Captain Marvel runs like a girl


It always makes me happy when I get to spend time with my children, so when my 16-year-old daughter Alexia invited me to the movies I didn’t ask what we were going to see. Normally it is a fantasy or science-fiction movie, and this time was no exception. Her choice was another su- perhero movie: Captain Marvel.


I will not ruin the movie for you but Captain Marvel is a military pilot who dis- covers she has special powers. Her best friend in the movie is also a military pilot who happens to be a single mum raising a little girl.


It was quite entertaining and I had fun – I was not expecting anything else. But when the movie was over, I saw that my daughter’s face was full of excitement. She really enjoyed the movie and I immedi- ately started to think about Captain Marveland the impact the movie could have on girls like my two daughters.


As a result the movie had a deeper mes- sage for me, I was imagining Captain Marvel telling me, “Hey, I am a superhero and I am a girl!” Probably my daughter, or any other teenager her age, would not see this as a message in the movie. For them it is normal that a superhero could be a woman. Why not? Fortunately, there are more and more female heroes in cur- rent big screen productions: Black Widow (Avengers), Merida (Brave), Rey (Star Wars) and Elsa (Frozen) are just a few examples.


I have the habit, for better or worse, of 22 FOCUS The Magazine September/October 2019


“As a proud father of two girls, I love the fact that a woman


superhero is a normal thing for them, that they can dream big in life and nothing will stop them from making that dream come true.”


comparing my daughters’ childhood with mine. When I was growing up there were no women superheroes, only men. So perhaps the message of the movie was for my generation and previous ones, too. When I was born in Spain in 1969, the dictatorship was dying but society was very conservative and quite sexist. I have a brother and a sister. Only my sister helped my mum doing the household chores and for me, as a child, that behavior was totally normal.


Perhaps life in other countries of the Western world was a little better in terms of equality, but that was certainly not evident in the movies of that time. I remember Superman, Spiderman, Batman and, of course, James Bond. Looking back, Mr Bond was probably the most sexist of them all. Although the role of 007 has changed over the years and he may be a bit more politically correct, I still do not think his movies present women in a good way.


When I think about my childhood, I feel sorry for the girls who were watching those movies. Unlike today’s teenagers, they never saw someone like Captain Marvel or Rey telling them that women can be superheroes as well. Fortunately, the girls from my generation – today’s mums – can now go to the movies with their daughters and see that society’s attitudes are finally changing, and hopefully changing for good.


When I was thinking about Captain www.focus-info.org


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