Fans have created yet another petition to have Brie Larson removed and replaced as Captain Marvel. Why? Because they don’t like the color of her skin. In fact, they want her to be replaced with a person of color and she has to be gay too.
The petition, that can be found on ThePetitionSite.com has the following to say about all this:
We need Brie Larson to step down from her role to prove she is an ally of social justice and ensure a gay woman of color plays the role. Let Monica, the original female & BLACK Captain Marvel instead of white-washing characters for the benefit of the straight, white men running Disney. She hasn’t donated money to any charity other than The Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation (https://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/brie-larson) and it’s time for her to show she is not all-talk.
Captain Marvel subject of controversy
And it is not the first time that Ms. Larson has been the subject of controversy among so called Marvel fans. Rumors were spread that she couldn’t get along with her co-stars on the set of Avengers: Endgame and she wasn’t smiling enough according to the fans.
The sad part is that Marvel is one of the biggest advocates of diversity. When you back in history, Marvel was among the first to include black superheroes in the form of Luke Cage and Black Panther. They never went out of their way to create discussions about drug abuse in the 1970s, even defying the Comicbook Code back then by printing without their seal of approval.
When you consider Kevin Feige’s plans with Captain Marvel, I doubt that the petition has a real shot of having Brie removed. In fact, Captain Marvel plays an integral role in the upcoming fourth phase called Marvel Cosmic Phase. The petition has about 30.000 signers at the time of writing.
Brie Larson speaks out about controversy
When asked about the controversies Brie Larson had the following to say:
“They did? Oh. I didn’t even know,” Larson began. “I don’t have time for it, you know? The things that I have extra time to really look at are, like: am I eating healthy food? Am I drinking water? Am I meditating? Have I called my mom today?”
“More recently, I guess maybe it’s because of Captain Marvel, I’ve had a lot of journalists be, like, ‘How often do you Google yourself?’ I’m, like, ‘I’ve never Googled myself,'” Larson revealed. “I have genuinely never needed to look at the internet to explain to me who I am. I’m extremely committed to that in my day-to-day life! There is really nothing more pleasurable to me than observing my mind. And interrogating myself. It is a thing I’ve done since I was a child. And I will do for as long as I can. And I’ve also been super committed to having people in my life that I believe if I start veering too far in a direction, and I need to change something or work on something, that they’ll take me to dinner and be, like, ‘Hey! I’m noticing this, I feel like you should look at that.’ So I trust that, and I trust my experience.”
What do I think about it?
Fans will always disagree on a certain casting. Remember when it was announced that Ben Affleck was going to be the new Batman? He was even warned about the backlash by Warner Brothers. And it turns out that Batfleck was the best Batman.
Even Robert Downey jr’s casting as Iron Man made a lot of fans angry. Chris Evans felt like a rehash according to the fans since he played Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movie.
While I think that some actors are entirely miscast in their roles, so far Marvel has cast everyone perfectly. Despite their backlash.
The problem seems to be at the start of the Marvel universe in the comics. At the time, back in the 1960’s, it was all about white heterosexual males and the women in the comics were mostly there supporting roles and never lead roles. But decades later, you can’t expect that women are just cast or written as supporting roles anymore. And modifying those, often classic, stories isn’t an easy job. That said, Marvel is all about inclusion and diversity. Which also means casting strong women in strong female lead roles.
With the backlash Brie Larson and Marvel have received, I wonder if some corners of the internet is scared for the ever changing world.
