Imagine we built a time machine. Don’t worry, I’m sure our time machine won’t do anything like, I don’t know, accidentally start a multiverse.

We take our time machine back to 2022-ish. (It’s not a very precise machine.) The year that I first watched the Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

While we’re here, since it can’t hurt, we ask 2022 me which Marvel project she hates the most.

Without even a second’s hesitation, she answers Captain Marvel.

Right. Back to the present. I’m rewatching all the MCU projects and dreading Captain Marvel. But I give it another fair shot. After all, it’s been four years. Opinions change over four years. (Don’t I know it.)

Cut to Carol fighting her attackers while “Just a Girl” blasts in the background.

Cue me going “oh no.”

Suddenly, my most hated Marvel film became not hated at all. Captain Marvel is a fun film with a fantastic heroine. And the reasons she’s so good are the very traits that I hated her for.

Carol was too defiant.

My girl Carol really crash-landed in a Blockbuster and immediately took no crap from anyone.
She’ll disobey her superiors. She’ll argue with freakin’ Nick Fury. She’ll punch a hole through the wall with her super-powered fists.

2022 me thought that was too much.

Can you say INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY?

In case you’ve not been introduced to the term yet, internalized misogyny is when women subconsciously accept and project sexist beliefs onto themselves and the women around them. And it caused all my problems with this movie.  

I believed that I shouldn’t be loud, defiant, or angry, so I believed that even the fictional Carol Danvers shouldn’t be loud, defiant, or angry, and I hated her for it.

Yeah, 2022 Rachel was going through it.

I’ve undone a lot of those sexist beliefs over the past four years, although I’m sure that I still have a lot more to work through. And while we’re here, let’s clarify—a woman does not have to be defiant to also be strong.
But some women are defiant, and some women need to be.

Carol—and many other beings in her world—had been horribly used and manipulated. (I’m not going to say that nods to real-life problems, but it definitely does.) Carol’s anger and grief over what she had lost fueled her to create a change, both for herself and for other people who needed her.

Sometimes, we need a woman to get loud and angry.

Carol was too emotional.

Do you hear that? Do you hear the internalized misogyny?

Among the Kree, Yon-Rogg, Carol’s superior, lectures her about her emotions, claiming that they hinder her fights. In reality, he’s terrified of what might happen if she uses them in a healthy way.

People use this argument against women every day, especially women in positions of leadership (like Carol eventually would be). I believed I shouldn’t be emotional, and so she shouldn’t either.

If you asked 2022 me if I was a thinker or a feeler, she would have wholeheartedly answered a thinker. I believed that I didn’t feel very much and that when I made decisions, I used my head and my logic, and that I was better off for it.

It turns out repressed emotions are still emotions. And over the next four years, life circumstances would be like “bestie, you are anything but logical.” And that’s okay. I had to undo sexist beliefs that told me that if I felt anything too deeply, then I was just a hysterical female.

Once again, Carol deserves to be emotional. And yes, she shows how emotions can hold us back—but more importantly, she shows how emotions make us strong. She shows how emotions inspire us to do big things. We don’t need to fear our feelings, especially not as women.

Carol makes mistakes. Sometimes huge ones.

Carol disobeys Yon-Rogg’s orders—which gets her captured by the Skrull and ruins her mission. She discriminates against the Skrull through the majority of the film. And if she’d just listen to Nick every once in a while, quite a few complications could have been avoided.

BEEEEEEEEEEEP INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY ALERT.

(Are you noticing a theme here?)

This idea sneaks into even the most “feminist” movies. Sometimes while trying to create a character that celebrates women, we swing so far the other way that we make them perfect, that we don’t allow them to make mistakes.

But deep underneath that, we believe that women shouldn’t make mistakes, and if they do, they should not be easily forgiven. If you hang around fandom circles, you’ve seen those posts. “If (female character) were a dude, everyone would have said she was just misunderstood.”

