The Bechdel Cast - Captain Marvel with Carolyn Cocca

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

 Superheroes Jamie and Caitlin team up with fellow Superhero Carolyn Cocca to talk about Captain Marvel!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @CarolynCocca or email at [e-mail]  While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

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The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Caitlin Durante. And my name is Jamie Loftus. And our podcast is about the representation of women in movies. Women, ever heard of them? Movies, ever heard of them?

No, neither. My new popping intro. Thought of them on the way here. I have two degrees in film, but somehow I've never heard of movies. Listen, I know. I also went through the school, and they just don't tell you about it. They don't. I'm excited for today's episode. It's another hashtag current movie.

Uh-huh. Not our normal fare, but this seemed very warranted. Yes, this is important. Important. The show is... Oh, yeah. What is the show? ...derived from... Hard to know, really.

Who are we? It's a mutant at this point. Oh, wait. No, she's not an X-Men. I don't know how superhero movies work. It's almost like she's a mutant. That's not this franchise. No, no, no, no, no. You know, I'm just going to go bury myself alive.

Anywho. So we use the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. And the Bechdel test for us, our version, 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. It's all it takes.

But a lot of movies manage to fuck it up. And a lot of movies in the universe we're addressing today manage to fuck 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 just be aware of that. And also see the movie.

See the damn movie. Come on. Seriously. I mean, if the box office is to be judged, they don't necessarily need you, but you should see it. This movie has made so much money. That's great. It's already made over $500 million. Wowee. Hell yeah. Well, without much further ado, let's introduce our guest today.

Yes. She is the author of Superwomen, Gender, Power, and Representation. She also wrote the foreword for the Captain Marvel issue of Entertainment Weekly, which is on shelves right now. It's Carolyn Koka. Hello. Hi. Thanks for being here. Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's Carolyn Koka. Hello. Hi. Thanks for being here. Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. Any time.

We're so psyched to have a true expert on the cast. Oh, come on. So I guess before we get into it, all of our experiences with this movie are relatively recent. Yes. In general, Carolyn, how did how do you like the movie? Oh, I was going to tell you my long five day history. Please, let's unpack it. No, no, no, I'm kidding. No, I did like it. And I think it's kind of like when I went to go see Wonder Woman, 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 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 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 DC 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 Captain Marvel. She had formerly been Ms. Marvel. Right.

You know, for like 40 years before that. Fine. And, you know, at the time they thought, well, OK, 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 these guys, I think, genuinely thought that they were creating a feminist character. And that's why they purposely used the moniker Ms. Right. 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.

No, she's a feminist. She works at Woman Magazine. That's right. I mean, the first issue of Ms. Marvel, she's fighting, you know, mean Spider-Man editor J. Jonah Jameson, who owns Woman Magazine. She's fighting him for equal pay.

And he wants to underpay her. And she's like, no, you want me? You're going to pay me this much. And he's like, OK, grumble, grumble, cigar chum. I want to read that issue. And then he's like, so you're going to do 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, ugh. Fah jameson yes really an ally to all that j jonah jameson um wow okay i'm like yeah i'm really excited to hear more about the character as well because i i am not super familiar with the mcu as you can tell by the fact that I called Captain Marvel one of the X-Men. But you but you inadvertently said something accurate because there was a point at which she almost joined the X-Men in the 80s so we'll just pretend you knew that. Yes actually I have a really deep knowledge and so that is a deep cut good job that's me i want to hear about that too i um my history aside from seeing the movie twice now brag um is i admittedly 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 but uh yeah we can we can talk about that a little for sure later um i didn't i mean i enjoyed the movie i it was there's definitely stuff that I think is worth discussing it 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 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 crying i'm just like in that way i think that that it's great and there was like a lot of young boys and girls at the movie and they were all psyched and it's like yes i have my critiques but in general i think it is a good movie to have in the world and to have kids seeing agree yeah yes i also i'm like i thought it was good it was fine it wasn't great

uh now that i've seen spider-man into the spider-verse six times uh i just feel a little underwhelmed by every other superhero the new metric good lord but no uh there's there's a lot to compare women to men as much as possible. Absolutely. So we should continue to do that. Anyway, should we do the recap? Sure. Okay, so we meet Veers. That's Brie Larson's character.

I stan Brie Larson. Yes, I love Brie Larson. Big fan, big stan. She lives on planet Hala with the Kree people. Sure. And she has a power. She, like, energy comes out of her fists. She fights Jude Law and she's stronger than him.

And she doesn't have any memory of her past from before she arrived on Kree. And Carolyn, does this line up, I guess, before we super get into it, does this line up pretty closely with what her origin story is in the comic books as well? Or was where Liberty's taken? This is one of the times when Liberty's are taken in a way that actually make the story a little better. Oh, great. Cool. 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. So do you want me to say it now or when you get there? I guess we can say it when we get there.

