Reblogging this again because I just remembered something else and hoo boy did it piss me off.
Compare Peter and Tony in those last two gifs about Peter thinking he’s nothing without the suit and Tony saying if you’re nothing without it then you shouldn’t have it…..
To that scene in Avengers when Loki asks ‘what are you without your suit’ and Tony without even blinking rattles off ‘billionaire genius playboy philanthropist.’
BECAUSE TONY HAS NEVER KNOWN WHAT ITS LIKE TO FEEL LIKE HE’S NOTHING SPECIAL.
Yes, sure, Tony has had points in his life where he’s been in a dire situation or had limited resources at his disposal or whatever, like when he was captured in IM 1….but in every single one of those circumstances, he still had the resource that was a self-image fueled by a lifetime of privilege affirming that he was smart and capable and resourceful and blah blah blah.
Peter is an insecure teenager who’s felt the weight of the world on his shoulders from a vastly younger age than Tony woke up to a sense of responsibility, who knows what its like to be poor, to just barely scrape by, to have big ideas and dreams and be frustrated because some dreams and ideas simply ARE NOT ACHIEVABLE without access to certain tools or resources.
They are not the same. Their circumstances are not parallel simply because they are both orphans. And it is just one more instance of Tony’s ego and arrogance that he thinks its safe to assume that just because he looks at Peter and sees himself in him, that Peter sees anything that reminds him of himself or that he thinks could apply to his own life when he looks at Tony and his life and listens to the advice he offers based on his life experiences. For Tony to assume that he doesn’t have to actually LISTEN to what Peter has to say and do any WORK playing it back in his head, breaking it down into pieces, analyzing what its really like for Peter and how his experiences diverge from Tony’s own and using that intellect of his to actually draw conclusions and connect dots and seek out better comparisons, more practical advice…..hunker down and dig through his supposedly much more vast well of life experience in search of something Peter CAN actually relate to instead of just skimming off the top and assuming well if its good enough for me, its good enough for anybody, I’m nothing special except lol, oh yeah, right, forgot I spend every second of every day making sure nobody actually believes that’s true, whoops…..its nothing but arrogance and privilege.
And we see this all the time in all manner of ways with characters of privilege (usually written by writers of privilege) just blindly taking it for granted that their experiences directly translate into words or advice that are helpful to less advantaged characters or that they can relate to. Because the catch 22 of privilege is the assumption that its only natural and right to center your own experiences as the baseline, the default, the normal that anyone you feel enough commonality with to feel there’s a basis for mutual interaction or engagement with them, must naturally have experiences that are somewhat comparable.
And all the good intentions in the world don’t keep you from doing just as much harm as good in those cases, as we clearly see here, because Tony’s advice for Peter, the advice he’d give to his sixteen year old self probably, as its inferred that’s what he sees most when he looks at Peter, a younger him……his advice is not helpful to Peter, just because he would’ve found it helpful in his own circumstances. Because Peter doesn’t have those, his life is built upon a different framework, and Tony spent zero time scoping out the structural foundations Peter hangs all his hopes and dreams on before piling on expectations and responsibilities that he feels would’ve challenged a younger him to be his best self sooner in life……since a younger him had a much sturdier foundation to build upon already.
And all he does is make it harder for Peter while taking credit when Peter ‘rises to the occasion’ not as a reaction to the challenges Tony’s laid down to spur him on, but in spite of them, because he’s actually so much stronger than Tony realizes, and he has to be to overcome the obstacles Tony really’s thrown down in front of his self-esteem and resources and opportunities. And BECAUSE Peter is strong enough to survive and thrive in spite of all that, Tony never has reason to take a second look at his own role in all of it and recognize that he DID make things harder as much as he helped, if not more, and it was only Peter’s success that spared him from ever having to shoulder the guilt and the responsibility of having done as much harm as good. So he continues to just pat himself on the back for a job well done and keep on doing the same thing, because he simply can’t be bothered to invest his own time and energy into their dynamic the way Peter has, and bases his entire perception of it on his shallow superficial assessment of its origins and outcomes.
But sure, sure. Go Team Irondad. Who needs Flash Thompson shoving Puny Parker into lockers this time around when you’ve got Tony Stark delivering cheap shots to ‘build character’, am I right guys?
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