And it’s true. I could name multiple stories where two characters with similar backgrounds both make questionable choices. The male character is almost universally beloved, and the female character is almost universally hated for the very same choice.

We hold women to a harsher standard than men, both in fiction and in real life. We’re taught to be perfect and to not make mistakes, because if we make mistakes, then people will discredit us. But making mistakes is part of being human.

I argue that making mistakes is one of the most important traits a strong female character can have. And Carol not only makes mistakes, but deals with the consequences they bring. And not all her mistakes are the end of the world—sometimes they lead her to where she’s actually meant to be.

And finally, she got superpowers randomly at the end so she could save the day.

2022 me thought the ending was an easy out. Oh, Carol now has the power of a thousand burning suns or whatever. How convenient.

But Carol’s powers aren’t random, and they weren’t a cheap way to get her out of a pickle. Carol always had those powers. (Well, at least since the explosion.) She just gets them back, or rather, realizes she had them all along.

But even when she didn’t have access to all her superpowers, she still always got back up after a fight. She cared about her friends. She searched for the truth and challenged the norm.

Defiance was her power. Emotions were her power. Her ability to learn from her mistakes and get back up was her power.

Carol’s most important powers weren’t even the superpowers she takes back. They were the qualities she had all along.

So. Consider this my formal retraction of any previous Captain Marvel slander I’ve put out on the Internet.

I could write thousands of words about this film. But all those words boil down to a twenty-four-year-old woman curled up on her living room floor watching Carol Danvers beat the heck out of her attackers while “Just a Girl” plays in the background.

A twenty-four-year-old woman watching the stories she never saw as a kid.

And that’s why Captain Marvel is so powerful.  

What are your thoughts on Captain Marvel? Let me know in the comments below!

Hi, I’m Rachel! I write young adult fantasy. But more importantly, I write the novels I needed growing up—the novels I still need. Novels for the weird little girls and the women they’re becoming.

Maybe you need those stories, too? You can get one for free by signing up for my email newsletter via the “HOME” page of my website. It might involve a girl and the magical violin she didn’t want and maybe a metaphor about grief. Plus, you’ll also get email-exclusive updates on my dieselpunk Anastasia reimaging. Sound good? I hope I’ll see you there! 

Can I tell you the truth? I don’t like Snow White.
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Don’t worry, I’m not remaking Snow White, so nobody needs to cancel me over that little confession.

Maybe her ridiculously high-pitched voice got to my nerves. Maybe I couldn’t vibe with her garish color scheme. Maybe the whole movie terrified me a little bit.

But when I grew up and looked past the gross apple and sketchy trees, Snow White only infuriated me more.

Snow White is expected to clean up after seven guys—after she almost died—because for some reason, guys can’t clean up after themselves? And then a clearly sinister woman approaches the window, and Snow White goes “yeah this seems legit” and accepts food from her?

Younger me got the message loud and clear. Snow White existed to mindlessly clean up after the boys—a glorified housemaid, if you will.

Younger me hated that.

Grown-up me hates that.

But grown-up me found herself rewatching the movie anyway. And despite all my hatred, I found something deeper buried in this very sexist film.

And I found it in Snow White herself.

Don’t get me wrong--Snow White the movie has issues. Lots of issues. Whether intentional or unintentional, it reflects harmful views about women that were held at the time (and that women still have to push back against today).  

In fact, it’s worth noting that I automatically blamed the movie’s problems on the fictional heroine, rather than on the systems and false beliefs that made the film and put her there.

But Snow White doesn’t do what she does because someone else told her so and she simply obeyed. She does these things from the goodness of her own heart.

She doesn’t clean up after the dwarves because someone told her that’s her place. She genuinely wants to help them.

She doesn’t accept the witch’s apple she’s too dumb or ditzy to know better. She chooses to believe the best of everyone—even to her own detriment.

