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Brie Larson is the star role in the new Captain Marvel movie which is particularly inspiring since she is the first female superhero to be featured in her very own film. When asked to make statements regarding her success, she claimed that looking back over her old press reviews, they were alarmingly all written by white men. Her quote exactly reads,
“About a year ago, I started paying attention to what my press days looked like and the critics reviewing movies, and noticed it appeared to be overwhelmingly white males.”
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This lead her to make a counteractive statement condoning the oppression of women and supporting the uprise of female empowerment in terms of movies, roles, and representation of women in media.
“I’m happy to be on the forefront of the normalisation of this type of content and to prove once again that representation matters. Diverse storytelling matters, the female experience matters, and these are markers. It’s something I’ve always known and I think a lot of people always knew.”
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What Brie didn’t know was that these broad claims regarding the obvious patriarchy that often drives big media industry would put her in an uncomfortable position. Fans who once supported her and her role as a powerful woman in the up and coming movie, were now willing to push her aside and make room for a new star to lead the film— a gay woman of color. There is already a petition with 20,000 signatures supporting the re-cast.
In the era of social media it has become possible for opinions, trends, and various demands to become viral in a matter of days, even hours. For Brie, this statement regarding the inequality of star roles for women in comparison to men started an unwanted movement to push her out of her own movie. In her attempt to draw attention to women’s rights and her own impact on the matter, the internet chose to make her choose between living out her own dream as a successful actress, and being the vessel of social change by stepping down.
Though white men do dominate the movie industry, forcing a woman to give up her role because she isn’t diverse enough not only doesn’t solve the problem, but perpetuates the cycle of discrimination against race and gender.
In can be imagined that Brie is also unhappy with the effects her statements made about her success dampening the milestone achievement in her life playing the role of Vers.