I just wasn't sure if this was like a complete deviation or pretty close. 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 walter lawson who was marvell in other words marvell was a dude right okay and marvell was the first captain marvel and he was cree and he did kind of turn against the Kree when he was on Earth. And he was fighting Yon-Rogg. Yon-Rogg took Carol hostage. And in this struggle where Mar-Vell is trying to rescue Carol from Yon-Rogg, this machine blows up and this machine imbues Carol with her powers and with Mar-Vell's Kree DNA. Okay. I like, I was like, I know it's ridiculous so much more uh i know but so you can see that

what they did in the movie is an improvement on that totally agree yes okay yes indeed cool cool um okay so she's hanging out on cree there's this supreme intelligence uh that she goes to see for therapy i don't know what they do it's like a so i was just like okay so there's a green screen in play every time that scene would come it's like brie larson on a green screen awesome and for veers this supreme intelligence takes the form of annette benning but veers 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. Right. So Veers accompanies Yon-Rogg, that's Jude Law's character, and some other Kree soldiers on a rescue mission on a different planet.

And they're trying to rescue someone from these bad guys called Skrulls, who are shapeshifters. And the Skrulls capture Veers and they are trying to access her memories and we see all these flashbacks of Veers training in the Air Force and hanging out with Annette Bening and they're trying to figure out who Annette Bening's character is because they're trying to find her and get their hands on light speed technology that she was developing. Right. Turns out her name is Wendy Lawson. Right.

So, Veers gets away from the Skrulls and crash lands on C-53, a.k.a. Earth. Ever heard of it? So much. I mean, some studio executive took the nostalgia note to heart in this movie. They're like, she lands in a blockbuster? She's holding a VHS tape? You're just like, all right, I guess we'll get through this. It's 1995 when she lands.

Ever heard of it? And a few of the Skrulls follow her to earth and then the agents of shield show up including colson who we all know and love and nick fury who we all know and love i thought it was going to be so distracting to see youngified samuel l jackson but they did a great job i was just like wow he looks great and then it was like like, wow, he looks great. And then it was like, no, that was technology. I was like, oh, okay. So Veers is like, hey, Fury, here's what's going on.

There's these Skrull bad guys. They're shapeshifters, 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 i'm like i don't know what you think you're doing but you should probably anyways i'm not sure who am i to tell her how to do her job yeah who are you i don't know uh okay so then there's this chase scene and Fury sees this shapeshifting happening and he's like, oh, now I believe her. So then she and Fury team up and they try to find Wendy Lawson and they go to Pegasus, which I believe is like a secret military facility yeah 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 wonder who that might be she's in the background of a lot of pictures

they discover that wendy lawson was cree and then yeah yeah, Vera sees a photo of herself with Lawson from I think like 1989. 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 be a cat named Goose.

Yes. How many nipples does that cat have? Okay, well, as we know, cats have eight nipples. That's cat facts with Caitlin, obviously. But goose, there's more to goose than meets the eye. Goose is not a cat. Goose is a flerken. Flerkens have 537 nipples.

What? That's flerken facts. Is that true? with caitlin no i just made that up but it's canon now oh okay i was like whoa what are they using well let me google right now how many nipples how many flirkins does a nipple have does that mean we get to give out 537 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 oh k-e-n okay i hadN. Okay, so flerken. Welp, it says eight nipples, but this is giving me facts about cats and not flerkens. Unbelievable. So I can't trust this. Yeah, so let's go with what I said, 837 or whatever I said.

537 is the new scale that we'll be using on the show from here on out. Sounds great. Excellent. Okay. So then Fury's boss shows up at Pegasus, but it's actually a Skrull who's in disguise. So Fury and Veers make a run for it, and they go to Maria Rambeau because they're like, oh, here's this woman who had given this testimony about this plane crash. So like she can maybe tell us something.

Yeah, it turns out. Yeah. They were BFFs in the Air Force together. And Veers is actually named Carol Danvers. Oh, my gosh. The one thing I knew going into the movie. Oh, I didn't even know that. And Carol learns that she had this whole life on Earth pre-Cree times. She has a child that falls into one of the most annoying tropes in the world to be.

Child who is wise beyond their years. Oh, like, yeah, overly precocious child. The wise beyond their years child. Yes. But she's so cute. She is very cute. And her overly precocious child. The wise beyond their years child. Yes. But she's so cute. She is very cute. And her name is Monica. Yes.

So Talos, the main Skrull guy, shows up at Maria's house. Yes. Got it. Shows up at Maria's house. And he's like, hey, fun fact, Skrulls aren't the bad guys. It's the Kree who are the bad guys. And everyone's like, what? So we see a flashback of the plane crash.

