Brie Larson Was Told To Smile, So She Put Smiles Onto Marvel Men

Marvel Studios

As if we needed any more reason to love Brie Larson, the completely badass trailer for Captain Marvel dropped on Tuesday (September 18).

In it, she can be seen shooting lasers from her fingertips, doing some impressive rope stunts and flying at speed. At one point, she even slaps an old woman around the face!

You know, all the usual superhero stuff – check it out:

The film tells the story of Carol Danvers (aka Brie Larson), a US Air Force pilot whose DNA is accidentally fused with an alien’s, resulting in her superhero transformation.

It’s a tale as old as time – an unfortunate incident results in the lead character transforming into a fearless, bold hero.

Think: Spiderman, The Hulk, Deadpool.

But usually, the lead character tends to have one tiny difference. You’ve guessed it – they’re all men.

While there are plenty of female characters in the Marvel Universe, Captain Marvel is actually the first female superhero lead.

Impressive, right?

Except 28-year-old Larson has been receiving some backlash since the trailer was released.

Not about her acting or anything remotely linked to her skill in general, but about her smile of all things.

Or rather, her lack of one.

People across the Twitter-sphere expressed their concern about the fact Larson couldn’t be seen smiling throughout the trailer.

One person even took it upon himself to ‘fix’ Larson’s look:

Now, this strikes a chord with me on more than one level.

I can’t tell you the amount of times random people have shouted at me to ‘cheer up love it might never happen’ or ask me ‘why the long face?’ as I have passed them in the street.

I’m sorry, do I know you?! Do you have any right to be questioning how I might be acting or feeling? No.

YAHOO! Movies

And it appears a lot of you agree with me. One person on Twitter wrote:

I’m not RTing this asshole because it’s what he wants. But it seems this dude’s big issue with Captain Marvel is that the pretty lady won’t just smile and look pretty like a good girl.

Whilst another wrote:

So the complaint that men who hate women have dreamed up for Captain Marvel is that she doesn’t smile enough?

Really? They’re not even trying to hide their hate and sexism anymore, are they?

But the best clapback came from Brie herself.

One amused tweeter wrote:

@brielarson put these pics on Instagram story. Legend #CaptainMarvel [sic]

And if you want a close up:

Brie Larson/Instagram

That’s right people, she uploaded a range of photoshopped pictures depicting male leads with smiles, onto her Instagram story.

They look creepy as hell to be honest.

So I think the moral of this whole debacle is not to mess with Brie Larson. At all. She’s not here for any sexist attitudes, and to be quite frank, neither are the rest of us.

I personally can’t wait to see her non-smiling badass self when the movie is released next year.

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Lucy Connolly

A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).