To be fair, dissing other characters in a hero movie or show isn’t the biggest issue of all, but it’s something that gets noticed by a lot of people the moment it happens and has been a bit of a problem for a while. A big reason why this was brought into play happened when Captain Marvel first came to the MCU. which makes it sound as though the arrival of a strong female character might have threatened a lot of male fans, even though this isn’t the case. It has less to do with the empowerment of strong female characters and more to do with what has been earned when a hero comes onto the screen. Some would say that Brie Larson, an Oscar winner, would have earned her pass when it came to acting entitled to the act of disrespecting her costars and fellow characters. But the thing is, dissing someone is something that’s earned in most fields and is valued when it comes from those that have weathered the types of situations that those in the MCU have gone through. Granted, they’re fictional movies, but it’s still enough to hope that Larson would have realized that she was new to the MCU, and needed to earn her stripes before acting like she was the most important individual in the franchise.
The heads of the MCU aren’t blameless in this since she was touted as the strongest Avenger, which placed her above several big names almost immediately. The funny thing about this is that after all the griping about Black Widow not being made into a big enough deal, the MCU brought in Captain Marvel and she was allowed to be an instant hit. How’s that for empowerment? Black Widow earned her spot, and the right to be a bit stuck-up and diss other characters, while Carol Danvers, for all that she was meant to be a powerful hero and shining star for the franchise, came in talking trash and acting like she was Ms. Thing, and hadn’t earned a moment of it.
It’s not enough to build off the rumors of how she interacted with her costars since that could be a bunch of hearsay. But it is enough to see from the results of the movies that she’s starred in that initially, she didn’t earn a single thing. Some people might say that’s rubbish, that of course, she earned it, that every female hero has earned it, but there’s a big difference. Black Widow earned it by dint of starting in Iron Man 2 and making her way forward with the team, as a TEAM player. That’s about the only real way that one can cop an attitude or earn the right to diss those they’re supposed to be working with. That’s why the current She-Hulk trailer might have rubbed a few people the wrong way since her mention of what heroes really were didn’t strike the right chord with a lot of fans. The problem of course is that she’s another hero being introduced with all the skill and power that she needs to make her series work, which doesn’t imply that she’s had to go through the loss of something and then the effort of earning it back, much as Tony Stark did, Thor did, and Captain America did.
The point of this is that many heroes have earned their stripes, and at this point, so has Captain Marvel, but that’s the point, they have EARNED the right to disrespect other heroes, no matter how petty it might sound. It would appear that Ms. Marvel is going to be earning her way up according to the trailer, and many others have shown that they’re deserving of the respect that people are willing to give them, but the idea of paying your dues can’t help but be endorsed by many people. There’s no doubt that each new hero that comes into the MCU is going to be put through their paces and thereby earn the right to start dissing each other, but allowing them to do so right out of the gate doesn’t feel like empowerment, it feels like a serious privilege that hasn’t been afforded to a lot of other characters and wasn’t even considered at any given point.
There’s no denying how popular and how useful many heroes have been in the MCU, and how others will contribute to the continuation of the franchise, but the hope is that all of them from this point on will continue to be put through the effort of earning their ability to be snarky about their peers. She-Hulk has already made it clear that this isn’t going to be a perfect process since there is no such thing. But if nothing else, being made to work for things gives a character a lot more…well, character.
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