There’s Something Insidious about Marvel's “Representation”.

I've been watching Marvel films (as we all have ) awhile now, and movies in general even longer and if there's one thing I've realized about Hollywood is that change comes at the pace of molasses. Im not gonna linger too long on the why's of this particular injustice, but I will say there is a hindering lack of desire to do away with white supremacy because look what it does for these folks. Movies as any art form are an extension of the society that creates them, the stories they want to tell, how they see them, who they see as worthy of this magical simulation of various aspects of existence. A white dominant power structure created ( as the gods they envision themselves as ) a silver screened universe where no matter where you are at in that universe white dominance is assured from Los Angeles to Middle Earth, to Earth 838 to, Westeros, to the heavens there can be no other reality, and usually when there is, well then something is wrong. Planet of the Apes has long been thought of as a thinly veiled expression of this philosophy and fear. In Terminator 2, Miles Dyson was one of the first times we got to see a black male in a powerful position as a highly intelligent scientist and all he did was end up being the architect of the apocalypse who had to die for his sin of unwittingly bringing it about. In Game of Thrones Daenarys went on her own journey of collecting black and brown armies like stamps before going uncharacteristically mad in the end for reasons that really don't make much sense unless you jive with the idea that all women are inherently a little crazy. The lopsided false heirarchy dynamics of our actual country are never imagined to be gone in these so called liberal spaces. White men remain at the top, followed by white women and on down it goes. The point here though is that power structures remain in tact not only through overt and covert violence but by way of a barrage of propaganda including movies and television. Marvel's faux idea of representation does not escape this it in fact thus far has dived into it and Doctor Strange is no exception.

There is something very insidious about the way Marvel positions itself as a paragon of virtue filled representation while back-handing almost every example. They only allude to queerness, barely implying it if anything at all. They de-power marginalized characters whenever it suits them ( Black Panthers abilities have been all over the place) , it makes buddies of the CIA, and it too loves the mad woman trope ( Jessica Jones [mother] S2, Eternals ). What does it mean to get a Mexican American LGBT woman in the canon when she is made up of mostly quips and her relationships or sexuality is still kept at bay with no acknowledgement.? Who cares if Aunt May is hot if that's all she is? Why should we care about Mordo's rightful challenges to Stephen Strange's ego if he is an ambitious ne'er do well as a sorcerer, or Wong as the Sorcerer Supreme if everyone including the Scarlett Witch ignores his actual title and talks/deals with Strange instead, ( very disrespectful ) and most importantly why should we care about the messages of any of these movies even those outside the MCU representation of certain liberal/radical messages if in the end all the folks spouting them are useless, incapacitated, incompetent, impotent, evil, or insane when it really matters? Yeah sure Captain Marvel is insanely powerful…in her own movie, the minute she appears in the mostly male Avengers movies, she being by far the most powerful appears to be the merely the 3rd or fourth, and when the ultimately Thanos is dispatched she's puts a dab of power on it, but can't finish the job, who can? Captain America. Now you have the Scarlett Witch who appeared to have the powers of a Jubilee when she first appeared in the MCU and was at the time a hero, but as her powers grew so too did her evil? What does that say about woman empowerment? Her motherhood thrown around recklessly as a plot device to have her commit cruel vicious deeds with no interesting revelations or conceptulizations around her motherhood or her grief. What does Kilmonger's measage of radical distribution of power mean is he is a raving murdering lunatic misogynistic fiend, or the flagsmahers of “The Falcon and the Winter soldier's messages against social inequities and gross nationalism, when theyre willing to commit atrocities to gain it. Exactly what movies have been saying since D.W. Griffiths violent fantasy of racial hierarchy and degradation flared his message across the silver screen..The marginalized given power would seige the white male hegemony and unleash hell on earth and we must all do everything in collective power to stop that from happening. Rinse..Repeat. True representation should feel organic, natural, and powerful. Marginalized people should not only feel fully realized as characters but in power. Hefty healthy radical social messaging that matters should be delivered by actual good people aa well as the occasional villain not JUST by villains. If Mad Max can have a film where the hero is actually not on the Marquee than why not have Captain Marvel be at the very least part of the big defeat of Thanos?