It might comfort DaCosta, Larson or Marvel Studio execs to attribute The Marvels’ box-office failure to sexism and racism. But the success of other recent Marvel films refutes this theory. After all, fans flocked to see Scarlett Johansson’s kick-ass lead performance in Black Widow in 2021. And 2018’s Black Panther, which featured a mostly black cast and focussed on the fictional African country of Wakanda, was a box-office sensation.
Audiences are no doubt tiring of Marvel and the superhero genre in general. But Marvel’s woke turn has accelerated the decline. Its decision to treat its audience as a mass of unreconstructed bigots in need of moral correction is alienating even many hardcore fans.
Marvel is learning an all-too-familiar lesson. It has gone woke, and now it is going broke. And it only has itself to blame.
[This is a failure of basic storytelling. These woke “girlboss” films usually make their female protagonists utterly flawless, known as Mary Sues in the biz, which makes them entirely uncompelling. There’s already too much of the superhero-power-for-every-occasion in the MCU even apart from that, which is why people are tiring of Marvel generally, but this is indeed accelerating the ennui. — Ed]
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