I started hearing rumors the last week or so that the opening weekend projections for Captain Marvel were down by about $80 Million and had no idea why. From what I had seen it looked awesome and seemed like the final piece to finish out the Thanos story in the MCU. So the past few days I've seen a TON of YouTube videos and I get why there is some tension going on. I want to say upfront that I have my ticket to see this movie opening night and I'm very excited for it, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything Brie Larson has said over the past few months. Let's talk a bit about it and I want to give my take on everything.
It seems like this all started at the Crystal + Lucy Awards in June last year. While she was on stage accepting her award she made some comments that really bothered people. And I'm assuming I heard about this but, I'm gonna be honest, I guess I forgot about the comments after they happened. She talked about not caring what 40-year-old white guys thought about the bad reviews for A Wrinkle in Time and went on to talk about the low number of women, especially women of color, who were reviewing movies as a profession. She said that she didn't hate white dudes a few times almost to the point of sarcasm and felt like she was just saying that to say it. I want to get all the backstory first then I'll start giving my opinions on things so I want to go to the press that has started coming out about the movie.
Reports came out about Brie saying that she wanted fewer white men on the Captain Marvel press tour ahead of it starting a few weeks ago. She said that she didn't want to take away anyone from the table but just add more chairs to it when she was asked about her comments. She also said that she didn't remember what she said or what people wrote about her comments a few months ago at the awards show. And all that lead to people going to Rotten Tomatoes and flooding the viewer section if they wanted to see the movie or not with negative comments and saying they didn't want to see it. It got down to around 27% and RT came in and actually took that feature away from the site. They said they felt like it was getting a lot of trolls commenting on movies before they were released. Once the movie is out the viewer review section will still be there but just not before a movie comes out. Ok...now that we all know what's got everyone talking over the past few days I want to give my thoughts.
Let's start with the boring most expected thing to say and that's that I get where she is coming from and agree with her to an extent. There does need to be more diversity in the film critic field so we can have a lot of different valid opinions. So if there is something going on dealing with racism or a character being sexist in a movie it would be good to hear from someone of color or a woman with those things. Having said that though, my opinion still matters as well. As a straight white guy I love movies and have opinions on them, hence why I have this blog. It seems a bit like we are headed down the path of white men being the enemy for most things like this. That 40-year-old who had opinions on A Wrinkle in Time is just as important and valued as a black woman's opinion of the movie. Now I get that there are people out there that hate on things just to hate on them and I'm not talking about those people, I don't care what their opinions are. No matter the subject matter, everyone should be allowed to have a reasonable opinion on it. To me true equality is welcoming everyone and not caring if someone is male/female or what their skin color is. Your opinion matters, my opinion matters.
To me, it seems like if you're a white guy and have an opinion on something then you are being shutdown with an almost revenge-like attitude about it. And by opinion I mean not agreeing with everything someone has to say when talking about females and people of color. But there is a double president in that women and people of color can say the most sexist/racist stuff and we have to give them respect and listen to them without opposition. Like imagine if Jude Law, who is also in Captain Marvel, said he wanted to see less black women on the press tour and also added that he didn't hate black chicks. He would be getting crucified for that and rightfully so. Racism can go both ways and it seems we don't treat it as such. So I feel that if Brie Larson wants to make statements like she has then she should have to face the consequences for them as well. This notion that women have less opportunities than men in 2019 is something I just don't understand. In my life I have seen the opposite with the people I am/have been friends with lately. And I'm not saying that's it's always been that way because it hasn't, but I can't think of a legit thing that women are bared from doing in 2019 that men can.
Now having said all that I do think that people overreact to things like this. I remember when The Last Jedi came out people were doing this same thing with the same section on Rotten Tomatoes. I personally loved The Last Jedi but understood that it was different but felt it didn't warrant a flip out like we got. In a way I think it's good that people can't downplay a movie before release like that anymore but it does feel a bit like they are censoring people at the same time. Cause if you have a valid reason for not wanting to see a movie then you should be free to voice that opinion and have the studio see it. I'm hoping this will result in a few new sites popping up that focus on the audience's perspective of movies or even encourage more people to write about/make YouTube videos. Cause this site and YouTube are both free and it's only a matter of want with making that kind of stuff.
I want to close this by saying that I'm still excited to see the movie and honestly think it's going to be a lot of fun and I want to learn about the character cause I don't know much about Captain Marvel. I'm one of those people that has no problem separating an actor/actress from their movies. I think Scientology is F-ing nuts but I still love me some Tom Cruise action movies! I was hesitant to post this because I normally remain in the middle with this kind of stuff but I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and voice my honest opinion about all this. I apologize about the lack of pictures for this, I wanted my words to be the draw instead of doing multiple pictures like I normally do. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good one!
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