The Real Reason You Hated Marvel’s “Eternals”

*image borrowed from Marvel's Eternals 2021

It keeps happening. Marvel releases a movie and it flops with the critics but is adored by fans. Okay maybe it doesn't flop, but it definitely doesn't get the hype it rightly deserves.

Captain Marvel.

Black Widow.

Eternals.

All movies that I adore. Yet they can consistently be found on most if not all 'Worst Marvel Movie' lists. Either that or they're being slandered by some dudebro who should not have been given a podcast. How is it that these films that my friends and I love could be so hated by film critics? I do not think the matter is as simple as differing tastes.

I am what some might call a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fangirl. I have watched all the movies, I know most of the trivia and I refuse to acknowledge the original Incredible Hulk movie. Up until recent years, however, I could not relate to any of the characters I saw on the screen. It's not puzzling that I, a black, immigrant woman didn't exactly see herself reflected in Tony Stark. Don't get me wrong, I have always looked up to Steve Rogers and consider Scott Lang my fictional uncle but it wasn't until Black Panther, Tom Holland's Spiderman, Captain Marvel, Black Widow and Eternals that I started to feel more at home in the MCU. Maybe that's the issue there.

As the western media landscape has to some degree started to make more of an effort to uphold diversity and proper representation, we are starting to see more MCU 'flops' as critics might call them. Apart from the Incredible Hulk of course; that unicorn managed to flop with a white male lead. As you might be able to guess by this point, I don't consider these films bad in any sense of the word. I think we [the media, society, whomever you decide the collective we stands for] keep paying the same critics as we would have 10, maybe 20 or even 30 years ago. The media we consume is changing and yet its public commentators remain as racially and sexually homogenous as they always have been. I've already spoken about this in my post about 'Charlie's Angels: 2019' but some of you weren't listening so I'll rehash it again. Let's start with Captain Marvel.

Possibly the MCU's most controversial or frankly most hated film, Captain Marvel debuted with 79% on the Tomatometer and a 45% Audience Score. * In case you can't tell, those aren't great ratings. They're not the worst either but they are bad for a Marvel film. The movie itself was the first female-led superhero movie from the studio. Which is a huge deal. However, there are many who not only thought that centring a female hero was unnecessary but were also intent on hating the film from the get-go. It also would not have helped that there was a little bit of 'controversy' surrounding the film's lead; Brie Larson at the time of the movie's premiere. I dug around to see if I could learn what this controversy was, and I was a little disappointed, to be honest with you. It's giving... nothing. A lot of the hatred towards Larson started with her making a comment on how the majority of film critics are white males. Yes, the same comment I made a couple of paragraphs ago. At the Crystal + Lucy Awards in 2018, she said, "I don't need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn't work for him…" Her comment was regarding 'A Wrinkle in Time, another movie that deserved better, but I digress. She continued, "It wasn't made for him! I want to know what that film meant to women of colour, to biracial women, to teen women of colour."

Now correct me if I'm wildin' but that doesn't sound like a particularly controversial statement to make. It's a statement I have made before because I truly believe it. Look at it this way, why would you ask a food writer that hates spice to critique a restaurant focusing on chillies of the world? Some things are not for everyone, and that's okay, the focus should be on that product's target audience, not just who happens to be around at the time. I didn't want to know how straight, cis-gendered white men who have always been represented in the MCU felt about Captain Marvel, I wanted to hear from women, from fans of the comics, from Stan Lee himself what he thought of the movie adaptation.

*I will be using rotten tomatoes for all the ratings because it's usually pretty representative of how the general public received a film.

Years after Captain Marvel, Disney gave us the long-awaited Black Widow movie. For me, this film is up there as one of my all-time favourites. I love this way you love your favourite t-shirt. No, I will not elaborate. Black Widow portrayed the Natasha Romanov we all know and love without so many of those pesky over-sexualised shots that have plagued her for years. Here is the truth of the matter, Natasha may have been the first female avenger, a super-intelligent woman and an outright badass but if you take a look at any of the movie posters she is featured in before 2020, she has been made to look more like a model than a superhero. To no one's surprise, the male gaze is alive and well.

In her sister's own words, Natasha was such a poser. Speaking of Yelena, Black Widow was the superhero movie that made me feel heartbroken, validated, inspired and it made me want to cry out of gratitude for having such a solid relationship with my sisters. I felt a lot of feelings. The whole movie radiated such femme energy and anyone else with sisters will attest to the fact that it tugged at all our heartstrings. Tell me why then critics only rated this movie a 79% fresh rating. Do you know what received the exact same rating? Fight Club… I rest my case.

