![]() For most of popular comic book history, men were the ones drawing these characters, and as Christina Dokou, an assistant professor of American literature and culture at the University of Athens, told me last year, this stereotype persists in 2019. The history of why female superheroes were often sexified and hyper-feminine is kind of a no-brainer. Why superheroines are often sexed up - and why Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel isn’t Oh, yeah, there was a whole thing about a bet between a writer and an illustrator, too. The real reason Captain Marvel’s costume doesn’t look like those of female superheroes of yore is a mix between her convoluted backstory, how illustrations of female comic book characters have evolved, and the character rights that Marvel happened to have at the time of the film’s greenlighting. The reason is more complicated than what many angry Marvel fans, who have waged anti- Captain Marvel campaigns on YouTube and Rotten Tomatoes, might assume: that Marvel and Larson have conspired to make the film an empty shill for woke progressivism. There are no cartoonish boob shields either, and unlike many female superheroes, Captain Marvel doesn’t always wear her hair down (one of her suits includes a helmet in which her hair sticks out like a mohawk it’s very rad). In fact, they look a little bit like something Chris Evans might wear as that other Avengers captain: form-fitting yet thick, with military-inspired armor around the arms, hips, chest, and abs. Notably, the super suits worn by Larson in Captain Marvel are not nearly as titillating. We know the sleek, sexy catsuits of Black Widow, Storm, and Catwoman we’ve got Wonder Woman’s strapless breastplate and miniskirt and then there’s the X-Men’s Mystique, who for a large percentage of time wears nothing but body paint. This is obviously a rather melodramatic take, but if the future of female superheroes is riding on the success of Captain Marvel, then it’ll look pretty different from those of the past, at least when it comes to the clothes. ![]() In a profile on its star, Brie Larson, the Hollywood Reporter described it as “the movie that definitely will not determine the entire fate of women forever and ever. Not only is it the last film released before the events of Avengers: Endgame (a movie that acts as, if not a period, then at least a very climactic comma within the MCU), but in the 20 films that encompass the franchise, Captain Marvel is the first to feature a solo female superhero. Captain Marvel, the latest dispatch from the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, was made to seem like it had the entire franchise riding on its shoulders. ![]()
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