And we see Carol Danvers and Lawson. They're in the plane together. There's a spaceship that's shooting at them. It's Kree. There's the Kree. They're the bad guys. They're shooting. No.

No. The Kree are after them because they also want Lawson's lightspeed technology. And we learn here that Lawson is actually named Mar-Vell. Then we learn that it was Jude Law's character, whose name I always forget, Yon-Rogg, who killed Lawson. So in this flashback, Carol Danvers needs to destroy the plane's engine before the Kree 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 and it turns out that Mar-Vell aka Lawson was trying to help the Skrulls who are refugees and they're on the run from the Kree,

and they wanted the light speed technology to be able to escape and get out of the reaches of Kree rule. So now Carol Danvers, Fury, and Maria, and Talos need to go to Lawson's laboratory somewhere in space to get the energy core for the Skrulls, and then they get there and they find it, and they're like oh by the way it's called a tesseract what 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 tesseract oh is that a thing yeah yeah yeah okay yeah it's a 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. Got it. Cool, cool, cool. And they keep it in a property, sure. And then at this space laboratory, Talos' family is there, and there's like this nice little reunion. And then Yon-Rogg and the other Kree show up. Yon-Rogg Jude Law. Jude Law, yes. And there's a big fight, and Carol Danvers fully realizes her powers because she takes off her inhibitor chip, basically.

I wonder if this is a metaphor for something. Now, I know that this is all 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, get up. And I was like, I don't want to be crying but here we are crying and so is everyone else well remember who else has an inhibitor chip jamie go on is doc ock in spider-man 2 i know well i where where was where was his montage right give alfred his montage i i? Give Alfred his montage.

I would just like to say at this point that as much as I thought Ben Mendelsohn was excellent, I couldn't help thinking to myself, Alfred Molina would have made a great Talos. That was my pick, too. Oh, I totally agree. He would have been terrific. They got to welcome him back into the MCU. Yeah. For sure. If he'll hang out with us, he should be back in the MCU.

Agree. Yeah. During the fight, you know, Carol's getting more powerful and then she defeats the Kree. And at the end, she gives Fury a new and improved beeper, which we see in Avengers Infinity War. And then she goes off with the Skrulls. And that is pretty much the story. Except for the after credits scenes, which I didn't understand. Oh, sure. Because I don't watch the movies.

So the after credit scene for... Oh, all the Chrises are back. The Chrises are there. It's too much to explain. It's fine. We're going to do an Avengers episode. 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, it'll be great. um well let's take a quick break and then we will come right back to discuss the movie definitely caruana galizia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable.

It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with.

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So, Carolyn, initial thoughts. Yes, you are the expert. On this topic of superheroes who are women, how did this movie strike you? What are your feelings about it? years in comics and novels and TV and movies. And when you look across that big sweep, you basically find that they're underrepresented. I know it's hard to believe. Hold on to your hats, ladies. 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 90 of the time oh yeah that is what they are so the way that captain marvel carol danvers is portrayed in this movie is women are none of these things so that's like a big win right there yeah for sure so number

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 no hetero romance happening no that like sidetracks 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 power. So I think all of those things make it, unfortunately, very, very different from most Hollywood movies. I mean, just the previews that were before this movie was like, painful. One of them was Charlize Theron is running for president or something. Oh, and like starts dating Seth Rogen. Oh God. What sort of cosmic punishment

landed Charlize Theron in this movie? I just, my heart goes out to whatever sinister deal. 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 schlubby seth rogan taking her to a bar and doing shots and you know it's just why why how many times is that going to happen in a movie where a perfectly good female character is just has her life absolutely ruined and derailed by a Seth Rogen character by Seth Rogen 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 opposite of everything that those movies do.

Yeah. I mean, and the lack of a romantic subplot is huge. That never happens. Right. Are there 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 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 yeah she's she's busy yeah in more recent comics she has kind of an on and off relationship with Rhodey, who you saw in the post credit sequence, Don Cheadle. Oh, okay, right, right, right. You know, maybe they'll give a glance to 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 Cheadle could be Brie 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 seen every single MCU 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, with the exception of Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, which I did see five times in theaters. But it doesn't feel like it's not a part of the MCU. Like, I mean, maybe they'll bring animated Miles Morales into Avengers Endgame,

but I don't think so. But they should. But, yeah, I think most of them, because they've all centered around male superheroes until Captain Marvel. I would say most of them do have a romantic subplot. Yeah. But that just means that there's like a woman in the story, but she's only there to further characterize the men and to be the romantic interest. So, right. and to be the romantic interest so right yep 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 from now which people will do which this is just gonna go on forever uh but um the reception i feel like it's almost standard fare for a woman being introduced into a large property or like we can revisit Wonder Woman, we can revisit the Ghostbusters 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 just ruin this movie's rotten tomatoes movie before anyone had seen it yes 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 my book, does a generally good job in giving care to 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 hard to know where to start here. Yeah, because it does mostly everything mostly right, I would say. 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 were 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 yeah doing the like you know bechdel and there were parts of it that felt like a dove soap commercial is something that uh writer jess joho said in a mashable piece that i think is 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 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. There are some things that feel like, okay, this was an easy choice to make. Some of those more broad choices, was like i mean i i tend to

