MAJOR SPOILERS FOR MARVEL'S CAPTAIN MARVEL, STOP READING IF YOU'RE AVOIDING SPOILERS
Good. Now, with that out of the way, I saw Captain Marvel the other night and I have some thoughts on the matter. The movie is amazing with a fantastic soundtrack. Carol is a funny, likable hero, and her supporting cast definitely help her story shine. The opening scenes do a great job of establishing Carol (known as Vers to her Kree compatriots) as humorous and optimistic, if not brash and impulsive. The scenes also inform us that Vers has no memories prior to meeting Yon-Rogg, her superior officer in the Kree army. She's told she was recovered after a Skrull attack, but she sometimes dreams in bits and pieces of a life she may have led before then. Yon-Rogg sees potential in her and recruits her into the Kree military, specifically his own military unit known as Starforce. The Kree are at war with the Skrulls, who they inform us are shapeshifting alien terrorists responsible for sowing death and destruction across the galaxy.
Towards the middle of the movie, Vers and the audience discover these facts to be a lie. Vers was never a Kree but a human woman and US Air Force pilot named Carol Danvers, who was caught in a fight between Kree rebel Mar-Vell and Yon-Rogg. During this encounter Carol is caught in a blast from experimental alien technology and imbued with amazing power, most notably the ability to discharge energy in the form of "photon blasts." Yon-Rogg sees the potential in this power and kidnaps Carol to bring her to Hala, where she is brainwashed into believing herself to be a Kree warrior. Further, the Skrulls aren't terrorists but refugees escaping the threat of the Kree's imperialist expansion.
And this is the point in the story in which I started seeing parallels between Carol's story and the stories of Indigenous people around the world. Carol is a human woman stolen by the Kree for their own personal use, a common theme in Indigenous history in regards to both our people and our cultural customs and items. After all, how many museums hold on to Indigenous relics without regards to indigenous wishes? How many Indigenous cultural practices are appropriated and diluted for non-Native consumption? How about Matoaka, the eponymous Pocahontas, who was also a kidnapping victim stolen by imperialists?
Later in the story, during the climax of Carol's emotional arc, Carol is recaptured by her Kree mentor and connected to the Kree Supreme Intelligence to undergo brainwashing and have the memories of being a human stripped from her again. Carol manages to overpower the attempted brainwashing when she's reminded of the strength she gained from being human- in essence, the strength she received from reconnecting with a culture that was forcibly taken from her. After she's re-established that connection with her past and overcomes the device the Kree put in place to control her, Carol becomes stronger than ever.
Of course, during this whole process the Kree Supreme Intelligence and Yon-Rogg are telling Carol that she can only reach perfection through the Kree. Despite the fact that it was the Kree keeping her from reaching the pinnacle of her power. This is almost a direct parallel between the way non-Native people view Native cultures even today. I can't tell you the amount of times I've been told that, before colonization, Natives were just murdering and pillaging each other. So many people truly think that without colonization we would have had no innovation of our own, that colonization saved us from being uneducated savages in much the same way that the Kree believe they've improved Carol's life by allowing her to be among the Kree.
Now, I know these parallels aren't entirely appropriate. After all, Carol Danvers is a white character played by a white woman. We should be looking for and getting actual stories of Indigenous people for Indigenous empowerment. But when I was watching Captain Marvel I found myself relating to Carol in a way I hadn't with any Marvel character in film yet, and it was only when Yon-Rogg tells Carol how much better the Kree have made her that I realized what it was. And it made Carol's resistance versus him and the colonizing Kree all the more resonating and powerful for myself.