Even after the Evil Queen attempts to kill her and strands her in the forest, Snow White chooses to be kind and to believe the best about everyone.

Obviously, that outlook has fallacies. If someone looks sinister, maybe don’t accept food from them.

But I can still look past it and see the good heart and good intentions behind Snow White’s fallacies.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the most trusting person. And I watched a fictional girl suffer and get betrayed and have every right to be just as mistrusting as I am. But she consciously chose to be kind anyway.

That’s something beautiful.

That is a different sort of strength, a strength not as readily seen in heroines.

Do I still hate Snow White the movie? Yeah. But I can still appreciate something deeper in Snow White the princess, something that maybe even her filmmakers didn’t intend to hide in there. But it’s there all the same.

Did you enjoy this post? If you did, I'm not SAYING that you'll enjoy my analysis of Wendy from Peter Pan . . . but I'm just saying. You can read that analysis here: https://www.racheljleitch.com/blog/disney-heroines-that-hold-up-surprisingly-well-wendy​
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Hi, I’m Rachel! I write young adult fantasy. I write the novels I needed growing up—the novels I still need. Novels for the weird little girls and the women they’re becoming.

Maybe you need those stories, too? You can get one for free by signing up for my email newsletter via the “HOME” page of my website. It might involve a girl and the magical violin she didn’t want and maybe a metaphor about grief. Plus, you’ll also get email-exclusive updates on my dieselpunk Anastasia reimaging. Sound good? I hope I’ll see you there! 

On today’s episode of Disney heroines that hold up surprisingly well . . .

Alright, I don’t actually know if I’ll turn this into a series or not. You’ll have to let me know in the comments below whether you think it would be worth my while.

But for now enjoy my assorted thoughts gathered from watching a Disney classic with my siblings.

Classic Disney movies get a lot of flack. And sometimes it’s deserved. Outdated and hurtful cultural representation can pop up out of nowhere. Heroines are subjected to sexist interpretations. And I still want to shake some sense into Ariel’s head. Classic stories can at times be a land mine.

But sometimes, classic films surprise me. Sometimes they seem to know how to craft characters and stories better than we do today, or at the very least, in a different way than we use now.

We live in a different time, and therefore the tools at our disposal and the effect they have are different. But we can still learn a lot from the classics, both things we shouldn’t do and things we should start again.

And I found some in the 1953 Disney classic Peter Pan, of all places.

Before we get started, we need to address that elephant in the room. Or crocodile. Or however you wish to refer to it.

Remember what I said about outdated and hurtful cultural representation? I don’t feel that I can write about this film without acknowledging that this film uses racist caricatures against Native Americans. Despite all her other wins, Wendy and the other characters in the film reinforce these stereotypes. In no way, shape, or form do I condone the caricatures and stereotypes in this film. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now. This is one of those cases where we can learn from what they did wrong, so we can avoid those mistakes in our own writing and real-life interactions.

Now let’s get started. Because this is an article about a Disney heroine that held up surprisingly well in the decades between then and now.

And I’m talking about none other than Wendy herself.

If I’m truthful, Wendy always irked me just a little bit when I was younger. Peter and the other boys got to have sword fights and outsmart pirates and Wendy got to sit there on the rock and watch. It seemed like she was pushed aside and forced to look on while the boys got to have the real fun.

And yes, a Wendy sword fight would have been epic.

But on my most recent watch through, I realized that Wendy is an especially strong heroine, and in many ways counter cultural to the era that she was created in. She might have a few things to say about our own heroines as well. 

The Real Leader of the Lost Boys

If I asked you who the leader and protector of the Lost Boys was, most of us would answer Peter. And the movie likes to pretend it agrees.

But there’s only one person that can get the boys in line with only a few words.

And it’s not Peter. It’s Wendy.

From the very start, Wendy is the leader and protector of her brothers. She sticks up for them against their easily angered father, even when gets her banished from the nursery.