find it a little bit like uh hashtag feminism versus actual sure feminism but i see what you're saying that climactic fight sequence with that specific song pretty much worked for me because i was like yay it's fun and she's kicking ass and stuff. But yes, I do see what you're saying. Right, but it's still like... It feels a little... I don't know. I'm just like we're still drawing attention to the fact that it's like

she's doing what the boys can do. Right. Which is another thing that, I mean, I guess this is just like a general critique of like she's, we're always 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 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 I guess it's like we need to crawl before we can walk kind of thing. I agree. So hopefully in the years to come, we see the much needed better representation of women in general in all media,

but then also specifically in superhero movies where a woman kicking ass and fighting and being strong has just been so normalized that 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 think that that is done not very frequently but I think that that is done in movies sometimes without being like girl doing thing look um but I don't know I mean I guess that that's sort of what this this movie's narrative is is hinged around but there were there were there were a few moments where it was like, it just felt more like a strategic corporate play versus a. Right? Sure. Totally. 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 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. Yeah, sure. So I'm willing to let that go. And certainly, I'm just a girl. I was like, wow, that is super duper on the nose. Okay. Very on the nose. But my 12 year old would think that that is the most awesome thing ever. Right. So I have the brain of a 12 year old. That is accurate. No, I'm the brain of a 12 year old. That is accurate.

No, I'm saying that's what I'm saying there. Yeah. I mean, I think it did this just like the reading will depend on the audience because you're totally right, Carolyn. If there's, you know, a very subtle, you know, feminist undertone, then maybe a lot of people wouldn't have picked up on it it's also i mean these kinds of things even in the 60s and 70s she did have these kinds of moments in the comics that again i think they were written by men drawn by men and i think they they were trying um they look totally like cardboard to us now you know like they're 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 shouldn't go to college. And that was not an unusual thing in, you know, 1977 or whatever. Or where she's introduced as, this 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 19, that was 67. That was a big deal. Right, right. Yes. So

there is I feel I guess, just to wrap up that area of critique, I would also lump in a few of the lines that men say to her that are just like, okay, like the, oh, it's not called a cockpit for nothing. You're like, okay, we get it. Because only penises can be in a cockpit. Cock. Yeah, but it's fun when, or Or when he's like why don't you

Smile like there's some Real general Some very generalized Misogyny But again it's Like for a family film Which this is I think that that works And it is cool that she steals

his motorcycle yes yeah and do you remember when the first trailer came out all those trolls that you were talking about were writing why doesn't brie larson smile in the trailer she's just so cold oh my gosh yeah i i hope they added it after. I don't know if they did or not. I just love Brie Larson so much. She's great. Can we talk more about Carol Danvers' emotions? Yes. 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 of like badly done storytelling but there's really nothing about that character that actually indicates that she she's very is too emotional i 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 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 pissed 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 controlled environment like there's no like big battle scenes where she like quote loses control of her emotions and then pays a penalty for it so like the care and it's also yeah i mean

in carol in general like it takes her so long into the movie to be interested in who she is as well i don't know there there are some strange things i the emotionality thing confused me i would 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 right expressing your emotions you can come at that from the soldier perspective too of like repressed emotions equals ptsd for life right you know but yeah it didn't really touch on it 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. She's too emotional because she is a woman and women be emotional and that her arc would have to be her learning to control those emotions.

Right. And that's what like enables her to win. I think the opposite happens where she isn't very Jude Law's character and all of that and that she's reunited with like her best friend and her best friend's daughter. You do see some emotion in those scenes. Yeah. And 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 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 she's been gaslighted, yeah. Yeah. So I'm glad that that's how the story panned out. Because like I said, I was worried that it was going to be like, you're so emotional

and you're going to 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. Right. And he's the villain because he's got resting villain face. He's got like yellow contacts in. So therefore he's bad. Yeah yeah he's got jaundice he can't be trusted the the first time i saw it twice also the first 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. Yeah. 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. She punches first and ask 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 from 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, 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. And 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 is a distraction, control yourself. And then she they're going on a mission, and she is joking, and he comes on and says, you 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 been kept down in the beginning that whenever she's around kree 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 right shaped by experience yeah so i i think that's what they were going for but i agree with you that it's not always effective it will almost hold you away from her, from grabbing onto her 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 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.

