captain Marvel’s publicity efforts are being overshadowed by the fact that the sequel to Avengers: Infinity War will be a mere month and a half away when Captain Marvel soars into theaters. This date came after two date shifts too — the first after Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man deal (pushing the movie from July 6, 2018 to November 2018) and the second after Ant-Man & The Wasp came to occupy Captain Marvel’s original spot (pushing Captain Marvel now from November 2018 to next Friday). The movie’s memorable and heavily-related release date, similar to Black Panther’s release during Black History Month, should not make me feel better about missing out on this movie for over a year. In fact, at times it makes me feel worse; it shows that they don’t care about this movie enough to defend it on more solid ground, trying to cash in on the fact that “Yeah, she’s a woman, she’ll love this movie.”
There have been no marketing moves made by Marvel to push this movie out into the forefront. Marvel drops posters at seemingly random times at seemingly random intervals with seemingly random focuses (yes, I am talking about Goose the cat). They’ve released Captain Marvel game spots during smaller-scale large games, dropping a special look for Captain Marvel during the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship. I didn’t even realize what that event was until I saw online that it was just literally the playoffs of college football. Its buildup to its trailers has been quiet and sudden, with Marvel trying to mitigate the monster success of Infinity War and Marvel fans’ various memes while attempting to roll out a strong promotional campaign this movie.
Do you know how I found out about Captain Marvel presale tickets? One of my friends messaged me asking “Does the Marvel StuCo [college course that I teach] have a Captain Marvel [field trip] plan? Because it’s ticket time.” Tickets and this CFP spot dropped on the same day and I hadn’t even realized it. Marvel has been promoting this movie so quietly that I’m almost concerned that they’re ashamed of it.
Additionally, their focus in ads for Captain Marvel is weird and misguided. Remember when everyone made a big fuss about Carol Danvers punching that old lady? What in the world was that shot doing there? In the movie’s first trailer? The unneeded fervor got so bad and frantic that Marvel had to debunk this fact that Captain Marvel hurts old people in the next trailer, showing that this old lady is a Skrull just to get people off their back. And I’m being frank: I’m not sure how Goose the cat became such a prominent meme for this movie.
I know what people are going to say: there was no good time for this movie to come out, and they are absolutely right. Captain Marvel had to come out after Infinity War, and on the other end of the spectrum, Captain Marvel would have faced Infinity War’s looming, fantastic, meme-y shadow. Marvel would have wanted to risk that happening to Ant-Man & The Wasp than their first female solo superhero film.
But if that’s the case, I’m wishing that Marvel would have at least treated the promotion of this movie with a little bit of respect.
What is the point of Captain Marvel in the larger MCU narrative? What is the point of Captain Marvel in the larger Avengers: Endgame narrative? We know she plays a big part; we’ve been heavily told and hyped up that Carol Danvers is integral to this narrative. We don’t know in what capacity, but we know that she has been hidden this long for a good reason and that she will play a big hand in defeating Thanos.
Marvel’s treatment of her solo movie does not match this role at all. What the marketing campaign has conveyed to me is “Hey, here’s a Marvel movie to tide you over until Avengers: Endgame. And there’s a female superhero is in this. Wow, isn’t this neat?” What that translates to me when comparing it to Marvel’s comments on Danvers’ Endgame role is: “Yeah, Captain Marvel will be in Endgame. Won’t that be so cool!” These don’t match. In short, how Marvel has treated the release of Carol Danvers’ solo movie does not match her perceived importance in Endgame—and that’s disappointing.
There is one obvious fact: Avengers: Endgame’s last trailer will feature Carol Danvers, hoping to create a Black Panther effect of capitalizing on the latter movie’s prestige and popularity to drum up more excitement for a future movie, i.e. Endgame. They’ll additionally show a little more of how integral Carol Danvers truly is to the several narratives they want to tell. The larger question, though, is its reception. How much of that Black Panther effect will they really be able to mimic and capture?
Captain Marvel should NOT be associated or positioned as “2019’s Black Panther”. Captain Marvel needs to stand on its own ground. Carol Danvers should be Marvel’s loud, powerful stance on strong women and their power, not just the MCU, but in our own universe and reality right now. It does not need the in-house competition of Black Panther and should not be subjected to a coliseum fight of minorities vs. minorities. Both movies have their own stories to tell, and they should be given their space, time, and manner to let this shine through.
But based on everything I’ve seen in Marvel’s marketing campaign of Captain Marvel, this movie doesn’t even look like it’ll reflect on what it actually means to be a woman. And that is disheartening.
