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Thanos Is The Patriarchy™ And No One Is Talking about It

“Think about it. We never ask ourselves why the villain is a man.”

-@of_yeto, Twitter commentator

[Trigger warning: the word ‘rape’ is mentioned once. Twice, now.]

Following Rotten Tomatoes’ controversy around the censorship of thousands of negative comments about the MCU’s upcoming film Captain Marvel, it looks like an auspicious moment to look back at what we learned from the end of Avengers: Infinity War.

After his crushing victory over the Avengers ensemble, Thanos has succeeded both in eliminating half the Universe’s population, and in bringing what probably is the most heart-wrenching closing scene in all of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. Satisfied with his deed, the Mad Titan is now retired, working on his plantation, waiting. All the while, a glimmer of hope is cast, as the entrance of Captain Marvel into the franchise is hinted. This, though, what may appear as a small detail inserted just for the hype, changes everything.

I. The Subtlety Behind Evident Observations

The Thanos characterization in the MCU turned out to be an extremely successful, charismatic figure, to the point of gathering a large following of ironic (and some non-ironic) Thanos-apologists. As the meme the movie sparked goes: #ThanosDidNothingWrong.

Still, the purple elephant in the room remains unobserved. To bring it to light, I will list a series of this intergalactic Tyrant’s traits, and follow them by a trivia question.

On Thanos:

He is physically hyper-masculine. Big, muscular, stoic, bold and bald, with a scruffy voice and a Clint Eastwood-esque gaze; pretty much a purple Bruce WIllis. For anyone who missed the point, he also comes with a scrotum-shaped chin.

He is cold-hearted and cruel. Unwilling to publicly display emotions of vulnerability and compassion, Thanos calculatingly sacrifices even the lives of those he’s supposed to love.

He is an oppressor who relies on violence. Literally subjugating entire planets through force of arms, Thanos demonstrates to be proud of his forceful methods.

He is not motivated by love, as the comic book Thanos character was (in his own twisted way), but rather demonstrably obsessed with his quest for power.

He believes he is undeniably on the right. He even relies on condescending explanations to put his moral point across.

He is an abusive father. If that isn’t enough of a hint: he kills his emotionally vulnerable daughter, for the sake of power.

His defeat is foreshadowed by the appearance of Captain Marvel.

Consider the fact that Ms. Marvel, ever since her inception and throughout all of her different incarnations, has been, and probably will remain, a feminist icon, and a flagship of feminism in comics, now crowned with the honorific of Captain, and the mantle of one of Marvel’s pioneering heroes.

Now, Trivia question:

Why juxtapose Thanos’s victory with the entrance of Captain Marvel?

If you can’t find a straightforward answer to that question, you may try with this one:

If Captain Marvel has embodied feminism since inception, what does Thanos represent?

II. The Slow Regard of Silent Things

If your answer isn’t “The Patriarchy™”, you have not been paying attention. Looking at the character’s traits, it is almost a grocery list of “toxic masculinity” behaviours -probably missing only rape and sexual misconduct. Other that that, it is all there: the power, the abuse, the oppression, the cruelty, the lack of empathy. He represents every feminist’s nightmare of what the Patriarchy™ is: an unstoppable force of violence, pain and death, before which we are all powerless victims.

And Captain Marvel’s entrance, just at the end of that movie, should have been enough to embolden people into stating the following conclusion:

Thanos will be defeated by Captain Marvel, just as the Patriarchy will be, by Feminism™.

It is a connection that, once you see, you cannot unsee. It is patently, unmistakably, there.

Then again: where are the news about it?

Ever since Avengers: Infinity War was released, no mainstream articles have circulated on the topic. The closest things, even after almost a year: a Medium article with little traction, written in a fashion indistinguishable from a joke; another article on We Got This Covered, which trivially and tangentially graces the matter; and a third reference on Afropunk, also of little substance on the topic. None of these make the Captain Marvel connection. Some references sprout here and there on comments sections, but that’s pretty much everything you will find popping its head on a regular day.

It is not as if there is a problem with the statement, is there? “Captain Marvel vs Patriarchy Incarnate” had, since day one, everything to become a rallying cry. Marvel Cinematic Universe revealing itself as a proponent of feminism: the ultimate cultural victory of the movement over mainstream entertainment -but more than that: over what originated as a modern-mythology cultural niche, dominated by men.

What has stopped people from boasting about it?  Where is Vox™? IO9™? The Mary Sue™? Jezebel™? Even Polygon™? Where is the sass, the bragging and the nagging? Where are the inflammatory, click-baiting headlines? Every feminist loyal to the cause would have jumped onto the Smash-The-Purple-Patriarchy bandwagon. Should anyone have criticised the idea, or even pointed out “hey, maybe you’re just reading too much into it”, they could have been labeled as sexists, misogynists, and trolls, and be dispensed with. It was, by all outcomes, a secured victory.

Or was it? Why didn’t it happen? Thanos is the Patriarchy™: why no one is talking about it?

III. The Forceful Appliance of Sense And Sensibility

The most reasonable explanation: even though feminists would like very much the idea, Marvel and Disney executives may not. After all, as the Rotten Tomatoes debacle demonstrated: it is not a sound financial decision to make statements that will alienate the majority of your audience. And nobody likes entertainment that may be branded as propaganda -unless you like the propaganda.

So. some trailers were rebranded as “your usual action-hero flick”, instead of “the most empowering movie of the decade”. Some articles were never published in large outlets. Some comments were erased from blogs and news pages. Some comments and opinion sections were disabled. And that’s everything you need to ensure your movie’s financial success.

Worry not: your opinions, the good, the bad, and the ugly, can all come rolling out after the movie is out, and the block is busted.

In the meantime, though, you are kindly encouraged to avoid the conversation.