The upcoming “Captain Marvel” film will be the first Marvel Comics movie to be led by a female superhero, with Brie Larson in the titular lead role. As such, she has received some sexist backlash in the past few days as the first trailer and images from the film begin to surface. One criticism taken note of was how some men felt that Brie’s character needed to smile more in her scenes, to shirk the colder stare and determination on her face. Okay, fine; if Brie needs to smile more, so does the rest of the MCU.
Firing back against this criticism, Brie Larson assembled an amusing series of edits on the previous Marvel movie posters to show how ridiculous this idea sounds if it were applied to the male superheroes, proudly displayed on her Instagram. Much like how the parody poster for “The Avengers” with all the male characters pushing their butts towards the camera was a commentary and comical riot, so are these altered posters that just go to show a smile isn’t always necessary. All the smiles do for the posters of “Iron Man 3”, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Doctor Strange” prove is that toothy grins don’t make for the best Marvel movie posters, especially if they want to be taken seriously. I doubt anyone could accept the exceptional grit of “The Winter Soldier” with Chris Evans charging into combat looking like the goof he does in these edited images.
Now, if a smiling Brie Larson isn’t exactly a dealbreaker now, you can catch her as “Captain Marvel” when the movie premieres March 8, 2019.