Past atrocities aside, let's circle back to the reason why you're here in the first place: Eternals. To me, this movie was fun, unexpectedly touching and unlike the general population, I saw its diversity as something positive not 'laboured' or a futile attempt at appearing woke. Disney has many faults and failings, but its casting choices and choice of Chloe Zhao as a director for this film aren't on that list. Is Eternals the best thing I have ever seen? No. But was it a joy to behold and did it kinda make me think that #ThanosWasRight? Yes. Zhao shined as a director – choosing to showcase some beautiful relationships, showstopping scenery and of course some of my favourite women as superheroes. The Eternals is a group comprised of heroes that resemble a bunch of different races, ethnicities and sexual orientations. Something which I see as a good thing. Given the film's Asian director, there are also elements that I don't think were made exclusively for white audiences to understand. This is not to say they wouldn't but for example, the scene where Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) says something in a Hindi** dialect which isn't subtitled [similarly to Ned's scenes with his lola [grandmother] ala Spiderman: No Way Home] – these scenes aren't in these movies for anyone except for the people who speak that language. Hence it's not up to anyone else, myself included, to have an opinion on them or to say we didn't enjoy them.

**my research was inconclusive, the word "dhishoom" is either Hindi or Sri Lankan but in both languages, it means 'bang' or it's the word you would use to describe a loud crash and/or crashing sound

Let's discuss Makkari; in the comics, this superhuman is a hearing white male but for the film adaptation the role was played by a deaf, black woman ala Lauren Ridloff. This is huge for many reasons not limited to it being one of the only prominent representations of a deaf hero in the MCU [apart from Hawkeye but that is something Marvel decided to ignore until his mini-series]. Ridloff's casting in such an important role as both a hero but also a love interest was huge for people in communities that have been marginalised or are perpetually underrepresented in the industry. In an interview with Variety, Ridloff said, "What I love most about Chloé and this movie is there's diversity on the screen without actually having that become the point of the story. It just is. It's just like the real world. I think that was what was so exciting to see, people who were just different. They have different interests, different abilities." THIS is exactly what I felt. It didn't feel performative to me, it felt good. So tell me why someone I know felt the need to argue about how 'valid' the existence of a deaf superhuman would be since they are meant to be 'perfect'. This wasn't on an internet forum or in the deep, dark depth of twitter. This conversation happened in real life and real-time and to hear that level of ableism left me wanting to crawl into bed and never leave. Isn't that kind of thinking right there the whole reason more directors should be making similar casting decisions?

There are a few other MCU titles that are incredibly diverse and progressive in many ways but don't receive the same level of backlash as the movies I've discussed above. I have a simple theory as to why that may be. Let's start with Black Panther. Writing may be my passion but words fail me as I try to find the words to describe what this movie means to me. With no exaggeration, it changed my life. Simply put, it helped me connect more to my blackness in a positive way. It feels so good to see a pop-culture reflection of my heritage that isn't rooted in poverty porn or systematic injustice or marginalisation. More on that in a later post. But the thing is, Black Panther did well at the box office. Not just that, it ended up breaking a few records. That movie had like a handful of white people in it and was set predominantly in a *fictional* African country. So how? My theory is that to the unassuming; T'Challa just reads as a black Tony Stark. The diversity or anti-colonisation themes or the presence of a truly morally grey villain largely went over the heads of many because they saw a cool rich black man and a kickass all-female army. The same could be said of Thor: Ragnarok, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Tom Holland's Spiderman. These movies are all incredibly diverse, have such vulnerable storylines and share a lot of the same themes as the three films I discussed earlier, however, be it because of their male leads or the cool fight scenes, they can in a sense 'get away with it'.

I'm not saying the men of the internet should start hating on Peter Parker, but I would just like to remind them that his girlfriend is a black woman who got admitted into MIT and wouldn't tour the Washington monument because it was built by slaves. I don't want them to boycott Thor, but they should keep in mind that he has always been an ally and he happily gave his throne to a black woman because not only did he not want the power, he had the forthrightness to recognise that Valkyrie was the leader his people needed. Shang-Chi can fight really well and that should be respected, but he is also a Chinese immigrant whose upbringing could have been his villain origin story but instead, he channelled all that energy into learning how to forgive and building himself the kind of life he liked. That's literally the immigrant story right there.

So here it is, the reason the critics hated Eternals wasn't really because of the diversity or the emotional themes or even the Harry Styles cameo [which was perfection by the way]. It's because this movie, and Captain Marvel and Black Women centred stories which they couldn't relate to based on sex and gender alone. All these stories require you to find a connection with a character more on a human as opposed to a surface level which for white men *and maybe women* who have always seen themselves reflected in media is not only challenging, it doesn't seem worth the effort. They just hating from outside the club.

some light reading

Screen Rant | the 10 Worst MCU Movies (According To Metacritic)

Inside the Magic | The 7 Worst Movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Cinema Blend | Why Captain Marvel's Brie Larson Is Trying To Be A More Open, Honest Version Of Herself These Days

Cinema Blend | Eternals' Lauren Ridloff Reveals Why Having A Deaf Superhero In The Marvel Cinematic Universe Is So Important

ELLE | The Women of Eternals Will Save the World

Tatler Asia | How the Unsubtitled Tagalog Scene in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Celebrates Being Filipino

Mint Lounge | the Laboured Diversity of Eternals

Rotten Tomatoes | Eternals