Captain Marvel with Carolyn Cocca

 Superheroes Jamie and Caitlin team up with fellow Superhero Carolyn Cocca to talk about Captain Marvel!

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best
start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello, and
welcome to the Beachdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Arante
and my name is Jamie Loftus, and our podcast is

(00:21):
about the representation of women in movies. Women. Ever heard
of them? Movies? Ever heard of them? No? Neither. My
new playing intro thought of all the way here, I
have two degrees in film, but somehow I've never heard
of movies. Listen, I know I've I also went through
the school, and they just don't tell you about it.

(00:43):
If they don't, I'm excited for today's episode. It's another
hashtag current movie, not our normal fair but this seemed
very warranted. Yes, this is important important. The show is
Oh yeah, derived from hard to Know? Really the part
who are we point? Oh wait, no, she's not the

(01:04):
next Man. I don't know how superhero movies work. It's
almost like she's a mutant. That's not this franchise. No, no, no,
you know, I'm just gonna go bury myself a lot
any who, So we use the Bactel test as a
jumping off point, and the Bactel test for us our version,

(01:24):
there must be two female identifying characters with names. They
must speak to each other, and their conversation cannot be
about men. And this is just a two line exchange
for us. It's all it takes. All it takes. But
a lot of movies managed to fuck it up, and
a lot of movies in the universe were addressing today

(01:46):
managed to suck it up. So it'll be interesting to
dive in. And the movie, of course, if you've clicked,
if you've dared to click, you already know the movie
is Captain Marvel. Yes, if you are listening to this
and you have not yet seen the movie, we are
going to do a lot of spoilers, so um, just
be aware of that and also see the movie. The movie,

(02:10):
Come on, seriously, I mean the box off. If the
box office is to be judged, they don't necessarily need you,
but you should see it. This movie made so much money.
That's great, already made dollars? Wow? Well yeah, well with
how much further ado? Let's introduce our guest today. Yes, um,
she is the author of Superwomen, gender power, and representation.

(02:33):
She also wrote the forward for the Captain Marvel issue
of Entertainment Weekly, which is on shelves right now. It's
Caroline Cocao. Hi, thanks for being here. Oh, thanks so
much for having me. It's crazy to be here. Time.
We're so we're so psyched to have a true expert
on the cast. So I guess before we get into it,

(02:57):
all of our experiences with this movie, we are relatively recent.
Um in general, Caroline, how do you? How do you
like the movie? Oh? I was going to tell you
my long five day history with the movie. Please let's
unpack it. No, no, no, I'm kidding. Uh No. I
I did like it, and I think it's kind of
like when I went to go see A Wonder Woman.

(03:19):
I was more worried than anything else going in and
kind of relieved even though neither is perfect coming out.
So I'll just leave it at that for now. What's
your history with the property? Um? In terms of the
comics and stuff? Are you super familiar? Have you read
a lot of them? I didn't until I guess about

(03:41):
five years ago. So I didn't read Captain Marvel growing up.
I mean I did read some comics when I was
a kid, they were mostly d C comics like Superman, Batman,
Wonder Woman. My history with Captain Marvel is pretty recent
from writing my book, and it was while I was
writing it that the character was sort of relaunched as

(04:03):
Captain Marvel. She had formerly been Miss Marvel from you know,
for like forty years before that and at this and
you know, at the time they thought, well, okay, it's
a longer story. But at the time, it was everybody
working in comics except for like one woman at Marvel
and one woman at TC. They were all guys. And

(04:23):
these guys, I think, genuinely thought that they were creating
a feminist character and that's why they they purposely used
the moniker miss Um And you know, they had her
first she was a security chief at NASA. That's how
she's introduced, and then later she's the editor of Woman magazine.
That is the vaguest vagary I've ever heard. She's a feminist.

(04:47):
She's magazine, that's right. I mean the first issue of
Miss Marvel, she's fighting um, you know, mean spider Man.
Editor j Jonah Jamison owns Women magazine. She's she's fighting
on the Bay and he wants to underpay her, and
she's like, no, you want me, You're gonna pay me
this much. And he's like, okay, grumble, grumble, cigar jump,

(05:09):
I want to read that issue. And then he's like,
so you're gonna do uh some recipes and some fashion
none of that, like women should be astronauts stuff, right,
women should be in the kitchen and she's like, uh,
feminist icon. J Jonah Jamison really an ally to all that.

(05:30):
J Jonah Jamison, Um wow, okay, I'm like, yeah, I'm
really excited to hear more about the character as well,
because I am not super familiar with the mcu as
by the fact that I called one of the X
Men but you, but you inadvertently said something accurate because

(05:52):
there was a point at which she almost joined the
X Men in the eighties. So we'll just pretend you
knew that. Actually I have a really deep knowledge and
so alas that is a cut, that's me. I want
to hear about that too. I um my history aside
from seeing the movie twice now, bragg is, I admittedly

(06:12):
did not know that Captain Marvel was a character or
a comic book until I saw the trailer for this movie,
which we can kind of later on unpack how you know,
a lot of the superheroes who are women don't really
make it to the mainstream or like the most popular properties.

(06:34):
But yeah, we can we can talk about that a
little for sure later. Um I gen'er. I mean, I
enjoyed the movie. It was there's definitely stuff that I
think is worth discussing. I wasn't my favorite movie ever, No,
but it was one of those movies that, like, for
the little things I was jotting down in the screening,

(06:54):
I was sitting two seats away from like kids, and
they were so excited, Oh, that's great, So like in
that way, you're just I'm like, almost crimes, just like
in that way, I think that that it's great. And
there was like a lot of young boys and girls
at movie and they were all site and it's like, yes,
I have my critiques, but in general, I think it

(07:15):
is a good movie to have in the world. And
I have kids seeing agree. Yes. I also I'm like,
I thought it was good. It was fine. It wasn't great.
Now that I've seen Spider Man into the Spider Verse
six times, I just feel a little underwhelmed by every
other superhero metric good but no, there's there's a lot

(07:39):
of talk to compare women to men as much as possible.
That um anyway, shall we do the recap? Sure? Okay,
so we meet Veers. That's Bree Larson's character. I stand
Bree Larson. Yes, I love Bree Larson. Big fan, big stand.
She lives on planet Halla with the Cree people. Sure

(08:04):
she has a power, she like energy comes out of
her fists. She fights Ju Law and she's stronger than him.
And she doesn't have any memory of her past from
before she arrived on Cree and Caroline. Does this line up?
I guess before we super get into it. Does this
line up pretty closely with what her origin story is

(08:25):
in the comic books as well? Or was where liberties taken?
This is one of the times when liberties are taken
in a way that actually makes the story a little better.
So I'm not sure where to start, because, like her
origin in comics is kind of what you don't get
till about three quarters of the way through the movie.