I was like crying at four different parts. I'm like laughing the whole time. And then with Captain Marvel, 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 yeah, it's weird. I feel like she's almost as 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 it's weird now i i was listening back to part of our wonder woman episode that we did and we were so excited yeah when that movie came out but i re-watched wonder woman and as much as i still enjoy that movie there's like a lot of stuff that uh that movie you know and everyone's going to compare these two movies which is unfair and just you know demonstrates a lack of comparable movie right yeah but you know it's like wonder woman you got you you have a makeover sequence 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 at some moments when i was disappointed i'm like oh but i'm setting the my expectations so

high for this movie because there's just nothing else like it. I don't know. I wanted to be more emotionally connected to her, but also I'm just like, 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. Right. And she's trying to figure out who she is. But usually the structure for an origin story is you're meeting this person as a regular person. Right.

And you're being 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. 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 by the time they quote, unquote, get their powers, or they come into their heroism, you've been rooting for them for an hour 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 touching on one of the main reasons I didn't find myself really connecting with Carol Danvers the way, again, I connected with Miles Morales in Spider-Verse. But I'll stop bringing him up. But it is the greatest movie of all time. I just love it so much. We have to take another quick break, but we will come back to discuss more. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017

was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens

when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you.

And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came

stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current.

Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, we're back. Every time I get hit on a criticism like that, I'm like, oh, but if I saw this movie when I was seven, I would be obsessed with her. Absolutely obsessed with her. Carolyn, you were pointing out earlier the way that she's dressed for the first time makes sense.

Yeah. Wow. Crazy. She wears layers at times. the way that she's dressed for the first time makes sense yeah wow it's crazy she 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 a nine inch nails shirt and a nine inch nails shirt like all but it was it was that was like one thing that's like okay you did the easiest possible thing you could do to make the story make sense thank you right thank you and thank you for not giving us a makeover montage a 90s inspired makeover montage because they could have done that they did that in world war ii wonder woman and that wasn't necessary and they and they that's avoided here I guess there's

some of what I like about this movie is not really what it does but what it avoids doesn't do yeah yeah um 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 DC and Marvel movies. And a female co-director as well. Yep. Yes. Which is like incredible. So it's, we sort of touched on this a little bit earlier. Something that really did work for me in this movie was the gaslighting narrative. I thought that was really well done. I didn't see that narrative coming of,

I mean, you can tell they're getting to some, something gaslighting adjacent when we keep seeing Annette Bening and we don't know who she is. And they're like, okay, you know i mean you can tell they're getting to some something gaslighting adjacent when we keep seeing annette benning and we don't know who she is and they're like okay you know she's not sure of her identity or history yeah but the the twist that she's been emotionally manipulated figures it out and then is fucking furious i don't. I just like that really hit with me where she recognizes that she has been misled and manipulated for so long. She does not blame herself for it, which is huge. Yeah, 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 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 this girl 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 was like a very well handled portion of the story. Yeah. And I liked that there was a little negging along with the gaslighting. Yeah. It says things like without us, you're weak and you're flawed. And we made you strong. You know, right, which is like a more more of the on the nosiness, but it 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 gaslighting narrative and coming out on top on her own terms. Yeah, it was 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

seem very much relegated to the B or C characters. Yeah. Where we've got, you know, like her BFF in this movie, besides, sorry, what's her name? Maria Rambeau. Besides Maria. But her implied right-hand man in this movie is Nick Fury. The villain is Jude Law. The guy we think is a villain but then isn't a villain is also a man. And I would argue those are the three main characters beneath Captain Marvel and then underneath that is Annette Bening and Maria Rambeau. Yeah. And 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 and Maria's relationship. I wish that there were more purpose for Maria than to just give context for Captain Marvel. Yeah, she does, I suppose, have a little bit of narrative significance toward the end whenever she is like helping to pilot the aircraft 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. I don't know. Well, do you mean if there's a Captain Marvel 2? Yeah. Avengers. Yeah, I think that's possible. I agree with you in terms of what you're saying about the tiers of characters. But there was a moment I was struck by where they're flying to the floating lab.

And who is in that plane is carol and maria and fury and telos 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 yeah that's true this is shocking and the women are driving the ones piloting um and i loved the the sidebar. I ran into a friend of the cast, Edgar Amoglasier, at the screening of this movie. And he was like, Maria's kid, or Monica was her name. I think she's going to be a big part of Avengers 4. Like, he was just...

