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apostateangela · 5 years

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Well, isn’t that just Marvel-ous

I know I said at the end of my last post that there was more sex to come… and more of that particular story.

But I’m having to step back from it this week; just until I talk to my therapist.

Remember this part…?

I can’t tell you all the sex in my marriage happened because I wanted it.

I also can’t comfortably say it was forced upon me.

Let’s just say I don’t want to look at that part of my past yet.

Except, now I have to.

Something that has been happening since I began this endeavor is that as I articulate and create sentences on a page clarifying and identifying realities about my past it makes them more real and subsequently more startling and disturbing.

I wrote it.

And now I can’t help but look at it.

The truth seems to be that a large percentage of the sex in my marriage falls under the category of Forced Consent.

Which is, by definition, sexual assault.

And I don’t know what to do with that…

I promise I will circle back after I flesh some things out in therapy this coming week.

Instead I feel compelled to talk about something that isn’t on my chronological trajectory.

I’m being pulled off course by a very strong force.

Her name is Carol Susan Jane Danvers, also known as Captain Marvel.

Thursday night, when I went to the movie premiere of Captain Marvel, I had a very personal and emotional experience, and not the one I thought I would have.

I have been incredibly excited for this movie.

A badass female superhero who is also a soldier checks so many of my boxes.

I want to be a strong woman. I am looking for strong female role models in both life and fiction.

So this character has been someone I have started to become marginally obsessed with.

I even dressed up as her earth military persona for Halloween.

Sadly, the models of women that I HAVE had don’t always track with this kind of strength that I earnestly desire. So before I delve into my Captain Marvel deconstruction I’m going to add to the pictures of womanhood I have already shared.

Again, let’s start with the Church’s idea of what a woman should be:

I will remind you of a previous post discussing Eve and the concept of a ‘helpmeet’

(Is it good for (Wo)Man to be Alone?).

To add to those scriptures and that image, I’m going to draw your attention to various quotes said and written by men taken from within the structure of the Church, again from lds.org.

From the Church’s founder Joseph Smith:

“Let this Society (he is referencing the Relief Society, the LDS Church Women’s Organization) teach women how to behave towards their husbands, to treat them with mildness and affection. When a man is borne down with trouble, when he is perplexed with care and difficulty, if he can meet a smile instead of an argument or a murmur—if he can meet with mildness, it will calm down his soul and soothe his feelings; when the mind is going to despair, it needs a solace of affection and kindness” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 228).

Various leaders since Joseph Smith, but all within the late twentieth and twenty first centuries:

“It is divinely ordained what a woman should do, but a man must seek out his work. The divine work of women involves companionship, homemaking, and motherhood” (“In His Steps,” 64).

“Beware of the subtle ways Satan employs to take you from the plan of God [2 Nephi 9:13] and true happiness. One of Satan’s most effective approaches is to demean the role of wife and mother in the home” (Elder Richard G. Scott).

“There are voices in our midst which would attempt to convince you that these home-centered truths are not applicable to our present-day conditions. If you listen and heed, you will be lured away from your principal obligations.

“Beguiling voices in the world cry out for ‘alternative life-styles’ for women. They maintain that some women are better suited for careers than for marriage and motherhood.

“These individuals spread their discontent by the propaganda that there are more exciting and self-fulfilling roles for women than homemaking. Some even have been bold to suggest that the Church move away from the ‘Mormon woman stereotype’ of homemaking and rearing children. They also say it is wise to limit your family so you can have more time for personal goals and self-fulfillment” (“The Honored Place of Woman”).

Translation: Women have a very clear subservient role: that of mild smiling wife, homemaker, and mother.

It is Divinely appropriated, meaning that God has said this is what a woman should be.

If you deviate from this role it is suggested that you are following Satan.

My mother is this woman: a simple, faithful, subservient woman with incredible homemaking skills. I learned from her.

But it goes deeper than that; my grandmothers, aunts, great grandmothers, friends, and fellow sisters in the church all followed in the footsteps of Eve, holding themselves accountable to God and their husbands, fully dependant and creating beautiful homes while rearing well-behaved, righteous children.