(08:46):
So do you want me to say it now or
when you get there? I guess we could say it
when we get there. I just wasn't sure if if
this was like a complete deviation or pretty she did.
She did not live on Cree. She just grew up human.
And when she was that NASA security chief, one of
the people who was working there was a man named

(09:06):
Walter Lawson who was Marvel. In other words, Marvel was
a dude, and Marvel was the first Captain Marvel, and
he was Cree and he did kind of turn against
the Cree when he was on Earth, and uh, he
was fighting yon Rog. Jon Rog took Carol hostage. And

(09:27):
in this struggle where Marvel is trying to rescue Carol
from yon Rog, this machine blows up and this machine
abuse Carol with her powers and with Marvel's Cree DNA. Okay,
I like, I was, like, it's ridiculous. So much more
I know, but so you can see that what they
did in the movie is an improvement on that. Totally agree. Yes, okay, yes,

(09:49):
indeed cool? Um Okay. So she's hanging out on Cree.
There's this supreme intelligence that she goes to see for therapy.
I don't know what they do, it's like so I
was just like, okay, So there's a green screen in
play every time that scene would come. It's like Brie
Larsen on a green screen. And for Viers, this supreme

(10:14):
intelligence takes the form of a Net Benning. But Viers
doesn't know who this woman is to her. She doesn't
know her significance in her life because she can't remember
her past. So Viers accompany's Yon Rog that's Jude Law's
character and some other creased soldiers on a rescue mission
on a different planet and they're trying to rescue someone

(10:36):
from these bad guys called Scrolls, who are shape shifters,
and the Scrolls capture Veers and they are trying to
access her memories, and we see all these flashbacks of
Viers training in the Air Force and hanging out with
a net Benning, and they're trying to figure out who
a net Benning's character is because they're trying to find

(10:59):
her and get their hands on light speed technology that
she was developing. Right, turns out her name is when
Wendy Lawson right, So Veers gets away from the Scrolls
and crash lands on c. Fifty three. A k ever
heard of it so much? I mean, some studio executive

(11:20):
took the nostalgia note to heart and they're like, she
lands in a blockbuster. She's holding up a VHS day
You're just like, alright, I guess we'll get through this.
It's when she and a few of the Scrolls follow

(11:43):
her to Earth and then the Agents of Shields show up,
including Coulson, who we all know and love, and Nick Fiery,
who we all know and love. I thought it was
going to be so distracting to see young of fied
Samuel L. Jackson, but they did a great job. I
was just like, wow, he looks great. And then it
was like, no, that was that was technology. I was like, oh, okay.

(12:08):
So Viers is like, hey, Fury, here's what's going on.
There's these scrull bad guys, their shape shifters, and then
they don't believe her. She makes no effort to blend
in with her surroundings. There's moments where Captain Marvel is
great at her job and other times and I'm like,
I don't know what you think you're doing, but you

(12:29):
should probably anyways, I'm not who am I to tell
her how to do her job? Yeah? Who are you?
I don't know. Okay. So then there's this chase scene
and Fury sees this shape shifting happening, and he's like, oh,
now I believe her. So then she and Fury team

(12:50):
up and they try to find Wendy Lawson and then
go to Pegasus, which I believe is like a secret
military facility. Um, and they're in the records room and
they discover that Wendy Lawson is dead, that she died
in a plane crash that killed another pilot as well.
I wonder who that might be. She's in the background

(13:12):
of a lot of pictures. They discovered the Wendy Lawson
was Cree and then Yeah, sees a photo of herself
with Lawson from I think like nine and she's like,
oh my god. There's more to this story than I realize.
Also very important to note there is what appears to

(13:34):
be a cat named Goose. Yes, how many nipples does
the cat have? Okay, well, as we know cats have
eight nipples, that's cat facts with Caitlin obviously, Um, but Goose,
there's more to Goose than meets the eye. Goose is
not a cat. Goose is a flirkin. Flirkins have five

(13:59):
D and third seven nipples. That's flirkin facts. Is that
true with Caitlin? No, I just made that is that,
but it's cannon now okay. I was like, WHOA, Well,
let me google right now, how many doesn't how florins
does the nipple have? Does that mean we get to

(14:21):
give out five thirty seven at the end? Yeah? Oh yeah,
the scale has been adjusted for the sake of the
flirkin nipples? Okay, So how many nipples does a I
don't quite know how to spell flirkin f l E
r k E n okay E n okay I have
k I n okay So florkin welp. It says eight nipples,

(14:44):
but it's this is giving me facts about cats and
not flirkins, so unbelievable, so I can't trust this. Um yeah,
so let's go with what I said, eight hundred and
thirty seven or whatever I said. Seven okay is the
new scale that will be using on the show from
here on out. It sounds okay. So then um Furies

(15:07):
boss shows up at Pegasus, but it's actually a scroll
who's in disguise. So Fury and Veers make a run
for it and they go to Maria Rambo because they're like, oh,
there's here's this woman who had given this testimony about
this plane crash, so like she can. Maybe. It turns

(15:27):
out they were BFFs in the Air Force together, and
Veers is actually named Carol Danvers. Oh my god, one
thing I knew going into the movie. I didn't I
didn't even know that. And Carol learns that she had
this whole life on Earth pre pree times. She has

(15:49):
a child that falls into one of the most annoying
tropes in the world, to be child who is wise
beyond their years, really precocious child, the wise be their
years child, so cute. She's very cute, and her name
is Monica. So Taylos, the main scroll guy, shows up

(16:12):
at Marie, Yes, got it, shows up at Marie's house
and he's like, hey, fun fact um Scrolls aren't the
bad guys. It's the cree who are the bad guys.
And everyone's like what. So we see a flashback of
the plane crash and we see Carol Denver's and Lawson.
They're in the plane together. There's a spaceship that's shooting

(16:32):
at them. It's Creed. There's the Creed. They're the bad guys.
They're shooting the career after them because they also want
Lawson's light speed technology. Uh. And we learned here that
Lawson is actually named Marvel. Then we learned that it
was Jude laws character whose name I always forget, Jon

(16:54):
rog Um who killed Lawson. So in this flashback, Carol
Invers needs to destroy the plane's engine before the Crea
can get to it. So when she does that, it
explodes and she absorbs all of its powers, which is
how she has like energy fists um. And it turns

(17:15):
out that Marvel a k. Lawson was trying to help
the Scrolls who are refugees and they're on the run
from the cree and there they wanted the light speed
technology to be able to escape and like get out
of the reaches of like cre rule. So now Carol
Danver's fury and Maria and Taylo's need to go to
Lawson's laboratory somewhere in space to get the energy core

(17:39):
for the Scrolls. And then they get there and they
find it and they're like, oh, by the way, it's
called a test irect. I learned that in geometry. I
was so excited. I was like, Mrs Foley, you'd be
so proud. Which which Marvel movie do we first learn
about the test direct? Yeah? Yeah, Okay, Yeah, it's a

(18:01):
running thing through the Marvel movies. Yeah, I just couldn't
remember which. I guess it's a bigger plot point in
the first Avengers movie, right, Okay, okay, that's what I
thought it. And they keep it in a in a
retro lunchbox, the funds of reference, the property, sure, and
then this space laboratory, Taylos's family is there and there's

(18:25):
like this nice little reunion and then Yon rog and
the other Creed show up rock Jude Law Jude Law, Yes,
and there's a big fight and Carol Danver's fully realizes
her powers because she takes off her inhibitor chip, basically
a metaphor for something. Now, I know this is all

(18:48):
very subtle stuff going on, and I was like, wait,
when she removes the chip, what is that exactly implying?
I will say I did tear up during that very
heavy handed montage of fall Down, Get Up, fall Down,
and get Me. I was like, I was like, I
don't want to be crying, but here we are crying,
and so was everyone else. Well, remember who else has
an inhibitor chip. Jamie go On is doc where where

(19:17):
was where was his montage? Alfred his montage. I would
just like to say at this point that as much
as I thought Ben Mendelssohn was excellent, I couldn't help
thinking to myself, Alfred Moleena would have made a great Taylor.
So that was my VICTI I totally agree he would have.
He would have been terrific. They gotta welcome him back

(19:39):
into the m c U. Yeah, whereas he's if he's
hanging out with us, he should be back in the
m c you agree. During the fight, you know, Carol
is getting more powerful, and then she defeats the Cree
and at the end she gives fury a you an

(20:00):
improved beeper which we see in Avengers Infinity War, and
then she goes off with the scrolls. And that is
pretty much the story, except for the after credits scenes,
which I didn't understand. Oh sure, I don't watch the movie.

