Posts

Showing posts from March, 2019

Captain Marvel, Disney Princesses, and the “Feminist Agenda,” Part 2

Image
The response to Disney’s Captain Marvel  has been fraught with controversy, even before the film was released. Greg Morse, a staff writer at Desiring God, wrote about the movie after seeing it, and his article has received a lot of criticism (rightfully so, in my opinion). Morse makes —or, at the very least, appears to make— four dangerous rhetorical errors in his piece, and in my last blog post we examined the first two: unclear language and genre confusion. Now let’s look at the other two problems: reverse chronological snobbery and a demeaning attitude toward women. 3. Reverse Chronological Snobbery C. S. Lewis coined the term “chronological snobbery” to describe the belief that the “intellectual climate” of our own time is automatically superior to that of the past, as the beliefs and practices of previous generations are outdated and less enlightened. This is a dangerous and pernicious mindset, blocking us from learning from past eras. Another detrimental mindset is

Captain Marvel, Disney Princesses, and the “Feminist Agenda”

Image
A few days ago, an international Christian ministry I greatly respect published an article critiquing the new movie Captain Marvel . I found the article to be confusing, troubling, and even dangerous. It doesn’t so much critique the content of the movie as it does the existence of the movie and the reason for the movie. Those are issues I can address without having first watched the film (which, for the record, I have not). As I see it, there are four main problems with the article: 1) unclear language, 2) genre confusion, 3) the appearance of reverse chronological snobbery, and 4) the appearance (unintentionally, to be sure) of a demeaning attitude toward women. 1. Unclear Language The article’s author, Greg Morse, pushes back against what he calls the “feminist agenda,” but he never clarifies what that term actually means. The truth of the matter is that feminism, like many other ideological positions, is too broad a description to condemn or praise outright. One mu