#like I'm sure Disney took the US Government's money because of course it would

[somanysoundtracks]

The US Air Force IS NOT the co-star or “real star” or w/e of “Captain Marvel”

It’s not like... the villain, either. Minor antagonist at times, maybe. Well... Ish. And it’s more generally the US government and institutional sexism and gender stereotypes. It’s not really clear what part of the government Carol worked for. You can definitely imply it, but we don’t get US Air Force stickers plastered over everything or filled into dialogue. It’s name-dropped... I think once? The entire film? (negatively, I might add) Carol only ever deals with two people who were potentially superior officers, and one of those, given the plot, shies even farther away from the “The Air Force is my home/amazing” thing.

I’m just really confused by all these posts about how it’s an Air Force recruitment ad? Because it isn’t? I can understand the complaints given the trailers, because the Air Force is definitely far more present in the trailers and ads. Carol’s story does involve her love of flying, like in the comics, and she does fly planes. But that is not the central focus of the story (in the sense that she’s not wistfully hoping to jump into some new plane every five seconds), nor is there some underlying message of “If you join the Air Force, you TOO can fly/become a superhero”. Or some nationalistic “do this for your country” or even “do this for your planet” message. In fact, it’s implied that if you do that, very likely bad things will happen to you and the people you care about? In the comics, Carol spends a lot of time around planes, fixing planes, racing, talking with pilots, etc. That’s... I mean that’s part of the movie, but there’s a lot more focus on figuring out her past, dealing with people (rather than planes) and plots (that do not directly involve planes). Like air and space travel is always important to the plot. But honestly if you’d said Carol worked for NASA, the movie probably wouldn’t be that different.

There’s also no message about how being in the Air Force made Carol like.... a stronger or better person or like “you join because you want to help people” or something. Carol loves flying, but the movie kind of changes that into... Carol wants to see the stars/the skyline? Honestly if you forget that the Air Force is a thing, the movie almost makes it sound like Carol wanted to be an astronaut. Or she’s an adrenaline junkie who enjoys it most when she’s flying or racing someone.

This is a story about Carol, first and foremost, and the People around her, and her journey to become a superhero (well, more of a superhero). And also about institutions, after a fashion, and assumptions we make about the institutions we’re a part of.

Like I went in fully expecting one of the many, many recruitment ads I see on TV for the US military, in the form of a movie, with some superhero trimmings. That is not what I got. I actually had to remind myself during the movie that the Air Force is a thing. That’s how not an Air Force recruitment ad this movie is.

Now you COULD argue that it’s very subtle marketing, which is actually BETTER than stamping ads and adding in dialogue and whatnot and centering the plot on it and all that. But even arguing that the marketing is really just SUBTLE requires a LOT of editorializing, and that “subtle” marketing is rather... muddled, at best, and actually quite negative about the Air Force, or at least the US Government. Sticking it under a spoilers cut to wrestle with it.

So one theme of the film (although not really a central one; this is a theme of Past Carol that Present Carol never really overtly follows up on; Present Carol is more demonstrably an adrenaline junkie) is that Carol loves flying, and an underlying message, if you squint, is that the Air Force was somehow her only option to do that.

Now there’s nothing in the film that says that the Air Force was Carol’s only option for flying. Maria states that the Air Force wasn’t letting women pilot combat jets, so she and Carol piloted Dr. Larson’s experimental planes in test flights as their only option. As a note, this is the only time I remember the Air Force being name dropped. Fury might say it once earlier in the film, but he also might have just said “the military” or “the government”. So if you look at this whole, singular scene, which is the only solid evidence for “the Air Force was Carol’s only option to fly”, 1) the Air Force is stated, in dialogue, negatively, because it wasn’t letting female pilots fly - both characters in the scene are female pilots who weren’t flying, thus, they are the ‘antagonist’ of the current scene, 2) Maria and Carol actually took an alternative - Larson’s planes - because the Air Force wouldn’t let them fly in combat. So actually the Air Force wasn’t Carol’s only option to fly. They wouldn’t even let her do it. It’s unclear where exactly Project Pegasus fits in the US military structure; whether it’s part of the Air Force or just a secret project organization in the military. 3) Dr. Larson is an alien, so actually it wasn’t even the US Government who was giving Carol the option to fly. It was an alien. 4) Perhaps most importantly, while speaking, Maria states that the US military (potentially name dropping the Air Force again I can’t remember, or at least implicitly calling it the ‘they’ in this conversation bit), covered up Carol’s death like it never happened, again painting the US military/government/Air Force as the bad guy.