(20:21):
So the after credit scene for all the Chrisms are back,
chris Is are there. It's too much to explain, But fine,
we're going to do an Avengers episode. I, against all odds,
I will end up knowing what these movies mean at
some point. I can't wait for you to do that. Sure, yeah,

(20:43):
it'll be great. Um, well, let's take a quick break
and then we will come right back to discuss the movie.
So Caroline initial thoughts as an expert on this topic
of superheroes who are women? How did this movie strike you?

(21:07):
What are your feelings about it? Well, in my research,
I do like what my book basically is is like
a history of female superheroes over the last seventy five
years in comics and novels and TV and movies, and
when you look across that big sweep, you basically find
that they're underrepresented stereo. I know, it's hard to believe,

(21:29):
hold on to your hat. Sways, they're wildly underrepresented. They're stereotyped,
and they're sexualized, and they're generally like side characters. Yes,
there are exceptions to that, but I'm talking like literally
of the time, that is what they are. So the
way that Captain Marvel Carol Davers is portrayed in this

(21:51):
movie is women are none of these things. So that's
like a big win right there. Yeah, for sure. So
umber one, it centers a woman. Number two, she's wearing
actual clothes and so are the other women, including flat shoes.
She's got women around her who are inspiring her. There's

(22:14):
no heatero romance happening, know that like side tracks her plot,
and it's about a woman who has grown up a
woman and has had experiences that women have coming into
her own powers. So I think all of those things
make it unfortunately, very very different from most Hollywood movies.

(22:36):
I mean, just the previews that were before this movie
was like pinful there. One of them was, um, Charlie's
there owne is running for president or something. Oh and
like starts dating Seth Rogan. God, what sort of cosmic
punishment landed Charlie's there on in this movie. I just

(22:56):
my heart goes out to whatever sinister tea all. But
that was just the perfect example of it's like they're
ostensibly making her this strong character, but really the whole
movie is about her and she loveby Seth Rogan taking
her to a bar and doing shots, and you know,
it's just why, why any times is that going to
happen in a movie where a perfectly good female character

(23:20):
is just as her life absolutely ruined and derailed by
a Seth Rogan character by Seth specifically, it's practically a
sub genre. It's like anyways, Yes, so this movie, unlike
nearly every single superhero movie to date does mostly the

(23:44):
opposite of everything that those movies do. Yeah, I mean,
and the and the lack of a romantic subplot is
huge that never happens, right, are very usually romantic subplots
in male driven movies as well with underwritten female characters.
I mean, if they're going to rescue them, yes, right, right,

(24:06):
and and you truly don't miss it, like there's no
there's no room for it. There's a lot going on
in this movie. She's she's busy. Yeah. In more recent comics,
she has kind of an on and off relationship with Rhadi,
who you saw in the post credit sequence. Okay, right,
right right? You know, maybe they'll give a glance to

(24:28):
each other in the Avengers movie or something. I don't know.
That's a rather glaring age difference, but they couldn't have known.
I'm like, I'm pretty sure Don Cheeta could be Bree
Larson's father, But who am? I just touching on that
a little bit more from what I remember of because
I think I've seen, not to brag, I believe I've

(24:50):
seen every single m c U movie to date. I
wouldn't call myself an expert I'm not super because I've
only seen each of them probably once, maybe twice at
the most. Um, with the exception of Spider Man into
the Spider Verse, which I did see five times in
theata's um. But it doesn't feel like it's not a
part of the m C you like, I don't. I mean,

(25:11):
maybe they'll bring animated Miles Morales into Avengers end Game,
but I don't think so. But they should. But yeah,
I think most of them, because they're all they've all
centered around male superheroes until Captain Marvel, I would say
most of them do have a romantic subplot. Yeah, but

(25:32):
that just means that there's like a woman in the story,
but she's only there to further characterize them in and
to be the romantic interests. So right, yeah, I mean
it's just to contextualize the movie a little bit. I
think it's like worth discussing a little bit what the
climate in case you're listening to this episode many years

(25:52):
from now, which people will do, which this is just
gonna go on forever. But um, the reception, I feel
like it's almost standard fair for uh, woman being introduced
into a large property or like we can you know,
revisit Wonder Woman, we can revisit the Ghostbusters reboot of

(26:12):
just prior to those movies release. Uh men, absolutely furious
people who are who are fans of comics and and
not everyone because this movie is doing incredibly well. Um,
but there there is a faction of comic book fans
who like there was a like a concerted campaign to

(26:33):
just ruin this movie's rotten Tomatoes movie before anyone had
seen it. Um. A lot of that I think also
has to do with the casting of Brie Larson, which
I think is almost a statement in itself, because she's
really outspoken on women's issues and intersectionality, and she in
in my book, does generally good job in in giving

(26:56):
care to all of all of those things, and so
they don't like her. Her casting is a statement in itself.
And there's just a lot of, I guess, unsurprising controversy
before this movie came out at all. I guess it's
it's hard to know where to start here, because I mean,
it does mostly everything mostly right. I would say, like

(27:19):
there wasn't anything hugely glaring to me. There are a
few kind of nitpicky things I want to talk about,
but there is the reading of this movie that is
like the kids I was sitting next to, We're thrilled.
And if I saw this movie when I was, you know,
seven or eight years old, I would be over the
moon obsessed. I think it's great overall, doing the like

(27:43):
you know, beckdel Into. There were parts of it that
felt like a Dove soap commercial. Is something that writer
just Jojo said in a Mashable piece that I think
it's worth reading. I don't agree with everything it's saying,
but um, she's very smart and there there are some
clear plays made in this movie, down to the choice

(28:04):
of like no doubts, I'm just a girl playing in
the climactic scene, which did make me roll my eyes
directly back into my head. Uh, there are some things
that feel like okay, like this was this was an
easy choice to make some of those more broad choices.
I was like, I mean, I didn't defend it a

(28:25):
little bit like hashtag feminism versus actual but I see
what you're saying. The climactic site sequence with that specific
song pretty much worked for me because I was like, yeah,
it's fun and she's kicking ass and stuff, but yes,
I do right, but it's still like it feels a

(28:47):
little I don't know, just like we're drawing, we're still
drawing attention to the fact that it's like she's what
the boys can do, um, which is another thing that
I mean, I guess this is just like a general
critique of like she's we're always has shown like how
strong she is next to men, and she's like fighting men,
and it's still like men are the yardstick that she's

(29:07):
measured against, which is true to life, but it's just
in terms of like moving things forward that I'm just like,
I don't know, I guess it's like we need to
crawl before we can walk kind of thing. So like,
hopefully in the years to come, we see the much
needed better representation of I mean women in general in

(29:29):
all media, but then also specifically in superhero movies, where
like a woman kicking ass and fighting and being strong
is just has just been so normalized that we we
don't need to draw attention to the fact that she's
a woman and she's fighting like the boys and she
can fight men and we're not. And I like that
that is done not very frequently, but I think that

(29:50):
that is done in movies sometimes without being like girl
doing thing. Look, but I don't know. I mean, I
guess that that's sort of what this this movie's narrative
is hinged around. But there were there were there were
a few moments where I was like, it just felt
more like a strategic corporate play versus a genuine thing. Sure,

(30:13):
I don't know. I think it's I think it can
be both. I mean, I think what the three of
us are seeing as crawling other people see as running right,
like we think this is for instance, a number of
times where she's told where Carol is told, you know,
control your emotions. Nothing is more dangerous than emotion. You

(30:33):
have to have the strength to get right. So it's
maybe five or six times to me, that's a lot.
But to other people in the audience, maybe they didn't
even hear it till the fifth time. Sure, so I'm
willing to I'm willing to let that go. And certainly
that I'm just a girl. I was like, Wow, that
is super duper on the nose. Okay, barry on the nose.

