‘Captain Marvel’ Star Brie Larson Beseeches Media For Greater Diversity Among Critics

Brie Larson, who plays Captain Marvel in the upcoming film of the same name, has had enough of white dudes dominating the media discourse about superhero films.

And, according to USA Today, she’s begging all the women and POC journalists to lift their critical voices as high as they can.

The outlet reports that Brie Larson made this comment at last night’s Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards. Larson, who was accepting an award at the event, used her time to cite some interesting statistics about the phenomenon of white men continuing to dominate media, even as the working landscape of media changes.

According to a report released by the University of Southern California, nearly 80 percent of film critics who reviewed last year’s top box-office hits were male.

What’s more, according to that same study, in 2017, only 2.5 percent of that year’s top critics were women of color.

Larson laced into the “old white dudes” that criticized her performance in A Wrinkle in Time, a film that had high expectations but failed to deliver at the box office. She reminded them that the film “was not made for them,” and she didn’t really care what they had to say.

In my own words #unity pic.twitter.com/8gle4ZSk1a

— Brie Larson (@brielarson) January 30, 2017

She then went on to say that while she didn’t “hate” old white dudes, she felt the need to speak out against the practice of employing predominantly old white men for reviewer positions, especially since films that were “love letters” to women of color weren’t reaching them because there were so few high-powered women of color in reviewer positions.

Brie Larson then went on to say that “reviews matter” for films, and they made a difference for her. “They literally changed my life,” she said, emphasizing that it was because she received so many positive reviews for her acting that she was afforded the opportunity to play Captain Marvel in the upcoming film.

.@brielarson offers three application points for helping film critics better reflect the U.S. population: 1) Ensure studio publicists and other gatekeepers are providing press screening access to critics of color, many of whom are freelancers #CrystalLucys pic.twitter.com/sShRPHWENG

— Rebecca Sun ??? (@therebeccasun) June 14, 2018

Larson also took the time to acknowledge the Sundance and the Toronto Film Festivals, pointing out that 20 percent of their press passes were going to go to critics that were otherwise under-represented in the media.

Frances McDormand, who opened the ceremony, picked up where she left off at the Oscars about the Hollywood inclusion rider, which she’d only recently learned about at the time she spoke of it. And though she spoke more about the inclusion rider at this event, Brie Larson expanded on that notion to talk about film critics who needed it most.