Mark with an X

In 1899, Kate Chopin’s ‘The Awakening’ caused, upon publication, something of a scandal. It is, after all, the story of a married woman – with two young sons – realising that there may be more to life than slavish adherence to the societal norms that bind her to a husband she has always obeyed more out of habit than devotion. Edna Pontellier ends her narrative by committing suicide – Chopin’s concession to a convention that dictates that such an out-of-control woman must be seen to pay for her transgressions. It is inconceivable that Edna survive the conclusion of the novel for this would legitamise her adultery and, thus, unhinge the very fabric of society.

The novel bears the title it does because we get to see the progression of Edna’s journey from the stultifying monotony of marriage to the transgressive act of adultery – we are eyewitnesses to her awakening as a sensual woman who needs to feel.

It is no accident that, at the beginning of 2019’s ‘Captain Marvel’, Vers is instructed, by her mentor, Yon-Rogg, to stop using her feelings and use her rationality instead. A woman who feels is, to the male of the species, a dangerous creature indeed.

It has to be said that this actually forms the major criticism of the movie. Whether it be Christy Lemire at rogerebert.com or Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Reviews, Vers/Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel spends the duration of the film in a “state of uncertainty, serving up a shallow relief rather than [a] strong personality” – to quote the latter. After Steve Rogers, Thor and Tony Stark, this superhero movie is seen, due to the lack of weight of its central figure, as a mere gap-filler on the way to Avengers: Endgame. I would argue, rather, that what we have is a character study of some depth, an awakening akin to Chopin’s Edna Pontellier. Carol Danvers lacks definition because she has always allowed herself to be dominated by those men who would have her rational rather than feeling. They fear her strength – as the male has always feared the strength of the female – and so seek to convince her that the female as male is her way to fully discover her potential. A goal which, obviously, will serve his ends rather than hers.

Having Carol Danvers spend much of the film as an amnesiac not only enables the viewer to get to know her milieu, it makes it inevitable that there will be an awakening, a truly female becoming which takes a significantly longer period of time than what we have come to expect from the male superheroes who came before. Peter Parker is bitten by a spider and becomes Spider-Man; Steve Rogers is given the serum and becomes Captain America; Tony Stark is blown up and becomes (though, over a slightly longer period of time) Iron Man. These men – as is the way of men – just become, with a minimum of confusion, the hero. They have thousands of years of male-dominated culture on their side, which dictates that to delay is to fail – Leonidas may have led his 300 Spartans to certain death, but he did so without hesitation, without consideration for the future, without a feeling for anything except glory.

Biologically, instant gratification is more readily available to the male; the female requires time and deliberate consideration. While it may not be the preferred method, nevertheless, the biological cannot be ignored. Ignore the biology of the planet and we have climate change and the immanent destruction of the entire human race. The female has a biological need to consider the future; the male does not. All the statistics prove that women are safer drivers (though the media will often swap ‘safer’ for ‘better’). The primary reason being that the male simply does not have the same sense of future that the female has. He is far more likely to risk his life for a moment of instant gratification than she is; for instant gratification is what his biology leads him to expect. She, on the other hand, must, by biological necessity, put off gratification, for she needs to take the fate of others into account.

To allow the female lead in a movie – even a superhero movie – to take so long to come to terms with her new reality is precisely what we should expect. That we may not be prepared to do so only shows just how dominated by the male gaze superhero movies are. To be able to watch Carol Danvers taking whatever time she needs in order to discover who she is requires the willingness to allow a woman the freedom to express that strength which the male has always tried to deny her.

To watch ‘Captain Marvel’ is to be thrown into the midst of a life without definition, a life that is determined by outside forces. Granted, it may make its feminist leanings a little too obvious, but to say that it is a problem with the film that the audience is unable to identify with the character because she herself doesn’t know who she is serves only to highlight that what is wanted is a male superhero in the shape of a woman. It seems to me that there is little point being excited at the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film with a female lead if that lead is supposed to embody all the exact same characteristics as every other MCU lead. Because this is an action flick, it is necessary that Carol Danvers (or Vers) be involved in the action from the start (“Wanna fight?”). What is particularly female about her is that her full power is curtailed by a device of the male which keeps her powers subdued. It is also spectacularly accurate to depict her as only coming into her full power late on in the movie, for women tend to take much longer to reach the point of inflicting grievous physical harm.

Research shows that, while women will indulge in various forms of indirect aggression, “[g]lobally, men are more violent than women”. This indirect aggression takes the form of “spreading false rumours, gossiping [and] excluding others from a social group” – behaviours which, while hurtful, hardly equate to a punch in the face! Carol Danvers does punch and is willing to use what power she is able to access to win a fight. And why the Hell shouldn’t she? That she spends much of the movie directing that power in the wrong direction is merely a consequence of her human need to trust those around her, to belong, to be willing to trust those who appear worthy of her loyalty. This isn’t just woman; this is man as well. Whether male or female, how many times do we think we have found that friend, lover or soul mate only to find out – too late – that we have sold ourselves to the Devil? That Carol Danvers is finally able to break free of those chains which bind us despite our freedom, is what makes her a real superhero.