Singularly single ‘Captain Marvel’
This heroine doesn’t need a man around.
LOS ANGELES – Marvel superheroes have a stellar track record of getting girlfriends, right after they harness their superpowers and beat baddies.
Iron Man loved Pepper Potts, Captain America pined for Peggy Carter, and Thor romanced Jane Foster. Ant-Man hooked up with the Wasp, Spider-Man got homecoming date Liz, and Black Panther reunited with Nakia.
“Captain Marvel” takes a power blast to that whole trope.
Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, the first woman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to lead a solo film, stays single throughout the movie, in theaters now. That means no kiss, no boyfriend, no romantic interest that she might be on the outs with by the time “Avengers: Endgame” arrives April 26 (in which she also will appear).
Having Carol unattached helps keep the focus on the woman with the superhuman strength and not on how she is with who she’s with, says Kelly Sue DeConnick, who writes the Captain Marvel comics that inspired the movie.
“Carol is not loveless, she’s not joyless, she’s not even sexless,” DeConnick says. “But what has happened historically with female protagonists is we will define them in terms of who they love or who loves them. And it’s usually about a man.
“Then, everything is in relation to the man and about whether or not he will give her validity.”
Instead, Carol has an applause-worthy feminist moment (which we won’t spoil here) when she makes it clear that she doesn’t need a man’s approval, thank you very much. She won’t be defined by any guy.
Carol does have relationships in the movie; they’re just platonic. Her most important connection is with Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), an Air Force pilot and single mother who’s like a sister to Carol. She challenges and supports Carol, especially when it comes to facing the hero’s forgotten past.
It’s a bond that feels fresh, inside of a film genre that hasn’t always passed the Bechdel test (which measures whether two female characters in a movie have a conversation about something other than a man).
In real life, “when we walk down the street, we see two girlfriends just chatting away and supporting each other and having each other’s backs, reminding the other of her truth,” Lynch says. “Why don’t we see that in cinema?”
One reason to nix a beau: The movie didn’t have time.
In addition to her friendships with Maria and Samuel L. Jackson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Nick Fury, Carol has relationships “with a younger girl she can inspire, and an older mentor figure that inspires her. By the time we finished with all that, there was no room” in the two-hour-plus movie for romance, director Anna Boden says.
“It was just practical; it wasn’t by design,” co-director Ryan Fleck agrees.
Captain Marvel could find love onscreen later, however. In the comics, she did get together with James “War Machine” Rhodes (who’s played by Don Cheadle in the Marvel movies).
Or perhaps there’s a woman out there for Carol. After all, DC Comics’ Wonder Woman grew up on an island with all women. “I mean, think about that,” DeConnick jokes.
Could there be a same-sex couple in the MCU?
“Sure, why not? Love is love,” DeConnick says.
Says Boden: “One day, I hope Captain Marvel finds somebody that is a good support for her, be that male or female.”
Carol Danvers makes it clear that she doesn’t need a man’s approval, thank you very much. She won’t be defined by any guy.