(30:55):
But my twelve year old would think that that is
the most awesome thing ever, Right, so I have the
brain of a twelve year old guy. No, I'm saying
that's what I'm saying there. Yeah, I mean it's I
think it did this just like they're they're reading, will
depend on the audience, because you're totally right, Caroline. If
there's you know, a very subtle, you know, feminist undertone,

(31:18):
then maybe a lot of people wouldn't have picked up
on it. And it's also, I mean, these kinds of
things even in the sixties and seventies, she did have
these kinds of moments in the comics that again I
think we're they were written by men, drawn by men,
and I think they they were trying, um, they looked
totally like cardboard to us now, you know, like they're

(31:38):
like they're setting up this straw man and knocking it down.
But like there's a thing about how she joins the
Air Force because her father tells her that he'll only
pay for her brother to go to college and not
her because women don't shouldn't go to college, and that
was not an unusual thing. And you know, my team
seventy seven or whatever or where she's introduced as this

(32:03):
is my security chief, Carol Danvers, man or woman. She's
the best there is and it's like to us now
it's like, why do you have to draw attention to that?
But then in nineteen that was sixty seven, that was
a big deal. Yes, so there's I I feel, I
guess just to wrap up that that area of critique

(32:25):
would also lumping a few of the lines that men
say to her that are just like okay, like the
it's not called a cockpit for nothing. Okay, we get
it because only get it in a cockpit. The yeah,
but it's fun when or when he's like, why did

(32:46):
you smile? Like there's some there's a real general some
just some very generalized misogny um employed, but it's again,
it's like for a family film, which this is. I
think that works. Um. And it is cool that she
steals his motorcycle. Yes, And do you remember when the

(33:08):
first trailer came out, all those trolls that you were
talking about, we're writing, why doesn't Free Larson smile? In
the trailer? She's just so cold? Yeah? I hope they
added it after that. I don't know if you're not.
I just love so much. Can we talk more about

(33:28):
Carol dan versus emotions? Because okay, so, as we hinted at,
it's mostly Jude Law's character tells her that she's emotional
and she needs to control her emotions and emotions are
so dangerous to a soldier and all this stuff, right,
I think, I don't know if this is just sort

(33:50):
of like badly done storytelling, but there's really nothing about
that character that actually indicates that she's very it's too emotional.
Were told that a lot, but I didn't really see that.
I kind of felt the same way, like we never
see I wonder how like specific a decision that was,
or if it was just an oversight, but it feels

(34:11):
like an intentional decision because that's like one of the
moments where they're saying all the right things. But it's
like in the story, we don't really see her react
emotionally unless you count those small moments when she's fighting
Jude Law and she's piste off at him and then
he's like, control your emotion. But that's like such, that's
so small, right, And that's like happening in like a

(34:32):
controlled environment, Like there's no like big battle scenes where
she like quote loses control of her emotions and then
pays the penalty for it. So like the care and
it's also yeah, I mean Carol in general, like it
takes her so long into the movie to be interested
in who she is. Well, I don't know, there's there's
some strange things. The emotionality thing confused me. I would

(34:55):
have liked to see that character get emotional about something
that's something that superheroes don't do, especially if they could
handle it in narrative of like, this is not a
weakness um expressing your emotions. You can come at that
from the soldier perspective two of like repressed emotions equals
PTSD for life, you know. But yeah, I didn't really

(35:19):
touch him. Yeah, I think before I saw the movie,
I had at least seen like the title of an
article that was that was talking about her emotions and
how like the movie is painting her as this emotional character.
So I was worried that that was going to be
her arc, where like she's too emotional because she is

(35:40):
a woman and women be emotional, and that her arc
would have to be her learning to control those emotions
and that's what like enables her to win. I think
the opposite happens, where she isn't very emotional at all
in the beginning of the movie, and then when she
starts to learn about her past and her former identity

(36:02):
and the fact that she had been betrayed by Jude
Law's character and all of that, and that she's reunited
with like her best friend and her bestmand's daughter like
in those scenes. Yeah, and then those things kind of
like humanize her, because up until that point, she had
been kind of like a like a stiff, you know,
like stoic hero type, and then she becomes more humanized

(36:27):
and more emotional, and that's what kind of leads her
to realize, oh, I've been stunted this whole time. There's
this fucking inhibitor chip that I need to break off.
And then right, yeah, yeah, So I'm glad that that's
how the story panned out, because I was, like I said,
I was worried that it was going to be, like,

(36:48):
you're so emotional and you're gonna need to learn to
control your emotions if you want to harness your power.
But that's just what Jude Law tells her over and
over again. And he's the villain because he's got resting
villain faith, he's got like yellow contexts, and so therefore
he's said, yeah, he's got jaundice, he can't be attracted
the first time I saw it twice. Also, the first

(37:11):
time I saw it, I had that issue as well.
I felt like in a number of places she seemed
very flat and controlled to me. And I am also
coming from a different perspective, which is, I've read all
these comics where from really when she's introduced all the
way up through today, she is emotional, she has a temper,

(37:34):
she punches first and asked questions later. She goes with
her gut all the time. She's very loving, but she's
also self righteous and funny, and you know, I mean,
she just doesn't take any crap anybody. So I was
assuming I was going to see that immediately, and I
was disappointed at first because I felt like what you said,

(37:55):
where you just kind of see it a little more
and a little more and a little more as it
goes along. And then I thought about it more before
I saw it the second time. In the second time,
I felt more like I could see what I think
they were trying to do, which is that, you know,
one of the first things she says is like she
makes a joke to Jude Law and he's like, humor
as a distraction, control yourself, and then she they're going

(38:17):
on a mission and she is joking and he comes
on and says, you know, stop that right now. So,
like she's always leaking out these little things and being
told to stop. And then when she gets to Earth,
it's different because like she can joke with Nick Fury
and whatever, and she can be emotional with So I
think that what they were trying to do is say,
you know this, this is who she is, but she's

(38:38):
been kept down in the beginning. Then whenever she's around Cree,
she can't show that, and she's been trained for six
years not to show it, but she can't help it
because this is who she is. She's human shaped by experience. Yeah,
so I think that's what they were going for, but
I agree with you that it's not always effective. It

(38:59):
will hold you away from her from grabbing onto her
um in the beginning, especially totally because well, so I
found myself expecting to have a much stronger emotional connection
to this movie, because at least when I saw like
Wonder Woman, I was like, oh my god, it's a
woman and she's kicking ass and she's walking through no

(39:21):
man's land and there's epic music and I'm just crying
and all this stuff. I didn't have any such emotional
connection to this movie I had Again, I had a
much stronger emotional connection to Spider Verse because I was
like crying at four different parts. I'm like laughing the
whole time. It's just like and then with with Captain Marvel,

(39:41):
I'm just like, Okay, it's cool that I'm seeing on
screen this like strong woman kicking ass. But I mean, yeah,
I guess my only counter argument to that would be,
like I felt, I felt more connected to her than
I ever have to like any male superhero. Maybe I
just need to see Spider Verse. But there, uh yeah,
it's it's weird. She I feel like she's almost as

(40:04):
emotionally detached as a male superhero can be, you know,
like it's I don't know, the bar is set so
high for the way this character is treated in this
movie because there are so few movies like it. I
guess there, it's it's weird. Now. I was listening back
to part of our Wonder Woman episode that we did,
and we were so excited and that movie came out.

