The Marvel franchise has let me down before. I got my heart broken with Captain America. Just when it looked like the obvious relationship between Captain America and his long-time companion, Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier was about to be consummated, the writers throw in tension with Sharon Carter, the great-niece of Steve Rogers’ long lost love, Peggy Carter. I realize that this is part of the comic book lore for the character, but so is the epic bond between Bucky and Steve that lasted from their childhood through the decades as both men emerged from the war with superhuman abilities. Fans have long seen the love between the Captain and Bucky. There is a solid history of a queer reading of the two, which heated up with the possible triangle with Falcon as played by Anthony Mackie in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). (I know I wasn’t the only one to see that, right?)

Now, we have another opportunity to queer the Marvel universe in the relationship between Maria Rambeau, the beautiful bestie of Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel. Lashana Lynch does a great job of adding pathos and depth to Rambeau’s character with limited dialogue and screen-time. With that emotional intensity comes the possibility that she and Danvers were more friends before she was abducted to the Kree homeworld.  Rambeau’s daughter actually says at one point that she and her mother were the only real family that Danvers had. There was enough chemistry between the two women that could be nurtured into a real romance.

*Spoiler Alert* The following film review has details about the film that reveal the resolution of suspenseful plot lines. Please do not read if you don’t want to know the ending.

Today I saw Side Effects, which is directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Channing Tatum. This film was well written and well acted. The reviews for the film have praised the director, Soderbergh for the film’s Hitchcockian elements. Calling it “cinema’s first pharmacological thriller,” among other praises, the film has won the hearts of critics. This psycho-sexual drama is, on one level, concerned with the ethical issues surrounding the increasingly overwhelming dependence of Americans on prescription anti-depressant medications.  The rest of the film was a cautionary tale about the dangers of letting your girlfriend near lesbians. The terror of this film is actually a woman who turns her back on the promise of heterosexual marriage. The main characters are a white, middle-class couple. The film begins with the reuniting of a wife with a husband who has just gotten out of prison for a crime involving insider trading. Before long we find out that her addiction to anti-depressants has caused a severe psychotic break. Eventually, it leads to the murder of her husband. However, the real danger lies with her former lesbian psychiatrist. The two women frame her new, male psychiatrist and cause him to lose his practice, his professional standing, his wife and to question his own sanity. Again, it’s the homosexual that is the threat to the nuclear family and must be stopped. By the end of the film, we are all comforted by her dismissal and his redemption.

References

(http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/02/the-brilliant-evasions-of-side-effects/273043/)