Oh. 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 that she's like i'm gonna be like you someday and it's like okay she's gonna come back right because this takes place in 95 by the time she's wearing like present day avengers time she's an adult she's a millennial honey well what what do you know about the character of monica rambeau in comics? Do you know anything about her? I read as much as I could of the chapter of your book, Carolyn, on Captain Marvel, and I saw reference to Monica Rambeau eventually becoming Captain Marvel in some of the later comic books. So the first Captain Marvel is Marvell who is you know annette benning except

in the comics he's a guy but he still has that kind of semi-short gray hair so when they showed annette benning with the gray hair i was like all right but uh but then he dies of cancer and he doesn't come back which is unusual in comics because everybody comes back from the dead right and then in 1982 monica rambeau becomes the second captain marvel and it's not because she has anything to do with the creed 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 so she basically has those kinds of powers and the media labels her captain marvel and then she meets 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, didn't know that. Sorry. She's the second Captain Marvel. Her outfit is white and black, but it's got that same star in the middle. Yeah. Oh, cool. She's got like natural hair. Hell yeah. Which is also nice. That's amazing.

For back then. And she leads the Avengers like through into the night, into the like the late 80s and whatever. And then in the 90s, suddenly Mar-Vell's son shows up and declares that he's Captain Marvel. And Monica's like, OK, I guess I'll call myself Photon instead. OK. Damn it. A man reclaiming.

What if I was just like, actually, I'm Jamie Loftus. I'm like, fine. I'm Photon now. What if Jamie Kennedy comes along and he's like, my name has been Jamie Loftus this whole time. Like, fine, I'm Photon. Just have to change your name to Photon. comes along and he's like my name has been jamie loftus this whole time like fine i'm photon so that's why maria rambeau on her plane it said maria photon rambeau i think so probably what they're setting up is that 20 years into the future that when the avengers movie is taking place monica would be the right age to be photon. Okay, cool. Cool.

Okay. And to be glowing and stuff like that. And so, so she's photon and she works with other Avengers and all that kind of stuff. And at that time, Carol is still Ms. 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 AA sponsor. Oh my God. Comic books are so weird. There's drama. And so it goes on like that until 2012 when they relaunch her 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 some Monica Rambeau fans who were like, Carol Danvers is not the first female Captain Marvel. Why aren't you promoting Monica? Why are all your heroes white? You know, right. So. So in the comics, Kelly Sue DeConnick, who really kind of launched this version of Captain Marvel that you see in the comics, Kelly Sue DeConnick, 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 Rambeau into the Captain Marvel comics. And there's this arc where the two of them work together and they're buddies and they're on a team together later and stuff. Interesting.

So they should work well together. Yeah. Carolyn, can you be on every episode of Superheroes? This is the context I crave. 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 seem to be, let's make sure our heroes are male, cis, hetero, white, able-bodied. Yeah. And when you look at the number, I mean, I sort of added them up, right? So if you count all superhero movies from 2000 to 2019, and then even count the ones in development, about 10% star women. And last I checked, our world was not 90% white, cisgender, non-queer,

non-disabled men. Thank God, no. What a nightmare that would be. And 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. That's like 11% star women. 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 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 here's the have the priority to like you know showcase here's the incredible quote from a hollywood executive from a few years ago they can always be counted upon 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 but they're like because bitches love lady stuff and we'll make 500 million dollars in three days which i i mean that's the get that's the game so that's what's gonna happen but yeah the bitches love lady stuff

at moments in this movie i was like i i see you i see you um yeah they also did do better i just want to point out with with having more women and men of color in the cast yes i i count that about a third of the women are women of color and about a quarter of the men are men of color better than usual i would say you have oh i want to make sure i'm getting her name right Gemma Chan is she's not in this movie very very much uh she's also the one woman who doesn't like Captain Marvel which I 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 different people and so it was weirdly refreshing to me to so she plays min erva oh she's

one of the the cree bad guys yeah she's a cree and she does not like carol at any point in the movie and all of their interactions was the whatever there's like that very superhero-y exchange during a fight where carol's like is this why we didn't hang out and then minerva's like no i just didn't like you and then they keep fighting which is so silly but it's like i i do appreciate when care is taken to you know show women having different kinds of relationships you've got the professional relationship of marvell and carol you've got the close friendship with her and maria and then you've got like a contentious workplace right relationship with

minerva um there's always room for more but but it was nice to see kind of different kinds of relationships sure and then also like the kind of like carol ends up acting is like sort of like a surrogate co-parent of like monica rambo and yeah and the yeah the fact that um most of the women in this movie in fact with the exception of monica who is a child um i would all of the women in this movie are either military or women in stem or both so and you know and we got scientists right yeah so you know you got scientists you got soldiers you got roles that you don't usually see women occupying in movies 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 plane was the only way to fly. So they were like, the you know, the patriarchy was not letting women do things. So they 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. I think that sometimes that can be kind of a feminized sort of state to to be in you know sort 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 carol i know i know when she was first uh ms Marvel she would like turn into Ms. Marvel and do superheroic stuff and then when she turned back to Carol she had no memory of it yeah yeah 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 yes right so if she touches you she absorbs your power yeah so when rogue first appeared she wasn't