(40:27):
But I rewatched Wonder Women, and as much as I
still enjoy that movie, there's like a lot of stuff
that that movie, you know, and everyone's going to compare
these two movies, which is unfair and just you know,
demonstrates a lack of probable. But you know, it's like
Wonder Woman, you got you, you have a makeover sequence,

(40:48):
you have a love story that resolves the plot, You've
got you know, there's a lot of it's weird. I
don't know, it's some it's some woman's When I was disappointed,
I'm like, oh, but I'm setting the atation so high
for this movie because there's just nothing I'll like it.
I don't know. There I wanted to be more emotionally
connected to her, but also I'm just like, but maybe

(41:10):
I don't know if that's asking more than I would
have a male superhero. I think the structure is a
big part of it, though, because normally, and on the
one hand, it's great that they took a chance with
a different kind of structure, like a flashback structure, and
she was trying to figure out who she is, I think,
but usually the structure for an origin story is you're
meeting this person as a regular person, and you're being

(41:31):
grounded in their everyday life and you're seeing well in
some cases that they're a good person and in other
cases they're you know, an arrogant millionaire and they have
to be brought down by something that's all the men
obviously there, or they're frozen in ice and they need
to be unfrozen. But you get the idea. So you
you kind of follow them in their everyday life and
you see that there's something heroic in them. And then

(41:54):
by the time they quote unquote get their powers or
they come into their heroism, you've been rooting for them
for an and a half, right, yeah, and you've been
you've been like invested in watching them grow and this
doesn't have that. It's not it's not linear totally, so
it can't within you kind of build and build and
build and build that you get more and more attached
to her, Right, Yeah, I think you're Yeah, you're really

(42:15):
touching on one of the main reasons I didn't find
myself really connecting with Carol Danver's the way again I
connected with Miles Morales and Spider Verse. But I'll stop
bringing him up. But it is the greatest movie of
all time. Um, I just love it so much. Um
we have to take another quick break, but we will

(42:37):
come back to discuss more We're bad. I Every time
I hit on a criticism like that, I'm like, but
if I saw this movie when I was seven, I
would be obsessed with her, absolutely obsessed with her. Caroline
you were pointing out earlier. The way that she's dressed

(42:59):
for the first time him makes sense things, aren't. She
wears layers at times, it's crazy. I was like, she's
got three layers on. She's wearing a flannel, a jacket
and a shirt and nails and a nine inch nails
shirt like all with but it was it was that

(43:21):
was like one thing. That's like, Okay, you did the
easiest possible thing you could do to make this story
makes sense. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for
not giving us uh makeover montage, a nineties inspired makeover montage,
because they could have done that. They did that in
World War two Wonder Woman, and that wasn't necessary and
they and they that's avoided here. I guess there's some

(43:44):
of what I like about this movie is not really
what it does, but don't Yeah, well, you know there
are five credited writers on this movie, and four of
them are women, and that is the first time of
all the DCM Marvel movies, right, the female co director
as well, um, which is like incredible, So it's we

(44:06):
sort of touched on this a little bit earlier. Something
it really did work for me in this movie was
the gas lighting narrative. I thought that was really done.
I didn't see that narrative coming of of you know,
I mean you can tell they're getting to some something
gas lighting adjacent when we keep seeing a net Benning
and we don't know who she is, and they're like, okay,

(44:27):
you know, she's not sure of her identity or history,
but the twist that she's been emotionally manipulated figures it
out and then is fucking furious. I don't know, I
just like that really hit with me, where she recognizes
that she has been misled and manipulated for so long,

(44:47):
she does not blame herself for it, which is huge
in a narrative like that because that's like where a
lot of people go in real life and seeing the
example set of like she's like, no, this isn't my fault,
but I need to make things right with the people
I have inadvertently wronged. And then she does that with

(45:08):
the scroll and and like, you know, it's like Okay,
this happened. I don't blame myself, but how can we
make things right? And she does. I don't know. I
just thought that that was like a very well handled
portion of this story. Yeah, and I liked that there
was a little nagging along with the gas lighting because
she says things like without us, you're weak and you're flawed,

(45:30):
and we made you strong, you know, right, which is
like more and more of the on the nosiness. But
I don't know, it worked for me, and that was, like,
I think maybe my one of my favorite storylines in
the movie was her navigating a gas lighting narrative and
coming out on top on her own terms. It was

(45:52):
really cool to watch. It was also cool to watch
the relationships between women in this movie. I almost wish
there was a little more of that because the other
female characters outside of Captain Marvel uh seems very much
relegated to the B or C characters where we've got,
you know, like her bff in this movie, besides um, sorry,

(46:16):
what's her name? The Maria Maria but like but her
like implied right hand man in this movie is Nick Fury.
The villain is Jude Law, the guy we think is
a villain, but that isn't a villain is also a man,
and I would argue those are the three, you know,
main characters beneath Captain Marvel and then underneath that isn't

(46:37):
net Benning. I'm Maria Rambo, and I wish I wish
that they had a little more prominence in the story.
And again it's like you only have so much space.
But I like her in Maria's relationship. I wish that
there were more purpose for Maria than to just you know,
give context for Captain Marvel. Yeah, she does, I suppose

(47:00):
have a little bit of a narrative significance toward the
end whenever she is like helping to pilot the aircraft
and then and then it's like in the battle, although
I feel like we don't really get to see much
of her like fighting or kicking ass. I hope. I mean,
I'm assuming we'll see her in the next movie as well.
Oh maybe, um um, I don't know. Well, do you

(47:23):
mean if there's a Captain Marvel too? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think that's possible. I agree with you in terms
of what you're saying about the tears of characters. But
there was a moment I was struck by where um,
they're flying to the floating lab and and who is
in that plane is Carol and Maria and Fury and Taylos.

(47:47):
And I just thought to myself, oh my god, half
of them are women and half of them are people
of color. Oh my god, that's true. This is shocking.
And the women are driving, one's piloting, um and I
loved the sidebar. I ran into a friend of the cast, EDGARL. Mompa,
was here at the screening of this movie, and he

(48:09):
was like Maria's kid, or Monica, Monica's I think she's
going to be a big part of Avengers four, like
he was just you. They do draw attention to Monica
in a way where it's like that she's like, I'm
going to be like you someday, and it's like, Okay,
she's gonna come back, right. But because because this takes
place in by the time she's wearing like present day

(48:30):
Avengers time, she's an adult. She's a millennial. Honey, what
what do you know about the character of Monica Rambo
in the comics? Do you know anything about her? I
read as much as I could of the chapter of
your book Caroline on of course on Captain Marvel, and
I saw a reference to Monica Rambo eventually becoming Captain

(48:55):
Marvel in some of the later comic books. So, so,
first Captain Marvel is Marvel, who is, you know, a
Net Benning, except in the comics he's a guy. But
he still had that kind of semi short gray hair.
So when they showed a Nette bending with the gray hair,
I was like, all right. But but then he dies
of cancer and he doesn't come back, which is unusual

(49:18):
in comics because everybody comes back from the dead. And
then in two Monica Rambo becomes the second Captain Marvel.
And it's not because she has anything to do with
the create. It actually doesn't really make a lot of sense,
but like she's a harbor Patrol lieutenant and blah blah blah,
explosion blah blah blah, and she basically has those kinds