I suppose I should take this opportunity to say that I do not regret my choice of motherhood.

I value my abilities to garden, sew, crochet, embroidery, preserve food, cook, and keep a clean house.

These are all good things. So is this picture of womanhood inherently problematic?

No. The problem lies in the message that THIS WOMAN is all you CAN or SHOULD be.

That someone else, a man or group of men specifically, knows what is best for you and only through him/them can you become the best woman you can become.

This was my culture.

Add to that my marriage to the unstable, narcissistic sociopath I’ve mentioned before, and you have a clear picture of the limitations and restrictions and sorrow that surrounded much of my life.

(Captain Marvel is on her way, wait for it)

One of the key tools a narcissist uses within their relationships is gaslighting.

From Psychology Today:

Gaslighting is a form of persistent manipulation and brainwashing that causes the victim to doubt her or himself, and ultimately lose her or his own sense of perception, identity, and self-worth. The term is derived from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which a husband tries to convince his wife that she’s insane by causing her to question herself and her reality.

There will be a seperate gaslighting post, but sufficeth to say that as “the gaslighter creates a negative narrative about the gaslightee (“There’s something wrong and inadequate about you”)” both my husband and the church as an organization created this narrative for and about me.

Back to Captain Marvel=Spoiler alert!

Captain Marvel is a story of a woman who finds herself with significant gaps in her memory, to the point that she doesn’t really know who she is. She is given significant training and instruction on who she should be and how she should act with a suitable noble cause attached. This indoctrination extends beyond military training as she has a device in her neck that limits her use of power and allows her to be directly brainwashed by an AI all powerful entity (something God-like) called The Supreme Intelligence. It is discovered as the movie progresses that her past has been taken away from her as well as her identity. She has been shattered like her dogtags, reduced to Vers, a small piece of who she was or could become. Her incredible power is muted and the gaslighting spins the lie that it is only through the Divine will of the all powerful Supreme Intelligence that supposedly gave it to her (with an alien blood transfusion) that she has any power whatsoever. This lie extends even further in that she must be taught to control this gifted power through the instruction of a male benefactor, Yon-Rogg. He says more than once that it is his job to help Vers become all that she can be through his instruction and the controlling of her emotions and there-by her power.

Are you seeing the parallels yet? (a prescriptive identity with a noble cause, power that is God’s and not yours, a culture outlining your worth and purpose, lies used to make you feel powerless, emotions being pitched as something bad and wrong).

Writing that summary paragraph makes me want to vomit. My stomach is literally clenching.

And this was true during the movie as well.

I spent much of the movie horrified for Carol Danvers and simultaneously myself.

Good Job Marvel and Disney, you always create this fucking hero’s journey where the protagonist had to struggle through incredible challenges and odds until they eventually prevail.

But truthfully, we see ourselves in this fiction because it is archetypal and resonates deep within us.

And like a true hero, Captain Marvel does discover who she is, unspins the lies, unleashes her own power and its potential, and kicks everyone’s ass that needs to be kicked.

The problem is, we can’t all be Captain Marvel… can we?

A wise man who went to the movie with me, whom I love and who knows my tragic story, said to me afterward as we were talking about my obvious emotional response to the movie and the existence of parallels, “See, your blog and Muay Thai are your superpowers.”

(yes, I’m in martial arts training. I’m sure I’ll write about that at some time in the future)

This should have made me feel good.

But it did not.

Compared to the atomic, otherworldly, titan-like power of Captain Marvel,

these small things felt like nothing.

I’m sorry, or I’m not sorry… I apologize too much….rather, I’m filled with sorrow that this is my take away.

But it is important for me to be honest here.

My experience watching this incredible movie was that of emotional horror.

I was sad for what had been done to Carol Danvers because I understood the scope of that.

I understand the feelings of confusion at having your identity stripped away and not knowing who you really are.

