It was 2018 when the first trailer for Captain Marvel came out. I remember it very clearly because my mom recorded the trailer that came on Good Morning America and sent it to me while I was on the train on my way to school.
It had flashy special effects, a killer background score that made you feel like you were soaring the skies with Carol Danvers and wall-to-wall 90s nostalgia. I liked it. It was thrilling to see a new superhero in my favorite cinematic universe that was so powerful and so grand. That, along with the extraterrestrial elements of the movie expanding the cosmic side of the universe, made for a treat that I was going to be seated for. I’m not going to sit here and say that the movie was my favorite movie ever or that it was the biggest, most important movie in the history of Hollywood. But it was a good, enjoyable movie and Carol Danvers kicked ass.
So imagine my surprise when I found out that a corner of the internet not only did not like the movie but actively hated it. I’m not talking about simply disliking the movie. I’m talking about videos dedicated to tearing the movie apart. Comments ranged from criticizing the way Brie Larson looked and acted in the movie to actively calling for the cancellation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for its depicted bashing of men within the film. The backlash from that corner of the internet was so big that Rotten Tomatoes, the world’s go-to website for movie reviews, had to change its policy regarding audience reviews because of the number of people leaving negative reviews for the movie before it even opened.
Captain Marvel still ended up making over a billion dollars at the box office when it came out in 2019. But the hate it had to endure is still palpable to this day. That was almost five years ago. Nowadays, there’s been this constant term that keeps coming up in the conversations regarding representation within politics and within the entertainment industry by critics and supporters alike: Woke.
Merriam-Webster defines “woke” as being “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” So why is it so problematic to be woke? It all boils down to the dynamics of power in society. The way that it has been structured within the entertainment space for decades has not allowed women and minorities to have a spotlight. And now that they do, it’s a threat. A dangerous threat.
Take into account what’s happening with The Little Mermaid remake, for example. Halle Bailey was cast as the titular character and the internet lost their mind because the original character went from being white in animation to being black in live action. A mermaid. A fantasy creature.
In one of the videos I found talking about how the change of skin color is a bad thing, I stumbled across a number of comments that talked about how changing Ariel’s skin color is against “tradition,” and it was nothing but a ploy by Disney to push an agenda. The more I kept scrolling, the more my head started to hurt because the criticisms against Disney turned into racist rants and comments with double meanings, such as someone comparing a white person marrying a Black person to “agreeing to a life of welfare and blaming every other race.”
But then I stumbled across a person who talked about how his dad distrusted Black people and thought they were lazy. And that when he went to work in the city, all the stereotypes he knew were confirmed. He ended the comment by saying how the “woke crap creates racism and does nothing to stop it.” The woke crap being the movie with the Black mermaid. I’m inclined to believe that this person grew up in a household where hip-hop was probably considered bad music. I am also inclined to believe that this person’s grandparents probably preferred things “the way they were” in the old days.
What I undoubtedly know, though, is that this person’s comment is just a taste of the internalized racism that is rampant in America and that comes out in spaces like that comment section. Spaces where people can say whatever they please from the safety of their room, which is cowardly.
At the end of the day, the people who bash content online for including minorities as protagonists show through their callous and negative comments a reflection of who they are and their narrow perspective on the world around them. In their eyes, being aware of societal issues is a direct attack against their status quo. An attack against the foundations that have kept them safe from criticism and accountability. And the more content that comes out, the more those foundations crumble and their power pedestals are no more.
Those types of people are scared at the idea of a black woman shown to be a happy princess on the big screen. They are scared at the idea of a gay superhero joining other well-known superheroes in battle. They know that if that’s the image their children see on the big screen, their generational chain of bigotry and judgment breaks.
That is good. Because for decades, the entertainment industry has made it the norm that people of color, queer people and women weren’t able to be the superhero or the protagonist. No. They were relegated to supporting roles, if they were even accounted for, to begin with. And yet anger wasn’t a factor. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t known to the mainstream public.
Just as the internet has allowed bigots online who anonymously criticize companies for pushing an agenda to be loud, it also has allowed minorities to be louder about their anger and frustration at the fact that there just wasn’t enough being done in terms of inclusivity. And that anger has led to change when it comes to who is in front and behind the camera. It has allowed people to show a variety of stories in different mediums that show their struggles, their victories, their defeats…At the end of the day, this new wave of inclusivity in Hollywood is one of the greatest gifts in the history of the industry.
This is by no means a way to say that exclusively inclusive stories should be everything Hollywood makes for the rest of eternity and that every box should be ticked off in every single movie being produced. That would just be empty and not a meaningful representation. But spending time angering over the wins that minorities have in terms of representation is not only unproductive but an annoyance. Newsflash: Minorities exist. Women exist. Move on. Now, is being woke something that people should be scared of? No, it’s not. At the end of the day, being woke is, at its core, calling for a fair seat at the table. What people should really be scared of is the fact that there are still people out there who believe that interracial marriage is the equivalent of living off welfare. Now that is way more terrifying than a black mermaid or a gay superhero.
Fast forward to April 2023, and the teaser trailer for The Marvels, the sequel to Captain Marvel, is already causing a stir online within the now-gargantuan corner of the internet that targets any content relating to women and people of color. The Marvels not only stars a woman this time around but two other women of color co-starring! Women! Plural! So that corner of the internet had a field day bashing the new movie as “woke.” Let them. Let them release their anger. Because history has proven that the people who live stuck in the past don’t last long. The world moves forward, and it’ll do so with or without them. Those types of people feel their control and their power slipping through their fingers, and there’s nothing they can do about it but complain on the internet.
And at the end of the day, if you spend your day being angry about a trio of powerful women shooting cosmic beams through their hands, then good luck trying to live in the real world, buddy.
Words by Guillermo Fuentes
Guillermo Fuentes is an undergraduate student residing in New York City with a passion for blockbuster cinema and journalism. He has a background in film production and video editing as a graduate of the Academy for Careers in Television and Film. He has written multiple pieces, including reviews and profiles, as a journalism minor and is on the process of learning to develop feature films as a film major at CUNY Hunter College. A Spanish-Ecuadorian immigrant, Guillermo hopes to one day be able to bring more awareness to the immigrant experience in the United States through audio-visual media as well as work with major film studios to promote equity in the entertainment industry.