(49:38):
of powers, and the media labels her Captain Marvel. And
then she meets the Avengers and they're like, why are
you calling yourself Captain Marvel And she's like, I don't
know they called me that, and they're like, well, you know,
our buddy Captain Marvel just died and She's like, no,
I didn't know that. Sorry. So so she's here. She's
the second Captain Marvel. Her outfit is white and black,

(50:00):
but it's this got that same star in the middle. Yeah.
Oh cool. She's got like natural hair, which is also nice.
That's for back then, and um. She leads the Avengers
like through into the nine into the like the late
eighties and whatever, and then in the nineties, suddenly Marvel's
son shows up and declares that he's Captain Marvel, and

(50:23):
Monica's like, Okay, I guess I'll call myself Photon instead
a man. I'm like, I'm Photon. But if Jamie Kennedy
comes along and he's like, my name has been Jamie
loft As this whole time, Like, fine, I'm Photon. So

(50:46):
that's why Maria Rambo on her plane, it said Maria
Photon Rambo. I think so probably what they're setting up
is that twenty years into the future, when the Avengers
movie is taking place, Monica would be the right age
to be Photona cool cool, okay, and to be glowing
and stuff like that. And so so she's Photon and

(51:08):
she works with other Avengers and all that kind of stuff,
and uh, at that time, Carol is still Miss Marvel,
and then there's all kinds of stuff that happens, and
she's an alcoholic and they made her an alcoholic, so
Tony Stark iron Man could be her a a sponsor.
Are so weird. There's drama and so it goes on

(51:33):
like that until two thousand twelve when they Relauncher as
Captain Marvel. So she's really the fourth Captain Marvel. Carol
and when they really started, I mean, it's the character
really took off very quickly, but there were definitely, and
understandably so Monica Rambo fans who were like, Carol Danvers
is not the first female Captain Marvel, Why aren't you

(51:54):
promoting Monica? Why are all your heroes white? You know?
So um So, when the mis Kelly Sue Deconic, who
really kind of launched this version of Captain Marvel that
you see in the movie, and she was a consultant
on the movie and had a cameo and stuff, she
made sure to kind of bring Monica Rambo into the
Captain Marvel comics. And there's this arc where the two
of them worked together and their buddies and they're on

(52:15):
a team together. Later and stuff, they should work all together, yeah,
Carolyn keep in every episode of Superheroes, this is the
context I crave. Yeah, happy to help with the crazy history,
but it is. I mean, it's very telling that whenever
these movies get adapted, the choices always usually seemed to be,

(52:37):
let's make sure our heroes are male, sis, hetero, white, right,
able bodied. Yeah. And when you look at the number,
I mean I sort of added him up, right. So
if you count all superhero movies from two thousand and
then even count the ones in development, about ten percent

(52:59):
star women. And and last I checked, our world was
not white, cis gender, non queer, non disabled men. Thank god,
no a nightmare. And it's it's actually about the same
for Superhero TV shows, the ones that are out now
and the ones that are coming in the next few years.

(53:20):
That's like star women, say, And it's about the same
number in superhero comics, very very very low. Yeah, still
a lot of under representation happening. And then, as I
kind of hinted at before the fact that I had
not heard of or was familiar with the Captain Marvel
character at all, one of the few women who has

(53:40):
her own comic book series in the Marvel universe at
least is telling of how the heads of the studios
and the creators of the comic books and all and
everything have the priority to like, you know, showcase. Here's
the incredible quote from Hollywood executive from a few years ago.

(54:02):
They can always counter pun uh quote do more lady stuff.
Bitches love lady stuff unquote. So you know, it's so
weird that that and I think that that is I
guess where more where I'm getting at with hashtag feminism
versus actual feminism of like, they're doing the right thing,

(54:23):
but they're like, because bitches love lady stuff and we'll
make five million dollars in three days, which I mean,
that's the game. That's the game. So that's what's gonna happen.
But yeah, the bitches love lady stuff at moments in
this movie has like I say, I see you, I
see you. Um. Yeah, they also did do better. I

(54:44):
just want to point out with with having more women
and men of color in the cast, I counted about
a third of the women or women of color and
about a quarter of the men or men of color
better than you rule, I would say, Yeah, I want
to make sure I'm getting her name right, Gemma chan Is.
She's not in this movie very very much. She's also

(55:06):
the one woman who doesn't like Captain Marvel, which it
did appreciate. Uh. You see, I feel like sometimes in
movies that heavily feature women, especially for like the largest
possible audience, women are sort of all painted with one brush.
They all get along, They're like, oh, we're all on
the same team, like which we are, but we're all

(55:27):
different people, and so it was weirdly refreshing to me too.
So she plays Minerva, she's one of the cree bad guys. Yeah,
she's a cree and she does not like Carol at
any point in the movie, and all other interactions was
the whatever. There's like that very superhero we exchange during
a fight where Carol is like, is this why we

(55:49):
didn't hang out? And then Minerva is like, no, I
just didn't like you, and then they keep fighting, which
is so silly, But it's like, I do appreciate when
care is taken to, you know, show women having different
kinds of relationships. You've got the professional relationship of Marvel
and Carol, You've got the close friendship with her and Maria,

(56:12):
and then you've got like a contentious work place, right,
relationship with Minerva. There's always room for more, but but
it was nice to see kind of different kinds of relationships.
And then also like the kind of like Carol ends
up acting is like sort of like a surrogate co
parent of like Monica. And the fact that, um, most

(56:36):
of the women in this movie, in fact, with the
exception of Monica, who is a child, um, all of
the women in this movie are either military or women
in stem or both. So and we scientific right, Yeah,
so you know, you've got scientists, you've got soldiers, you've
got roles that you don't usually see women occupying in movies.

(56:59):
So that was pretty cool. There's also the line that
Maria says when Carol is like rediscovering her identity as
Carol Danvers. Maria says, the Air Force wasn't letting women
fly combat back then, so testing Lawson's plan was the
only way to fly. So they were like the you know,
the patriarchy was not letting women do things, so they

(57:21):
found ways to get around it. And you know, I
was like, cool, I'm glad that you did that. Yeah,
were there any other big stuff you wanted to discuss?
I wanted to say a word about amnesia. Sure, great, Um,
I think that sometimes that can be kind of a
feminized sort of state to be in, you know, sort

(57:44):
of gets linked with women not knowing their own minds
and stuff in fiction. But it is true that it
is part of her history. She's had amnesia at least
three times in the comics. Oh boy, girl, I know.
I know. When she is first Ms Marvel, she would
like turn into Miss Marvel and do superheroic stuff, and

(58:05):
then when she turned back to Carol and then she
has to reconcile that. Then there's another time. This is
kind of the X Men related time where Rogue. You
know Rogue, right, So if she touches you, she absorbs
your power. So when Rogue first appeared, she wasn't a hero,
she was a villain um with mystique like her her

(58:28):
adopted mother, and uh, Rogue absorbs Carol's power and her memories.
And then Carol is invited to join the X Men,
but she doesn't because they also basically asked Rogue to join,
and she's like, um, she took my life away, why
would I want to stay here with her? And the
guys are jerks, so then she has to build her

(58:48):
memories back up, and then the third time is Um
more recently, where she basically has to lose her memory
to save the Earth. It's a little more convoluted, but
jon Rog seems to come back and she has to
fly up into space and basically have her brain kind
of explode in order to save everybody. She has Ama