Her leadership and protection extends to the Lost Boys. She reminds the boys of who they really are and what they really want. With only a few words, she reminds them that they really do want to go home. When pirates capture them all, the boys would have caved immediately had she not been there. Wendy rallies them against the pirates and encourages them to stand strong in their beliefs, even when it looks hopeless.

So from the start to the end, Wendy plays a traditionally masculine role in the story, even though it’s never stated outright.

And yet she does it all without becoming controlling, or quite frankly, ending up like Peter himself. Peter has to rule through control and putting others down, while Wendy’s kindness makes her strong.

Wendy is the only person who can see through Peter’s bravado and call him out on it. She is the only person who disagrees with him and questions him. And when it comes down to it, she’s the one who’s willing to outright defy him and leave.

And this movie was made in the 50s! Fifties-era girls rarely got to be the leaders or protectors of anything. Which makes Wendy even more astounding.

Your Mother and Mine

When Disney remade Peter Pan in 2023, I stumbled upon an ill-fated review of the film. The reviewer criticized the fact that Wendy took a more pivotal role and joined in on the fights alongside the boys. “It takes away the core of her personality, her very femininity!” they bemoaned. “Wendy was and always will be a mother.”

I have to wonder if they watched the same Wendy that I did.

(To be fair, I wasn’t a huge fan of the remake either, but that wasn’t the reason why.)

Peter Pan—both the movie and the character—seems determined to push Wendy into the mother role. The only reason Wendy gets to go to Neverland at all—even though she’s the one who believes in it the most—is because Peter thinks she might take care of them.

But Wendy quietly pushes back against this, too.

During the extremely cringeworthy scene in the natives’ camp, Wendy is told that she cannot join the celebration with the boys. She’s told that her job is to gather firewood and clean up after everyone else. And what’s her response? To quietly fall in line?

Nope. She straight up just goes home.

But even as she quietly insists she’s worth more than cleaning up after the boys, she also recognizes and celebrates the immense value of motherhood.

Even as she recognizes that she has worth beyond cleaning up after the boys, she also recognizes the immense value of motherhood. It shapes a pivotal moment in the film and in the Lost Boys’ lives. (Mary Darling deserves her own mention here too as a rare and fantastic example of a Disney mom.)

Wendy can say that she’s not the Lost Boys’ mother even as she celebrates mothers. She doesn’t have to tear down one to lift the other up. That dynamic is becoming a rare and beautiful art.

Wendy recognizes that she has worth beyond what she can do for the Lost Boys.

Wendy’s Wonder                
              
And yet she remains one of the most idealistic characters in the film.

That’s the best thing about her. She doesn’t have to lose any of her softness to be strong. She doesn’t have to lose her wonder to be a leader, or her kindness to be a protector.

Rather, those things are her strengths. Her softness, wonder, and kindness enable her to challenge the norm, to take on that role of leader, and to recognize her own worth.

In the end, Wendy’s sense of wonder saves them all, her stubborn belief that Peter Pan is real and that he will come to save them. She might not pick up a sword and beat off an approaching pirate (although I fully believe she would have thrown hands with a mermaid), but she rallies all the boys to keep believing.

Her wonder is what earns her a spot on Disney heroines who hold up surprisingly well.

So what do you think? Is this worth a series? Who’s your favorite Disney heroine, or any heroine you’d like to see me cover? Let me know in the comments below! 

Hi, I’m Rachel! I write young adult/new adult fantasy novels that walk the line between the darker elements of fantasy and the weirder elements of cartoons. But more importantly, I write the novels I needed growing up—the novels I still need. Novels for the weird little girls and the women they’re becoming.

Maybe you need those stories, too? You can get one for free by signing up for my email newsletter via the “HOME” page of my website. It might involve a girl and the magical violin she didn’t want and maybe a metaphor about grief. Plus, you’ll also get email-exclusive updates about what I’m reading, watching, and writing. Sound good? I hope I’ll see you there!