a hero she was a villain um with mystique like her her adoptive mother and uh rogue absorbs carol's power and her memories oh 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, she took my life away. Why would I want to stay here with her? You guys are jerks. So then she has to build her memories back up. And then the third time is more recently where she basically has to lose her memory to save the Earth. It's a little more convoluted okay but yon yon 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 amnesia 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 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 deviations from the canonical lore because it's like, clearly it's like, however, well-intentioned, you know, the deep seated shit 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 even and i 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's stuff in the DNA of the character that is very passive-aggressive, perhaps. Yeah. Speaking of men creating these stories largely, Carolyn, I borrowed this quote from your book from Jerry Conway, who his role as it pertains to Captain or Ms. Marvel is,

did he create it or? He didn't create the character, but he launched the Ms. Marvel comic in 1977. Okay, got it. So he says, in response to people being like, hey, why are you, a man, 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. Reason three, why not a man? If the women's liberation movement means anything, it's a battle 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. Jerry, honey. You know, he's ignoring a lot of his privilege and stuff when he says something like that. There's a great fuck Jerry joke in there. Oh, yeah. Fuck Jerry. And 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 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 did not necessarily quite understand all the different dimensions of gendered inequalities. And what's painful to me is that even today, so it's like 40 years after he writes this thing. 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 saying this? You know, I mean, they just they tend to hire who they know and they tend to mentor people who look like them which is very common people tend to 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 exactly it's a little bit better but you know a little bit better means

that maybe now I don't know 10% of superhero comics are written or drawn by women, and it was 5% 10 years ago, and it was 2% 10 years before that. So yeah, the growth is tremendous, but it's growth from a very small number to a small number. Right. And it's slow. Crawling. It's slow. Yes, still crawling. Okay, I do want to mention just one other thing quickly yes i was concerned about i was 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 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? I 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 glorification or anything like that. So no, no, 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. God damn it. Gosh darn it. What a soundtrack too. I mean, as a 90s kid, I was like. You fell for it. I fell.

You fell for it. I fell for it. I can't help it. It was a good soundtrack. So, hey, does this movie pass the bechdel test flying colors it does europe yeah there's a lot of different combinations of characters also who talk to each other that pass 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 Danvers and Wendy Lawson. You know, they're talking about the Air Force. They're talking about their work,

their friendships, setting a good example. We didn't really touch on... They're talking about parenting. Yes. They talk about everything. Almost like the world. Almost like how women just talk about stuff other than men all the time. There's even a short exchange where the grandparents arrive to babysit Monica, which they totally didn't have to do. So I appreciated that they did it. And the grandparents arrive and the grandmother is like, what's going on? And Maria's like thanks for coming mama or whatever oh i uh somehow missed that i was probably too busy writing notes because i'm such a note head but um there is more it's more of a monologue but there's a scene where maria is telling carol like how strong she

is and how awesome she is even 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 so yeah passes uh pretty handily this movie let's rate it on a nipple scale all right shall we zero to five nipples based on its portrayal and representation of women i think this is like a solid 4.5 awesome it misses a lot of the tropes and stereotypes that we've seen of women thus far in superhero movies and that's largely because it's a woman driving the narrative a woman whose 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 discuss stuff like that. So I think it handles a lot of things well. I think I'm taking off a slight bit of nipplage 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. So I think some adjustments could have been made to make more of the female characters a little bit more prominent in the story. But yeah, I think, I think it's, it's pretty cool. I like that a lot of the main characters who we do get to meet are people of color. I mean, there's no

queer representation, but it's also a pretty asexual movie. So there's no queer romance, but there's no hetero romance either. There's no romance. There's just no romance. Although some people on the internet are reading Carol and Maria as being queer. Oh, they're shipping that relationship?

Okay, I'm down for that. Cool. I mean, they're already basically raising a kid together. Yeah. And it's stated outright that they're her family. I like that. So yeah, 4.5 nipples. And each and every one goes to, of course, Goose the Flurkin.

I'll go four on this I think I think that this movie is great for the next generation of movie goers I'm really excited 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 watch when we were little youngsters when we were ty we were youngsters when we were tykes i think that general cultural impact is good uh i'm really happy about it i do the the nitpicky things that sort of frustrated me a little bit um was the general approach, I just, it seemed, some of the problems that I have with it are in the DNA 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. And 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. Right. But I just, I don't love that being at the core of a story. I would, 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 constantly prove her skills against a man but just you know move through the world as a skilled capable person and and so that that was one thing that uh 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 as all MCU are going to be, and a lot of people who are seeing them are like, you know, like, incel idiot boys who were like, I think they like, need to be spoon fed. Yeah. I also don't know if any of those incels were, mind were changed.