(59:09):
after that too. One of the unique challenges with with
adaptations like this is it's like you have this strong
core of female writers directors on the movie, but you're
still adapting a character whose origin story was written and
illustrated by men. So it's I'm glad that there were

(59:30):
deviations from the canonical lore because it's like clearly it's
like however well intentioned, you know, the deep seated ship
gets in there, and it sounds like the the amnesia
might be one of those things, and it's yeah, it's
it's weird having to I mean and even and I

(59:52):
think it's like even more apparent in a character like
Wonder Woman Um that makes it as relevant as those
characters are to our culture. It's there's stuff in the
d n A of the character that is is very
passive aggressive, perhaps yeah, speaking of um men creating these
stories largely, Caroline. I borrowed this quote from your book

(01:00:14):
from Jerry Conway, who his role as it pertains to
Captain or Miss Marvel is did he create it or
he didn't create the character, but he launched the Miss
Marvel comic Ina got it? So he says in response
to people being like, hey, why are you a man

(01:00:38):
writing this female character? And he says, at the moment,
there are no thoroughly trained and qualified women writers working
in the superhero comics field. Reason two is more personal.
A man is writing this book because a man wants
to write this book. Me Reacon three, why not a man?
If the women's liberation movement means anything, it's a battle

(01:01:00):
for equality of the sexes. And it's my contention that
a man properly motivated and aware of the pitfalls can
write a woman character as well as a woman. So
that's what our friend Jerry Conway has to say about that.
And you know, he's ignoring a lot of his privilege

(01:01:21):
and stuff when he says something like that, there's a
great fun Jerry joke in there. So yeah, and I
think I think that, like a lot of the guys
working at both Marvel, and I'm not saying all of
them by any means, but I do think there were
a number of them at the time that saw themselves

(01:01:42):
as liberal, progressive guys. You know, they were, they were
like New York City progressive guys. But like many people
in the civil rights movements, UM did not necessarily quite
understand all the different dimensions of gender inequalities. And what's
painful to me is that even today, so it's like

(01:02:02):
forty years after he writes this thing, Um, there are
still people in the big comics companies who are like,
we want to hire more women and people of color,
but you know, they're just not out there, and it's like,
how can you keep how can you keep saying this?
You know, I mean they just they tend to hire
who they know, and they tend to mentor people who

(01:02:23):
look like them, which is very common. People tend to
make people who remind them of themselves at a younger age.
But it just means they're reproducing that skew in who's
behind the scenes, like over and over, it's a little
bit better, but you know, a little bit better means
that maybe now I don't know, ten percent of Superhero
comics are written or drawn by women. And it was

(01:02:46):
five ten years ago, and it was two percent ten
years before that. So yeah, their growth is tremendous, but
it's growth from a very small number to a small
number slow. Okay, I do want to mention just one
other thing quickly. As I was concerned about I was

(01:03:07):
concerned how they would handle the military aspect. You know
that she's so imbued with being in the Air Force
and it's such a part of her identity and everything.
I mean, she is always painted as someone who has
a strong sense of duty, but who will buck orders
if she feels like she should do that. But I
was worried that it would wind up being too militaristic

(01:03:29):
or too much a celebration of military solutions, and I
think they managed to to not do that so much.
I think that they tried to show, you know, these
are the costs of war, and this is what happens
when you have too much of a military hierarchy where
people are just following orders and not questioning them and
stuff like that. Did you feel that way, Yeah? I

(01:03:50):
think so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if anyone was so
stupid to give this movie to someone like Michael bay
to direct. I think that would not have been handled well.
But yeah, I felt nothing about the portrayal of anything
about the military struck me as being to glorify, like

(01:04:10):
glorification or anything like that. So no, no, I I
liked how it was treated. I don't know, it seemed
especially it's like, if this is the story, what is
the most responsible way to tackle it? And it felt
like that that route was taken. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah I liked this movie. Good damn it? What a

(01:04:31):
what a soundtrack to I mean, as a as a
nineties kid, I was like, you fell for it. I
felt for it. I can't help it. You know. It
was a good sound track. So, hey, does this movie
pass the Bechtel test Flying Colors? It does. Yeah, there's
a lot of different combinations of characters also, who talked

(01:04:53):
to each other that passed. We've got Carol Danvers and Maria.
We've got her and Maria's daughter, Monica. We've got Maria
and Monica. We've got Carol Denver's and Wendy Lawson. You know,
they're talking about the Air Force, they're talking about their work,
their friendships. Um, setting a good example. We didn't really

(01:05:14):
touch about parenting. Yeah, they talk about everything, and there's
one like the world. They're almost like how women just
talk about stuff other than men all the time. There's
even a short exchange where the grandparents arrived to babysit Monica,
which they totally didn't have to do, so I appreciated

(01:05:34):
that they did it. And the grandparents arrived and the
grandmother is like, what's going on? And Maria is like,
thanks to combin mama or whatever. Oh I somehow missed that.
I was probably too busy writing notes because I'm such
a note head. But there is more. It's more of
a monologue. But there's a scene where Maria is telling

(01:05:56):
Carol like how strong she is and how awesome she
is eve and before she had you know, fire hands,
and we just like so rarely see like women lifting
up other women in stories that I was like, that's awesome.
I really liked that scene. It's nice. Yeah, yeah, passes
uh pretty handily. This movie. Let's rate it on a

(01:06:19):
nipple scale, all right, chelmy, zero to five nipples based
on its portrayal and representation of women. I think this
is like a solid four point five. It misses a
lot of the tropes and stereotypes that we've seen of
women thus far in super hero movies, and that's largely
because it's a woman driving the narrative, a woman whose

(01:06:42):
emotional journey and whose powers we are learning about and exploring.
And yeah, there's no, it doesn't fall into the traps
of like a love story has to be there, and
it's like, no, it doesn't. There's no makeover scene as
we just got stuff like that. So I think it
handles a lot of things. Well, I think I'm taking

(01:07:02):
off a slight bit of nippleage for the fact that,
as we discussed after Carol Danvers, the three core characters
are still men, and while she does interact with women
a lot, we don't know those characters as well, and
they don't have as much significance narratively as the male characters. Um,

(01:07:25):
so I think some justice could have been made to
make more of the female characters a little bit more
prominent in the story. But yeah, I think uh, I
think it's it's pretty cool. I like that a lot
of the main characters who we do get to meet
our people of color. I mean, there's no queer representation.
But it's also a pretty a sexual movie. So yeah,
there's no you know, queer romance, but there's no head

(01:07:47):
of roll romance either, so there's just no romance. So
that's all those Some people on the internet are reading
Carol and Maria as being oh, they're shipping that relationship. Okay,
I'm down for that. I mean they're already basically raising
a kid together, so there there and and uh it

(01:08:09):
stated outright that they're her family. I like that. So yeah,
four point five nipples and um each and everyone goes
to of course goose the flirkin. I'll go for on this.
I think I think that this movie is great for
the like next generation of movie goers. I'm really excited

(01:08:32):
for kids who get to see this movie, and I'm
jealous of them. I wish that there had been more
movies like this to to watch when we were when
the little youngsters, well we were tykes. I think that
general cultural impact is good. I'm really happy about it.
I do the nippicky things that sort of frustrated me

(01:08:54):
a little bit. Um was the general approach. I I
just it seemed some of the problems of that I
have with it are in the d n A of
the character that was written by men decades and decades ago,
but just the like, look, girl can do what boy do?
I kind of wish we were past that, um. And