Brief tangent, but later in the film, Monica watches Carol fly off into the sky. The camera does a close up on Monica’s wistful face, looking up into the sky, watching the trailing flames of Carol fade into the distance. It’s a very wistful moment you can easily imagine in other movies, TV shows, video games, even ads, etc., promoting going into space or, potentially, joining the Air Force so you can fly. So yes, I can see how people can look at the film and say, the marketing is there for people to join the Air Force, it’s just subtle.

But see how much editorializing I just did? On top of that, the only scene where we get any indication that the Air Force was Carol’s only option to fly, the Air Force is negatively remarked on at least twice, in what is one of the most emotionally charged scenes in the film. And we’re actually implicitly told that the Air Force isn’t Carol’s only option for flight, because the Air Force wasn’t letting her, and more importantly, the US Government wasn’t even the one giving her the chance. Sure, the US Government was funding Project Pegasus and by extension, Dr. Lawson’s research and her planes, but it’s implied that if not for Dr. Lawson - another woman involved with the US Government/military, amidst a dearth of women in authority/military positions (note, the only two women in government positions that we’re shown who aren’t Maria, Dr. Larson, or Carol, are one and possibly two unnamed SHIELD agents, one of whom has no dialogue) - Carol and Maria wouldn’t have had that chance. You can imply that, as is typical in a lot of similar stories, they’d have just flown some other test planes, like Carol did in the comics. But you have to imply it. And editorialize it. So basically, if not for an alien, Carol and Maria might never have been able to actually fly planes. Not the Air Force. Not the US Government.

There is a photo of a US spy plane in one scene. Carol is looking at a photo of another plane, and the spy plane photo is next to it. While the other photos on the wall are blurred a bit, the US spy plane photo is rather emphasized and shares about 1/3 of the screen with Carol and the photo of importance. It’s an odd choice. It’s also one of the only overt Air Force marketing things in the film. And other than it simply being there, there’s nothing else about the photo that says JOIN UP WITH THE AIR FORCE TODAY! It’s actually almost a reminder of HEY, REMEMBER HOW MUCH SHIT OUR SPY PLANES HAVE GOTTEN INTO OVER THE YEARS? YEAH, SO DO WE? So you can editorialize about it being stuck on the wall and emphasized how it is, but that editorializing can be negative just as much as it can be positive.

Another big theme of the film is how putting too much blind faith into institutions can be very dangerous. Whether that’s religion or the government or the military or the police force. The Kree AI is seemingly a god and a Big Brother government system that creeps you out from the very first scene you meet it. You literally have to be wired up to talk with it while it invades your mind to speak with you. Later we learn that Ronan the Accuser (younger Ronan, before the first “Guardians” movie) is working for the Kree government, which sends up other warning signs. Hey, remember this dude? He’s a major antagonist in another movie. But he works for the Good Guy Government right now! You know. Bombing... planets...

When Fury and Coulson show up at the Blockbuster to investigate, for maybe... a 10-minute stretch of a scene, it’s unclear whether they’re SHIELD or FBI (or posing as FBI), because it kind of looks like a bunch of cops with a pair of FBI agents, and I think Fury even flashes an FBI badge to Carol when he introduces himself. They then partake in a chase scene against Carol. So, in the movie, as is the case in many vigilante stories, the police and potentially the FBI are the baddies. And even though HYDRA isn’t brought up, the way the Skrulls mess with SHIELD casts the SHIELD agents we see (save for Coulson and Fury) as the bad guys. When Carol and Fury go to Project Pegasus, they are stonewalled and detained for no apparent reason, but possibly because there’s something to hide. This is the last new government agency we encounter in the film. So basically, story-wise, every government agency, for whatever reason, is opposed to the protagonist of the story. That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement joining a government agency, like the Air Force. Even though Carol spends the film with Fury, a government agent (of SHIELD), she’s with him specifically because he’s going against orders and not taking her in or attacking her. They’re both renegades, and that bonds them together.

At the end of the film, when Fury has seemingly been promoted, we don’t embrace government institutions again. There’s no evidence that what Fury did got him a promotion, or specifically why (I assumed his boss was grateful that Fury got rid of the shapeshifter who was impersonating him). After all, what exactly did he do? Potentially help stop aliens bombing the planet, I guess? By defying dozens of directives? Fury is taking over an organization to change things up, specifically by setting up the beginnings of the Avengers Initiative. There’s actually no evidence he was even promoted. It’s implied that he and Coulson are partners when they’re first introduced, but Coulson is clearly his subordinate at the end of the film. So the ending of the film could either be Fury moving up in the world or just going back to business as usual.

In short, in the film, government institutions are creepy at best, unhelpful and even antagonizing and downright evil at worst, and there’s no point where the heroes of the story do anything but say “we’re going to tear down what’s in place and build it up better”, which is no glowing endorsement of such institutions. It’s not an Air Force marketing ad.