Probably not. mind were changed probably not by this but they're they're just from my 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 characters had a little more prominence but the fact that they were there i mean i liked i it's progress yeah a lot of crawling in this movie i love brie larson i enjoyed her performance i love who she is what she stands for she's got a goddamn oscar and now she's in the mcu she's making she's she's making it she's great i also like that there is a lot of uh female representation behind the camera in this movie uh you've got a female co-director, you've got majority female writers, you have a female composer, a female co-editor. Oh, very nice.

So there are women involved at every level in this movie, and I think it shows. Yes. Yeah, I'll give it four nipples. I gave two to Captain Marvel, and I'll give two to Maria. And I do think Alfred Molina should have been Ben Mendelsohn's character. Carolyn. Well, I agree with everything that you said. So I guess I'll 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. Well, he's got 500 and some odd left. He needs more. Yeah. I give a full set of eight to the cat, to the flerken, excuse me. Yes. No, I mean, I'll give one to Brie Larson and one to Lashana Lynch, one to Annette Bening,

and one to, I can't remember the little girl's name that plays Monica. I feel bad about that. Oh, yeah. But 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 17 women and 52 men oh so that overall overall the cast is 25 women so points taken off for that do better marvel but i agree with everything you said about the centralized cast being more diverse and more you know female centered 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 heteromance and that this was a story that I agree. It's more of a crawling than a running, but it maybe is a necessary first step to kind of bring people along a little bit. Not the three of us, but others who maybe are wavering a little bit on the idea of women having actual strength. 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 Talos. Yeah. And then I'll hold back my third quarter of a nipple because feminist icon Alfred Molina should have been Taylor's. Yeah. God. Missed opportunity. I mean, that's the real main conversation around this movie is like, where was the Molina offer? Uh huh. Unbelievable. Wow. Yeah. But overall, I really thought they did a great job trying to juggle a lot of things and please a number of different audiences. Yeah. And it's great that I mean, as of this recording, we're recording this Tuesday after it came out and it just hit 500 million dollars.

It's doing super well. These movies always do super well. Yes. Make more of them. This is the biggest worldwide opening of all time for a female starring film oh amazing the number one domestic female starring film is still beauty and the beast okay oh wait crawling crawling the live action one yeah it was beauty and the beast worldwide too but captain marvel made more worldwide okay and it's also the second largest worldwide opening among superhero movies the first was Avengers Infinity War huh that's great yeah that's I mean that's very encouraging and I 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 we get a movie with monica now i was like yay that would be great that was fun i was glad i want like knowing that now i'm like oh cool they they went out of their way to set it up. I want them to reboot Avengers tomorrow. No, you don't. But hear me out. No, you don't. I'm exhausted.

The Avengers will be Monica Rambeau, Shuri from Black Panther, fucking Tessa Thompson's character in Thor Ragnarok. Like, all those awesome women who- And Miles Morales. And Miles Morales. And Miles Morales, yes. So like, let's get that cast out there and see that movie. And the new Ms. Marvel.

Oh, who's I think a Pakistani woman? Yes, her name is Kamala Khan. And within the comics, she is like a regular girl who looks up to Captain Marvel within the universe. And that's why she takes the name Ms. Marvel. She's inspired by 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 can't introduce a new character. You can't introduce a female character. You can't introduce a new character you can't introduce a female character you can't introduce a character of color you certainly can't introduce a character who's not christian but the new ms marvel is all of that and selling like crazy awesome love it can't wait for the movie it's gonna happen because it's like it's like hollywood you know hollywood's really

changed his tune it used to say hey women need to be in subservient roles 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 bitches stuff give it a few years they'll be saying that too well carolyn thank you so much for coming on the pod and 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 carolyn coca which i honestly never used so if someone if someone wanted to get a hold of me, you should really email me. So it's coca, C, my last name and first initial, at oldwestbury.edu. 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 75 years of female superheroes with some really deep dive focus on Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Captain Marvel, the women of Star Wars, the women of the X-Men and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Yes. Buy that book. It is incredible. And yeah, thanks again for coming on. Thank you. To our listeners out there, thanks for listening. You can follow us on social media at all the usual places at Bechtelcast. You can buy our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechtelcast. And we have a promotion going on in which we are fundraising for an organization called black girls code um so if you buy our rise of the matriarchy shirt that can be found at tpublic.com slash stores slash bechtel dash cast dash cares i know that's a lot but it's on our Twitter, and we'll make sure it's very accessible for people to find. Yeah, we'll make it accessible.

So yeah, that Rise of the Matriarchy design and proceeds go to Black Girls Code. You can also sign up for our Matreon, a.k.a. Patreon, by going to patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. And it's $5 a month, and you get two bonus episodes every month. So, yeah. Thank you again, Carolyn. We really appreciate it. Yes, thank you. And make sure just to pet your family flerken today.

But don't hold them up near your eye. Yes. No, don't do that. But yeah, we'll see you next week. See you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

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