(01:09:17):
it's a point that's been made handily so many times,
and I know that there's still such a large swath
of the world that doesn't believe it, um. But I
just the I don't love that being at the core
of a story I wouldn't like if I you know,
I would love for a daughter, niece, whatever of mine
to see an empowered female character that doesn't need to

(01:09:41):
constantly proove for skills against a man um but just
you know, moved through the world as a skilled, capable person,
and so that that was one thing that I didn't love.
But I don't I don't know how that could have
been avoided given how the character set up. I agree.
I think that because this is such a mainstream movie,

(01:10:02):
as all MCU movies are going to be, and a
lot of people who were seeing them are like, you know,
like in Cell idiot boys who were like, I think
they need to be spoon fed. Yeah. I also don't
know if any of those insults were mind were changed,
probably not by this, but they're they're just from my

(01:10:22):
super nitpicky standpoint that that was something that I was like.
Same with the second tier male characters. Yeah, I wish
that the secondary female character has had a little more prominence,
but the fact that they were there, I mean, I
liked its progress. Yeah, a lot of crawling this movie.
I love brill Larson. I enjoyed her performance. I love

(01:10:45):
who she is, what she stands for. She's got a
goddamn mosk arright now she's in the m c U.
She's making she's she's making it. She's great. I also
like that there is a lot of female representation behind
the camera in this movie. You've got a female co director,
you got majority female writers, you have a female composer,
a female co editor. So there are women involved at

(01:11:08):
every level in this movie, and I think it shows. Um. Yeah,
I'll give four nipples. I gave to to Captain Marvel,
and I'll give to to Maria. And I do think
Alvin Billina should have been Ben Mendelsohn's character. Well, I
agree with everything that you said, so I guess I'll

(01:11:30):
split the difference and say four and a quarter nipples.
Right on. I feel like I'd like to give them
all to the cat but well he's got five, you know,
some odd left. Yeah, I give a full set of
eight to the cat, to the clerkin. Excuse me, yes, no,
I mean I would. I'll give one to Brie Larson

(01:11:51):
and one to Lashana Lynch, one to Annette Benning, and
one too. I can't remember the little girl's name that
plays Monica. I feel bad about that, but um so
I'm holding back three quarters of a nipple. Why am
I doing that? Okay, I'm holding back one quarter because
when I went to IMDb and counted up all the
characters credited and uncredited, I discovered that there were seventeen

(01:12:16):
women and fifty two men, so that overall overall the
cast is women. So points taken off for that better Marvel.
But I agree with everything you said about the centralized
cast being more diverse and more you know, female centered,

(01:12:37):
and I liked that there was pretty good representation of
men and women of color too. I liked the lack
of sexualization and the lack of head of romance, and
that this was a story that I agree it's more
of a crawling than a running, but it maybe isn't
necessary first step to kind of bring people along a

(01:12:58):
little bit not the three of us, but others who
maybe are wavering a little bit on the idea of
women having actual strength. Um, so I'll hold back another
quarter of a nipple for what you said about how
after Captain Marvel. Really the other two stars are Samuel L.
Jackson and Jude law Right and and Taylor's and then

(01:13:19):
I'll hold back my third quarter of a nipple because feminist,
I kinda for Molina should have been tables. Yeah, missed opportunity.
I mean, that's the real main conversation around this movie
is like, where was the Molina offer? Unbelievable? Well yeah,
but overall I really thought they did a great job

(01:13:41):
trying to juggle a lot of things and please a
number of different audiences. Yeah, and and it's great that.
I mean as of this recording. We're recording this Tuesday
after it came out, and it just hit five million dollars.
It's doing you super well. These movies always do super well. Yes, Meg,
more of them. This is the biggest worldwide opening of
all time for a female starring film. Amazing. The number

(01:14:06):
one domestic female starring film is still Beauty and the Beast. Okay,
crawling action. It was Beauty and the Beast worldwide too,
but Captain Marble made more worldwide, and it's also the
second largest worldwide opening among superhero movies. The first was
Avengers Infinity War. That's great. Yeah, that's I mean, that's

(01:14:29):
very encouraging, and I hope that studios will take this
to heart and realize that they need to make more
movies about superheroes who are women and then also just
diversify that as well and include women of color and
queer women and other marginalized groups. I really hope that

(01:14:50):
we get a movie with Monica. Now, it was like, yay,
that would be great. That was fun. I was glad
that I want that. Now I'm like, oh cool. They
they went out of the way to set it up.
I want them to like reboot Avengers, like but hear
me out, so you don't. I'm exhausted. The Avengers will
be Monica Rambo sure from Black Panther, fucking Tessa Thompson's

(01:15:16):
character and Thor Ragnarok like all those awesome women who
and Miles Morales and Miles Morales. Yes, so like let's
get that cast out there and uh see that movie
and the new Miss Marvel um oh, who's I think
a Pakistani woman is Kamala Khan. And with within the comics,

(01:15:38):
she is like a regular girl who looks up to
Captain Marvel within the universe, and that's why she takes
the name Miss Marvel. She's inspired like her. That's been
been like a worldwide hit. It was, at least for
a while it was Marvel's number one international digital seller,
and it sort of did all these ideas like you

(01:15:59):
can't introduce a new character. You can introduce a female character,
you can introduce a character of color, You certainly can
introduce a character who's not Christian. But the Newman's Marvel
is all of that and selling like crazy awesome. I
love it. Can't wait for the movie it's going to
happen because it's like it's like Hollywood. You know, Hollywood
really changed his tune. It used to say, hey, women

(01:16:19):
need to be in subservient rules, and now look at them.
They're saying bitches love lady stuff. Progress. Look at that
progressive statement or ladies love bitches stuff. Yeah, oh yeah,
I love stuff. Give it a few years that too, well. Caroline,
thank you so much for coming on the pod and

(01:16:39):
chatting with us, sharing your expertise. Thanks so much for
having me. I love this show, of course. What would
you like to plug? And where can people find you online? Oh?
Geez um, I do have a Twitter account which is
at Caroline Coca, which I honestly never used, so someone,
if someone wanted to get hold of me, you should
really email on me. So it's Coca Cee my last

(01:17:02):
name and first initial at Old Westbury dot E d U.
Stuff that I'm working on now isn't really out yet
to be seen, so I guess I would just mention
again that I wrote this book called Superwomen, Gender Power
and Representation, and that it is a history of seventy
five years of female superheroes with some really deep dive

(01:17:24):
focus on wonder Woman, bat Girl, Captain Marvel, the women
of Star Wars, the women of the X Men, and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, by that book, it is incredible.
And yeah, thanks again for coming on, and thank the
to our listeners out there. Thanks for listening. Uh. You

(01:17:45):
can follow us on social media at all the usual
places at bectel Cast. You can buy our merch at
t public dot com, slash the bectol Cast, and we
have a promotion going on in which we are fundraising
for an organization called Black Girls Code. Um So, if

(01:18:06):
you buy our Rise of the Matriarchy shirt that can
be found at t public dot com, slash stores, slash Bechtel,
dash Cast, dash cares. I know that's a lot, but
it's on our like Twitter, and we'll make sure it's
very accessible for people to find. Um So, yeah, by

(01:18:26):
that Rise of the Matriarchy design and proceeds go to
Black Girl's Code. You can also sign up for our
Matreon a k Patreon by going to patreon dot com,
slash Bechtel Cast and it's five dollars a month and
you get to bonus episodes every month. So yeah, thank
you a getting Carolin, we really appreciate. Thank you, and
make sure just to pet your family florkin today, but

(01:18:52):
don't hold them up near your eye. Yes, no, don't
do that. But yeah, we'll see you next week. Bye
bye