I understand how it feels to only have flashes of yourself somewhere in your heart and brain, but not being able to nail them down or see them clearly. And to have people around you tell you to ignore those things and then outline for you what you are supposed to be.

I understand what it feels like to be gaslighted by a culture, an organization, a God, and a man who was supposed to care for you, to the point that you completely buy the lie.

Even if the lie is about you.

I understand how it feels to be told you have no power. And if you ever did exhibit evidence of having any power, being told that it isn’t really yours, but something given to you by God and thereby only good for doing the things that God told you to.

I understand being told that my desires and emotions were wrong and that I needed to stamp them down and “control” them.

Watching this movie for the first time made me also understand that my story was not as far along as Carol’s.

I didn’t feel powerful.

I didn’t feel strong.

The good news is, I went and saw the movie again the next night.

So here is my addendum:

There are three lines that impacted me the most from both my viewings… (forgive me if they are not exactly accurate). As I heard these three lines again, the negative feelings I experienced after the first showing shifted.

First: At one point in the movie, after much of the lies are revealed and Carol discovers that even the war she’s been fighting is based on an ugly lie, her old friend Maria Rambeau says this to her,

“You are Carol Danvers. You are smart, funny, and a huge pain in the ass.”

Rambeau then expresses how Carol had supported her as a mother and a pilot as well as standing up for those who needed her--as a hero should.

This moment reminds me that when I can’t believe in myself

or doubt my strength, power, and validity because of my Mormon programming

and the gaslighting of my culture and my ex-husband,

there are those around me that believe me and know who I am.

I need to turn to them for their support and clarification.

When my kind, smart companion told me of my superpowers,

I needed to believe him

and take comfort that even if I don’t know, others do.

And they will help me with my truth based on evidence and experience instead of abstract rules and limiting parameters.

And he is right. This blog is my unfettered voice and Muay Thai is helping me create both mental and physical strength. Both allow me to fight for myself.

Second: One of the most powerful moments in the Captain Marvel movie is when Carol is being held by the AI and it tells her, “Without us, you’re only human.”

A montage of all the moments in Carol Danvers original life where she got knocked down in some way, but then got up flashes across the screen.

There is a clear moment of revelation for Captain Marvel.

And Carol Susan Jane Danvers replies, “You are right. I’m only human.”

After which, she breaks free of the not so powerful AI holding her.

This line is where it’s all at for me.

Because the images of Carol through different ages of her life, taking risks, and doing what she wants in spite of the people who tell her she can’t,

then falling, failing.

AND THEN, getting back up and trying again and again until she succeeds creates the message that... it is THIS behaviour that makes us remarkable HUMANS.

I am humbled to be able to tell you that THIS is also WHO I AM.

If I do anything of note, it is that I do not give up. I keep trying and I get up after I fall.

It is in this way that I am heroic.

It is in this way that I have risen from the rubble of my damaging paradigms.

It is in this way that I seek to find the new ways in which I will live my life.

I will continue to keep trying to find myself, and my truth.

I will not fall back into that which was created for me, but instead create a place and identity for myself.

Finally, there is the line that is sure to go down in the history of this movie as its most quotable line. Captain Marvel says,

“I’ve been fighting with one hand behind my back, but what happens when I am finally set free?”

This is both a rhetorical and a warning question.

Because as Carol Danvers removes the control device in her neck and both channels and releases all her power, she defeats those who have held her captive and steps into that place where she can and does realize her true potential.

Sure, she has some moments when she fumbles around a bit and has to feel things out, discovering what she can do as she experiments and fights her way free.

But eventually she FLYS, glowing in all her glory.

And the final message she leaves us with, is in her handling of Yon-Rogg when she, without hesitation shoots him and says, “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

I agree Carol, I do not have to prove anything to those who held me captive in foolish dogma and lies.

But, I am not flying… yet.

I HAVE broken free of everything that was tying my figurative hands.

And while my wrists are still chafed and I am trying to rid myself of the psychological muscle memory, I believe I will only continue to heal and discover my power and its potential.

I must.

Because I will not stand for the alternative.

-Angela

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